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You may not know the full story here and it would be laborious to explain it fully. However the costing of the original NBN was budgeted and the time line worked out. Delays came about because of the reluctance (politically motivated) by Telstra to sell their pipes to the NBN. That took around 2 years and many millions of dollars.
Now, FTTH (FTTP) has been degraded to FTTN (node) and copper wires from the node to the premises! WTF?
Here's an apt quote:
"Shadow communications minister Jason Clare used Mr Hackett's comments to attack the Coalition's policy.
"Malcolm Turnbull sacked the NBN Co board because they didn't agree with him," he said. "A year and half later, Turnbull's hand-picked replacement has come to the same conclusion - his second-rate copper NBN is a dud." http://www.smh.com.au/business...
Not only that, but a public infrastructure project run by the government is now in the hands of 3rd party developers using old (VDSL) technology.
So when sense finally comes, all that VDSL (which has to be separately powered on street corner fridge sized boxes) needs to be ripped out. More time wasted and less bandwidth for the next decade at least.
So much for the original vision of superfast connections to over 90% of the homes in Australia.
Now Turnbull is no chump. Maybe he was forced into an alternate version of the NBN by the Liberals and is pushing this ahead, against the advice of every tech head out there. He knows it's wrong but he has no choice but follow a damaged policy.

[Proof needed]. What fucking sense does it make for the NSA to spy on Brazil's deep-ocean oil drilling technologies if not for giving that info to American* companies?

* Gee, I wonder if Bush's family wouldn't benefit from that info. Noooo, that kind of corruption does not exist, the government is pristine.

There was a similar case like this in Australia where the Australian Federal Police were spying in order to gain advantage in a gas resources deal with poor - and recently "liberated" - neighbor East Timor. When it came to light, the Australian lawyer representing East Timor was roughed up and had documents seized.

These are just the cases we hear about. Presumably the secret service manage to keep their operations secret some of the time.

Here are some quick links found by searching for 'wealth by gender'. NONE of them support your premise:

http://www.stuffyoushouldknow....
http://www.mariko-chang.com/sh...
http://www.nytimes.com/roomfor...
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pu...
http://www.smh.com.au/national...

Growing Antarctic sea ice limiting access to continent http://www.smh.com.au/environm...

Corporate tax inquiry: BHP reveals effective tax rate in Singapore

BHP Billiton has revealed the true extent of its sweetheart deal with tax authorities in Singapore.

The miner is paying an incredibly low effective tax rate of just 0.002 per cent - or effectively nothing - on the billions of dollars in sales that it directs through its "marketing hub" in the low-tax nation.

This person is a hack. What he is seeing is a well-documented effect that is not that new. For example
        http://www.smh.com.au/it-pro/w...
describes it well. The problem is basically that the dating-game is not worthwhile playing for the more dependable "beta males" anymore, (who are perfect for founding a family), because younger women all go for the alphas and because whenever something goes wrong with a marriage or relationship with children, these days the man is the one that will get screwed over by the legal system. The betas have arranged themselves with this and found alternatives. ("Women - can't live with them, _can_ live without them.") Porn is a substitute, not a cause. And it saves all that tedious and stupid "romance" thing. (Not all women want that stupidity, some just want a decent guy. These are rare though.) Same for gaming. It is entertainment. It tickles your fantasy life and it is often quite the opposite of solitary. The whole traditional role model thing is just not attractive for men anymore and there are plenty of alternate ways to live your life. For example, working less than full-time and doing interesting things with the time you gain and still living well.

That Zimbardo apparently completely misses this is just pathetic. Do not listen to this person. He is a conservative traditionalist that regards any deviation from the established "normal" patterns as pathological.
   

From http://www.smh.com.au/national...:

Newman has long sold himself as an intellectual maverick and independent thinker. "He gets mileage out of his climate scepticism," says a former senior Liberal. "It suits him to sustain it."

Newman's assertions - climate scientists call them "zombie arguments", because they keep on popping up - have all been comprehensively debunked, repeatedly and in detail, by national academies of science around the world, including the US National Academy of Sciences, the American Geophysical Union, the Royal Society of London and the Australian Academy of Science. Andy Pitman, a climate scientist from the University of NSW, tells me that, "Newman's arguments are so wrong they are inconsistent with some fundamental laws of physics."

At least he's doing something practical, unlike the idiot we have here in Oz.

    http://www.smh.com.au/content/...

Russian analyst urges nuclear attack on Yellowstone National Park and San Andreas fault line

A Russian geopolitical analyst says the best way to attack the United States is to detonate nuclear weapons to trigger a supervolcano at Yellowstone National Park or along the San Andreas fault line on California's coast.

The president of the Academy of Geopolitical Problems based in Moscow, Konstantin Sivkov said in an article for a Russian trade newspaper on Wednesday, VPK News, that Russia needed to increase its military weapons and strategies against the "West" which was "moving to the borders or Russia".

He has a conspiracy theory that NATO - a political and military alliance which counts the US, UK, Canada and many countries in western Europe as members - was amassing strength against Russia and the only way to combat that problem was to attack America's vulnerabilities to ensure a "complete destruction of the enemy".

"Geologists believe that the Yellowstone supervolcano could explode at any moment. There are signs of growing activity there. Therefore it suffices to push the relatively small, for example the impact of the munition megaton class to initiate an eruption. The consequences will be catastrophic for the United States - a country just disappears," he said.

"Another vulnerable area of the United States from the geophysical point of view, is the San Andreas fault - 1300 kilometers between the Pacific and North American plates ... a detonation of a nuclear weapon there can trigger catastrophic events like a coast-scale tsunami which can completely destroy the infrastructure of the United States."

Full story

Russian analyst urges nuclear attack on Yellowstone National Park and San Andreas fault line

A Russian geopolitical analyst says the best way to attack the United States is to detonate nuclear weapons to trigger a supervolcano at Yellowstone National Park or along the San Andreas fault line on California's coast.

The president of the Academy of Geopolitical Problems based in Moscow, Konstantin Sivkov said in an article for a Russian trade newspaper on Wednesday, VPK News, that Russia needed to increase its military weapons and strategies against the "West" which was "moving to the borders or Russia".

He has a conspiracy theory that NATO - a political and military alliance which counts the US, UK, Canada and many countries in western Europe as members - was amassing strength against Russia and the only way to combat that problem was to attack America's vulnerabilities to ensure a "complete destruction of the enemy".

"Geologists believe that the Yellowstone supervolcano could explode at any moment. There are signs of growing activity there. Therefore it suffices to push the relatively small, for example the impact of the munition megaton class to initiate an eruption. The consequences will be catastrophic for the United States - a country just disappears," he said.

"Another vulnerable area of the United States from the geophysical point of view, is the San Andreas fault - 1300 kilometers between the Pacific and North American plates ... a detonation of a nuclear weapon there can trigger catastrophic events like a coast-scale tsunami which can completely destroy the infrastructure of the United States."

Full story

No, nobody has noticed that:

http://www.smh.com.au/business...

They're just imaginging things. The data says it's bullshit.

Old Coal plants are more often replaced with New Coal plants than they are with wind or solar.

In Australia, we seem to be doing a little better. We haven't had new coal for a while (and we have enormous brown coal deposits). And from today's news, a report of increased efficiency to put solar in line with coal

It is the same Indians that are mass-protesting in response to rapes,

And the same Indians who form lynch mobs, breaking the accused out of prison and dragging them down the street to their death?

http://www.smh.com.au/world/wo...

Although, that only seems to happen to racial minorities in Northern India.

If you're going to make the argument that we should ban sports because they harm players then we should ban sports like Gridiron, rugby and horse riding.

Hell, you could argue that other professional sports such as swimming, bike riding, and track are dangerous because they encourage the use of sport's enhancing drugs.

The US is positioning US marines in Australia, fully armed and munitioned (so called firing range practice), as a measure against China .... Hmm, to me it sounds like more the number you would need to take over and occupy the Australian government parliament should they disobey.

You poor soul.

Australia counters Chinese threat
Ascendant China spurs increased military spending in Australia

There is a very large gap between your thinking and reality. Think of the Marines as a "trip wire" protecting Australia.

Why, when the funny version is available on YouTube?

A local one from the other week: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SVEkK_ZhKQo

The local intelligentsia have been doing this on and off since at least 2008:
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/now-theyre-robbing-with-gas-atms-blown-up/2008/11/18/1226770451062.html

Just ask the Australian Electricity Industry.

There's significant coin to be made in renting poles and charging municipalities large sums for "maintenance costs"

eg: http://www.smh.com.au/business...

Use that while you can.

In NSW, the right to silence was dealt a blow similar to laws they have in the UK.

In a nutshell, the new law "encourages" those arrested to open their hearts to the police, and yap away.
Because anything not offered to the police can potentially subsequently be deemed inadmissible in your trial.

This was opposed by civil rights groups and even the LEGAL PROFESSION ... but objections fell on deaf ears.

Actually, our Prime Minister is doing just that.

In 2010, Tony Abbott, when asked about Asylum seekers arriving in Australia, he said "Jesus knew that there was a place for everything and it’s not necessarily everyone’s place to come to Australia" Source: http://www.abc.net.au/tv/qanda...

He then legislated on this basis and proposed a range of immigration policy changes.

That proposed immigration policy has recently been found to be in contravention of UN human rights law. Source: http://www.smh.com.au/federal-...

So yes, at least one Christian person is committing international human rights violations in the name of his religion - unfortunately, it happens to be the most powerful man in Australia.

As a fraudster who fled his home country, assaulted customers of his "spiritual healing" practice and may have arranged tomurder his ex-wife, he wasn't much chop as a Muslim, either.

What? Your argument started off by saying, essentially, no it's not just 1 it's 149 locations this morning... I would like to see links to that, not links from 2006 about 'jihadi support' or whatever nonsense you're trying to inject into the thread.

Here's some additional information, ie. busting your obvious bullshit and towing of the line, with facts:

http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/mart...

Your basic AC power cord is ancient by the standards of electronic gizmos and by far the simplest thing going into a modern laptop.

Simple is it?

Yes - 2 plugs with up to 3 pins, wires inbetween.

How many different countries around the world use how many different plugs?

What an odd question... how many countries that are different have plugs that are different from each other... Not sure, but I think there are a couple of countries that have two different plug standards.
I think you were asking how many different power plugs are there in the world, and I dont know, but it are quite a few - go count them if you want. Fact is, the plug is used to provide a connection between the pins in a wall socket to wires on the other side. These wires carry electricity - really not that complex. Just because the there are other countries that have a socket that looks different, does not mean that it works differently.

How many different standards do they need to be manufactured to?

Usually the one - unless it is one of those countries that have two different sockets, whereby they would have two specifications.

How many different power loads,

pretty much two - almost everywhere uses 110V 60hz or 230V 50Hz. there are slight variations, and a few countries that use oddball voltages, but it still all between 100V and 250V

how much over-design,

Not much to think about. Make a cable that can handle more than the maximum loads required and it will support those below.

which chemicals need to be used, and what design needs to be applied?

I'm reasonably sure that there are a lot of countries that will have these specifications written down. Find what exceeds the most stringent countries specification, and again you will have no issues for the rest.

A power cord is simple device to look at. Producing power cords for a wide variety of countries to meet a wide variety of standards is not so easy.

I disagree. You have two choices - you can make a separate cable for each country, and have them QC to each countries specifications (or *gasp* buy locally and support local business), or you make a cable for everywhere that will exceed the highest requirements of everywhere, and get it checked in every country.

Then there's the quality control issue. Some 40000 houses in Australia need to be rewired due to the recent use of a powercord by a specific company which failed to meet Australian standards due to a specific component missing the plastic insulation.

I heard about that, Infinity cable. ACCC made major wholesalers/retailers do recalls. Unfortunately electricians and builders bought and installed it in houses for while before any flags were raised, and it still took time before recalls were actually made. link: Sydney Morning Herald

This same manufacturer has produced power cords for the local market for years and has other product lines that didn't have this problem.

What? Where does this come from? Is there some other similar case I haven't heard about?
The only case like this in Australia that I know of involved INFINITY CABLE CO. PTY LTD. They imported 4000km of cable from china and sold it to everyone. They did not make it. They bought cheap wire from another country and sold it for a profit. They opened late 2009, sold the wire in 2010, found out, taken to court and went into liquidation in 2013. Hardly a long-term record.

The issue is there is no single power cord, there's only a standard, one for each country, and it's up to a designer to design and specify all components of this

In my opinion, the most obvious and interesting theory [maxkeiser.com] is that Putin's plane was near the same air space close to the same time as MH17 ...

Your sense of what is "obvious" might be a bit off.

Web evidence points to pro-Russia rebels in downing of MH17 (+video)

Igor Girkin, a Ukrainian separatist leader also known as Strelkov, claimed responsibility on a popular Russian social-networking site for the downing of what he thought was a Ukrainian military transport plane shortly before reports that Malaysian Airlines Flight MH17 had crashed near the rebel held Ukrainian city of Donetsk.

MH17 disaster: Social media posts, phone recording used to blame Russian separatists

Social media posts by pro-Russian insurgents - most of them hastily removed - suggest the rebels thought they had shot down a Ukrainian army plane before realising in horror that it was in fact a packed Malaysian airliner.

Ukraine and MH17: Who are the separatists?

On Thursday evening a Russian social media page linked to the rebels announced they had knocked down a Ukrainian An-26, adding, “We warned them – don’t fly ‘in our sky’”. The post – which was accompanied by distant video-shots of smoke rising after an apparent crash – was later removed, but it has stoked suspicions that pro-Russian militiamen shot the Malaysian Airlines jet by mistake.

The evidence that may prove pro-Russian separatists shot down MH17

Deadly Ukraine Crash: German Intelligence Claims Pro-Russian Separatists Downed MH17

Putin's plane was an hour away.

This could have been a simple, yet tragic, case of mistaken identity.

It was, but not as you apparently intend. It wasn't the Ukrainians trying to shoot down Putin and being mistaken but rather the "separatists" shooting at what they mistakenly assumed was a Ukrainian aircraft.

Australia's obviously not a prison anymore; it's not being run by a corporation.

Then why are we being constantly monitored, and why are our laws being written by US and multinational companies?

http://www.smh.com.au/digital-...
http://www.choice.com.au/revie...

I don't remember what I did to deserve this treatment, but it must have been fucking diabolical.

The FRA has always been close to the NSA and GCHQ. A close third party to the 5 eye nations.
Cable collection, an expansion of collection sites shared with the NSA, Tailored Access Operations, Quantum, help with telecommunications.
Sweden helps US spy on Russia, Snowden leaks show December 6, 2013
http://www.smh.com.au/world/sw...
"excerpt of a larger document showing Sweden’s status as a closely allied “Third-party partner”"
http://www.svt.se/ug/read-the-... (11 december 2013)
https://www.eff.org/nsa-spying... has a few Sweden links to media reports.

Ah no. I have to say citation needed. Coal demand is increasing not decreasing.

1990 coal production - 4677mt
2013 Coal production - 7823mt.

Coal mines are only shutting if they were borderline operations. Do not confuse closing a mine that is uneconomical at the current price, a price that is the result of a world wide economic down turn, with a longer term move away from coal.

ref - http://www.smh.com.au/environm...

Thats why a new net tax is needed to help with the costs.
"Secret government briefing admits metadata law cost and warns of 'internet tax' campaign" (October 30, 2014) (video)
http://www.smh.com.au/federal-...
AFP will use data retention to fight piracy (Oct 30, 2014)
http://www.itnews.com.au/News/...
""Generally they do this in real-time, so the two years of holding this data probably doesn't make a lot of difference. That process of resolving an IP address to an account name is relevant, and it happens all the time.""
Government introduces data retention bill to Parliament (30 October, 2014 )
https://www.computerworld.com....
"source of communication, destination of communication, date, time and duration of communication, or of its connection to a relevant service, type of a
communication, or a type of relevant service used in connection with a communication, location of equipment, or a line, used in connection with a communication"
Thats not "web browsing" history :) Just most details surrounding the content :)

A long time went between the discovery and the fix available to the public. The ignorance and history rewriting is getting painful to watch in these comments.

http://www.smh.com.au/it-pro/s...

You mean like that wanna-be 17 year old terrorist who stabbed two officers and ended up getting shot for his trouble? Seems to me that they did the right thing in that case after all, but let's look at europe. France has no-go zones, norway has them, sweden has them. Of course we can't forget the rape jihad either, and it's even hitting the courts where the defendants are claiming it's "part of their religious duty to do so." I believe you had one in Australia a few months back, might have been last year.

After all here in Canada we've had 18 muslims who wanted to cut the heads off of everyone in parliament, another muslim that wanted to let off 50+ bombs in Ontario, another muslim that wanted to derail a VIA train. The three teens from london that ran off and were nailed at the oil refinery somewhere in Africa. Then we've got the mosques indoctrinating youth, and they go off deciding that they want to fight "for an islamic state" so far we're just revoking their passports.

Yeah it seems like we don't have any problems or anything. I'm not saying what they did was right, but pretending that there aren't issues with the muslim communities is just burying your head in the sand.

With Stephen Harper in charge the Canadian government doesn't look much different than the US's these days.

Well at least he's no Tony Abbott. We actually made an effort (admittedly by a lying politician who said she won't introduce a carbon tax), only to roll backwards only a few years later.

Quote from Australian Politician (and mining rich guy) Clive Palmer ".. because they shoot their own people, they haven't got a justice system and they want to take over this country,"

I thought at first he could have talking about the US, especially after spending time reading Slashdot lately .

But of course it was China and he has since apologized: http://www.smh.com.au/federal-...

Ironically, they are actually doing something similar to this in some Asian countries (well, minus the "copter" part), as "McDelivery".

They trialled this in Australia a while ago and people carried on like it was going to end western civilisation - oh, wait...

If I'm going to plug something into the mains, and then hold it in my hand, I'm damn well going to spend some cash on it:

http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/warn...

What, common sense? No, no, no! You have completely misunderstood what this fight is about!

In other news, women are waking up to the little side-effects of requiring equal representation everywhere (instead of the sane "gender-neutral opportunity" -- "equal" opportunity is not doable, as talents, interests and education differ between individuals): http://www.smh.com.au/federal-... Of course, if there are no differences between the sexes (yeah, right...), then this is all imaginary.

But if you pet them , you are in range of their teeth. http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/n... http://www.smh.com.au/environm...

Internet of things, huh? I think I'll wait a generation or two until they hammer out the worst of the security issues. One of the latest missteps was caused by a smart bulb that embedded the encryption key in the firmware. Oops. Yeah, no one would think to look there, right? There's likely going to be an entire generation of devices that will have the same sort of flaws that early wireless routers had - essentially, the result of average programmers (i.e. non-cryptographic experts) trying to invent cryptographic solutions.

You are not buying stuff at the same price as 6 years ago, maybe you should actually pay attention to the receipts.

beef, pork, avocado, fruits, veggies, almonds, pinenuts, walnuts, mozarella, cheddar, other cheeses, seafood, grains, soy, soy, palm oil, milk, gasoline, beer and more beer, limes, canadian bacon, barley, restaurants, restaurants, restaurants,electrical energy, car rentals, hotel rooms, cab fairs,

air travel and air travel gets more expensive in many other ways, various extra fees, less room, more seats on planes

aluminium,

Adjusting the timetable is a short-sighted fix. A real visionary redefines the meaning of late.

The only people claiming the carbon tax wasn't working were Coalition politicians (and their apologists), and the companies who didn't want to have to cover the external costs of their businesses. Fact is, it was starting to work quite well, despite the damping effect of Abbott attacking it with all the FUD he could muster.

And now we have economists scratching their heads as to why a conservative government would attack a market-based climate solution while favouring a big direct-action spending program instead:

Roger Jones, a Research Fellow at the Victoria Institute of Strategic Economic Studies, called the repeal "the perfect storm of stupidity".

"It's hard to imagine a more effective combination of poor reasoning and bad policy making," he said.

"A complete disregard of the science of climate change and its impacts. Bad economics and mistrust of market forces."

... is good for the gander

Israeli propaganda war hits social media

Why would you assume he would compensate people for something that was being removed?

Maybe because before the election, Abbott promised to keep those tax cuts after repealing the carbon tax?

But you are right, I didn't assume it would stay. At time Abbott was making a whole pile of promises and he could not keep then all - balance the budget, reduce taxes, keep all the benefits those taxes paid for. But by that time hearing him make promises he could not keep was no surprise. It was clear by then the man would say anything, do anything, prostitute anything (including the sexuality of his daughter) in order to get into power.

Amazingly this extraordinary behaviour got worse after he was elected. (Amazing to me anyway. I didn't think it was possible.) First we had a promise to be an open transparent government, then a week or two later we learnt a phrase: "on water matters". Who still remembers the no surprises, no excuses government speech he gave after being elected. Probably not too many, given the shock the first last budget inflicted.

When it comes to Tone Abbott it's hard to limit yourself to just one or two examples of stupidity, but one of the more impressive fuckups was that he's so rabidly supportive of Sri Lanka's questionable government, that even the UK and USA are getting annoyed.

These are probably melted pingos. http://www.smh.com.au/world/op...

Surely they wouldn't use the services of a country as untrustworthy as Russia! I have confidence that they'll send it to a legitimate democracy for review, like their close ally Sri Lanka.

Agreed, plus spreadsheets and some web pages are best viewed in landscape mode.

It looks like the Blackberry habit of using hard keyboards has stymied their designers. Perhaps Blackberry could learn from the good old dopod.

but it is likely the demands the Directorate will place on Uber drivers, such as mandatory criminal record checks, vehicle inspections and insurance, will make the service in Melbourne unviable.

Those aren't unreasonable demands of someone wanting to carry passengers for hire. They are checks that pretty much the entire Western world has come up with after numerous problems with unsafe, uninsured and unsavoury taxi drivers. If this is enough to make Uber unviable, then I wouldn't want to be one of their investors.

You sound oh so reasonable. Pity you didn't mention that currently the only recognised way of having those checks is to buy a taxi licence. That licence costs around $30,000 per year.

It is the $30K per year that would make UberX unviable. It has no relationship to the cost of doing those checks. I have no doubt Uber will go to the and say "Look, sure, we can ask the drivers to send us the relevant certificates before we allocate them jobs. A roadworthy (which is what we in Australia call a vehicle inspection) is around $100, and they can sends us the paid insurance bill." The answer will be a resounding no, at which point is will be become obvious it has nothing do to with "safety checks".

One possible explanation of the $30K is it is protection money, charged by the government to protect the incumbents. Who, by the way, meet the definition of a monopoly. Quoting http://www.smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/apps-put-nsw-taxi-monopoly-in-doubt-20121102-28nv6.html:

University of Sydney economist Peter Abelson said Premier and Cabcharge were so interlinked that "it's not really a duopoly, it's almost a monopoly and between them they control about 80 per cent of the cabs on Sydney streets".

A government fining emerging competition to an incumbent monopoly, presumable because of regulatory capture doesn't sound so reasonable, does it? In fact it pisses me off so much, I deliberately travel using these upstarts even if it is less convenient, which it often is.

April 25th, from an article in a major newspaper..

The Victorian transport minister has warned off people from driving others around for a fee in their own car using a new "ride-sharing" feature in the smartphone app Uber.

"The TSC is currently investigating this practice and will take appropriate action if such activity is detected in Victoria," Mr Mulder's spokeswoman said. "All taxi and hire car drivers go through a rigorous accreditation process before they are allowed to drive a taxi or hire car – this is for both the safety of drivers and passengers.

On the face of it, Mr Samuel believed that Uber was not complying with the Victorian public transport legislation.
"If they are not complying with the law we'll prosecute," he said.
To comply, Mr Samuel said Uber would need to obtain a $40,000 private hire car licence for unlimited vehicles and have accredited drivers.

I'd say that was sufficient warning.

Same here, I had a recall for my 2002 Ford Ranger a few years ago. I haven't owned that truck since 2007.
The recall had something to do with an ignition switch catching fire...even when the vehicle was not in use. Last I checked I don't think anyone's comp was at risk of bursting into flames due to a security patch not being installed.
Car comparisons won't work on this because if cars aren't recalled for dangerous flaws, owners and other people are in danger of injury or death. The only way my computer is going to kill someone is if i use it to beat them to death with it
(or if I play games on it for days on end.)
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/new...
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/new...
http://www.smh.com.au/articles...
And there are a shit ton more articles on that topic...

Reminds me of a translation of a sign I saw in Ukraine: "If you become part of Russia, you won't be speaking Russian - you'll be silent in Russian."

A large portion of the problem is Putin's crackdown on the press. As bad as the state of a free press often seems in the west, it's nothing compared to Russia where pretty much all opposition to Putin has been eliminated. They're now ranked 148th in world press freedom, worse than half of Africa.

Whatever is the current propaganda message, it gets echoed relentlessly. Just the other day they had the same Ukranian guy (Andrey Petkov) on three different stations, but they didn't even bother to give him the same story on each. On NTV, he was a German spy smuggling money to support the anti-Russian protesters. On Rossiya 1, he was a repentent pro-Ukraine extremest who converted to the pro-Russian side after having been savagely beaten by fellow protesters. In yet another segment he was a neo-Nazi surgeon supporting the new Ukranian government.

Probably the funniest bit of propaganda was after an attack on a pro-Russian checkpoint. They all broadcast images of the two totally burned-out cars which they said that members of Right Sector drove up in to attack it. They then presented piles of American money, satellite images, and a business card with the name of the leader of Right Sector on it, among a bunch of other stuff. Just ignoring the absurdity of right-wing assault groups roaming around carrying business cards of their leader (with a fake phone number on them), the funny part was that everything that they presented was pristine - not only unburned, but altogether undamaged. Whatever material Right Sector makes their leaders' business cards out of that can survive a car-gutting fire, please, disclose it immediately so we can use it for fireproofing! It's gotten lots of coverage; the card now has its own Know Your Meme entry ;)

As funny as it is, a large portion of the Russian public just takes this sort of stuff at face value. The media keeps repeating the same mantra: "Ukranian neo-nazi extremists overthrew the government and are assaulting innocent Russians". So when international reporters first-hand witness the "little green men" throwing molotov cocktails at a peace rally full of children, it doesn't matter, it gets reported in Russia as "rival protest groups clashed" or even "pro-Russian protesters repel an attack", and there's nobody on the airwaves to say otherwise.

Very true.

France, join the club: Apple, Google facing tax crackdown