i'm actually in the sydney uni literature department
people have been talking about nothing fucking else for the last few days
i had heard some not too great things about barry spurr, most notably that he didn't like women and that he thought nothing good had happened in literature since the modernists, but this is on another plane entirely
i think they're probably just going to put pressure on him to retire, he's been around for a million years so that's the easiest solution
I like how the government retreats to "we didn't directly hire him for the report, so it's okay!"
Because, you know, it's not like a report recommending emphasis of "Judeo-Christian" Western values and criticising current overemphasis on aboriginal culture being partly authored by someone tremendously racist against the latter means anything at all.
The total number of government requests for Australians’ phone, location and web data is far higher than government agencies are disclosing, with more than 500,000 separate requests for information made last year.
The latest annual report from the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) has revealed that there was 582,727 requests for phone, web browsing and location data – commonly known as “metadata” – that can reveal detailed information about a person’s personal lives and associations.
This figure is at odds with the more widely cited number of 300,000 a year, which is disclosed in the annual telecommunications interception reports made by the attorney general’s departments.
The ACMA annual report has been released amid a major push by the federal government to retain these types of personal data for a mandatory period of two years.
The proposal has been controversial because the majority of these requests can be obtained without warrants and can be requested by almost any government body, including local councils and even the RSPCA, and is currently the subject of a Senate inquiry.
I wouldn't even say "influential on". I don't consider the IPA and Liberal Party as being distinct separate entities. If there is a line where one ends and the other begins it's a very fuzzy and broad line. IPA, LNP and Newscorp: three heads of the same shitheel cerberus.
It is a tribute to Gough Whitlam that in three years he accomplished so much that in the decades since politicians haven't managed to tear it all down.
Abolishing the office for film and literary classification doesn't seem that bad.
Other then what's likely to replace it will be a lot worse. But yeah, its members aren't my favorite civil servants given their penchant to put themselves on a cross for "protecting the rest of us".
It's a good thing Australian science is still going strong... right?
The new head of the CSIRO knows exactly what it's like to have dry, thirsty dams. Dr Larry Marshall grew up working on farms and his family run a property in drought-affected Queensland. It's why he isn't afraid to talk about what he describes as an 'out-there' vision for agricultural research, on top of what's already being done at the premier science organisation.
He's interested in the development of technology that would make it easier for farmers to dowse or divine for water on their properties.
"I've seen people do this with close to 80 per cent accuracy and I've no idea how they do it," he said. "When I see that as a scientist, it makes me question, 'is there instrumentality that we could create that would enable a machine to find that water?' I've always wondered whether there's something in the electromagnetic field, or gravitation anomaly." Dr Marshall believes the CSIRO can 'push the envelope' with such projects and contribute to improving agricultural productivity.
It's a good thing Australian science is still going strong... right?
The new head of the CSIRO knows exactly what it's like to have dry, thirsty dams. Dr Larry Marshall grew up working on farms and his family run a property in drought-affected Queensland. It's why he isn't afraid to talk about what he describes as an 'out-there' vision for agricultural research, on top of what's already being done at the premier science organisation.
He's interested in the development of technology that would make it easier for farmers to dowse or divine for water on their properties.
"I've seen people do this with close to 80 per cent accuracy and I've no idea how they do it," he said. "When I see that as a scientist, it makes me question, 'is there instrumentality that we could create that would enable a machine to find that water?' I've always wondered whether there's something in the electromagnetic field, or gravitation anomaly." Dr Marshall believes the CSIRO can 'push the envelope' with such projects and contribute to improving agricultural productivity.
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MorninglordI'm tired of being Batman,so today I'll be Owl.Registered Userregular
hahahahaha holy shit
(PSN: Morninglord) (Steam: Morninglord) (WiiU: Morninglord22) I like to record and toss up a lot of random gaming videos here.
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Apothe0sisHave you ever questioned the nature of your reality?Registered Userregular
Ah, so the plan is to first make the CSIRO a joke, and then privatise it. Less public outcry.
Do his qualifications extend at all beyond:
For the past 25 years, Dr Marshall has worked as a venture capitalist in the United States and he expects investment in agricultural research will increase.
Edit, so it seems they do, as per his website:
Dr Larry Marshall is Managing Director of Southern Cross Ventures, a Venture Capital firm based in Silicon Valley, Shanghai and Sydney, specialising on growing Australian technology companies in Asia and US. He has a longstanding partnership with SoftBank China, China’s most successful VC firm, and co-manages the Renewable Energy Fund, founded in 2012, with them. He has lived in the US for 25 years and founded and/or was CEO of Light Solutions, Iridex (Nasdaq:IRIX), Iriderm, Lightbit, Translucent, AOC, Arasor (ASX: ARR), and the Renewable Energy Fund; driving two of them to successful IPOs.
Larry began his career as an engineer with a PhD in Physics and over 100 publications and presentations. He became an inventor, with 20 patents protecting numerous commercial products generating over $200M in revenue.
He then became an entrepreneur, raising over $100M in funding and creating companies with over $1B in market cap. He is now an investor with $400M under management. He has served on 20 boards of high tech companies operating in USA, Australia and China.
Larry is currently on the boards of Mocana, Quantenna, Wave, Nitero, SBA, Advance, SXVP, REVCF, Laser Focus World and serves as Chairman of RIO, Crossfiber and Advance Innovation, and co-Chairman of Blackbird, and Brismat. He is a passionate supporter of Australian innovation and Australian entrepreneurs.
Bolt Comments @boltcomments 10m10 minutes ago
About Time
Bolt Comments @boltcomments 9m9 minutes ago
I’m sure there will be many ‘comrades’ with their free university degrees, mourning the loss of their ‘dear Leader’ today.
Bolt Comments @boltcomments 9m9 minutes ago
and me with no bubbly!
Bolt Comments @boltcomments 15m15 minutes ago
I don’t usually wish ill of the dead but [Gough] was a hidden communist and I hated his evil ways and he just about sent Australia broke.
Bolt Comments @boltcomments 17m17 minutes ago
[Gough] set the tone for today’s champagne socialism which is destroying all that is good in our society.
Bolt Comments @boltcomments 19m19 minutes ago
Yes, lets show respect and pretend he [Gough] was something other than one step to the right of Stalin.
There are few people I reserve more loathing for than Andrew Bolt.
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FencingsaxIt is difficult to get a man to understand, when his salary depends upon his not understandingGNU Terry PratchettRegistered Userregular
Independent MP Andrew Wilkie has sent a letter to the International Criminal Court (ICC) requesting it investigates the Abbott government over its treatment of asylum seekers.
The letter asks for the ICC's prosecutor to investigate 'crimes against humanity' and names the prime minister, immigration minister and the 19-member federal cabinet.
Mr Wilkie's letter alleges the government has committed several crimes under Article 7 of the Rome Statute of the ICC including imprisonment, deprivation of liberty, deportation and 'forcible transfer of population'.
The government is also alleged to have breached the Refugee Convention, Convention on the Rights of the Child and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
'The effect of the policy is that men, women and children are being forcibly relocated and then subjected to arbitrary imprisonment through mandatory and sometimes indefinite detention,' the letter reads.
Human rights lawyer and advocate Greg Barns, who is working with Mr Wilkie to bring the government to task over the alleged offences, says the government is detaining asylum seekers in 'inhuman conditions'.
It is unclear whether the ICC will pursue the request for an investigation.
What the prosecutor does from here remains to be seen. The ball's very much in her court but I hope that she will respond to this request and will promptly investigate these matters,' Mr Wilkie said.
Australia is a party to the ICC's Rome Statute and ratified the agreement in 2002.
Palmer United Party Senator Jacqui Lambie is carrying our her duties on the foreign affairs and defence budget estimates committee. She has just asked the top brass of the Australian Defence Force about the prospect of Ebola infected suicide bombers being used against Australia.
The AnonymousUh, uh, uhhhhhh...Uh, uh.Registered Userregular
Honestly, at this point nothing Lambie says or does surprises me any more. She could "like" the Australian Defence League on Facebook and I wouldn't even bat an eye.
...actually never mind, that apparently happened already.
Honestly, at this point nothing Lambie says or does surprises me any more. She could "like" the Australian Defence League on Facebook and I wouldn't even bat an eye.
...actually never mind, that apparently happened already.
Not being familiar with them, is it safe for me to assume that the Australian Defence League is much like the English Defence League, i.e, a bunch of skinheads framing their racism as "concern about religious extremism"?
The new NZ Police Minister has ruled out arming all front line police, after demands by the police association head after an armed incident. Good on him. The PA head is like a cracked record on the matter, regardless of evidence.
The number of times Australians' private internet and phone metadata records have been divulged to law-enforcement and spy agencies without a warrant has become unclear after a disparity was found in two government department reports, prompting concerns about inadequate reporting. While an annual report published by the Attorney-General's Department shows there were 339,067 warrantless metadata "authorisations" in 2012-13, a separate Australian Communications Media Authority report reveals there were 551,942 authorised "disclosures".
ACMA's 2013-14 report, tabled this week, shows a further 582,727 authorised "disclosures" while this year's AGD's metadata report is yet to be released. The difference between the 2012-13 AGD and ACMA reports is 212,875, which Fairfax Media understands comes about from how they are compiled.
The federal government is seeking to abolish mandatory reporting by telcos of the number of disclosures made to government agencies for Australians’ personal phone, location and web data.
A bill introduced by communications minister Malcolm Turnbull in the lower house on Wednesday would repeal a series of reporting requirements for telecommunications companies to reveal the number of disclosures they have made each year for warrantless requests for Australians’ personal data.
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If passed, it will mean telecommunications companies can keep secret the total number of disclosures of Australians’ personal data, leaving only statistics compiled from government agencies which reveal less detail.
The icing on the shit sundae?
The explanatory note of the bill argues that the reporting obligations “impose compliance costs on industry without providing an effective consumer protection measure. Accordingly, these obligations are proposed for repeal.”
From the government bringing you unfunded two-year mandatory data retention on all ISPs.
Posts
people have been talking about nothing fucking else for the last few days
i had heard some not too great things about barry spurr, most notably that he didn't like women and that he thought nothing good had happened in literature since the modernists, but this is on another plane entirely
i think they're probably just going to put pressure on him to retire, he's been around for a million years so that's the easiest solution
Because, you know, it's not like a report recommending emphasis of "Judeo-Christian" Western values and criticising current overemphasis on aboriginal culture being partly authored by someone tremendously racist against the latter means anything at all.
Old PA forum lookalike style for the new forums | My ko-fi donation thing.
Let the example of Gough Whitlam go to show that anyone who lives in Western Sydney but doesn't vote Labor is a moron and a traitor.
http://ipa.org.au/publications/2080/be-like-gough-75-radical-ideas-to-transform-australia
Read the full list if you feel like being furious. And note just how many of them are already being adopted by these jokers.
Oh fuck right the hell off. Because what we needed is US-style voter suppression and even more of a corporatist government.
I was going to quote each point I took issue with, but I realised there's a much better summary of this shitlist:
Old PA forum lookalike style for the new forums | My ko-fi donation thing.
Sadly, not a joke. And they are super influential on today's Liberal Party.
Other then what's likely to replace it will be a lot worse. But yeah, its members aren't my favorite civil servants given their penchant to put themselves on a cross for "protecting the rest of us".
Old PA forum lookalike style for the new forums | My ko-fi donation thing.
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Do his qualifications extend at all beyond:
Edit, so it seems they do, as per his website:
http://www.linkedin.com/pub/larry-marshall-phd/a/9aa/a30
Look, he seems to be switched on in his particular field of nanofibres. Which makes his belief in water dowsing just that more unbelievable.
http://www.geotech1.com/cgi-bin/pages/common/index.pl?page=lrl&file=info/kassel/kassel1.dat
http://www.geotech1.com/cgi-bin/pages/common/index.pl?page=lrl&file=info/kassel/kassel2.dat
So this is what it's like to see a country give up.
Old PA forum lookalike style for the new forums | My ko-fi donation thing.
"If only you'd let us wreck the country in one go, instead of making us halfass it!"
Possibly the only prime minister portrait that's worth seeing at Parliament.
There are few people I reserve more loathing for than Andrew Bolt.
Well, Stalin is the very left, so Whitlam is one step better than that - to the right.
Yikes. Is it better or worse that the comments with which he is fishing actually probably largely reflect his views?
Wait, no, don't answer that. I know of blokes that run gold mines who believe in dowsing for gold.
Morrison continues to treat the high court with contempt, using a ministerial decree to keep temporary protection visas and blocking ANY appeal.
........what
http://m.smh.com.au/federal-politics/the-pulse-live/federal-politics-live-october-22-2014-20141022-3ikx6.html
Old PA forum lookalike style for the new forums | My ko-fi donation thing.
...actually never mind, that apparently happened already.
Old PA forum lookalike style for the new forums | My ko-fi donation thing.
Not being familiar with them, is it safe for me to assume that the Australian Defence League is much like the English Defence League, i.e, a bunch of skinheads framing their racism as "concern about religious extremism"?
Origin: KafkaAU B-Net: Kafka#1778
Less clear why we need a sex offender register ( successive government investigations have not found them to be particularly useful)
http://m.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11346565
The calls for reform given this are being followed by the government. Take a wild fucking guess what those reforms are.
The icing on the shit sundae? From the government bringing you unfunded two-year mandatory data retention on all ISPs.
Old PA forum lookalike style for the new forums | My ko-fi donation thing.