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The boss of qantas recently gave himself a $2M payrise.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/travel/qantas-boss-wins-71pc-pay-hike/story-e6frg8rf-1226131646231

He also announced major job cuts whilst at a management press conference which happened to be at a 5 star hotel. It wasn't good PR.

"Qantas employees learning that they're going to lose their jobs, live from a five-star hotel press conference from a CEO that is out of his depth and out of touch with employees, his company and his country."
http://www.news.com.au/travel/news/qantas-to-announce-drastic-changes/story-e6frfq80-1226115770960

I dont work for qantas, but if I did, I wouldn't be too enthusiastic about the future of the company or my job.

5% increase per year, over 3 years. A total 15% increase up to an average wage of $170k.

http://www.news.com.au/travel/news/qantas-engineers-cancel-strike-action/story-e6frfq80-1226162996039

The rioters aren't impoverished, at least not all of them. Don't romanticize it. Economic causes may have been the spark, but the rioting was greed. These were not Robin Hoods.

Sir? ... Yes, were the ones to blame, engineers tried to shove the HD6990 on some laptops that eventually burned down one testing room, I was there, the laptop ran it's fans so hard that started to hoover across the table until blowing up spectacularly near to a big pile of failed packaging demos. So management blamed us [1] and we had to come up w/ something that would lead the blame onto us if a smart consumer figured it out.

[1] We had a lot of failed packages in there because we had to outsource the design to the same guys that we outsource the coding, they promised they will hire designers, but ended up shoving javascript monkeys to hammer the design in SVG by code!. The designs actually created buffer overruns in the CTP machine and he have lost contact w/ production since then.

You think it's funny to blame marketing for everything, sure, everything is fine and dandy until stuxnet owns your printing department and start to print weird Chinese propaganda, did your know they went to the moon first?

The Department of Community Services (previous The Department of Child Services) has had its projected funding for 2014 slashed by $AUD1.3b. They handle child abuse, foster care cases etc. Instead, we get an internet filter designed to "protect the children".

http://www.news.com.au/travel/news/no-place-left-to-hide-drugs-with-x-ray-technology/story-e6frfq80-1226011075259

welcome to Australia

The filter is not about porn, it is about kiddy porn, the sort that they arrest people for.

Indeed it is, and I'm sure of this because they're so open and... oh, wait, they're not even telling us WHO is contributing to the list, so their promises of WHAT is on it are a bit suspect. Reputable international organisations with such good reputations that they don't want to be associated with this? Really?

Perhaps they don't want to be blamed the next time a dentist is mistaken for a pornographer.

This is reheated hash from a month back when it was shown to be a lots of smoke and a couple of mirrors (two threats, years ago)

http://www.news.com.au/national/carbon-death-threats-go-cold/story-e6frfkvr-1226072073038

Copied from there:
CLAIMS prominent climate change scientists had recently received death threats have been revealed as an opportunistic ploy, with the Australian National University admitting that they occurred up to five years ago.
Only two of ANU's climate change scientists allegedly received death threats, the first in a letter posted in 2006-2007 and the other an offhand remark made in person 12 months ago.
Neither was officially reported to ACT Police or Australian Federal Police, despite such crimes carrying a 10-year prison sentence.
The outdated threats raised question marks over the timing of their release to the public, with claims they were aired last week to draw sympathy to scientists and their climate change cause.

Read more: http://www.news.com.au/national/carbon-death-threats-go-cold/story-e6frfkvr-1226072073038#ixzz1PqVWfYS6

This is reheated hash from a month back when it was shown to be a lots of smoke and a couple of mirrors (two threats, years ago)

http://www.news.com.au/national/carbon-death-threats-go-cold/story-e6frfkvr-1226072073038

Copied from there:
CLAIMS prominent climate change scientists had recently received death threats have been revealed as an opportunistic ploy, with the Australian National University admitting that they occurred up to five years ago.
Only two of ANU's climate change scientists allegedly received death threats, the first in a letter posted in 2006-2007 and the other an offhand remark made in person 12 months ago.
Neither was officially reported to ACT Police or Australian Federal Police, despite such crimes carrying a 10-year prison sentence.
The outdated threats raised question marks over the timing of their release to the public, with claims they were aired last week to draw sympathy to scientists and their climate change cause.

Read more: http://www.news.com.au/national/carbon-death-threats-go-cold/story-e6frfkvr-1226072073038#ixzz1PqVWfYS6

Q: Will players use two touchscreen controllers or will they use just one new controller and the original Wii controls with the new console? Our basic premise is that you can use one with a system. If we got to an idea of having multiple (controllers) it might be just more convenient for people to use their Nintendo 3DS and have a way to connect that. That being said, we are doing research about if someone brings their controller to their friends house and they want to play together on Wii U to whether or not something like that would be possible.

he was arrested, but he wasn't charged.

Here's some nice TSA porn for all you regular folks.. Now get back to work!

If UK folk are wondering, yes, banks in other countries do use Twitter to engage with their customers. In Australia the big-4 banks actively use Twitter and compete for followers - http://www.news.com.au/business/cba-westpac-anz-nab-compete-for-facebook-fans-twitter-followers/story-e6frfm1i-1226015116016

Some person in a flashy car demanding from you in no uncertain terms to pull over? I'd say that warrants an emergency call!

Not sure if serious.

http://www.fox2now.com/news/ktvi-fake-cop-pulls-over-woman-illinois-20110223,0,2232948.story

http://www.news.com.au/national/fake-cop-attacks-woman-driver/story-e6frfkvr-1225939259419

http://www.woai.com/news/local/story/How-to-tell-a-real-police-officer-from-a-fake-one/Ts58RNrvCE2-BH6BCLYRhw.cspx

http://www.fugitive.com/archives/24676

etc.

"fake cop" "traffic stop" gets 17,000 results

Here's another case, in Moscow, reported earlier : http://www.news.com.au/technology/leukaemia-sufferer-stepan-supin-stays-home-sends-robot-to-school/story-e6frfro0-1225992845324

3.52pm: Sewage treatment facilities near Brisbane have broken down, leading to raw sewage pouring into the Brisbane River. Authorities have already urged city residents to conserve water; today Lord Mayor Campbell Newman has warned people against swimming in the city's river because of the potential disease risk.

Right on the money. Although my main question about this report is, wouldn't there be better reasons to NOT swim in the Brisbane River at the moment?

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Except for Mr Kessing. In case you have not heard, Mr Kessing was found guilty just over a week ago of leaking the contents of two classified reports that detailed serious security lapses at our airports. Those reports, one of which was buried for two years and never made it onto the desk of a senior bureaucrat or minister, were published in The Australian. Public concern over the exposé forced the Government to commission the Wheeler Review, which in turn led to one of the biggest security upgrades of airport security. If ever there was a case of a whistleblower deserving our eternal praise, this is it. Instead, he is facing prison.

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More concerned about controlling information than encouraging whistleblowers to expose department inertia and ineptitude over issues of national importance, the Howard Government made sure that Mr Kessing was punished for his efforts. Prosecuted under the Commonwealth Crimes Act, forced to rely on superannuation to defend himself against a Government miffed at a leak, Mr Kessing may end up behind bars for up to two years.

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There are leaks and then there are leaks. Some are right. Some are wrong. But for a Government obsessed with controlling every bit of information, there are no distinctions. Only stiff penalties for those who leak, no matter how beneficial the consequences of the leak.

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As much as governments would prefer the media to simply regurgitate carefully crafted ministerial media releases, spinning the government’s daily message, that is not the role of a robust media in a healthy democracy. The very best journalism is a check on government, exposing matters of national significance. Doing what The Australian did when it forced, with the help of a whistleblower, the government to secure our airports, which sit as frontline defences against terrorism.

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Protecting deserving whistleblowers such as Mr Kessing ought to be seen as a public good. Government departments will lift their game if they understand there are laws that recognise that leaks serving a genuine public interest may be justified.

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http://www.psnews.com.au/ArchivesApril07.html

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3 April, 2007 Jail Shrill Prospect For Whistleblower

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A former Customs Officer who leaked a classified report is facing up to two years in jail. Allan Robert Kessing, 59, was found guilty by a Sydney jury of the unlawful disclosure of information by a former Commonwealth officer. Judge James Bennett bailed Mr Kessing to appear on May 25 for sentencing. Mr Kessing - who had left Customs by the time the report was leaked – sparked a major enquiry into airport security by leaking the report and his legal representative planned to use that as evidence his actions were justified. Sweeping improvements were made to airport security arrangements following an enquiry into the reports claims by English expert Sir John Wheeler. The leaked report was seized on by journalists from The Australian newspaper to blow the whistle on airport security but the journalists have not revealed their sources and were not called to give evidence. Mr Kessing’s lawyer said the case was a matter of public importance but it had attracted little attention. “One of the things that will be very important will be how beneficial the leak of the information was about security for Sydney airport and everyone who travels through it,” the lawyer told the newspaper. “The Wheeler report will vindicate in a substantial degree the fact that the leak itself, the contents of the reports that were leaked, had a very significant beneficial effect.” The enquiry led to the expenditu

Australia has similar plans for its Internet Filter: the government is proposing that it be maditory for ISPs to enforce the government maintained blacklist.
WikiLeaks published the Danish blacklist and was therefore added to the proposed Australian list here in March 2009. WikiLeaks then published the Australian blacklist here. When the Stephen Conroy (a doofus) declared it wasn't the real one ('This is not the ACMA blacklist.') WikiLeaks updated their list as at 1 day old.
I fully expect a French blacklist very soon.

Then you didn't read the article nor do you really understand how it works

Anyone who hasn't forgotten their teenager years knows how it works. It's groupthink.

The ones who propose targets, build cases, and participate in debates, those are the ones who essentially "Run Anonymous"

More bored teenagers that learn to control the group. Nothing new, even when I was still in highschool and that was ages ago. The alpha of the group just became faceless and uses HTTP more often instead of a louder voice.

For a majority of Anonymous, it's not about principles or values, but they're activities are promoting someone elses (or even multiple people's) values.

You're overthinking this. Back when I was a teenager we had a protest march against the incompetence of the justice department. A few people handed out fliers, and the rest said "Oh hey, I was bored anyway. Let's go there." Many weren't even interested in promoting someone's values, nor even aware of the issues the march was about. Needless to say that it ended in vandalism.

No agent provocateurs, no people with a cause, just plain old "Look at the crowd here, let's go trash something. Fuck yeah!" groupthink. Try getting these numbers for something non-disruptive. Go on. Go to /b/ and become the fabled mastermind that herds the flock into doing something productive. Bonus points if they get out of their chair.

Are you actually trying to argue that Anonymous has made the net a worse place?

Are you actually trying to argue that Anonymous hasn't? Really now come on. That was Ebaums, right? It's bored kids pulling silly tasteless pranks, sometimes funny, sometimes not so much. Sure, they're not a "threat" to the Internet other than being obnoxious.

For every "cause" they've supported they've gone and harassed at least a dozen people who did nothing wrong but be at the wrong place at the wrong time (on the Internet).

Certainly, how about 1300 people killed? Best yet, it's straight from Assange.

1,300 people were eventually killed [in Kenya], and 350,000 were displaced. That was a result of our leak.

Let me know if 1300 dead and 350,000 displaced (homeless) people is under your acceptable collateral damage limit.

That sounds like a fair outlook on things, keep in mind the word "piracy" is pretty heavily abused. When I say it, I really just mean "disobeying copyright law" (note, I did misuse the term in my last post; I don't actually encourage people to pirate my wares given that I licence them CC0 so there is no copyright to infringe upon.. slip of the tongue :S)

As evidenced by my own vocabulary error, you can work with public domain or copyleft content and get some of the benefits of cultural liberty without infringing upon copyright, and you can encourage people to use copyleft instruments to avoid the negative ramifications of copyright. I see that you approve of these, as I do also.

But to be clear I do additionally champion the direct infringement of copyrighted works because I do personally believe that copyright law is foundationally immoral.. not to mention gapingly unenforceable in the face of today's technology and globally connected marketplace.

"Intellectual Property" literally means owning ideas, and ideas exist only as irremovable components of the minds of people who have learned them. Thus IP directly means owning the thoughts of other people, and controlling who can express those parts of themselves and who cannot.

Laying claim over other's minds is as bad an incentive to create art as laying claim over other's bodies is to process cotton. Sure, it drives your profits up immensely, but only on the backs of others. On the one hand there are countless ways to make money from art without first censoring the entire planet. On the other hand, it is literally not my concern how art gets funded. I simply want the freedom to share my thoughts, and if every selfish artist in the world simply stopped all their creativity for want of funds as a result I would still see the tradeoff as an enormous gain. Hell I can produce my own art and I will when I'm bored enough. Would I become the last artist in the world? How would people not outbid each other to hear me hum off key if nobody else is even doing it?

I create art, and having to vet clearance against other people's copyright makes that job technically impossible — if practically only very difficult. I guarantee every new piece of art infringes someone's copyright, it's just that you hope whoever you step on in the crowded sea of toes never notices. That is a terrible game of Russian Roulette to even pretend to play.

When we craft (or modernize) law we compare the law against certain maxims, and one such popular yardstick is that possession is nine tenths of the law. Directly, I possess everything in my mind, and I possess every megabyte of information on the hardware I physically own from mp3 players to computers to media center. That makes it my prerogative should I choose to share that data with another person, or should another person choose to share similar data with me.

Intruding within that well established and strategically easy to defend personal property arrangement to add complicated enforcement of Intellectual Property rights from people all over the planet is realistically absurd. No one has the capacity to prevent my sharing that information; Nobody could afford to even make an attempt. You'd have more luck trying to enforce a law that no wild birds may fly greater than 50 feet from the ground, and all violating birds will somehow be ticketed and fined.

It's a stretch to imagine a law so ineffective and ignored with such volume could have any impact on commercial artwork to begin with. Every piece of digital information is being shared freely somewhere right now, yet art continues to be made and Youtube accepts more than 24 hours of video upl

I wonder if people using the term "deniers" will ever stop setting up strawman and accept that people are questioning the causes of climate change, not whether the climate actually changes. Someone can criticise AGW theories without also saying that the world is ever unchanging and will always be so.

Oh my god, you are still going on about the term "deniers". Move on! Now I think about it, I don't think I have ever seen you write a post that actually criticises the AGW science. You always seem to be going on about how skeptics are not deniers. Interesting.

There are plenty of people out there who do deny global warming. To find an example, the first place that I look is the right wing columnist of some influence here in Australia. Was I surprised that his latest blog on this topic has moved from his usual line of "the earth is cooling" to "it's to expensive to stop it" arguments. Maybe he is warming to the idea that it is warming.

In any case, have a look at his followers on that blog entry. You cannot deny that they are denying global warming.

its already been banned -> http://www.news.com.au/travel/news/racing-queensland-bans-in-bikini-horse-race/story-e6frfq80-1225932301612

I am much impressed. Now, whether the iron was truly meteoric - that's a tougher question. Mind you, one could argue that it hardly matters. A home-made sword is a home-made sword.

He didn't make the sword himself. According to the root news article (which appears to be here) he smelted iron ore from near his house into bars. Then he purchased a meteorite -- hopefully one with a certificate of authenticity or something -- added the meteorite to the pile of iron and gave it to a skilled blacksmith. That means the sword was made with some skill, which means it should be a fine weapon.

This sword is destined to become a legend, whether or not the meteoric iron in it gives it any mystical properties. I've already been seeing it referenced as the Sword of Sir Pterry and as the Pratchettblade. The coolness factor is off the charts.

The first I heard of this story was this:
News.com.au classed as 'adult website' in audit of politicians' internet use.

From this article:

• "the audit had incorrectly classified news sites as adult because they contained links to or advertisements for adult dating sites."
• "Because there are adult matchmaking links or ads on their site, every time someone accesses news.com.au and they go from one article to another, that's counted as an individual hit on an adult site."

The fact that he confessed and resigned suggests that he was looking at more than just news sites, but that doesn't look like a well-run audit.

Also, customs are only searching for illegal porn (so that video of you and your monkey wife doing is legal, tasteless but legal) you just have to declare that you've got it, the same as prescription medication. After all, it's not like customs will hand back you porn if you so much as threaten to sue them, no wait... they did.

Are you trying to be obtuse here? I don't think it's the government's business what my wife and I do in our bedroom even if we photograph or video tape it. Having to tell some stranger about your sex life is an invasive loss of freedom. The only alternative is what my wife and I do and that is not to make porn in the first place. We're not into that so it's no imposition but it sure is another freedom gone.

it is now virtually impossible for the filtering scheme to pass through the Senate.

The Filter is dead, long live the filter (I'm sure many angry ./ers wont let it die). At least I can still give the finger to an AQIS (Australian Quarantine and Inspection Services) official at the international airport and not disappear into an interrogation room for 3 days.

As far as overreaching border controls go, we did not get the short end of the stick.

Also, customs are only searching for illegal porn (so that video of you and your monkey wife doing is legal, tasteless but legal) you just have to declare that you've got it, the same as prescription medication. After all, it's not like customs will hand back you porn if you so much as threaten to sue them, no wait... they did.

Besides, asking "Do you have any pornographic material" is slightly less absurd then "Do you intend to overthrow the government of the United States" as far as arrival questions go.

So dear Americans, dont Visit Australia because you'll have a harder time trying to get back into your own country (and you're not staying here forever).

This is not what the average Aussie wants. There was a petition that set the record http://bit.ly/aJuLUO in Australia for the most number of supporters, for anything, ever! There was also a public debate http://bit.ly/cts8kl showed 98.2% support for a higher rating from over 60,000 submissions.

The current government may well be voted out this week, but the problem is, the state attorney generals decide classification guidelines http://www.ag.gov.au/www/agd/agd.nsf/Page/Classification_policy. And if only one of them has a personal vendetta http://www.news.com.au/technology/attorney-general-to-veto-r-rating-for-games/story-e6frfro0-1111115654451 against something it won't get through.

Our hopes were raised when Michale Atkison, main detractor for a new rating, "retired" http://www.kotaku.com.au/2010/04/new-s-a-attorney-general-might-support-r18-might-not/ earlier this year. But all that seemed to do was delay decisions.

If you'd like more information, please subscribe to the very informative r18 tag for Kotaku http://www.kotaku.com.au/tags/r18/.

Disclaimer: I am in no way afilliated with any political party or news site. I just value my freedom, or what little we have left. http://twitter.com/#search?q=%23nocleanfeed

I am very happy, there are now two parties that are talking sense in OZ, and the leader of Labour is not to bad either, I can but hope we move forward at the next election... in the meantime, it is fun and commendable to join the cheefrul political bashing of Abbot: http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/bible-bashing-the-homeless-abbott-style-20100215-o2tj.html http://www.news.com.au/money/money-matters/no-more-dole-tony-abbott-warns-the-under-30s/story-e6frfmd9-1225856181945 http://www.samesame.com.au/forum/showthread.php?t=14437 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WSPc5UTcwHQ What an embarrasing tool!

Go for the Greens? I don't think so.. Not as long as they harbor people like this..

Strictly speaking, a lot of things are "simply not needed" and result in at least as many deaths as can be attributed to non-criminal firearm activity. (The exclusion is there because criminals can get guns if they want them.)

However, the last time I was in Australia, it was still legal to drink, smoke, and eat junk food. Yet somehow these things and others (like other sports) that result in death and reduced life span somehow never seem to be the target of calls for bans.

To put it in perspective, in the U.S. in 2007:

Firarm deaths accounted for 10.2 of 100,000. Homicide was the 15th leading cause of death, and keep in mind that not all of them are committed with guns.

5.67 per 100000 were firearms-inflicted suicides. I would argue that someone intent on committing suicide will find a way.

4.13 per 100000 were homicides committed with a firearm. I would argue that someone intent on having a gun illegally will do so. The statistic does not break down lawful use.

That leaves 0.4 per 100000 accidents with firearms.

Now consider these stats:

The #1 (25.4%, 204.3/100K) cause of death was heart disease (where's the junk food ban?).

The #2 (23.2%, 186.6/100K) cause was cancer and #4 (5.3%, 42.4/100K) was chronic lower respiratory disease (where's the national smoking ban?)

The #5 (5.1%, 41.0/100K) cause was accidents (where's the ban on ladders, cars, skydiving, contact sports, etc)?

In the U.S. you are individually more likely to die from the 14 top causes of death, assuming that all homicides were from firearms.

Yet, somehow firearms bans get more support than bans on alcohol, cigarettes, and junk food, all of which have documented high costs to society.

Helps to see the whole picture.

... the whole court case only happened as a result of a TV panel game, Spicks and Specks (Australian version of Never Mind The Buzzcocks). In how many years of every employee of that Australian music company presumably hearing Down Under played how many hundreds of times, nobody noticed until it came up as a curious fact on the telly...

http://www.news.com.au/entertainment/music/quiz-show-sparks-aussie-anthems-battle/story-e6frfn09-1111117725552

Sorry to "blow my own trumpet" (or flute in this case), but I recognised that the riff was "in the spirit" of "Kookaburra" from the day the song was released, but, given it was such a small section and not an exact copy I'm amazed it has caused such a fuss... no, scratch that, there were lawyers involved. I'm not amazed at all.

... the whole court case only happened as a result of a TV panel game, Spicks and Specks (Australian version of Never Mind The Buzzcocks). In how many years of every employee of that Australian music company presumably hearing Down Under played how many hundreds of times, nobody noticed until it came up as a curious fact on the telly...

http://www.news.com.au/entertainment/music/quiz-show-sparks-aussie-anthems-battle/story-e6frfn09-1111117725552

As an American I don't pretend to understand the fine points of the Australian political system. From my viewpoint many time zones away, however, those politicians do seem hell-bent on returning Australian citizens to their historic status as Crown convicts banished to Botany Bay on trumped up charges in a guilty-until-proven-innocent legal system. I'm damned glad I'm not living there.

Whatever the pollies get up to . . . I feel safer living in a country where you are less likely to encounter scared and nervous people wandering around with handguns in their possession. Even armed robbers are more likely to use a knife:
  http://www.news.com.au/armed-hold-up-was-inspired-by-true-love/story-e6frfkp9-1111115412186

You can defend yourself from a knife-wielder with a broom, umbrella, or even throw your shoes. "You call THAT a knife, HAH?"

Don't open the box!

Yeah, really don't open the box

In the state of New South Wales, Australia, schools were given the go-ahead a few years ago to use fingerprint scanners to checlk attendance - article here: http://www.news.com.au/national/fingerprint-roll-call-plan-for-schools/story-e6frfkvr-1111114862841

My old high school (Ku-Ring-Gai Creative Arts School) has implemented the technology. Thank God it was after I left.

he hasn't been to work in four years on the claim that every time he tries to go to work he has panic attacks.

http://www.news.com.au/business/business-smarts/lib-mp-gordon-rich-phillips-wanted-workcover-to-pay-for-wii/story-e6frfm9r-1225861036146

Complicated case? Sorry, but people like this need to either be committed or told to grow a pair.

He certainly does not need a Wi to exercise.

Try $43 billion over 10 years and even that's likely to be too high, the government is simply playing brinkmanship with Telstra so they don't try to block the plans: http://www.news.com.au/technology/billion-national-broadband-network-price-tag-a-bluff/story-e6frfro0-1225775686353

And virtually all this would've been unnecessary if Telstra had been privatised properly by previous governments - ie. split into an infrastructure company and a normal ISP and phone company, not a huge monopoly.

Australia might finally get a decent competitive broadband market in 2015-2020, if we're lucky.

Well I can finally go to California, everything is known to cause cancer in California, .

Yeah just like working for the ABC in Australia.

$250 Million for the free to air channels around Australia with no strings attached. I wonder why there is little to no coverage in the main stream press now days?

Don't forget the cosy ski trip Conroy had in the US with Kerry Stokes, owner of channel 7, just before the $250 million handout. http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,26718780-953,00.html

Possibly someone trying to catch a connecting flight?

Photos of them with their small-breasted wifes? Like this picture of Senator Conroy?

Baby dies in Torrens tragedy

Responding to questions about the incident, police said Ms Lucas, 30, was jogging about 100m to the east of the Hackney Rd bridge about 8.45am when she stopped to take a mobile phone call.

She scribbled a number on her leg - she did not have writing paper - and turned her back to the pram.

When Ms Lucas finished the telephone call and looked up, her child and the pram had vanished.

Asked if she might have heard a splash or the sound of the pram falling into water, Chief Inspector Mick Fisher said he did "not want to speculate on that".

Witnesses said Ms Lucas, fearing Leonardo had been abducted, was "hysterical" as she ran along the path toward the bridge.

"Someone took my baby in a pram, a red Mountain Buggy," Ms Lucas told witnesses.

...and so on. Another moron with a mobile.

Surprisingly you appear to be quite Safe in OZ

And this is why "direct benefit" is a completely useless metric, and in fact isn't applied to most of the rest of a business's operations. A/C and heating, for example, don't provide a direct benefit except for industrial controls, yet most businesses see the value in providing a comfortable work environment to employees.

By the same token, the studies are now old news that have shown that employees who take "mental breaks" with Facebook and friends are more productive and that external communications channels are becoming increasingly valuable to businesses.

It's the same old story: Centralized policymaking suffers from a chronic lack of both information and imagination, and policies like global whitelists essentially kill off many useful innovations.

President Chavez "socialism, the other ghost that is probably wandering around this room, that’s the way to save the planet, capitalism is the road to hell....let’s fight against capitalism and make it obey us.” He won a standing ovation.

http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/putting_our_economy_in_the_hands_of_chavez_fans What does that have to do with the technical problem of global warming? Absolutely nothing. For a better example of how everyone can cooperate see the battle against CFC emissions. That was a much more scientifically proven problem and thanks to the Montreal Protocol http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montreal_Protocol is now a problem under control. It didn't devolve into "evil capitalists destroying the environment" and "lets destroy all air conditions and refrigerators". There was a problem, then a technical fix.

this comment attempts to tar environmental activists as supporters of a murderous socialist

Need more than this? How about this?

Here's one source... there are many others.
I remember the "massive hurricane season" which.. well it didn't happen. Not even close.
I'm not against the idea of global warming. But I'm very skeptical of it and of the huge amounts of money and high costs that will be put on me for little gain. The fact is, the climate changes. At some point, it's going to get hot or cold and there will be nothing we can do about it short of a trillion mirrors/screens to manipulate our solar input more directly.

http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/column_the_10_worst_warming_predictions/

About half way down I started keeping some excerpts but follow the link and the rest is there for the first ones.

1. OUR CITIES WILL DIE OF THIRST

2. OUR REEF WILL DIE

3. GOODBYE, NORTH POLE

4. BEWARE HUGE WINDS (This is the hurricane warning)

5. GIANT HAILSTONES WILL SMASH THROUGH YOUR ROOF

6. NO MORE SKIING ...
It also confirmed the finding of a study last year in the International Journal of Climatology that the 22 most cited global warming models could not "accurately explain the (global) climate from the recent past".

7. PERTH WILL BAKE DRY

THE CSIRO last year claimed Perth was "particularly vulnerable" and had a 90 per cent chance of getting less rain and higher temperatures.

"There are not many other parts of the world where the IPCC has made a prediction that a drop in rainfall is highly likely," it said.

In fact, Perth has just had its coldest and wettest November since 1991.

Lesson: As I said, don't trust the CSIRO's model or its warnings.
8. ISLANDS WILL DROWN

THE seas will rise up to 100m by 2100, claims ABC Science Show host Robyn Williams. Six metres, suggests Al Gore. So let's take in "climate refugees" from low-lying Tuvalu, says federal Labor. And ban coastal development, says the Brumby Government.

In fact, while the seas have slowly risen since the last ice age, before man got gassy, they've stopped rising for the last two, according to data from the Jason-1 satellite.

"There is no evidence for accelerated sea-level rises," the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute declared last month.

Lesson: Trust the data, not the politicians.
9. BRITAIN WILL SWELTER
(this one is snarky so I don't agree with the author - they failed a 3 month prediction so he's invalidating their 100 year models-- I'm not sure that is fair, sometimes you can predict the "general" sweep of things but not the specific day to day events)

10. WE'LL BE HOTTER

SPEAKING of the Met, it has so far predicted 2001, 2002, 2004, 2005 and 2007 would be the world's hottest or second-hottest year on record, but nine of the past 10 years it predicted temperatures too high.

In fact, the Met this month conceded 2008 would be the coldest year this century. ...
Lesson: Something is wrong with warming models that predict warming in a cooling world, especially when we're each year pumping out even more greenhouse gases. Be sceptical.

Mod parent up: http://www.news.com.au/technology/story/0,28348,25727106-5014239,00.html