Secrets for Safety

We are all children. Apparently.

A poison gas leak which spread from Sydney to Melbourne is kept quiet in case it 'panics' people. What did they expect the public to do if they knew? Evacuate the area? Sounds quite sensible actually - better anyway than exposing people to the risk.

What else are they not telling us?

Then, of course, there is the coming Sun storm which is expected to hit with the 'force of 100 million hydrogen bombs.

I can only speculate that - given the cover up of the gas - the real dangers of this solar storm could be infinitely more frightening than they are admitting. Time, as they say, will tell.

One thing strikes me about this report though:

They claim satellites will be aged by 50 years, rendering GPS even more useless than ever

Just love that point - rendering GPS even more useless than ever. Now there are no state secrets in that one!

Wonko is frightened - but for nice reasons!

Last week I wrote of A Little Sanity At Last - justifiable criticism of judges in Australia.

Well this week something else has occurred which seems oh so sane.

I am talking about Coalition Plans To Dump Internet Censor.

This is excellent news because unless this is an election issue then we will be censored and that will be bad. The currently encumbered government has repeatedly stated that they will implement this ludicrous scheme.

I am all for stopping perverts from eyeing off children - in fact, I am for much tougher penalties for pedophiles, specifically mandatory removal of all important dangly bits. (Unfortunately too many bleading hearts don't like the idea. Plenty of abused children probably do though!).

The internet censor wont stop that sort of thing though. Simple SSL to an IP address will get around it, and meanwhile the rest of Australia will have their internet crawl even slower while any page critical of whichever government is in power will be neatly assigned to the do not show list.

The only way this wont happen is if the government that we elect makes this part of their election basis - i.e. to bury the internet filter.

Which is what the coalition are promising.

There are plenty of good reasons to vote for the current government or a new government. But at the end of the day, if you want the freedom to be informed, then there is one compelling reason to vote out our current misbegotten crew. The internet filter.

Now they have promised it, it is up to Australians to follow it through.

Wonko has spoken.

A little sanity - at last.

I can hardly believe my eyes! But I have re-read the item several times. Sanity, it seems, still exists - albeit spread a little thin.

The item in question is:

Out of touch and not very bright: Frank Vincent's verdict on judges

Please read the article but here's a couple of teaser lines:

SOME judges were intellectually or temperamentally unsuited to the job, according to one of Australia's most respected legal minds.

Retired Supreme Court judge Frank Vincent said some of his former colleagues stayed too long in the job and had become "sour".

Others, he said, "suddenly decide they're infallible and don't want to listen because they know it all".

Time and again judges make the most appalling decisions and the world is left reeling - consider the following Wonko-bite for example:

* Unlawful Killing

There are many examples of murders being freed or assault victims watching their attackers walk away free or thugs being freed after serving half their sentence.

It is well past time that judges were given a good servicing and some common sense introduced. At the end of the day, if seemingly unfair decisions are the right ones then the reasons for that should be made public.

Wonko has spoken.

Is this the technology future you want?

I've said it before and I'll say it again - until the deciding factor happens. Not sure what I'm talking about?

I'm talking about the Conroy Filter and this Government's commitment to the destruction of your civil liberty. Wow!

Let me just once more say it. This Internet Filter - the Conroy Cow - MUST be turned into an election issue. It is not good enough just to vote LABOUR OUT! The internet filter will be used by any Government in Power to restrict access to information. Anything that the government doesn't want you to know will be restricted. Forget freedom of information. IT WILL NOT EXIST.

The LIBS will support the Conroy Cow if they are elected - because THEY also would like to stop you reading about their own particular deficiencies. It doesn't matter who is in power, the filter will be used to stop you knowing the things you need to.

The only way that the filter can be stopped is by turning it into an election issue. Make sure that the LIBERALs gain control and that the only reason they do is their determination to KILL CONROYS COW.

If it becomes an election issue, then Wonko will no longer need to pass his (common sense) judgement on it. If LABOUR retakes government then Wonko will no longer need to pass his judgement because - like all voices of truth - he will be censored.

Do you really need proof? Really?

Then spend just a few moments examining the PLAN TO SPY ON YOUR INTERNET USAGE.

Those accessing child pornography deserve to be caught. But when they have censored 90% of the plan itself - that should tell you that there is more at stake here than the netting (sic) of online pedophiles.

Fixing the - apparently increasing number of - pedophiles is definitely something the governments should be working on. A good start might be mandatory castration for repeat offenders. Harsh? Perhaps. But it makes more sense than introducing censorship that anyone with a SSL (secure sockets layer) connection to a weekly varying IP address can get around.

So if you really think the censorship idea is right, despite the fact that there is no accountability with respect to the sites that will be blocked, spend just a few moments looking at the black lines through all the stuff that the government has censored already.

THEN make sure you let your local pollie know - it's LABOUR out BECAUSE of the CENSOR!

Flesh, Smoke and Green Cheese

Life is certainly full of surprises.

Firstly was the discovery that someone thinks flesh is not meat.

For years Pamela Anderson has marketed her flesh without objection (mostly) but when someone dares to draw the similarities between a human and an animal (grown for meat) then there is suddenly a hue and outcry.

Let's be clear about this. We are all made of flesh and bone. Intellectually, pigs are smarter than dogs, and very probably smarter than politicians too. Regardless of whether or not you, the reader, is smarter than a cow, you share many similarities including the desire to live without pain.

What's at stake with this example of human stupidity is not the treatment of an actress as a 'piece of meat' - something she has specialized in, just ask any teenage boy - but rather yet another attempt to distract from PETA's clever illustration and legitimize the killing and eating of the creatures we share this planet with. Plain and simple.

Then there's the wonderful example of a supermarket chain who really does want to ease our wallets. Coles are importing cheap cigarettes for us.

Yes, because they love us so much, rather than expecting us to pay the inflated prices that are only there to stop lung cancer and so forth, Coles are intending to provide us with much cheaper carcinogenic puff sticks.

Of course it has to do with their profit margins - not our health. Our health doesn't come into the equation. Cigarettes were a big seller bringing in considerable income so it was only to be expected that they would try to reverse the (unusual) Government decision to save lives by peddling cheap imported products.

Fortunately it has been discovered that there may be holes on the moon. I guess this could be a good place to park the growing number of corpses who die each year from cigarette related cancers.

The Moon is Lunar, the World is Looney.

Wonko has spoken.

I elect to ditch the censor.

Australia, wake up.

It's quite simple.

If Senator Conroy's Internet Censorship is not made into an election issue then you will lose the freedom of information that you currently enjoy.

Voting out Labour will not change anything.

The internet censor is good for whichever government is in power, because it allows them to control the information you gain access to. Anything they don't want you to know - you will be banned from. Think about it.

Just voting Labour out will not change this because the Liberal Party would benefit from the same level of government control over accessible information. So they will implement the filter just as Labour will.

The only way to ensure that the filter goes down the drain is to make it clear that it is political suicide. That is Australia's only hope for the future.

Unless the filter IS turned into an election issue then whoever is elected at the next election (Labour OR Liberal) will implement it without fear. BUT if it is the basis of their manifesto that they will NOT implement it - then there is hope.

So please, understand this: whoever is in power wont matter - they will still switch on the filter and switch off everything they don't want you to know. UNLESS they gain office on the basis of discarding the filter.

Australia, it's your choice.

Ex Prime Minister sucks up the luxury while others suffer

Plenty of things to aggravate wonko this week - You can beat someone up and blind them in Australia - it's ACCEPTABLE. Not because Australians agree with it but because we have a sick legal system. But if you think that's an isolated incident, consider the case of the attempted wife killing which, again, seems to be OK because, to quote Justice Lyons, in sentencing this person to a horrifyingly SHORT sentence, said: "It is clear you have no criminal history and that you are of otherwise good character." Good job he didn't cheat on his taxes!

But the biggest and most sickening thing was the news that Australia's EX Prime Minister will receive $600,000 a year - for life.

This is absolutely scandalous, because there are thousands and thousands of carers out there who provide their care to their disabled children, sick partners or frail aged parents twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, all year long for a massive carer payout of $1.73 per hour. They are in ill-health, have low-self esteem, depression and are conveniently ignored by a government that happily pays out $600,000 to an EX Prime Minister.

The worst of it is that UNLIKE THIS PRIME MINISTER, they have no future. They have no superannuation because carers cannot invest in superannuation funds. While they are living a nightmare and - through their care for others - they are also destroying their own future while Australia ignores them and hands out $600,000 per year for LIFE to politicians who have already been well paid.

Now that is disgusting.