Something which has appeared on the BBC a couple of times now, but not once that I have seen in our own local media, is the Rudd government’s plan to erect a firewall to block Australians’ access to certain websites. The “cyber-safety plan” apparently comprised part of the 2008-09 budget, but was unfortunately overlooked by the Liberals so they could complain about taxes on luxury cars. The plan’s stated aim is to “help protect Australian children from the dangers of the internet” (as seen on the DBCDE website). Sounds good, right?
Well no, actually, it’s not good at all. I don’t care how many government-appointed consultative committees there are, how much they educate young Australians on how to be “responsible cyber-citizens”, how many different groups they insist they will be “working with”, nor how many excuses they offer as to why a mandatory firewall is necessary. Plainly and simply, it is not. This plan is an erosion of our rights, nothing more and nothing less — and should be opposed.
Read on…
Every day, my family gets a phone call (or two, or three) from real estate agents trying to push us out of our home. “Would you like us to evaluate your house? No obligations! No string attached!” or, “Did you know that we did a good job selling no.39? You should consider letting us sell your house,” or, “Did you know that house prices in your area have never been higher? Now’s a great time to sell!” We get the same thing in our maiboxes, too. Day in, day out.
The irritating thing is that these real estate agents aren’t just being shady — they’re actually pressuring us on a daily basis because it is my council’s policy to push us out of our home. The area in which I live has been designated an “urban village”. Council has decided that houses are unwelcome here; they want blocks of flats two or three storeys tall, at least fifteen dwellings apiece. Our house, which is old and situated on a huge block of land, is extremely attractive to developers — and, hence, to the council. Read on…
Most electricity in Australia is generated by burning coal. This leads to a few problems, most notably global warming — coal is roughly 80% carbon — but Australia swears by its coal anyway. We have to have electricity, and electricity is produced by burning coal. Therefore, Australia must burn coal. We’ll shame people into using less electricity, so less coal will have to be burned. We’ll up prices to force them to use less electricity, too. We’ll insist on the existence of “clean coal”, a truly mythical form of coal that will not contribute to global warming.
All of this really pisses me off. Why? Because coal is completely extraneous to electricity generation. Electricity is generated by the movement of metal parts. All coal is used for is boiling water such that the steam may move the metal parts. People waving these parts around would generate electricity. You could make bikes with the parts attached to the pedals, and when ridden they would generate electricity. You could stick the parts in the ocean and the tides would generate electricity. You could get some wind to blow the parts around, and you would generate electricity. The only reason we use coal is because thousands of miners would be put out of work otherwise. Well, that and coal generates electricity faster, but that could easily be compensated for with extra generators. The main reason is the miners. Read on…
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