It’s probably actually a Chinese disease originally, but the idea that you can somehow control the Internet, which has infected Senator Conroy’s office leading to the Clean Feed initiative, has claimed its first victim in Britain.
Tom Watson, the UK “Civil Service Minister Cabinet Office working with fellow ministers Ed Miliband and Phil Hope” is seeking comments on an idea to provide ratings to websites, just like movies.
Watson, who represents West Bromwich East, is asking for comments on the idea which, although not in his portfolio area, he promises to pass on.
Ironic that I am told by colleagues that the non-democratic Chinese are recovering from their bout of over-enthusiastic web authoritarianism at the same time that the countries which gave us the Australian Ballot and the Westminster System, appear fo be coming down with it.
Worst thing about this is that as the idea has infected left-leaning governments, the usual suspects will be muted on the subject.
December 28, 2008 | Graham
Australian Internet Flu spreading
December 28, 2008 | Ronda Jambe
Under the Moruya Moon (8)
Top of the Season to everyone! There is much to rejoice about, if you don’t live in Gaza, or have a psychpathic relation who thinks it’s cute to dress up as Santa before blasting you with a shotgun. For some, the rejoicing lies in not being with family. Our Christmas was spent in Sydney, dashing around between friends and family, with lots of food at every stop. I have a weakness for homemade trifle. I hope yours was as bountiful, and as free from conflict.
Soon we pack up again, for at least a few weeks in the new shed. Here is the view from the back, the painter’s vehicle was still there. It took a long time, and I’d been itching to see colour on the walls inside for years. The builder cleverly solved the problem of the awnings on the west facing back windows, which were required for the BASIX environmental/energy code, and also soften the industrial look of all that colour bond. Coming down the dirt drive, the steps on the deck at the back also offer a hint that there is something more than just a lot of shed. I plan to put some circular paving stones to lead people in the back door, and have more fanciful plans for a jug shaped rainwater catcher to collect the water from the porch roof. It can water the vine….
Before Christmas we worked like slaves for 4 days, hauling the furniture back again from the house to the shed. Eventually, the house will be rented as a 2 beddie, once we just close off the termite bedroom. Can’t face more major repairs, and anyway the coffers are now empty. Of course there were cost overruns, but the builder tells us that building a house that size from scratch would have cost a lot more. Moving was a good chance to clean up, and all those books brought down from Canberra will have to go. The library in Moruya will get an influx of books on the environment and politics, and I expect to see a lot of tattered Steven King novels for sale on their table outside.
But what a large and wonderful space it is, most of the curved roof now enclosed with normal ceilings, but with storage and an access door above.
Some of the furniture had to go, there were no takers for the big old wardrove that we just can’t move ourselves, and it never did fit in the house. George broke it up, and I saved the bakelite handles. It came from a retro set bought second hand when we set up house in Melbourne, now nearly 8 years ago. The 3 mirrors from the dressing table may yet be recycled into a tryptych, since George thinks we need lots of mirrors.
We’ll be taking a new ping pong table down, there is room for it in the living room. Some are barracking for a pool table, but that’s in the future. Table tennis is more my style, and I’m looking forward to honing my skills.
The windows are bare, and the pelmets are waiting for curtain tracks, so they lie on the floor. But we have tablecloths, and all the kitchen things dusted and in their drawers. I’ve save the old knobs from the kitchen, which we have replaced. The big corner windows now come into their own, with even a glimpse of the blue ocean in the distance.
It has all come up light and bright, and the insulation helps a lot, as does having all the windows and the floors sealed finally. Beasties not welcome. Our 2 cats came with us, but the black one doesn’t travel well, and spent the 4 days hiding behind whatever he could. But the Burmese, a calm, accepting Buddist of a cat from claws to tail, can come along again. And aside from the bed collapsing and the laundry overflowing, all went well.
To have so much space without stairs to climb is a real pleasure; the study now provides a haven to get away from the living room. Can’t seem to find any pics from when we first bought the place, nearly 10 years ago, but the shed had no windows, the shearing area for the goats (where the main bathroom now is) still had a wooden gate to let the droppings fall, and the old tin roof was hot and rusty. We would have been surprised to see the transformation, and that is a joy in itself. Nothing wrong with appreciating one’s accomplishments. And unlike Dick Cheney, mine don’t include war crimes. Some minimal landscaping with natives lies in the future.
Here we will sit with company (a friend and his paramour have just had a week there) and enjoy the bush, the kangargoos that bound by, and try to avoid the snakes. We saw a beauty of a red-bellied black snake on the road, and he slithered off onto our land. People will join us there to celebrate New Year’s Eve.
The best view is from the top of the hill on Brown Close, where the full structure looks kind of interesting, to me at least. When I showed photos in Sydney, some muttered Glen Murcutt, others mumbled Nissan Hut. It’s an evolved shed, and it works for us.
It’s a bit belated, but the pic below is my toast to all Aussies who enjoy the good life and the delights of the coast. It’s called ‘Christmas in Cairns’, and was an assembly in the lid of a picnic basket, shown as part of an exhibition of a group I belong to, artists of mixed amateur and professional backgrounds. The nativity scene came from Costa Rica. Dong up the shed and visiting Costa Rica to study Spanish were the good highlights of my year. There were bad highlights, too, but not today.
December 27, 2008 | Graham
Blog against MSM – are they both wrong
This naturally follows-on from my previous post. Jennifer Marohasy is a blogger who frequently challenges the majority position and as a result often receives information that is ignored by the mainstream. Two years ago she was the first with video evidence that Greenpeace had rammed the Japanese whaling vessel the Nisshin Maru. This contradicted propaganda from Greenpeace which had been uncritically accepted by the ABC and The Age.
Today the ABC carries a story that the Sea Shepherd’s ship the Steve Irwin has collided with, or rammed, another Japanese whaler, the Kaiko Maru. Marohasy’s blog also carries the story, but more confidently asserting the Japanese version.
The blog has photos from the Japanese vessel, and the ABC from the Sea Shepherd. Marohasy is a supporter of whaling and has photos of herself eating whale meat on her blog. You can tell the ships apart because the Japanese one is painted white, and the Sea Shepherd black – white hats and black hats, depending on your point of view.
The Sea Shepherds like to portray themselves as piratical, and the Japanese like to portray themselves as victims. It would suit both sides if there had been a collision at sea for totally different, but symbiotic, reasons. But has there? Or have both the ABC and Marohasy gone with their presumptions.
What makes me suspicious is that there is no footage that shows a collision. Two years ago, first there were photos, then there were videos. The videos, particularly this Japanese one and this one were conclusive. But there were photos of damaged bows as well.
This time none of the photos shows a collision or its aftermath, and the Japanese video, while it shows the Steve Irwin approaching at full-steam from port, also shows it veering to starboard, and appears to show it passing to the stern of the Kaiko Maru. A dangerous game, but no collision.
Is this “safety first” journalism, or is it “identity” journalism? We won’t know until we see more photographic evidence, but the lack of it at this stage would suggest caution would be best practice.
December 27, 2008 | Graham
Bloggers exist because of “safety first” – Rosen
Jay Rosen says on Twitter: “You know why there are bloggers, @Newshour? Because there is “safety first” reasoning in news. People get sick of it and take up their pens.”
Not sure that I totally agree.
Why do I blog? I’m a statistically inadequate sample of one, so this is not a rebuttal of the statement but rather an exploration using the material that I know the best – me.
I blog because of the lack of depth in the reportage of that part of the news that I understand the best – news and current affairs. Is that because of “safety first” reasoning amongst journalists?
If by “safety first” Rosen is referring to a herd mentality, then I think there is something in that, but it only goes so far as an explanation. My hypotheses may feed into a tendency to prefer the herd view but they also stand on their own.
The first hypothesis is that most journalists lack real experience of the political process and as a result a real understanding of what they are reporting. As a political strategist I’ve invested real money and real time in trying to achieve a superior result in elections and also in government. I have experience as a participant and demonstrated expertise.
As a result of this lack of experience and expertise journalists have only a partial understanding of what is happening and they are more susceptible to the lines they are fed by others, and also their own self-delusions as to how the process should or could work.
The second hypothesis is that most journalists on most stories lack the time to research the issues properly. So they go to sources that are believed to be “reliable” and write stories that are obvious and conform to established narratives. Yet much of what is happening in politics that is really interesting is not obvious and is an innovation on an established narrative. The people prosecuting these successful strategies have a vested interest in hiding them from everyone, frequently even their friends and allies. Journalists are the last to be told, and secondary sources the last way that they will find out. Which leads to the third hypothesis.
Journalists do not have the tools to research politics and current affairs stories properly – which is to say independently of secondary sources. Much modern politics is directed by polling (although not as much as many would have you believe). That’s why I started online qualitative polling – to get access to the same information that the protagonists have. Otherwise you end up just retailing gossip. It’s good to see newspapers in Australia investing more in polling, but they are still a long way from investing enough in the right places.
A final hypothesis is that the quality of journalists is simply not good enough. There are two arms to this hypothesis.
One is that it is the fault of the education system – that is training. I think that journalism ought to be a graduate, not an undergraduate, degree and that preferably journalists reporting on higher end issues ought to have some non-academic experience in that area, and demonstrated skill. I also think that there is not enough independent thinking taught in educational institutions. As a result many journalists hold down a job because of their presentational rather than analytical skills.
The second arm is that there are too many journalists today, which mathematically must lower quality on average – that is aptitude. Less should mean more, within bounds. For example, there is only one Laurie Oakes, so all the other analytical positions must be filled by someone else. Laurie is arguably the best political journalist in the country, and one who sets rather than follows the agenda. But on the assumption that he is the best, and given that most of us, for reasons of programming, convenience, habit etc. listen to someone else, then we are listening to second best, which is what we get.
The crisis in print journalism might actually be a blessing in disguise. Paring the number of journalists back because of cost pressures should tend to leave only the best there.
So, a consequence of lack of experience, lack of understanding, lack of resources, lack of tools, lack of proper training and lack of aptitude may well be that journalists end up practising “safety first”. Or it may just be that journalism is a social activity and we tend to herd in social activities, which looks like “safety first”.
If Rosen’s hypothesis is true, then I think we should expect to see scuds of bloggers who disagree with each other, but in my observation that is not the case. What tends to happen is that bloggers herd together in mutually reinforcing circles. There may be more points of view than are represented in the MSM, so there is less uniformity and more niches, but as there are more bloggers than journalists I doubt whether this represents a real increase in the risk profile.
In which case, perhaps the urge to blog is driven not so much by the tendency of journalists towards “safety first”, but because journalists are by and large socially homogenous and don’t reaffirm the views of most bloggers, who in reaction create their own social networks.
Which is not why I blog at all, but then, I am an statistically inadequate sample, and this post is pure speculation on which I hope to get some feedback from other bloggers.
December 24, 2008 | Graham
Top issues November – Climate change cools
(Cross posted from What the people want)
As a recession seems more certain, climate change has dropped significantly in importance.
Financial issues dominate, although there may be a softening in their importance as well in favour of more bread and butter issues.
This may be a reflection of respondents becoming habituated to the recession and starting to concentrate on those things that they can control.
The table below compares October’s issues with November’s. This table has been compiled using Leximancer which looks for occurrences of words that represent concepts and uses 906 records randomly selected from our total responses to mirror voting intentions in the wider population.
What the table shows is that the Economy is mentioned with similar frequency in November as it was in October, and is still the top concern. Other concepts allied to it, such as Financial, Crisis, Global and World are also at similar, but slightly lower levels to October. Change, which stands for “climate changeâ€, has dropped in importance by one-third. Words which are associated with it, like Water and Environment, are also down by large margins.
This shift in public opinion helps to explain why the government’s Emissions Trading Scheme is attracting a lot of criticism from organisations like the Greens as well as hostility from the public. The government is trying to look softer on climate change than it did last year, which enrages the Greens, while at the same time, the prospect of higher living costs upsets many average voters.
The last few years have been unique in seeing a “soft†issue like climate change ranked by the public as the most important. (And please, no correspondence for calling “climate change†a soft issue, I know that many of my respondents believe it is the most important issue. It’s a use of the word to distinguish it from “hard†issues like jobs and unemployment. I have it in inverted commas to indicate that it is a little arbitrary.)
The responses to this survey represent a return to the previous prevailing attitude that the economy is the most important issue determining votes.
There are also signs that other issues which have been side-lined, such as education and health, are coming back to public prominence with small increases in their incidence.
There has been a slight decline in the number of mentions of Jobs, but Employment appears on the list this time while it was completely absent last. With a number of firms cutting-back on workers it is likely that it will become a more important issue.
Another new issue is Spending which is most closely related to Liberal voters and a concern that the government is being unnecessarily profligate with its funds. If it is mentioned by Labor voters then this is generally favourably, but they are less likely to mention it at all.
The Leximancer Map, which you can see by clicking on the thumbnail to the right, produces themes from the content. (If you don’t understand Leximancer Maps I am doing a follow-up post with some pointers over the break.) This clearly shows that the economic themes are most closely aligned with Liberal voters, while the climate change issues are associated with Labor voters. This is the first time that Warming has turned-up as a theme. Previously it has all been under the head of Change (Climate Change). It might be that people are tending to use Global Warming now in preference to Climate Change.
The theme Term is right in the centre, which illustrates the centrality of the question of what is the greatest long-term concern, versus the short-term.
People is still strongly associated with Liberal voters, but an allied theme of Personal is a little closer to Labor voters. Both of these themes are about concern for the impact that issues have on individuals. Future is pushed-off to one side, but overlaps with People.
December 18, 2008 | Graham
If he didn’t write it, he should have.
This letter has come across my email intray, and it deserves to be shared.
It is supposed to be from Paul Keating to John Robertson MLC and looks genuine.
A few quotes give a flavour of the contents.
“…this is not a letter of congratulation.
“…your manipulation of the union base…succeeded in destroying the political life of [Iemma and Costa]…and…probably the Labor government of New South Wales itself…
“When I met you and went through the history of the establishment of the east coast electricity market by the Government…you never offered one serious point of rebuttal….You batted the argument to one side, implying that it would somehow be sorted out…
“But instead, like a banshee on a rampage you tore at the Government’s entrails until its viability was effectively compromised.
“Let me tell you, if the Labor Party’s stocks ever get so low as to require your services in its Parliamentary leadership, it will itself have no future. Not a skerrick of principle or restraint have you shown.”
December 17, 2008 | Graham
Rudd’s 39% by 2020 CO2 reduction – boiling the frog slowly
Kevin Rudd’s ETS plan or “Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme” as it is officially called, is a radical plan which starts off cool but in 12 years’ time will end up boiling hot. It’s not a 5 to 15% reduction in CO2, but a whopping 29 to 39%.
The only sensible way to measure increases or decreases in Australia’s CO2 emissions is per capita. With our population growth rates, doing anything else will penalise us vis-a-vis those countries with stable, or declining, populations, like most in the EU.
Population growth of somewhere around two percent per annum, depending on immigration levels, means that a zero increase in national emissions actually means that by 2020 in twelve years’ time, every one of us would have to emit about 24% less CO2. Add Rudd’s five to 15 percent reduction to that, and we’re talking reductions of 29 to 39%.
While the government might be able to use the dosh garnered by auctioning-off permits to “pollute” to bribe key constituencies now, you can’t achieve reductions of the magnitude proposed, without raising prices substantially across the whole economy, ultimately more than defeating the benefit of the bribes. As you get closer to achieving your targets the total value of permits shrinks as the number of “polluters” falls, even though each “polluter” might be expected to pay more for their permits.
The problem is that by the time the real cost becomes apparent it will be too late to unwind the system. That’s why green activists like the idea of trading schemes rather than taxes. They’re much harder to unwind.
December 16, 2008 | Ronda Jambe
Et tu, Rudderless?
There is just one glow of hope visible from the disastrous betrayal that the Rudd government has burdened Australia with: there is likely to be an increase in citizen activism at all levels of society.
‘It’s the environment, stupid!’
Get ready to see T-shirts with this message, even if I have to make them up myself.
Setting our emissions reduction target at just 5%, while throwing billions in corporate welfare at the most polluting industries, is a double whammy that dooms this country to the status of a fossil. Fossil fuel, that is.
This shows that Rudd is no more capable or likely to move this country towards a sustainable future than his predecessor. Stagnation we can believe in? You bet.
Please, young people, get angry. Get very angry, and get out there.
Last week I spoke about climate change to 200 bright-eyed 14 year old girls. Briefed in advance that they had already seen An Inconvenient Truth, I offered them a historical perspective. What innovations have come in their brief lifetime? (i-pods, the internet browser, wide screen TV, DVD’s, You Tube, ubiquitous mobile phones, with cameras, and my favourite, the digital camera)
And what environmental impacts have we seen? dead zones in oceans, melting ice caps, record-setting heat waves and droughts, Canberra drying out severely, etc. You get the picture of the bla bla.
And I told them I would have to leave them to reap the results and work out solutions, because I’m old enough to be their grandmother (sadly no one gasped in disbelief) and in 20 years, when they are in the prime of their lives, and the fan no longer has the electricity to filter the poop, I will most likely be drooling in a rocking chair.
Had the news been out then about the collapse of grandfatherly Madoff’s huge and long-lived Ponzi scheme, I would have told them that the world economy is being run like one big Ponzi scheme, and they are the ultimate suckers at the end of the line. Their environmental ‘cash’ is being burned.
So thanks, Kev, I knew you were a former public servant, and being one of those myself, I know how lacking in courage many of them are. Fearful of change, timid and not very good at assessing risk.
A reduction of 5% could have been achieved just by banning land clearing. This important aspect isn’t mentioned in the white paper. A letter to the editor in the Tuesday Canberra Times spelled it out: We are probably going to see our 3 major industries die. Tourism will fade as the Great Barrief Reef beomes a relic. Agriculture will diminish as both an export industry and as a source of food (how exactly do we plan to feed ourselves if the scenarios being predicted come to pass?) And ironically, the mining and extractive industries won’t be saved by Rudd’s approach. Rather, as the world moves forward, we will be left behind.
We would be lucky to be left with a banana republic. You need bananas for that.
Obama has appointed a believer as his energy advisor: Professor Chu is not only a Nobel Prize winner, he is also an expert on renewable energy. He is connected enough to read the data coming in and know that the IPCC predictions are conservative. Australian eyes will now turn towards the US for leadership, in hopes that our government will be shamed into more realistic policies.
Good luck Rudderless, I’d be surprised if the public gives you a second chance. You’ve blown it.
To read the view of Anna Rose, a young woman inside the pretentious emissions trading scheme lock-up in
Canberra, see: http://newmatilda.com/2008/12/15/rudd-has-betrayed-generation. ‘Rudd Has Betrayed A Generation’
December 15, 2008 | Graham
Government to make ABC debacle worse
How could you make the ABC Learning debacle worse? Well, increasing their costs at a time they are trying to sell their centres would be one way, and not something that a government who has just thrown $50 million plus at them would think of doing. Would it?
Well, apparently that’s just what is about to happen. According to The Australian Maxine McKew, who is the Parliamentary Secretary for Early Childhood Education, wants the staff-to-babies ratio in childcare centres lowered to 1:3.
Unless the government is going to top-up childcare centres with the difference, it won’t just be ABC centres that are in trouble.
At the moment the staff-to-baby ratio for the under-twos is 1:5 in all states apart from Queensland and WA, where it is 1:4. So this move alone will increase staffing costs by between 25% and and 40%. That’s a hefty rise, given that the most significant cost in a centre is wages.
But it’s worse. Care for babies is unprofitable at the moment (and that is irrespective of whether you are a for-profit or a not-for-profit), because the staff-to-child ratio is so high. Not all centres run care for babies, and those that do, treat them as a loss leader, feeding a reliable stream of toddlers and pre-schoolers through to the profitable stages.
That’s why the shortages of child care places tend to be amongst the younger groups.
But there’s more. McKew also wants one of the carers in the babies unit to be university-trained, so you can guarantee that they will want a higher rate of pay again. And for what? Next thing some one will be demanding that all potential parents have a degree in childcare from a recognised institution.
All of my three older children are graduates of a babies unit at a childcare centre where the ratio was 1:4. I can’t distinguish any difference between them and children who aren’t. The non-university-trained carers who looked after them were excellent, and seemed to cope without too many difficulties. Unlike a mother at home, there sole job was caring for the children.
So, unless the government is prepared to stump-up, the upshot of this is likely to be fewer childcare centres, with those that are left offering fewer babies places, no discernable change in the children being cared for, and more women deciding that it is just too expensive to rejoin the workforce, just at a time when the country needs all the most productive hands on-deck.
Might have been better if John Howard had managed to win Bennelong!
December 09, 2008 | Graham
A “Nigerian” scam you could almost fall for
The story looks like the same every time. Someone you “know” because they are a Facebook friend, or because you have exchanged emails, is in London and they’ve been robbed. You’re the only one they can turn to for a loan to tide them over so they can come home.
The first time it happened to me I was on Facebook, and it was an online “buddy” who used the system’s IM to make the request. I felt like such a heel saying “No”, but it didn’t feel right. I didn’t really “know” them, so why would they choose me of all people? Surely they could make a reverse charges phone call to someone who really cared? But I didn’t think too much about it. It could have been desperate non-thinking, or they could have been someone just playing a joke on me.
Then, on Facebook again I was one of a number of people in a group that received a similar request. This time it was via Facebook’s email system, the person wasn’t a Facebook friend, but others in the group were: it was less personal, less immediate, and I’d been through this once before, so I wasn’t tempted.
Now I have just received two identical emails from someone I have corresponded with in the past. This time I wasn’t even vaguely tempted. The subject line “URGENT I NEED YOUR RESPONSE!!!” is typical of a lot of the scam spam that I receive and there were multiple copies, so if I hadn’t recognised the name it would have gone straight to my spam folder. Then when I read the text it had characteristic Nigerian scam formatting, and grammar. It was obviously a form letter, they’d even left some form elements intact because the criminal wasn’t sufficiently literate to do it properly.
But it is a good patter nevertheless, particularly the reference to humanitarian good works.
I’ve reproduced the letter below without the person’s name so you can see what I mean, and also so that if someone google searches some of the phrases they’ll come across this post.
I’m posting this because in the past I’ve seen some quite intelligent friends fooled by plausible emails that have promised a variety of things. This scam was so good that even a cynic like me had to think about it for just a little! By reproducing it here I can also blast it out to the thousands of people on our OLO mailing lists and spread the word a little faster.
And I’ve got no idea how to let this person know. Because the scammers obviously have control of her hotmail, emailing would seem doomed to fail, but I’ll give it a go. Perhaps she will check it before they do…if she still can.
Am sorry I did not inform you about my Trip to Europe for a program called Empowering the Youth to Fight Racism, HIV/AIDS, and Lack of Education, the program is taking place in three major countries in Europe which are Holland, Turkey and England. But I am presently in England London now Unfortunately all my money and traveling documents were stolen in my hotel room during a robbery incident in the hotel where I lodged. I am so confused now; I don’t know what to do, that is why I decide to contact you for urgent assistance. I need soft loan of £1.400 Pounds? Please I want to use it to sort-out my hotel bills and buy my return ticket. I promise as soon as am back from this trip I will refund the money back to you, But if you can not come up with the amount Please send what you can afford through Western Union with the info below.
Name: [Deleted]
Address: 2-24 Kensington High St
Zip code: W8 4
PT
Country: UNITED KINGDOM
Test Question: To whom?
Answer:
Amount send £?
Once you have it sent, please send me the money transfer control number (MTCN), with details used in sending it. I will be expecting your mail as soon as possible
Regards,
[Deleted]