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Damn. Now I'll have to update my authorized_particles file!

Kevin Rudd is that you?

Case in point - last night Tony Abbott cracked a funny about Kevin Rudd being a better advocate for celibacy than Kate Ellis - http://www.pm.gov.au/team/ministers.cfm scroll down to see them side by side and make up your own mind. Ellis almost came out and agreed with Abbott before she started laughing.

Some of them take it on the chin and I have to give credit for that. Malcolm Turnbull's appearance some time ago gave me new respect for the man.

Replying to myself here. Here's the contact details for relevant ministers:

Senator the Hon Stephen Conroy
Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy
DEPUTY LEADER OF THE GOVERNMENT IN THE SENATE
Parliamentary office
Suite MG70
Parliament House
Canberra ACT 2600
Tel: 02 6277 7480
Fax: 02 6273 4154
Email address can be found here

The Hon Kevin Rudd MP
Prime Minister Parliament House
CANBERRA ACT 2600
Or use this contact form

Our illustrious leader has the jump on the US. He already started muzzling scientists at the CSIRO in February or even earlier. The Man of Steel has been shoulder-to-shoulder, "fighting the good fight" with GWB on behalf of anyone who wants to sell oil or coal

The CSIRO is a department of the Australian Government.

Does Australian Prime Minister John Howard really think the American Government is going to standby and let him gauge, threat and intimidate US corporations? I don't think so. Why don't you write and tell him?

http://www.pm.gov.au/email.cfm

Howard is a notorious Bush brown-noser anyway. In that linked paper last week he called for America to stay in Iraq. Ok for him. It's Americans doing the dying. Watch out John. If you upset George, he might not invite you to any more BBQs. Then you won't have any friends left at all.

The site was hosted on Yahoo and the domain name registeres with Melbourne IT. The site is still on Yahoo's servers and can be downloaded using an IP address and an absolute URL (so their virtual server knows which website you want. By way of explanation, here is something I previously submitted as a story:

At the request of the Australian government, domain name registrar Melbourne IT has removed DNS entries for a political opponent of a ruling political party and its policies in Iraq.

Richard Neville created a parody of one of the Australian Prime Minister's speeches and posted it on a the website www.johnhowardpm.org. After a day the website mysteriously disappeared from the Internet. Melbourne IT, domain registrar for johnhowardpm.org, and Yahoo, the website host, both denied knowledge.

Tim Longhurst has been investigating. After two days two anonymous Melbourne IT technicians have come forward and told him that "johnhowardpm.org" was removed from DNS at the request of representatives from the Australian government, without the knowledge of the domain owner. Normal proceedure is for the domain owner to at least be notified.

Australian Internet users can no longer read www.johnhowardpm.org. Yahoo's DNS server (yns1.yahoo.com) still resolves johnhowardpm.org and the pages still exist on Yahoo's server (premium7.geo.vip.re4.yahoo.com = 216.39.58.74). They may be retrieved by sending a http GET request using telnet, or by setting one's HTTP proxy to 216.39.58.74 and typing "http://www.johnhowardpm.org/" into a browser address bar.

Given that the parody was not obscene, and its facts were well backed with references the only justification seems to be political censorship by Melbourne IT and the Australian government. The Internet equivalent of a political assassination to shut someone up.

If "The Net treats censorship as a defect and routes around it.", what is the future for Melbourne IT as a registrar? The High Court of Australia has also ruled that the Australian Constitution contains a right to freedom of political speech.

The site was hosted on Yahoo and the domain name registeres with Melbourne IT. The site is still on Yahoo's servers and can be downloaded using an IP address and an absolute URL (so their virtual server knows which website you want. By way of explanation, here is something I previously submitted as a story:

At the request of the Australian government, domain name registrar Melbourne IT has removed DNS entries for a political opponent of a ruling political party and its policies in Iraq.

Richard Neville created a parody of one of the Australian Prime Minister's speeches and posted it on a the website www.johnhowardpm.org. After a day the website mysteriously disappeared from the Internet. Melbourne IT, domain registrar for johnhowardpm.org, and Yahoo, the website host, both denied knowledge.

Tim Longhurst has been investigating. After two days two anonymous Melbourne IT technicians have come forward and told him that "johnhowardpm.org" was removed from DNS at the request of representatives from the Australian government, without the knowledge of the domain owner. Normal proceedure is for the domain owner to at least be notified.

Australian Internet users can no longer read www.johnhowardpm.org. Yahoo's DNS server (yns1.yahoo.com) still resolves johnhowardpm.org and the pages still exist on Yahoo's server (premium7.geo.vip.re4.yahoo.com = 216.39.58.74). They may be retrieved by sending a http GET request using telnet, or by setting one's HTTP proxy to 216.39.58.74 and typing "http://www.johnhowardpm.org/" into a browser address bar.

Given that the parody was not obscene, and its facts were well backed with references the only justification seems to be political censorship by Melbourne IT and the Australian government. The Internet equivalent of a political assassination to shut someone up.

If "The Net treats censorship as a defect and routes around it.", what is the future for Melbourne IT as a registrar? The High Court of Australia has also ruled that the Australian Constitution contains a right to freedom of political speech.

I'm reminded of John Howard's apology in The Games. Except that in that apology the distinguished, official-looking gentleman delivering the speech never claimed to be anybody other than John Howard, speaking from Sydney Australia.

This was perfectly true: he really was John Howard, just not the John Howard. But few people outside of Australia know what the John Howard who hangs out in Canberra looks like...

...laura

"If we receive a complaint from an intellectual property basis claiming that a website directly infringes the rights of another site we would check it, and if it is a direct copy we would suspend the site," he said.

"To us it looks like a phishing site."

They try, but I don't buy them, nor do any of my friends (except for like Green Day and Jet...they are some of the few good bands which are/were on the charts).

There's gotta be someone here who buys them though...if our chimp is any representation of our population, then there must be a HUGE market.

I was going to post something vaguely along those lines.
Only, rather than flaming I was thinking along the lines of...

This little Orsie apologizes for yet another example of dumbass politcal bollocks, plebian-archaic-techno regulation and rank shortsightedness from our "Representitives".

In other news, our fucked up governbent just wiped out the student union movement, leaving university student bodies down $140 million from next financial year. Why? Cos they dared to be critical of a government that kills off any chance of education for the masses and when the workforce discovers that skilled labor is in short supply, the PM calls in more immigrants. Stupid fucking cunt Howard. </rant>

The MPAA still has to go through the Oz legal system for the extradition. Not everyone there wishes brown-nose their way to the US like John Howard and it would be fun to seem the MPAA having to pay costs.

Email Info @ netharbour.com.au and tell them you don't like spam and you won't eat it!

If you live in Bennelong, send John Howard your comments here! (If you aren't sure whether you live in Bennelong, maybe you should send him a message that you don't like spam, and can he please check if you live in Bennelong?)

Also, you can go here to email the Prime Minister. Tell him what you think about spam.

I'd like to see the Prime Minister flooded with complaints about his spamming, to discourage him from ever doing this again.

which also features a form for sending him (his office staff) a message.

Although perhaps I should have thought about this before posting to /. - given the close relationship between John Howard and George W Bush, I may well find myself on a do not fly list next time I'm in the USA!.

Irrespective of your political beliefs (which have left out deliberately) spam is spam is spam is annoying.

Cheers,

Boricle.

which also features a form for sending him (his office staff) a message.

Although perhaps I should have thought about this before posting to /. - given the close relationship between John Howard and George W Bush, I may well find myself on a do not fly list next time I'm in the USA!.

Irrespective of your political beliefs (which have left out deliberately) spam is spam is spam is annoying.

Cheers,

Boricle.

We really need to make this issue stand out to the pm.

email John Howard - http://www.pm.gov.au/email.cfm

It is important we explain why patents/DCMA style laws are an issue. Australia really only has 1) natural resources 2) tourism. Tourism changes really quickly with things like SARS, and is unpredictable. We have a high adoption of IT, it's one of the best areas for growth - why are we trying to stiffle innovation in that area?

Hopefully with enough emails, he'll at least have to address the issue publicly.

Now I've found that I'm gonna keep it really busy. Hell, let's introduce the P.M. to the slashdot effect!

If you want to tease an Aussie about being patriotic, or being ignorant, ask him/her to recite the words to the second verse of our National Anthem. It's probable they won't be able to do the first verse either. (OMG - I found a lyric site with five gawd-awful verses)

Most of us like Waltzing Matilda about the sheep stealing tramp better than stuff that includes lyrics like "our land is girt by sea". Girt???

Just because there isn't a second UN Security Council resolution doesn't mean that it was necessary to have one (when the first resolution spoke of 'grave consequences' what did that mean -- watching the French quip and quibble?).

Just because the Bush Administration has failed to argue the case for war coherently and convincingly (Saddam Hussein has links to Al Quaida ... no, he tried to kill my dad ... he has nukes ... er ... well, anyway he is bad and Wolfowitz always said so) doesn't mean that e.g., Tony Blair, John Howard , Tim Collins, Timothy Garton Ash, Julie Burchill, and Christopher Hitchens haven't.

Just because the case for war isn't clearcut doesn't mean that there isn't a case to be made. After all: if we say that Mr Hussein's violation of the 1991 Gulf War cease-fire agreement, his violations of 18 UN Security Council resolutions, and his violations of the Iraqi peoples' [sic] basic human rights do not, put together, consitute a sufficiently strong case for war what exactly would?!?

'Innocent' (whatever that means) Iraqi civilians will inevitably die in this war. But is that really the same as saying that no 'innocent' Iraqi people will die if Mr Hussein is left to his own device and in power?

In the immortal words of the leftist Swedish band Hoolabandoola Band (admittedly à propos their supporting the then-guerilla the Sandinistas of Nicaragua) [I'm paraphrasing]: 'Är det verkligen fred vi vill ha? Och till varje enskilt pris?' (Is it really peace we want? And at any cost?)

It looks like the form post page is configured to display code CF for errors. Maybe the email address is somewhere in the code on that page and would be available to someone that passed in the correct parameters?

Send comments about this site to the WEBMASTER

Since we know that email to Johnny is to be sent via this page, if people are determined to send him email via an email address, why doesn't somebody set up an email->cgi gateway? It would be pretty simple to set up an email address that posts the content to http://www.pm.gov.au/admin/pm2/feedback.cfm, or replies with instructions if the required fields aren't supplied in the original email.

Providing a Feedback form rather than just an email address is a very good way of limiting the spam that the PM would receive.

The Australian constitution does guarantee freedom of religion. Freedom of speech is an issue, do a search for interesting and relevant cases here

This is great news, however the bill is too limited in scope to be really effective.

The bill should be expanded to allow the victms of all crime to directly take action against those who commit crimes against them, be it copyright infringement, property theft, assult, or murder.

Imagine a world where the RIAA can commit DOS attacks on those who they claim would infringe their copyright. Imagine a world where a rape victim could stalk and ultimately castrate her attacker. Imagine a world where parents of murdered children could take the life of the person accused of that crime.

Allowing the RIAA to DOS p2p networks is legalising revnge and retribution. Keep going down that road, and you will find the above examples. I cant beleive there are people in your government that actually believe this would be a good thing. I only hope such people dont exist in ours.... Unfortunately Im beginning to think they do.

many scholars argue that without effective guarantees of civil liberties, elections do not constitute democracy, and that a procedural minimum for defining democracy must include not only elections, but reasonably broad guarantees of basic civil rights-e.g., freedom of speech, assembly, and association.
-Democracy 'with Adjectives', by D. Collier and S. Levitsky

The paper I link to (which is academic but pretty accessible - I'm a biologist, not a political scientist) is about military juntas in south america, not Aussies.

I raise this point because I think John Howard (the prime minister of Australia) is Australian for Hitler. A modern Democracy can survive all matter of scuminess, but if this proposal goes through, Australia will need an adjective (such as crpyto or pseudo) to qualify their form of government.

Here's my suggestions as to who to contact if you want to: (I'm going to give you websites, not email address - you'll have to click through. I really don't want to instigate the /.-ing of my government :) )

You can find email addresses for ministers on this page. The Prime Minister's page is here. The Leader of the Opposition's page is here. The email address of every member of the House of reps is here. Senate addresses here. Be careful please :)
If nothing else, they're not all of the party in power...

Ministers in the government:
Hon John Howard MP, Prime Minister of Australia.
Senator the Hon Richard Alston, Minister for Communications, Information Technology and the Arts.

Shadow ministers (ie in opposition - not of the party currently in government!):
Hon Kim Beazley MP, Leader of the Opposition.
Hon Bob McMullan MP, Shadow Minister for Industry and Technology.
Senator the Hon Kate Lundy, Shadow Minister Assisting the Shadow Minister for Industry and Technology on Information Technology.

Some web pages for Australian political parties: the currently governing party (strictly, the party with a majority in the federal House of Representatives) is the Liberal Party of Australia. The party in Opposition (next greatest in numbers) is the Australian Labor Party. The party with the balance of power in the Senate is the Australian Democrats.

Calendars are a matter of human consensus - you have to look to a human authority.

I believe that the office of John Howard, Prime Minister of Australia does name Januray 1st, 2001 as The Day.

So there's our 19 million odd agreed then :)