QandA on ABC on April 28th:

When was Australia last in an air battle? When do we anticipate being in an air battle next? #QandA

The tweet was in reference to the 24 BILLION DOLLARS spent by the Abbott Government on American jet-fighters that can't turn, and can't fly far enough to reach outside Australia. An obvious waste of money, like the faulty submarines, helicopters, tanks, aircraft carriers and other expensive broken war toys we buy from the Americans and can never actually use.

My previous tweet on TV was on QandA on April 6th.

Last Monday night one of my #QandA tweets was selected to be broadcast during the show. The newly appointed Free Speech Commissioner Tim Wilson appeared on Q and A, so the right to free speech became a topic.

I asked if anyone would ask about the anti-protest laws recently introduced in Victoria, robbing millions of free speech. My question was tweeted, but it wasn't asked. Commissioner Tim Wilson appears in all his public statements to only support free speech of the wealthy to be racist, as the LNP government wishes. Tim Wilson thinks its unfair that ethnic minorities can use words (particularly one beginning with "N") to describe themselves that are currently illegal for rich white men to use to describe them.

Tim Wilson is a former staff member of the IPA, an extreme right-wing group who have long advocated abolishing the Human Rights Commission. The Australian Human Rights Commission had to sack staff to free up $300 000 for Tim Wilson's salary, as this was a newly created position. The LNP government appear to be working down the IPA's policy wish-list, despite all the election promises they break.

Related articles

• Current race hate laws 'bizarre, unequal' (theage.com.au)

• Dob in your tweeting mate at work? So much for free speech (theguardian.com)

• Rundle: note, Tim Wilson, speech not the only freedom worth protecting (crikey.com.au)

UPDATE 7th March 2014: Sony have phoned to tell me that as my TV is beyond repair, they will replace my TV with the latest model that is just about to be released. They will phone next week to organise delivery!

My 2.5 year old Sony TV started looking like this last night: red ghosting across the bottom 3/4 of the screen, with images and text ghosted for 30 seconds. 

I phoned Sony and they told me their warranty was only 12 months. I pointed out that 2011 Australian Consumer Law says TVs have to last a reasonable time, so they had to fix it or replace it. Sony told me that I could "pursue that path", but they would only honour their warranty, not the Australian Government's consumer guarantee. They offered to collect the TV from me for a fee, and then fix it for a larger fee. They opened a case file. It was completely illegal for them to even quote me a fee.

I tried phoning Bing Lee, where I bought the TV on 17th June 2011, and they told me that they don't have any repair facilities, they would only send the TV back to the manufacturer under the 12 month warranty, and as the TV is over a year old, they couldn't help me. I invoked the Australian Consumer Law with them as well, and they repeated that there was nothing they could do. I pressed and they suggested I bring the TV in so they could see the red screen, and they would see what they could do, no promises.

The CheckOut at ABC covered this last year
Australian Consumer Law Guide
Fair Trading on Consumer Guarantees and the Australian Consumer Law
The Australian Consumer and Competition Commission
Broken but out of warranty? You still have rights
CHOICE Magazine
ACCC raps Apple and Harvey Norman for deceiving customers over warranties: why The Good Guys and JB Hi-Fi could be next

right click and choose 'save as' to download MP3

My review of the film "We Steal Secrets - the story of WikiLeaks". 

Transcript of my review

"We Steal Secrets: The Story of Wikileaks" - The annotated movie transcript

WikiLeaks film lacks objectivity says Assange
The strange and consequential case of Bradley Manning, Adrian Lamo and WikiLeaks
Ex-Hacker Adrian Lamo Institutionalized, Diagnosed with Asperger's
What the NSA Does With the Data It Isn't Allowed to Keep
We Steal Secrets

right click and choose 'save as' to download MP3

In light of the revelations that the US and UK spooks are treating us all like criminals by spying on our every move, I went to the very noisy Pitt St Mall to talk with David W. Campbell Senate candidate for the Pirate Party about PRISMbreak and the Protect Our Privacy protest.

Pirate Party Australia
PRISM break
Snowden reveals Australia's links to US spy web
NSA Surveillance of Australia Exposed!
Agreements with private companies protect U.S. access to cables' data for surveillance 

NSA recruitment drive goes horribly wrong

www.flickr.com iwoolf's PRISMbreak Sydney 2013 photoset

Exclusive: Occupy Wall Street Activist Slams Fox News Producer In Un-Aired Interview

This is a very clear and articulated explanation of what the protest is about.

download MP3
I gave a talk at SkeptiCamp Sydney on how being a Capital K Skeptic means being sceptical of your own beliefs as well as those of others.

Last year I attended a Social Innovation un-conference organised by Social Innovation Sydney.

Social innovation is about inventing and implementing new ways of doing things in society. Its been happening since the Enlightenment, when we moved away from the Feudal system of Kings, aristocrats and peasants. Democracy was a social innovation. The abolition of slavery. The equality of women. Public education.

Over the last few hundred years, social innovations were only made by governments. Or by the introduction of new technology by aristocrats. So you had to be born in government, elected to government, or take government by force,, or be very wealthy. With the industrial and now information revolutions, individuals are becoming so empowered that they can make social improvements without the need to be in government or reply on aristocrat patrons. We can do it ourselves.

There are now social enterprises, that use the skills of entrepreneurs to raise funding and organise talented people, to pursue a triple bottom line. They can operate a business that is profitable and there fore self-sustaining, that also benefits society and also the environment we depend on. Ultimately social innovation is about empowering people and communities.

People can invent entire new business models and entirely new ways to do things. Micro-lending, and micro-credit. Open Source hardware and software. Wikipedia. Community gardens. The X-Prize. Wikileaks. There are all sorts of ways to apply intelligence to the ways we have always done things and find new ways to solve unmet needs. I think of social innovation as the application of new techniques to improve society. Thus its a form of new technology, in the same way that literacy was a new technology.

Social innovation is important because there is much suffering and injustice in the world that can be prevented. Starvation was due to there being not enough food for most of human history. Since the Green Revolution of last century this is no longer the case. There is more than enough food to feed everybody. Unfortunately most of it rots because the distribution of the food has fallen prey to political and financial interests. Starvation is no longer a scientific and engineering problem of how to grow more food, now its a social problem of how to use political and financial apparatus to distribute the food where its needed. Distribution has wars and corrupt regimes in the way, These are social problems that need innovation to solve. The Grameen Bank took people who were trapped in poverty by tiny debts that they needed to make a living. Grameen gives these people micro-loans and they are empowered to lift themselves out of debt and therefore out of poverty. Loans of tens of dollars instead of thousands.

Drought doesn't make people starve. Not being allowed to move away from a drought-stricken area to a fertile area makes people starve. What is stopping the movement of people is soldiers.

Human behaviour changes under the influence of new technology. Social innovators are giving old unsolved problems, clever, environmental and community friendly solutions.

Related articles

Social Innovation: what it is, why it matters and how it can be accelerated by Geoff Mulgan et al

Reflections on the Social Innovation and Social Finance 2011 Tour of British Columbia (socialfinance.ca)

Five Catalysts of Social Innovation that Drive Measurable Business Results (visibletechnologies.com)

Community-Driven Workspaces - The Centre for Social Innovation Promotes New Ideas (GALLERY) (trendhunter.com)

Social innovation and entrepreneurship: A very likely love story (marsdd.com)

Sonal Shah - Participation and Innovation in America (itc.conversationsnetwork.org)

Define Social Innovation (relationship-economy.com)

Shared Values - The Next Big Idea (socialfinance.ca)

Assange has beautifully drawn out the anti-democracy opinions of the world's elected leaders, and their willingness to pursue illegal means to continue their illegal activities without oversight. They are all now blatantly against free speech and a free press, and they do not respect the judicial system.

Its fascinating that they haven't yet accused or threatened any of the large newspapers or networks with terrorism for publishing the stories from the wikileaks website. Will their legal defense be blocked by the US and Australian and Swedish governments, too?

Wikileaks has tricked them into casting away their masks, to reveal the true ugliness we need to repair to gain the democracy we believed we had. There's a protest outtside Sydney Town Hall on Friday at 1pm, but I'll be judging the Consensus Greentech awards all day.

I do like that the Judge today reportedly talked about the "wikipedia leaks"! Its one thing for a journalist to make a typo, its a whole other thing for a judge to be so ignorant. Consensual "surprize sex" in Sweden, where the "victim" has a party in Assange's honour after the vent and bragged about him online.

If Australian governments can once again fail to protect Australian citizens from foreign government's illegal attacks, then the government should be prosecuted. Howard and Ruddock should be prosecuted for failing to protect Mamdouh Habib and David Hicks, both of whom committed no crimes in Australian, US or International law.

Julian Assange should be considered for a Nobel prize for Wikileaks contribution to genuine  free speech and transparent democracy, but most of all for revealing the world's leaders as enemies of liberal democracy and human rights.
,

Why is a policy intended to protect children planned for the childless?

The Federal government announced last year that they plan to stop the racist policy of punishing the Aboriginal welfare clients in the Northern Territory for being poor as established by the Coalition, and instead punish ALL Australian Centrelink clients for being poor, regardless of race. This gives Centrelink staff a big stick to threaten you with if you dare to complain about incompetence or pettiness or abuse from Centrelink. Julia Gillard supports this policy.

The "Income Management"or "income quarantine" policy means that if you have been identified by a Centrelink staff member as "vulnerable", then they can steal HALF your income to be replaced by food stamps that only work at designated shops in distant suburbs for a shopping list chosen for you by a Centrelink staff member. This "vulnerability" has a review process, but its a fake one because there is no process for you to leave "Income Management" by becoming "exempt".

The original paternalistic intention was to protect people who were being robbed by family members, or who had an alcohol or tobacco addiction from hurting not only themselves but their children. The pornography censorship was just what the religious zealots could get away with for now, they'd like it extended to all citizens without debate. The Coalition thought that food stamps for a shop you can't walk to, would make sure the children in those families would get enough to eat. It hasn't been implemented intelligently, and it's a hammer that hasn't fixed every case of financial exploitation. Many victims discovered that Centrelink had chosen a shop that needed a long car drive by people who didn't own cars, and which had no public transport available, or for which they couldn't pay in food stamps. What were they supposed to do?

Some didn't get their food stamps on time due to stuff ups. 59% of people had major problems using the food stamps.The evidence is that the experiment failed.

An important difference between the Northern Territory and the rest of Australia is rent. Most of the "Income Management" victims were living on government properties where rent is controlled. The rest of Australia pays private rent in cities, and the amount is rarely less than 50% of your income. Rents are high, and NewStart and Disability pensions are low. Centrelink only pays $100 per 2 weeks towards your rent, the rest must be paid yourself. This becomes impossible if half your income is debased as food stamps. Then you become homeless.

So how will Centrelink staff determine that you, as a recipient of say, a Disability Support Pension are a "vulnerable person" who needs to have "Income Management" imposed on you? They have a checklist, which includes using the services that they urge you to use. If you use CentrePay to automatically pay your bills, you will be flagged as vulnerable, because you might be afraid to pay them in cash. Income management for you. If you DON'T use Centrepay, then perhaps you are not capable of paying your bills on time because you were not using an automatic system. Income Management for you.

If a third party contacts Centrelink about you, you are checked as vulnerable. Potential employers are encouraged to contact Centrelink to ask about you, so this happens a lot. If you have a password-protected Centrelink web account, who are you hiding from? You must be vulnerable, and need Income Management. Heads I win, tails you lose.

Once you're put on Income Management, you are harassed to death by budget micro-management. Have you changed your expenses? Have you not changed your expenses? The hilarious one is "does the customer have financial goals and plan to achieve them"? How on Earth can this apply to someone one a Disability Support Pension who has had 50% of their cash stolen under Income Management? You can't bank food stamps! You can't shop around for bargains. You can't even join a food co-op to save money.

Attendance at a Money Management course is farcical for people who are receiving less than half the minimum wage. You can't even budget when the prices change all the time.

When you live below the poverty level, you just have to "live poor". Living Poor means you buy as little as possible that you don't absolutely need, you shop often, but only buy when prices have come down for sales or loss leaders. You put non-perishable needs like clothes and electronics off as long as you can, and wait for a bargain, or until your old ones fall apart. You don't buy books or DVDs, you borrow from the library, or friends. You check the op shops for working household goods going cheap. This is a different mentality to having a wage and then deciding your spending allowance on every necessary item, and what luxury items you can afford with your discretionary spending. A weekly or monthly budget makes no sense if you're waiting to pounce on a random yearly sale, or plain lucky bargain.

The Labor Government policy, like the racist Coalition policy now in place, is aimed at parents receiving welfare payments, who might not spend enough on their children's needs, but it will be applied to childless welfare recipients as well. There is nothing in the policy to restrict this punishment to parents. This is the same thinking as the Government's Internet censorship policy which aims to protect children, even in households where no children exist. For the protection of non-existent children, disabled people could be found to be Vulnerable Welfare Payment Recipients, and lose the half of their income they use to pay rent. They will have to justify why they went to the local shop to buy an expensive tube of toothpaste when they ran out, instead of waiting for the next day and shopping for a few hours to get cheaper toothpaste an approved supermarket.

Beyond the loss of dignity, privacy and independence, there are also the issues of how the shops that will accept the food stamps are chosen, and why Welfare Payment Recipients have to miss out on cheaper prices at shops that Centrelink hasn't made a deal with. In the NT it was Woolies, what if the shop next door has a clearance sale? This policy won't let me choose how and where I spend my money. If the Prime Minister's door is only open to the Billionaires and not the poor, then Australia has become a blatant plutocracy. The wealthy not only have the privilege of choosing how and where they spend their money, but even how much tax they will pay.

Links:
http://www.alp.org.au/node/13973
http://www.fahcsia.gov.au/sa/families/progserv/welfarereform/Pages/new_income_mngnt.aspx
http://www.fahcsia.gov.au/sa/families/pubs/Pages/instruments_consult.aspx
http://www.treatyrepublic.net/content/macklin-dismisses-research-and-soldiers-income-management-roll-out
http://www.welfarerights.org.au/Shared%20Documents/Income%20Management%20Policy%20Outlines.pdf
http://blogs.crikey.com.au/croakey/2009/11/26/income-management-a-worry-for-mental-health/
http://acoss.org.au/images/uploads/ACOSS_response_to_draft_IM_policy_guidelines.pdf
http://www.thegovmonitor.com/health/australia-introduces-new-income-management-scheme-to-protect-children-16666.html
http://www.communitydoor.org.au/node/677
http://www.crikey.com.au/2009/11/27/labor-brings-welfare-quarantining-to-a-centrelink-near-you/
http://www.cathnews.com/article.aspx?aeid=17976
http://newmatilda.com/2009/02/13/nt-intervention-lets-try-sydney
http://newmatilda.com/2009/02/13/fortnight-intervention
http://www.watoday.com.au/opinion/politics/nt-policy-failing-the-children-20100613-y5us.html?comments=19
http://newmatilda.com/2010/02/18/not-working
http://www.getup.org.au/blogs/view.php?id=760
http://aboriginalrightscoalition.files.wordpress.com/2008/10/nter-submission-from-the-arc.doc

The proposed laws aren't just enforcing the banning of already illegal stuff under the crazy Howard laws that make the Simpsons into "child abuse material" when watched on the internet, but they are suggesting that legal "refused classification" media become illegal. Previously it was just labellled as a warning, but legal.

It doesn't really matter whether they are making up reasons about protecting children or their personal religion, what matters is that they are turning a labelling system into a censorship system, and starting to enforce a law Howard enacted which was so silly that nobody enforced it for his whole 11 years of government. Making the internet rated G while free to air TV is R rated, is against community standards. The community is happy TV networks are self-policing, and there is no law against nudity or the Simpsons. The new laws are about extending power for the sake of extending power.

Censorship violates the basic human right to freedom of speech, which includes a wider freedom of information. The fascists who will be enpowered to read things that they can stop us reading, and say things that they can stop us saying, will have powers that have only been used and desired by despots in human history.

There is no evidence provided by the government that any of the huge list of media they want to ban are causing harm to any children at any time. There is no evidence that if they could prove that an open internet gave children some kind of distress, that the laws would in any way prevent this unproved distress.

Why did the government give special private acccess to the Australian Christian Lobby for consultation on the drafting of the censorship laws, but not spend ANY time with child psychologists?

The government wouldn't dare openly censor TV in the same way. And yet TV and the internet have started converging as many people now stream content from the free-to-air networks straight to their televisions, with suggestions that all TV content will be delivered by internet in very few years.

So the laws are being pushed for a fake solution to a fake problem. Mr Rudd, what is your real reason, or is the answer restricted?

Western Liberal Democracies around the world protect freedom of speech, but many have made an exception and enpowered the government to censor child pornography, depending on the age of consent in their country. Only in Australia so far has that one exception to freedom of speech been abused to extend to a general power to censor anything and everything. This abuse of power is the first argument I've seen to revoke the ban on child pornography. If making an exception to free speech leads to the denial of free speech, then we can only protect our rights by denying any ban whatsoever. The government has abused our trust, we can't allow them to continue with these authoritarian powers.

Transhumanism regards involuntary aspects of the human condition, such as disability, suffering, disease, aging, drudgery and death as unnecessary and undesirable. Transhumanists support the use of science and technology to improve human mental and physical characteristics and capacities, not just to bring the disabled up to average, but to bring anyone above average. This introduction will give an overview of the major themes, the history and politics.
This talk was given at Philorum at the Gaelic club on 6th May 2009.
download MP3

This article was first posted to Usenet in December 1991, and you can see the hilarious replies here: Google Groups Usenet Archive.

Most American usenet readers missed the "modest proposal" reference, and took me seriously. I just saw a Simpons episode that showed a character going around spraying water at lit cigarettes, so one of the writers has read this! Trolling old skool...

Militant Non-Smoking: A Modest Proposal
by Ian Woolf (1991 usenet post)

Rainforests are ravaged to produce cigarette paper, rivers are
polluted to bleach it white, the greenhouse effect is accelerated,
our streets and parks are littered with butts, and careless
smoker-caused fires result in millions of dollars worth of damages,
with innocent human and animal lives lost. Then there is the
cumalative carcinogenic damage done to the lungs of non-smokers by
"sidestream" smoke -- already there are documented cases of
non-smokers dying of lung cancer directly caused by someone else's
habit. Every smoker who burns their poison leaves and pollutes your
breathing air, is committing assualt with a deadly weapon.

The behaviour and attitude of smokers towards non-smokers has
changed, from "Mind if I smoke?" to "I'm going to smoke whether you
like it or not!". To counter this arrogant, aggressive and selfish
behaviour, I propose that non-smokers get ANGRY, and arm themselves
against this threat to their health and comfort -with water pistols!
You see a glowing bunch of leaves, and you squirt them to douse the
fire. You have a fundamental right to squirt, it can give you
pleasure, relieve your stress and discomfort, and it's environmentally
sound.To ask a smoker to refrain from burning his poisonous leaves for a
mere half-an-hour, will provoke a wrathful and self-righteous threat
of violence -- you're trying to deny him his Gods-given "right to
smoke". So of course there is a risk to your health, but that's
reduced if you squirt with a friend or two. Peer group pressure can
come to your aid if you squirt in groups. As you're going to be
threatened with violence if you even ask nicely of a good friend to
refrain from dirtying your lungs, why not go all the way, and take up
the new fun habit of squirting?

Replies recovered from google groups:

More options Dec 23 1991, 7:06 pm
Newsgroups: alt.conspiracy, alt.individualism, alt.activism, alt.drugs, alt.evil
From: kudw...@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu
Date: 20 Dec 91 03:58:14 GMT
Local: Fri, Dec 20 1991 4:58 am
Subject: Re: Militant Non-Smoking: A Modest Proposal
Reply to author | Forward | Print | Individual message | Show original | Report this message | Find messages by this author

- Hide quoted text -
- Show quoted text -
In article , iwo...@socs.uts.edu.au (Ian Woolf) writes:

> Militant Non-Smoking: A Modest Proposal

> Rainforests are ravaged to produce cigarette paper, rivers are polluted
> to bleach it white, the greenhouse effect is accelerated, our streets and
> parks are littered with butts, and careless smoker-caused fires result in
> millions of dollars worth of damages, with innocent human and animal lives
> lost. Then there is the cumalative carcinogenic damage done to the lungs of
> non-smokers by "sidestream" smoke -- already there are documented cases of
> non-smokers dying of lung cancer directly caused by someone else's habit.
> Every smoker who burns their poison leaves and pollutes your breathing
> air, is committing assualt with a deadly weapon.
> The behaviour and attitude of smokers towards non-smokers has changed,
> from "Mind if I smoke?" to "I'm going to smoke whether you like it or not!".
> To counter this arrogant, aggressive and selfish behaviour, I propose that
> non-smokers get ANGRY, and arm themselves against this threat to their
> health and comfort - with water pistols! You see a glowing bunch of leaves,
> and you squirt them to douse the fire. You have a fundamental right to
> squirt, it can give you pleasure, relieve your stress and discomfort, and
> it's environmentally sound. To ask a smoker to refrain from burning
> his poisonous leaves for a mere half-an-hour, will provoke a wrathful and
> self-righteous threat of violence -- you're trying to deny him his
> Gods-given "right to smoke". So of course there is a risk to your health,
> but that's reduced if you squirt with a friend or two. Peer group pressure
> can come to your aid if you squirt in groups. As you're going to be
> threatened with violence if you even ask nicely of a good friend to
> refrain from dirtying your lungs, why not go all the way, and take up the
> new fun habit of squirting?

To which the doused smoker will respond by beating the crap out of you...

Sorry, but since the average smoker tends to be of the Arnold
Schwartzenegger type up until old age, I think I'll pass on squirting them
and probably pissing them off. (You've seen the smoker without cigarettes; old
scenes of smokers going out to get tobacco even with mad psychopaths running
around outside hardly does the reality of the matter justice!)

Leo

2. K. Shane Hartman
View profile
More options Dec 23 1991, 8:32 pm
Newsgroups: alt.conspiracy, alt.individualism, alt.activism, alt.drugs, alt.evil
From: k...@ai.mit.edu (K. Shane Hartman)
Date: 23 Dec 91 01:54:07 GMT
Local: Mon, Dec 23 1991 2:54 am
Subject: Re: Militant Non-Smoking: A Modest Proposal
Reply to author | Forward | Print | Individual message | Show original | Report this message | Find messages by this author

In article sw...@skat.usc.edu (Rob Sweet) writes:

> The behaviour and attitude of smokers towards non-smokers has changed,
>from "Mind if I smoke?" to "I'm going to smoke whether you like it or not!".
>To counter this arrogant, aggressive and selfish behaviour, I propose that
>non-smokers get ANGRY, and arm themselves against this threat to their
>health and comfort - with water pistols! You see a glowing bunch of leaves,
>and you squirt them to douse the fire. You have a fundamental right to
>squirt, it can give you pleasure, relieve your stress and discomfort, and
>it's environmentally sound. To ask a smoker to refrain from burning
>his poisonous leaves for a mere half-an-hour, will provoke a wrathful and
>self-righteous threat of violence -- you're trying to deny him his
>Gods-given "right to smoke".

And then smokers will arm themselves with .357 magnums in order to
ventilate the brain pans of militant non-smokers armed with water
pistols. Is that what they call an airhead?

-[Shane]->

3. Joe Pollock
View profile
More options Dec 23 1991, 9:11 pm
Newsgroups: alt.conspiracy, alt.individualism, alt.activism, alt.drugs, alt.evil
From: poll...@milton.u.washington.edu (Joe Pollock)
Date: 23 Dec 91 04:32:07 GMT
Local: Mon, Dec 23 1991 5:32 am
Subject: Re: Militant Non-Smoking: A Modest Proposal
Reply to author | Forward | Print | Individual message | Show original | Report this message | Find messages by this author
In article k...@ai.mit.edu (K. Shane Hartman) writes:

>And then smokers will arm themselves with .357 magnums in order to
>ventilate the brain pans of militant non-smokers armed with water
>pistols. Is that what they call an airhead?

>-[Shane]->

Water pistols can hold more than water... (but check the solvent's effect
on plastic, first)

What? Me make a flamatory suggestion? Naw... 8-]

4. Ian Woolf
View profile
More options Dec 23 1991, 10:07 pm
Newsgroups: alt.conspiracy, alt.individualism, alt.activism, alt.drugs, alt.evil
From: iwo...@socs.uts.edu.au (Ian Woolf)
Date: 23 Dec 91 10:23:48 GMT
Local: Mon, Dec 23 1991 11:23 am
Subject: Re: Militant Non-Smoking: A Modest Proposal
Reply to author | Forward | Print | Individual message | Show original | Report this message | Find messages by this author
k...@ai.mit.edu (K. Shane Hartman) writes:

>And then smokers will arm themselves with .357 magnums in order to
>ventilate the brain pans of militant non-smokers armed with water
>pistols. Is that what they call an airhead?
>-[Shane]->

Maybe in your violent country, but that's illegal here in Australia. Very few
people legally own guns, let alone carry them. In the US, maybe you have a
problem with a ridiculous attitude to weapons, but shouldn't smokers be equally
worried that the non-smokers whose lungs they have violated may pull a gun on
THEM? What's sauce for the goose...
If tobacco really makes people that violent, then maybe it should be controlled.

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5. Ryan Craig
View profile
In article iwo...@socs.uts.edu.au (Ian Woolf) writes: > Militant Non-Smoking: A Modest Proposal > Rainforests are ravaged to produce cigarette paper, rivers are polluted >to bleach it white, the greenhouse effect is accelerated, our streets and >parks are littered with butts, and careless smoker-caused fires result in >millions of dollars worth of damages, with innocent human and animal lives >lost. Then there is the cumalative carcinogenic damage done to the lungs of >non-smokers by "sidestream" smoke -- already there are documented cases of >non-smokers dying of lung cancer directly caused by someone else's habit. >Every smoker who burns their poison leaves and pollutes your breathing >air, is committing assualt with a deadly weapon. > The behaviour and attitude of smokers towards non-smokers has changed, >from "Mind if I smoke?" to "I'm going to smoke whether you like it or not!". Oh, this is too good, I just have to flame it, and watch it go up in smoke (pun entirely intended). This is total unmitigated balls and bullshit. I smoke Canadian cigarettes, made of Cdn grown tobacco, rolled in Cdn produced paper, the amounts of which are produced, compared to the fine white writing paper that everyone use, are minimal. And if they can produce paper without using bleaches, they can do so for cigarette tubes. Also, I usually dispose of my butts in the proper place, and even if I don't, they are biodegradable. Yes, they can start fires, but so can candles, matches, faulty wiring, etc.. And, as far as second hand smoke goes, I, and most smokers I know, go out of our way not to bother others. If you don't like the smoke in bars or other public places, don't go there, nobody's forcing *you*. Well, I'll shut down the flamethrower for now. -- +--------------------------------------------------+-------------------------+ |Ryan Craig: Comp Sci Co-op, Dalhousie University | Disclaimer: My opinions| |cr...@ug.cs.dal.ca are mine, all mine, and you can't have them| +----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
More options Dec 24 1991, 7:42 am
Newsgroups: alt.conspiracy, alt.individualism, alt.activism, alt.drugs, alt.evil
From: cr...@ug.cs.dal.ca (Ryan Craig)
Date: 20 Dec 91 13:07:44 GMT
Local: Fri, Dec 20 1991 11:07 pm
Subject: Re: Militant Non-Smoking: A Modest Proposal
Reply to author | Forward | Print | Individual message | Show original | Report this message | Find messages by this author

In article iwo...@socs.uts.edu.au (Ian Woolf) writes:

> Militant Non-Smoking: A Modest Proposal

> Rainforests are ravaged to produce cigarette paper, rivers are polluted
>to bleach it white, the greenhouse effect is accelerated, our streets and
>parks are littered with butts, and careless smoker-caused fires result in
>millions of dollars worth of damages, with innocent human and animal lives
>lost. Then there is the cumalative carcinogenic damage done to the lungs of
>non-smokers by "sidestream" smoke -- already there are documented cases of
>non-smokers dying of lung cancer directly caused by someone else's habit.
>Every smoker who burns their poison leaves and pollutes your breathing
>air, is committing assualt with a deadly weapon.
> The behaviour and attitude of smokers towards non-smokers has changed,
>from "Mind if I smoke?" to "I'm going to smoke whether you like it or not!".

Oh, this is too good, I just have to flame it, and watch it go up in smoke
(pun entirely intended). This is total unmitigated balls and bullshit. I
smoke Canadian cigarettes, made of Cdn grown tobacco, rolled in Cdn produced
paper, the amounts of which are produced, compared to the fine white writing
paper that everyone use, are minimal. And if they can produce paper without
using bleaches, they can do so for cigarette tubes. Also, I usually dispose
of my butts in the proper place, and even if I don't, they are biodegradable.
Yes, they can start fires, but so can candles, matches, faulty wiring, etc..
And, as far as second hand smoke goes, I, and most smokers I know, go out of
our way not to bother others. If you don't like the smoke in bars or other
public places, don't go there, nobody's forcing *you*. Well, I'll shut down
the flamethrower for now.
--
+--------------------------------------------------+-------------------------+
|Ryan Craig: Comp Sci Co-op, Dalhousie University | Disclaimer: My opinions|
|cr...@ug.cs.dal.ca are mine, all mine, and you can't have them|
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------+

6. bpharmon
View profile
More options Dec 24 1991, 7:42 am
Newsgroups: alt.conspiracy, alt.individualism, alt.activism, alt.drugs, alt.evil
From: bphar...@miavx1.acs.muohio.edu
Date: 20 Dec 91 13:57:04 GMT
Local: Fri, Dec 20 1991 11:57 pm
Subject: Re: Militant Non-Smoking: A Modest Proposal
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In article , iwo...@socs.uts.edu.au (Ian Woolf) writes:
> Militant Non-Smoking: A Modest Proposal

> The behaviour and attitude of smokers towards non-smokers has changed,
> from "Mind if I smoke?" to "I'm going to smoke whether you like it or not!".

fooey. Tremendous overgeneralization

To counter this arrogant, aggressive and selfish behaviour, I propose that

> non-smokers get ANGRY, and arm themselves against this threat to their
> health and comfort - with water pistols! You see a glowing bunch of leaves,
> and you squirt them to douse the fire. You have a fundamental right to
> squirt, it can give you pleasure, relieve your stress and discomfort, and
> it's environmentally sound.

>GROAN<

> To ask a smoker to refrain from burning
> his poisonous leaves for a mere half-an-hour, will provoke a wrathful and
> self-righteous threat of violence -- you're trying to deny him his
> Gods-given "right to smoke".

Another outrageous generalization about smokers.

> So of course there is a risk to your health,
> but that's reduced if you squirt with a friend or two. Peer group pressure
> can come to your aid if you squirt in groups. As you're going to be
> threatened with violence if you even ask nicely of a good friend to
> refrain from dirtying your lungs, why not go all the way, and take up the
> new fun habit of squirting?

Whee. I'm sure that will do absolutely nothing to correct the problems
assosciated with smoking. :(

-Brian
Miami U.
If I spoke for someone else, they'd surely deny it.

7. Peter R. Cook
View profile
More options Dec 24 1991, 8:08 am
Newsgroups: alt.conspiracy, alt.individualism, alt.activism, alt.drugs, alt.evil
Followup-To: alt.conspiracy
From: c...@vcsesu.enet.dec.com (Peter R. Cook)
Date: 23 Dec 91 14:21:07 GMT
Local: Tues, Dec 24 1991 12:21 am
Subject: Re: Militant Non-Smoking: A Modest Proposal
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In article , iwo...@socs.uts.edu.au (Ian Woolf) writes...
>There's a huge difference between cars on the road, and someone indoors
>sitting within 3 metres, and causing your eyes to water, your throat to
>constrict, and your asthma to endanger your life. I don't know about your
>country, but we don't run cars inside buildings, so there's no similar
>problem. In the privacy of your own home, or with the permission of those
>who share your breathing space, fine, but how dare you impose your nasty
>habit on other people? What about the right to choose NOT to smoke? What
>right does a smoker have to make a carcinogenic choice FOR me?

We solely exist to end your life. So you will be reduced to
laying in a hospital bed with your life draining away through
broken lungs while we stand outside the window and laugh at
you while you die.

See you in hell.

+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+
Peter Cook Quoth the Raven, "Eat my
Digital Equipment Corporation shorts, man!"
200 Forest street
Marlboro, MA. 01752 "1984 has past, forget about Big Brother,
508-467-6936 welcome to the 90's where the government's
Mystic Powers infoline: your mother!" - Scatterbrain
508-562-9516
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

8. Peter R. Cook
View profile
More options Dec 24 1991, 8:12 am
Newsgroups: alt.conspiracy, alt.individualism, alt.activism, alt.drugs, alt.evil
Followup-To: alt.conspiracy
From: c...@vcsesu.enet.dec.com (Peter R. Cook)
Date: 23 Dec 91 14:23:54 GMT
Local: Tues, Dec 24 1991 12:23 am
Subject: Re: Militant Non-Smoking: A Modest Proposal
Reply to author | Forward | Print | Individual message | Show original | Report this message | Find messages by this author

In article , iwo...@socs.uts.edu.au (Ian Woolf) writes...
>kel...@aimhi.enet.dec.com (The Bill Of Rights, Void where prohibited by law!) writes:

>Yet you expect non-smokers to put up with pain and health damage without a
>murmur. This is exactly the reaction I expected from smokers, physical
>intimidation.

I won't assault you, I'll take you to court.

> Doesn't this tell you something about yourself, and most other
>smokers, that you all feel its okay to beat people up because they tried to
>stop you smoking at them? You're just a bully, a violent thug that can give
>discomfort but can't take it. You dirty MY lungs, you expect me to grin and
>bear it; I wet your poison leaves, and you think that gives you the right to
>assault. Typical of the sort of person who smokes.

You're nothing but a militant f*cking butthole. Where do you get
off dishing out threats? You threaten, people threaten in return
and you get upset? What did you expect?

Life is give and take. If you violate people's space by blasting
them with a water gun, they will beat your body repeatedly. It's
a natural reaction. Of course I wouldn't assault you, I'd take
you to court and make your life a living hell.

In short, get a life.

+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+
Peter Cook Quoth the Raven, "Eat my
Digital Equipment Corporation shorts, man!"
200 Forest street
Marlboro, MA. 01752 "1984 has past, forget about Big Brother,
508-467-6936 welcome to the 90's where the government's
Mystic Powers infoline: your mother!" - Scatterbrain
508-562-9516
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Saturday night I was standing on Woolworth's corner opposite Sydney Town Hall with some friends. A teen-aged boy came up and asked me if I was the one that had disrespected his mate. It was like falling into a bad British TV drama. There was nothing in the boy's eyes but the wide hope of violence. I looked around at his crew, and as he started threatening violence, my friend brought out his phone and started videoing the encounter. The thugs reacted immediately by pulling up their cowboy-style neckerchiefs to hide their faces, and the guy without a scarf pulled up his shirt to his nose. The yelled "stop filming us, we got rights!" at the same time as they were shoving us and threatening worse. Intimidated, they called in their largest neanderthal, who started shoving us while playing with himself with his other hand. It was surreal. We moved away from the wanking maniac, but he followed us while telling us to go away. The gang's teen girlfriends came to try and calm him down, but it was too late. The neanderthal hrew a milk crate at us, in front of a bouncer from the bar next door, who called the police.

We walked away while they postured and shoved with other teens.The police quickly drove up with a paddy wagon. We were called back as possible witnesses, in time to see two of the teenage thugs on the floor fighting the police and demanding that the police stop touching them. As the boy started crying, we were told they'd tried to run away. His two friends were laughing and high-fiving each other that they hadn't been arrested.  They'd traded shirts to try and fool the police video cameras and any confused witnesses. I was ready to point them out, but the police didn't want to talk to any witnesses and had all the video evidence they needed, so we left. I'll link to my friend's video if he decides to post it to youtube. He had his phone backing up over the internet while he filmed, in case the phone was taken from him.

Apparently the teenage gangsta wanna-be's just don't understand where they are. Sydney is now full of high definition video surveillance cameras, and Woolworth's George St is just a few doors up from a police station. We were told by the bouncer that the masturbator who threw the milk crate would be caught that night because of all the video footage, but that he and his friends were under-age, so would be released without penalty. Obviously with the cowboy-neckerchief fashion, they're ready to start attacking random strangers while masturbating again.

The bouncer reckoned the kid had been watching American gangsta videos and thought that by touching his penis, he was insulting us before hitting us by making his hands "dirty". Or making us more afraid to be hit because of the insult. While some of the other behaviour was stolen from British hooligan TV.

It later turned out that one of the 2 metre tall friend of a friend who was with us was actually still a teen, and had exchanged from across the road teen cultural signals indicating he disliked someone's Emo fashion statement, and this prompted the gang to cross the road and attack us slightly shorter people, instead. Nobody was hurt.

The phone video camera is a potent self-defense device, and one that thugs are obviously intimidated by. As they should be when you can now stream your video live from your phone and let people around the world see who is attacking and what they say and do.

It reminds me of Edison Carter in "Max Headroom", that old 80's TV series, an investigative reporter who was able to fearlessly report because he had a live satellite network link from his portable video camera. There was no point trashing him and the camera, because the pictures had already been sent.

I need a phone capable of live video streaming!

Today I found a Christian Theologian attacking Richard Dawkins in the Sydney Morning Herald The article was actually an advertisement for the Creationist's new book. Was it a free ad? Or was he a paid contributor?

It was no surprise that an article entitled "Questions Darwinism cannot answer" was written by a Creationist. "Darwinism" is a word only used by Creationists. Perhaps the article should have been labelled as the advertisement for his book that it surely was?

What are these questions for "Darwinism"? After slogging through a personal attack on Richard Dawkins and implying that every atheist is an evil murdering fascist, it turns out they're Christian Apologetic questions and not scientific questions at all. I'll start with the questions and get to the slog afterwards.

The first question was "When does design become domination?" If the Universe is an artificial artifact as Mr Creationist insists, then it emulates a wild natural environment extremely well and we are living in The Matrix. If we are living in The Matrix, then any "Act of God" like a murderous bush fire is an infringement of free will - which is domination. The administrators of fake reality would be cruel and unethical to impose so much suffering without the consent of the free beings who inhabit the fake world.

This question assumes that that the world we are informed of by our senses, our instruments and each other is fake. If the world is a simulation then its either being run by non-human aliens, or its being run by our post-human descendants as an ancestor simulation. If the persons running the simulation impose suffering and limit choice, then they are dominating.

"Why did God create human beings, lay a good life out before them and then include the capacity to behave otherwise?" he asks. Again this assumes that the evidence of our senses is faked. Evolution and geology and nuclear physics show that life developed through small changes over very long periods of time. They show that the universe is full of things moving around in random ways, except where humans create artifacts. Humans were not created, they evolved from earlier forms of hominid and the hominids from earlier primates, the primates from earlier mammals, all the way back to the earliest self-replicating molecules that weren't properly alive. However, as good theologians we should ignore the evidence. If we didn't have free will we'd be zombies who just reacted to stimulus from a pre-programmed script. That answers your second question. If we live in a simulation as Creationists insist, then the persons who run the simulation didn't want zombies. There's no evidence that we live in The Matrix.

Finally, "Would knowing why there is something rather than nothing make a difference to life?" Darwin's answer is that curiosity is a behaviour that promotes the spread of genes, so it was selected for in the random evolution of our ancestors. Most of us want to know the answers of our origins, and we are not satisfied with silly stories about a stork or a dove.

Mr Creationist claims that evolution cannot explain the origin of life. We have seen self-replicating molecules start replicating from non-living matter. We have found the organic molecules essential for life in distant clouds of interstellar gas. We can scientifically explain the origin of life. He concludes that evolution cannot cast light on life's destiny. Evolution shows us that life doesn't have a destiny, the Watchmaker is blind. Evolutionary processes can build eyes up, or blind them, depending on the environment that animals live and breed in, but the process is random, and the environment changes randomly.

"Evolutionary theory" does NOT require or imply "continuous creation" Mr Creationist. Evolution doesn't require any intervention by magical persons at all, its the inevitable outcome of mutant survivors of disasters breeding their inheritable traits into the next generation. Mutation and sexual recombination produce variation, predators and changing environment provide the random selection. The inevitable outcome is that some variations will breed more than others and species change over very long periods of time.

Mr Creationist, quoting notable people is an Argument from Authority. With your high academic station, you surely know that its a logically invalid argument, so why did you use it? "These lines of reasoning do not prove God's existence". Could it be that you simply don't have a valid argument?

Ad Hominem attacks are not valid arguments, either, but this doesn't stop you from personally attacking Richard Dawkins. Of course the attack is simply a disguise for the same vilification of atheists as mass murdering fascists as used by Toongabbie Anglicans a few weeks ago in their sermon "Does God exist?". Mr Creationist vilifies atheists as supporting "imperialism, genocide, mass deportation, ethnic cleansing, eugenics, forced sterilisations and infanticide." He then admits that reality doesn't match his opinion, because his vilification is false. Instead of apologising and explaining his error, he accuses Richard Dawkins of lacking commitment, courage and philosophical conviction. It looks like a classic case of Freudian projection.

Mr Creationist uses arguments which he admits are invalid, vilification which he admits is invalid, claims of definition which are easily shown to be invalid, and questions which are for his contradictory Creationist cosmology and not validly for Darwin at all. Perhaps Mr Creationist lacks the courage of his own philosophical convictions? Could he have abandoned valid methods of argument and persuasion because he doesn't believe his position can be validly argued? Or is this just the usual request to open your wallet?

In America, the separation of Church and State was made law by the Establishment Clause of the US Constitution.

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

This is why they don't have prayer in State schools and why they don't have prayer in Congress or the Senate. In Australia, we also have an Establishment clause in our Constitution that separates Church and State:

116. The Commonwealth shall not make any law for establishing any religion, or for imposing any religious observance, or for prohibiting the free exercise of any religion, and no religious test shall be required as a qualification for any office or public trust under the Commonwealth.

The problem is that in Australia the law hasn't been enforced. So we have not merely prayer, but enforced scripture periods in State schools, and compulsory Christian prayer in Parliament. As well as highly questionable activities like donations of hundreds of millions of  dollars from the Federal government to the Catholic Church, but to no other non-profit organisation.

It would be interesting to see the Secular Party challenge breaches of this part of the Australian Consititution in court.

 

Of course, its also a shame that Australia doesn't have freedom of speech and of the press, the right to assemble and the right to bring grievances to the government also protected by our constitution. Amnesty International and GetUp have started an online campaign to inform the Federal Government that we'd like our human rights protected. Given their record on the only right we have, it may not make much difference.

protest5


Originally uploaded by iwoolf.

December 13th 2008 Protest against internet censorship

The Simpsons are illegal in QLD http://is.gd/b8Z7 and NSW
http://is.gd/b8XX since every show portrays a child strangled or hit,
and by the new definitions, everyone who watches any of it is a child
abuser. This is the kind of logic that will apply to the New Censorship.
Rudd and Conroy pretend its business as usual, but it bans harmless cartoons loved by millions, and makes criminals of us all.

MP3
Stilgherrian is a survivor of the first dot com boom and sometime tech writer for Crikey.com. I spoke with him about the Australian government's plan to censor the internet.

Read Stilgherrian's blog: Stilgherrian or follow him on twitter

Electronic Frontiers Australia: No Clean Feed

Electronic Frontiers Australia: Protecting and promoting online civil liberties

Digital Liberty Coalition: No Censorship

Twitter hastags: #nocleanfeed

Laurel Papwoth: No Clean Feeds video

Irene Graham: The Net Labelling Delusion
Saviour or Devil

OverClockers Australia:Wiki page collating media articles & other info on the debate

New Matilda: Conroy's Web
ABC Unleashed: PG Nation

ABC Unleashed: How the cold creeps as the fire dies at length

Get UP: Save The Net

Paul Sheehan SMH: A piddling offence and much worse

Syd Walker: Clive Hamilton & I: Getting Personal about Sex, Lies, Hate & Censorship

Richard Baker & Nick Mackenzie SMH: Police hire private spies to snoop online

Cyberspace Law and Policy Centre UNSW: Forum: Internet filtering and censorship proposals

Glenn Milne, in The Sunday Times: Rudd will need a stiff upper lip

Liam Tung, ZDNet.com.au: NSW calls Conroy on Euro filter fudge

Senator Conroy is basing this on a Church-circulated petition that he brought to parliament: http://stilgherrian.com/politics/petitions_drove_filtering_policy/
The list of sites to be censored, and the identity of who will make the decisions are questions that the Senator has refused to answer. He has said that the policy is to make a deep inspection of every internet packet for any content relating to real violence, cruelty and sexual violence, because he claims that these are already illegal content in every other media. All adult pornography would be banned. Family First are pushing for gambling sites to be banned as well, and the Churches and right-wingers are lobbying for more and more extensions. Senator Conroy also refuses to rule out ruling out anything for future censorship. Of course if they can't tell what's in your packets, then they will assume they are naughty packets and block them. Too bad if you're testing new technology.

If this was extended to TV, all news, current affairs and history would be banned content. High school curricula would be banned material. Rape victim counselling, etc, etc.
Besides, if this is all to protect children from child porn, is there any evidence of children searching for child porn? The Federal Police have found that disrupting the social networks, not the technical networks, is how they most effectively fight people who make and distribute child porn. Its has nothing to do with censorship.

This is a purely right wing religious ideological push for total control of the Australian internet experience. Child porn is a red herring, to distract from their political censorship. There are no checks or balances planned to make sure politcial sites are not "accidentally" blocked. Its all secret closed room stuff like China, Syria, and Iran. There is nothing stopping further stuff being blocked, and its invisible, because its digital machinery. Voice over IP would be included packets, so be careful what you say, or your phone call will drop out.

Its about Churches taking over what Australians can see and discuss on the internet, by only allowing content that they deem safe for children. This makes children of us all, with somebody else's secret Church as our parents.

"For me, it's ultimately the order of the cosmos or what I describe as the creation.
"You can't simply have, in my own judgement, creation simply being a random event because it is so inherently ordered, and the fact that the natural environment is being ordered where it can properly coexist over time.

"If you were simply reducing that to mathematically probabilities I've got to say it probably wouldn't have happened.

"So I think there is an intelligent mind at work.''

When Rudd says he believes in an ordered created world and not a natural world, he is declaring himself a Creationist. The "intelligent mind" line is a nod to the "intelligent design" literature of the Creation Scientists.

When he says "the fact that the natural environment is being ordered where it can properly coexist over time", he is saying that not only is the world artificial, but that it would break down without intervention from the Creator.

Now "design" is no good without implementation. Its no good designing things unless you can make them. Applied design is technology and manufacture. So there must be factories and technology that can make universes, planets and life. We know that we can discover the nature of anything with science, so we can understand how this was done. Therefore we can build the technology, and make our own universes, planets and life.

Of course the question is who are the "intelligent minds" who used the technology to artificially construct our universe? There are only two options. Either people from Earth did it, or people not from Earth did it. The "intelligent mind" believers all say humans didn't do it. Therefore the only option left is extraterrestrials. This would mean the Raelians are right. If the "intelligent design" crowd are unhappy with that perfectly probable and reasonable conclusion, and insist on a magical conclusion, then we are left with the result that the technology is witchcraft and sorcery. So I for one applaud their attempt to have witchcraft and sorcery made compulsory parts of the school curriculum. Magical sacrifices 101, bring your own goat. The kids will love it! Harry Potter can become a textbook.

For the record, science points to evolution by natural selection from non-life to present day. Not from a starting point of an artificial life-form that appears from nowhere. You can't have artificial creation by natural selection, its a contradiction.

The cosmos is as natural as all the evidence points to, or its constructed with technology by wacky aliens (the Matrix), or its constructed by magic aliens from another universe, using witchcraft that we can learn and use (or else their technology wouldn't work here and no creation).

The mathematical probabilities point overwhelmingly to a natural world.

Employees who earn $450 or less per month with any one employer, are not entitled to compulsory superannuation like every other employed Australian. Superannuation Guarantee Charge Amendment Bill 2002.This seems like discrimination against the working poor. Does it seem that 9% of $450 per month would be too small to justify the administration?

I worked out that 9% of $450 X 12 months = $468 per year
@ 12 % interest compounded over 40 years Compound Interest Calculator gives you a total on retirement of:

$462, 765

Thats a cool half a million dollars. Thats enough to make a big difference to the working poor when they hit retirement age and the Federal government has promised that there will be no age pensions in the future. The people who need the superannuation contribution from their employer the most are the people who are excluded from getting any.

And if it so happens that you have several part-time jobs with a many different employers, then the superannuation you are missing is much, much higher.

So I'd like to see the start of a campaign to change the law so that there is NO minimum amount for compulsory superannuation contributions. Include those earning $450 or less from any particular employer in the new super economy!

MP3

In Australia, the Federal government plans to set companies policing employees email, and in NSW the State government encourages schools to scan children's fingerprints for roll-call every day.

Policing at Work

So Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard has announced that companies need to be able to read employee's email whenever they want, in order to prevent emails being used to commit massive crimes like breaking essential services. This means repealing the Telecommunications (Interception) Act, 1997 which says that only ASIO can intercept emails, and only if they have a warrant from the Attorney-General. In this they went further than other liberal democracies where a warrant from a judge is required, instead of just a government minister.

Since companies are fictional people, who are the bosses that will have greater powers than ASIO? What will separate the police from the policed? Will it be managing one employee? Managing five? There will be national outcry that bosses shouldn't be doing this, and bosses will say they need police to do this. Does it make sense for managers to have more policing powers than ASIO? So the government can back off and just give ASIO and the Federal Police these powers to wiretap without a warrant, and the public will feel they've been saved from the evil spying bosses. Certainly if a MacDonalds supervisor can read our emails, then ineveitably ASIO and the Federal Police will have equal powers.

At present if ASIO makes a horrible mistake using its email interception powers, the responsibility lies with the minister who granted the warrant. If this law is changed, then the government has no responsibility for anything that goes wrong.

Of course if you were to read your boss's email and blow the whistle on criminal plans, then you would be the one to go to gaol.

Technically there are two ways that bosses could read your email. Either they set up a system where they hire people to read all incoming and outgoing emails, in the same way as a country at war. This means a special internal police force. This slows down email traffic and costs a lot of money. Its not going to happen.

The other is to give bosses the power to search your inbox and sent mail folders whenever they want. They will inevitably use Outlook which by default automatically executes macros embedded in emails and automatically opens attachments. This is how viruses are spread. The bosses will spread more viruses this way. It would be simpler to have software anonymously filter emails for attachments before they reach the employee - without anyone reading them.

We are told we need to protect essential services that are in private hands from electronic attack. The only known case of an essential service going down due to abuse of a private network is the rolling black-outs caused in california. However the criminals were not the employees, but the executives of Enron. The executives criminally caused blackouts to generate a fake demand for electricity that allowed them to justify increasing the cost of power. Giving email reading power to the executives is like giving the keys to the henhouse to the fox.

Perhaps emails could be sent to or by employees using code. If so, it would require ASIO or Federal POlice to crack the code, not bosses. When the dust settles, we may be expected to welcome ASIO and the Federal Police being given these overkill powers over email, just to stop the bosses from getting them.

In reality, an electronic attack on a company is more likely to come from a Denial Of Service Attack. This is usally done by saturating the computer with so many requests for service, whether that be a web page or a credit card authentication, that the computer has no time left over to service legitimate requests. The email equivalent is spam. So is the Deputy Prime Minister proposing to classify email spam as a terror crime?

Tapes Show Enron Arranged Plant Shutdown

Denial of Service Attack

Electronic Spam

Science Puts Enron E-Mail to Use