Tag Archives: Politics
A Vestas wind system fail and crashes.
Posted on 28. Nov, 2008
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Today |
Favourited a video on YouTube.
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More meat for the grinder..
Posted on 10. Apr, 2003
I just watched the live BBC World coverage of the Saddam statue in Alfarda Square, Baghdad being pulled down, it was strangely gripping TV. It started off well with only the Iraqi's working together with rope and a sledge hammer to try and topple the large statue, which was the way it should have been. However they weren't having much luck so a US Marines Engineering team came in with a crane to help out, which was okay, until one of the stupid US grunts drapped a big American flag over the statue, totally destroying the symbolism of two different peoples working together two bring down the statue. You could just see all the PR people back at allied command shaking their heads as the grunt ruined a brilliant hearts and minds opportunity in front of everyday normal Iraqis, instead reminding the Iraqi mob that you've been conquered and occupied by the USA. Politically insensitive soldiers, makes ya mad doesn't it? US Marines - we make 'em real dumb boy.
Alston’s $4m website
Posted on 09. Apr, 2003
Finally got around posting about the recent Alston fiasco where Senate estimates have revealed $4 million was spent on the DCITA web site.
Fujitsu Australia - $2.08 million for the web development
Hardware - $661,426
Software - $927,705 (mostly Vignette CMS licensing)
Hosting/Support - $956,046
I'm sure there's a lot more to the costings and how the project was run, and lets not forget the significant bloat added to projects by government beaurocracy, but if this terrible site is all they have to show for $4 million, then that's a disgraceful effort by both Fujitsu Australia and Alston's department regardless of the circumstances, and here they go on about having to cut Arts funding this year. [via VM]
http://australianit.news.com.au/...
Slight bit of warblogging
Posted on 22. Mar, 2003
Some items of note, two of the US aircraft carriers in the gulf have moured at Garden Island in Sydney over the past two years, USS Kittyhawk and USS Constellation. Also whenever you see coverage of B-52 bombers taking-off for missions over Iraq from the UK, they're leaving from RAF Fairford where I attended the RIAT 2002 Airshow last year. Amazing that the multi-billion dollar B2 stealth bombers have been flying 38 hour long round trips from their US bases.
I won't discuss my complex (hah!) political and war views here as its not an appropriate forum, I save that for the pub. However, I will say that I feel that a majority of anti-war protesters are allowing their emotions to do the thinking, rather than carefully analysing and understanding the benefits of the removal of a dictatorship and the restoration of a democracy. It's so easy for us to sit here in our perfect country and shout anti-war, not knowing what it is truely like to live in an oppressive racist military regime. As I said, my views are complex, so don't necessarily take this as a full endorsement of the current action. Don't even get me started on the stupidity of international human shields.
With all this war coverage, I forgot the NSW state election was on today, Brogden can't be happy about that, he will surely lose now. Lucky I made it to the polling booth in time, mind you I found that boundaries had changed with the electorate split down my street, so even though I went to the closest polling both to my house, less than 400 metres walk, I had to do an absentee vote.
UPDATE: I was a naive fool to be a human shield for Saddam: "It is extraordinarily ironic that the anti-war protesters are marching to defend a government which stops its people exercising that freedom."
Iraq - the West’s moral dilemma
Posted on 05. Feb, 2003
The whole Iraq thing is an extraordinarily sensitive issue that I am still morally debating. At this point I'm essentially on the fence with the positive and negative factors pretty much weighed evenly, however perhaps as Andrew MacLeod puts it in his piece in The Age, I'm one of those people searching for that third option. Good read. [via Gareth Parker]
http://www.theage.com.au/...
The United States of America has gone mad
Posted on 19. Jan, 2003
Interesting opinion piece from of John le Carre of The Times:
[via grudnuk]
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/...
Rosy outlook — unless you want a job
Posted on 18. Jan, 2003
Despite having a very positive attitude about my ability to re-enter the full-time work force if and when I decide its time, these articles do worry me sometimes. Still I remain optimistic. Employment is not an easy problem to solve, who'd be a politician hey?
http://mentalspace.ranters.net/...
Iraq: Key Maps
Posted on 29. Sep, 2002
BBC World has some interesting maps of Iraq showing Iraqi bases, missle ranges, US bases, dissident areas, oilfields, and alleged weapon sites. The maps give you a good Command & Conquer view of how a campaign would be carried out, all you need is the little inventory of equipment on the right of the screen and a the ability to click on units and command them to attack, and you could run the war from your PC. Hmm.. perhaps they should be recruiting all those 13 year-old gaming wizards to fight wars of the future, aka LAN Party.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/...
Audio Interview: Doomsday clock ticks closer
Posted on 07. Mar, 2002
SBS Radio:
State and federal government co-operation at it’s best
Posted on 03. Jan, 2002
John Howard calls Bob Carr and asks:
Bob replies, "Well those blue chambray shirts and kaki pants are quite dashing. Shows the voters we're casual yet, presentable. Quite popular with all those booming dot-com companies you're getting Alston to support."
"Ok mate, sounds good." Replies John.
(my poor attempt at political humour will not make sense at all unless you follow the link above. I definitely wouldn't make a good writer for The Chaser.)
http://www.smh.com.au/...
Census Night
Posted on 07. Aug, 2001
Why are we filling the Australian Bureau of Statistics Census out with pen and paper? Shouldn't we have the option to do it online? More baffling is why so few people aren't questioning filling out a paper-based form? I guess the answer probably lies in the ABS's confidence in the proven paper-based collection techniques, and a fear that they probably couldn't handle the implementation of a secure foolproof web based census collection method.
Aside from devising methods to prevent duplicate online census entry, I guess it raises a number of technical issues. Implementing software and infrastructure to support a busy night of census filling out would be costly, especially as it would all be thrown away later. One night, perhaps 250,000 concurrent users. Further evidence of a distrust of this technology, they only get one shot at Census collection.
The bloody, "my religion is jedi" discussion has started again, just get over it and enter it in the other religion box and move on. As if they're going to list Jedi as one of the choices, for fucks sake.
The real question for me is whether to tick the box that allows my census answers to be published in the National Archives in 99 years time. Hmm.
Al Gore in Vietnam
Posted on 01. Oct, 2000
I have no opinion either way on the presidential candidates, it doesn't really concern us down here in Australia, but I thought this photo of Al Gore playing with his M16 in Vietnam was amusing. Okay there's no clip in rifle, but there could be a round in the chamber. Not the smartest way to handle a firearm. [via Gammatron]
http://www.algore2000.com/...
Opposition Candidate Ends 71 Years of PRI Rule in Mexico
Posted on 04. Jul, 2000
Ok, so you may be asking yourself why is an Aussie interested in Mexican politics all of a sudden? Well last week I watched a documentary on Vincente Fox and was amazed at the way he'd structured his campaign. Fox is an ex-Coca Cola executive and used his skills in leadership, management, branding and marketing to oust the previous political party who'd been in power for 71 years! Impressive!
http://www.foxnews.com/...
Huddled Masses Yearning to Write Java
Posted on 02. May, 2000
The United States is set to ease restrictions limiting the immigration of high-tech workers, not all are Americans are happy about it though. [via Davenetics]
http://www.thestandard.net/...
World Trade Organisation webcam
Posted on 02. Dec, 1999
For those of you that haven't stumbled across this yet, the Seattle publication HistoryLink Gazette has a WTO-cam, with constantly updated pictures of the crowds at 4th and Pike.
http://www.historylink.org/...
Australian Competition and Consumer Commission to review Microsoft
Posted on 09. Nov, 1999
http://www.it.fairfax.com.au/...
Post Referendum analysis at The Australian
Posted on 08. Nov, 1999
Howard has openly stated the Republic is now off the agenda for his leadership. There is a possibility of the issue being readdressed if power shifted to pro-republic Liberals such as Costello. Beazley has said that if Labor is elected he'll start the process of again but it's unlikely to occur for another 5 to 8 years. ARGH!
http://www.news.com.au/...
Why do people fear change?
Posted on 06. Nov, 1999
It is so frustrating. Looks like we'll continue to be tied to a country and monarchy that has no relevance or indeed care for Australia. The best advertisement from the YES campaign was the one where John Howard toasts Bill Clinton, and in return Clinton toasts the Queen. Now this will become a major federal election issue, without doubt a vote for Labour being a vote for a Referendum for a directly elected president. This will unfortunately cloud other important election issues, much like the GST at the last federal election. OK.. no more politics for a long time - I promise.
