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It would seem that the court actually does consider killing an unborn child murder.

From the top links from Google's video search:

Blackfella's Guide to New York - The Age

Blackfella's Guide to New York - Brisbane Times

Blackfella's Guide to New York - The Sydney Morning Herald

Apparently they all come from the same source, but well, let's look if Miss Tanya Steele now have the courtesy of showing herself in australian courts if she wants it removed from their servers.

Spain got upset during the Davis cup once. The national anthem from the 30s before Franco was played. Though I suspect if you'd made such a cock up in Barcelona, Catalunya there'd be bemusement and muffled applause. When I was there a few months ago, the republican flag replete with purple was visible among 'occupy' protesters.

No, we where not upset. Most of us understood that shit happens, that whoever was looking for the hymn just chose an outdated source, and that it was not a political statement from anybody. And that anyway none of us knew the Hymn of Australia, so it was a tie. Most that happened was some jokes and a little nostalgia from some people.

Of course, a couple of politics decided that they had to show off their "dedication to our country" by acting as if Australia was in the brink of declaring war against Spain, and showing what a bunch of bullocks we usually have in government. That's all.

Spain got upset during the Davis cup once. The national anthem from the 30s before Franco was played. Though I suspect if you'd made such a cock up in Barcelona, Catalunya there'd be bemusement and muffled applause. When I was there a few months ago, the republican flag replete with purple was visible among 'occupy' protesters.

For some Blackjack games, Crown casino has gotten the gambling regulators to allow the dealer to go bust, but not pay out to the players: Crown can bust and still not lose

We'll see how well it works when you have pits full of water.

With POTS, at least it has a chance to decay and fall over gracefully as opposed to fiber where it's either working or not.

You won't see legislation change until fiber has had a run in all environments. We don't want this http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/06/24/1056449242446.html happening again.

Darwin, in 1942 was bombed just as badly as Pearl Harbour was... but most people don't actually know that.
Citation - The Age

There are pious canons that Green Warriors take as unquestionable dogma, in regard to Nuclear Energy. Firstly, nuclear opponents state that nuclear energy is “... more expensive than conventional or alternative power sources...” Fortunately, in The Age, 28/04/2005, there appears an article by Lesley KEMENY containing favourable quantitative costings of nuclear power versus other sources – including waste disposal & decommissioning, see http://www.theage.com.au/news/Opinion/Going-nuclear-its-the-new-green/2005/04/27/1114462096097.html The companion opinion article on 28/04/05, by Peter GARRETT, was starkly revealed as only that - unjustified opinion. Secondly it is asserted that there are no adequate technologies “... in place to safely quarantine radioactive waste ...” This is abysmal luddite ignorance, and for better information, one should now consult the ABC news article on-line at: http://www.abc.net.au/ news/newsitems/200504/sl 346616.htm Also see: http://velocity.ansto.gov.au/velocity/ans0008/article_03.asp. These internet articles report on 25-year old Australian SYNROC technology, invented by Ted RINGWOOD, which more than matches any safety requirement for disposing nuclear waste. This technology can store the entire world’s current annual nuclear waste in a small 20metre cube, unharvestable by terrorists, buried underneath any stable Australian geology, (a mere nothing) for eons. A portable or permanent SYNROC plant set beside every reactor can immobiise its waste into a deep rock-steady mass, avoiding the necessity to transport any unstable waste overland or water. Thirdly, there is raised the spectre of Three Mile Island and Chernobyl. These were mainly political disasters, not so much as technical ones. The Luddites of this world should remember that - “The cure for BAD technology is not NO technology, but BETTER technology”. No one is going back to living in caves as some kind of halcyon rebirth! Even greenies need electricity and computers and transport to distribute their views. Yes, recyclable energy is environmentally attractive, but it can’t be developed quickly enough to cure the crises which confront our energy hungry populations. Only nuclear technology can get there in time, and one better nuclear technology is the High Temperature Gas Reactor (HTGR), which can be explored at: http://www.iaea.org/inis/aws/htgr/topics/article 04.html This reactor is intrinsically stable, and cannot “go critical” - any loss of moderator gas just causes the nuclear fires to snuff out like a candle. Fourthly, in terms of “the risk of terrorists attacking reactors”, such reactors can be buried deep underground, to minimise nuclear leakage from any militant attack. Though one notes that every kind of above ground power plant is equally vulnerable to attack, it is granted that radio-active isotopes need special protection against dispersal. Fifthly, other letter writers have expressed concern about “Nuclear Mining” – a separate topic to nuclear energy to be sure – but not so distant that it can’t be solved in one further paragraph. The concern is about Australia shipping Uranium ore to countries with poor supervisory & management schemes which might allow U238 to be diverted into a weapons program. Solution? Don’t ship the U238, refined or not, but ship the energy it represents. We know Northern Australia has abundant ore bodies of Uranium and Aluminium. So build the nuclear reactor(s) close to the Uranium ore deposits (reduced transit risks), bring the Aluminium bauxite to the reactor (which outputs abundant electricity), and smelt the bauxite into pure Alumium metal, now b

read this a few mins before reading /.

http://www.theage.com.au/technology/sci-tech/australia-in-battle-to-host-25b-telescope-20120216-1takw.html

this should be high priority.

we are bickering about a useless crap, but seriously, this one thin would be cool to have,

off topic, but love this movie , The Dish, http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0205873/ , especially the US anthem scene, sorry guys if you haven't seen it, no offence meant, just funny for us backward Australian citizens

http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2007/12/08/1196813083745.html is a quick link that references studies that showed in the early 2000's very roughly 25% of Austrailians had issues due to depressed vitamin D.

This was blamed almost entirely on the cover-up campaign. Further (and not mentioned in the article) the skin cancer rates barely budged.

Likely a lot of 18+ games will simply never hit the shelves in the original format, as parents will notice they are unsuitable for minors, rather than wallowing ignorance and buying unsuitable games for their children.

I don't think that parents will stop the 18+ games from being stocked. Most of the people I see in the computer game stores are adults. In Australia, the average age of a gamer is 32 years old. 75% of gamers are aged 18 or more. Source: Australian gamers getting older and wiser, Oct 2011, or download the full report.

As an aside, here is a suprising finding from the article:

63 per cent of gaming households play on a dedicated gaming console, 62 per cent play on PC, 43 per cent play on a mobile phone, 13 per cent on a gaming handheld and 13 per cent play games on a tablet computer.

So much for PC gaming being dead.

Even then, "The State" does not own anyone: there's never been deed or title obtained by purchase.

Throughout history many slaves have not been bought but captured. In those cases there is no deed or title obtained by purchase. Furthermore, there have been degrees and different types of slavery. Here in Australia we have had slavery convictions. From the linked article:
Justice Cummins said they had controlled the vulnerable women with ''the ever-present shadow of a minder under the veneer of a helper'', describing the scheme as ''modern slavery, not with physical chains but with mental chains''.

For many people ''the ever-present shadow of a minder under the veneer of a helper'' sounds like a very accurate description of socialist slavery. The fact that it is a form of slavery you are comfortable with doesn't make the word inappropriate.

As someone complaining about the incorrect use of words, you should have responded with the truth rather than propaganda from the "opposite side".

You're equally guilty then. Socialism =/= slavery.

How am I guilty? You yourself said my point was fair enough. There are people that regard the government control of socialism as onerous enough to be called slavery. They are not automatically wrong or stupid just because you disagree with them, with you not being the final arbiter of truth or anything like that.

End of discussion.

That you want to command a discussion to end says something about your philosophy, that you issue such a "edict" on an internet discussion board says something about your intelligence.

You may find this amusing.

They've been getting low on coal every now and then - as in burning coal faster than they can get it (from their own mines and other places). They're using so much energy that they even run out of dirty energy, so they need to reduce consumption and also add clean energy.

http://news.theage.com.au/business/china-coal-shortage-to-continue-20080116-1m7u.html
http://www.smh.com.au/business/world-business/coal-shortage-causes-power-cuts-in-china-20101221-193d5.html
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/04/18/china-power-shortage-idUSL3E7FI1ED20110418
Consuming less energy = consuming less coal = fewer power cuts = fewer pissed off people = easier and more peaceful reign for those at the top.

IIRC Japan is many times more efficient in terms of productivity (goods, GDP etc) vs energy used. So there's actually quite a lot of room for improvement in terms of energy efficiency.

They've also been working on building lots of nuclear reactors. Hope they get those right though, or there'll be major disasters (China does get big quakes).

Every time there's a census in Australia, putting "Jedi" as your religion is suggested as a fun way to mess with the system

I must admit that at first thought, this seemed like a cool idea to me, but I remember reading an analysis pointing out that it isn't such a great idea. If you're not religious, the best answer you can put is "Not religious" (atheist, agnostic, naturalist etc are filed under this by the census system)

Every non-religious person who puts "Jedi" as their religion is one extra statistic who is counted as being a religious when attempting to justify policies like compulsory religious instruction in government schools

Well The Age are claiming that a whistle blower from the ALP logged them in to the database , so they didn't use stolen credentials and can't be be said to have stolen the information. I think they were pretty silly to access the database from their office systems. If they had viewed the database from the home of their informant would a case exist at all?

Just as illegal as if they actually gained the credentials illegally in Oz.

Unauthorised access is still unauthorised access regardless of if the person who gained the credentials gained them via legal means, they were still used illegally.

Now if they had of been given the information, not the credentials by the alleged "whistle blower" (sarcastic air quotes) they might have a leg to stand on. Even in the home of the informant, they are still expected to do the right thing and not rifle through someone else's database looking for dirt.

Because of course interfering with a murder investigation of a missing schoolgirl in order to get some cheap headlines is exactly the same as reporting on whistleblower claims of dubious conduct by a political party. Right.

The latest is that The Age has prevented the police from taking the computers through legal injunction. Nice to see that occasionally this kind of madness can be stopped sometimes.

Well The Age are claiming that a whistle blower from the ALP logged them in to the database, so they didn't use stolen credentials and can't be be said to have stolen the information. I think they were pretty silly to access the database from their office systems. If they had viewed the database from the home of their informant would a case exist at all?

And when it does not works, we gave them good'ol amphetamine sulphate! http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/01/17/1042520778665.html

Do you mean like this software reverse engineerer who was extradited from Australia and jailed in the US for it?

Google + android = open source fail.

At least with Apple you generally know where you stand.........(what did I just say!??)

Steve Jobs says:'I'm going to destroy Android': - Jobs declared 'thermonuclear war' on Google

http://www.theage.com.au/technology/technology-news/im-going-to-destroy-android-jobs-declared-thermonuclear-war-on-google-20111021-1mbaq.html#ixzz1bPhM8NJY

Now the source code to android is open everyone on the planet can get IOS features (and more). We're way ahead because of Google.

No need to be an apologist for Apple. They've got enough cash to keep you in new shiny gadgets for at least 10 years. The rest of us can build and play with linux and android.

Before we start talking about space flight and getting us all excited, lets get that whole living to 150 years old thing figured out first so we can all enjoy the awesomeness of space travel before we die of over population!

And where did Apple claim that in relief? This is what Apple wanted: Samsung to stop selling certain models namely the Galaxy S and the Galaxy Tab. They didn't want in relief for Samsung to stop selling all models. Or other manufacturers to stop selling any other models. Just particular models they felt copied them.

I'll quote Apple in court yesterday (this was a different case, in Australia, but it's still Apple v Samsung): "Samsung says Galaxy Tab 10.1, we say any tablet device ... We know what may well come is another version of the tablet. It's up to our friends as to how they name it, whether they call it the Galaxy Tab 10.1 or 10.2 or 10.1s or whatever it happens to be."
Apple doesn't want an injunction against the Samsung Galaxy Tab. They want an injunction against all Samsung Tablets. Sure, they haven't gone and gotten a court order against all competing tablet devices, they've just gone after the main competitor. But in principle, they are exercising their patents to prevent any competition in the tablet space.

Samsung, by my count, sells 127 different models of phones. Apple is complaining about 2 models.

I'm not talking about phones. I'm talking about tablets. Apple is complaining about Samsung's tablets. They are effectively claiming a patent monopoly on all tablet devices.

Well of course, apparently Goldman Sachs rules the world and exists to only take advantage of opportunities to make money in spite of any consequences. So many people around the world depend on their retirement savings and superannuation tied up in this system and whether they like it or not need stupid overvalued IPOs like this to get by in the future.

I'm a Baby Boomer retiree living in Mexico. I can attest to the fact that not only is land here inexpensive but living expenses as well. Land here is No Where Near $200k US an acre.

Hah, that is nothing.... this is real art

(and the Captcha code is "stupid".... right on!)

I wonder what Nintendo has to say about all this. If I remember correctly, they tend to protect their trademarks and other intellectual property.

That newgrounds link to a cease and desist letter was an April fools joke. Skip to the end.

I wonder what Nintendo has to say about all this. If I remember correctly, they tend to protect their trademarks and other intellectual property.

http://www.theage.com.au/national/teen-shot-dead-by-police-20081211-6wtt.html

4 police, 3 fired, tried capsicum spray twice first and it didn't work.

I don't get why anyone cares if it could have been handled differently. He threatened to kill one of the police. I also don't get why no-one cares about the lousy marksmanship of the police.

You a democrat? Wouldn't the republicans like to know. You a republican? Wouldn't the democrats like to know.

Some may think you're paranoid, but check-out this article from a major Australian newspaper:

The Age investigation has revealed how Labor is building profiles of constituents based on its communications with MPs, attendance at rallies, membership of groups, letters to newspapers and through polling and surveys.
                Revealed: How the ALP keeps secret files on voters

It's a biased comparison for another obvious reason - to compare sales of one specific smartphone model from a company that sells several models to a company that sells only one. If you compare total global sales of all Samsung smartphones versus all Apple smartphones then it's about equal now. And if you include Samsung's non-smart phones, then Samsung outsells Apple.

Ahh, I see you're not good at reading, let me help you out.

You mean Conroy, not the Labor party.

Completely wrong. The beginnings of these policies started with Kim Beazley. Additionally, if it's not a Labor party policy, then you need to tell the Prime Minister that, and you might ask them to update their pages. While you can say the most recent ones are crafted and pushed by Conroy, it does have the support of "the party", where its leader and strategists speak for what the party supports.

Deputy comms minister Kate Lundy has been an outspoken critic of filtering

Partially wrong. She's been an outspoken critic of... THIS type of filter. She wants it to be an opt-out filter. She was however an outspoken critic of ISP level filtering... when LIBERAL was in power.

The contract was to buy that.

This is where the reading comprehension comes in. Even with the single line you quoted, in no way, can it be taken to mean 'they were paid to censor the internet'. Please re-read it. What it says is 'They censored the internet, at the same time as they were awarded a contract', not a contract for censoring the internet, but a contract for buying the infrastructure.

Please, keep up.

This is because they own 0% of the pits and ducts (or copper) that make up the last mile which is where the NBN is operating.

Now this is reasonably true, except that Agile (Internodes infrastructure company) does supply last mile connections for many rural communities. On top of this, they own a significant amount of interstate fiber, which is something the NBN also had in its deal, though to a lesser extent at this stage.

You dont actually understand what's going on here and should never have been modded up.

The thing I like about your post, is the arrogance it has, while being exceptionally wrong. It's almost like you're trolling me. Not sure if you're retarded, or trolling. I'm erring on the former.

Let's not ignore some things in order to insert what we want to believe.

http://www.theage.com.au/world/bin-laden-says-us-support-for-israel-prompted-911-monitors-20090914-fnht.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=glHHWCyZ9zc

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5inV15sHG8BPu-lEEM2m3PtNI9QPA

  While 9/11 might have been in line with what you posted, Bin Laden himself stated that there were reasons for 9/11 and what those reasons were.

I didn't think that he published the photo. Here's the article:
http://www.theage.com.au/technology/security/security-experts-go-to-war-wife-targeted-20110517-1eqsm.html
And Ben Grubb's version of events:
http://www.theage.com.au/technology/technology-news/grubbs-story-privacy-news-and-the-strong-arm-of-the-law-20110518-1esn9.html

I didn't think that he published the photo. Here's the article:
http://www.theage.com.au/technology/security/security-experts-go-to-war-wife-targeted-20110517-1eqsm.html
And Ben Grubb's version of events:
http://www.theage.com.au/technology/technology-news/grubbs-story-privacy-news-and-the-strong-arm-of-the-law-20110518-1esn9.html

For clarification of bill of rights in Australia read this http://www.aph.gov.au/Library/pubs/rn/2001-02/02rn42.htm. So the specific concern is a bill of rights limits rights, rather than rights being unlimited until legally contested and put before state and federal governments. Apart from 'implied freedom of political communication' and of course constitutional freedom of religion, both of which can of course be stretched to infinity with regards to freedom of speech.

The more interesting point is that Facebooks privacy controls are a complete illusion http://www.theage.com.au/technology/security/security-experts-go-to-war-wife-targeted-20110517-1eqsm.html and of course computer security experts (drips under pressure) can be a cantankerous lot and use the letter of the law like a club to attack others whilst believing is does not apply to them personally.

Like pretty much everything else in life, it's not a clearly black-and-white situation. Sometimes government regulation is good (whether it is telecommunications, health care, food standards, whatever) and sometimes it is bad.

Until recently, in Australia our options for ISPs have been very poor. This was essentially the result of the previous government's (whose Communication Minister for some time was Robert Alston, regularly pilloried by The Register as being "The World's Biggest Luddite") blind ideological drive to privatise the government monopoly (Telstra, nee Telecom). To preserve the value to shareholders of the newly privatised company, the company was not split into separate retail and wholesale parts (which was advocated by pretty much everyone in the industry who wasn't Telstra) but instead a private company found itself with a complete monopoly over the entire national infrastructure. The government passed some feel-good laws about minimum service obligations (e.g. see http://www.telstra.com.au/universalservice/docs/uso_smp.pdf) to prevent people in the bush from getting screwed over because they weren't economical to service, but these covered only telephony services. As a result, many people outside of the major cities (and even a substantial number inside their suburban areas) have only been able to use dial-up (and then not even at 56k) until wireless services became more widespread recently. Telstra also abused it's monopoly and illegally prevented other companies from accessing the telephone exchanges (e.g. see http://www.theage.com.au/business/telstra-cops-18m-fine-for-exchange-block-20100728-10uwx.html) which prevented any serious competition from emerging.

Thankfully, in the last few years, things have been changing - some great ISPs have finally been able to build up some infrastructure (iiNet, Internode) and offer at least some level of competition to Telstra. These guys mostly service only the cities (which includes something like 80% of our population) but it doesn't help those in rural areas. In most places there is now some level of wireless coverage available. Although this is fairly expensive (e.g. $30/month for 1GB, $150/GB for excess data with Optus) it's still much better than what they had before. The current government has started building a $40bn National Broadband Network, but it will take many years until this is finished.

TL;DR: Sometimes government regulations are good, and sometimes they are bad.

Yeah, Michael Atkinson (the Attorney General for South Australia) has been replaced - and thank $DEITY for that. However, it seems that Robert Clark, the Attorney General for Victoria, is going down the same path.

It ain't over until everybody agrees that it's over. As long as one state disagrees, the status quo remains. One obstacle disappears, another pops up to take its place. Gah!

I wouldn't trust this article either, it reads like a press release from Tokyo Electric Co. TEC have proven to be untrustworthy as they refuse to have best practice at the centre of their company doctrine

Yeah - the news article I read today said that the Nuclear disaster is now on par with Chernobyl.

Japan has raised the severity level of its nuclear crisis to seven to put it on a par with the Chernobyl accident 25 years ago as engineers battled a fire at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.

The BBC certainly isn't doing it's own investigative reporting these days...

You laugh, but Fiji run by a military junta. (As if you needed yet another reason to avoid drinking Fiji bottled water.)

Fiji's military ruler defied international pressure to announce elections by yesterday, confirming that he would not hold them for at least five years and setting the stage for his country's expulsion from the Pacific Islands Forum.

http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/330000-buys-tick-of-approval/2007/02/05/1170524026024.html

The results:
http://mcdonalds.com.au/our-food/menu/#/heart-foundation-tick

http://www.theage.com.au/technology/technology-news/facebook-party-invite-mayhem-youth-could-face-jail-20110316-1bwi3.html (I suck at linking) >Underage male charged and faces 3 years imprisonment for copy/pasting an already public announcement on facebook. >Police threaten to deal "severely" with anyone who, having a laugh, show up to the address in question. Yes, this is what we are stuck with in Australia.

Australia has had a lot of police database issues. From the removal of original files and the double life of officers as active spies for criminal groups.
eg. "Victoria Police and the problem of corruption and serious misconduct"
http://www.opi.vic.gov.au/file.php?61
The NSA used levels of access, subsets of information was never open to anyone not cleared for that unique operation. The East Germans split all their spy info so no one person could ever walk out with full details.
In the private sector its a can be a internet free for all.
http://www.theage.com.au/technology/security/vodafone-sacks-staff-over-database-breaches-20110114-19q0y.html
http://www.zdnet.com.au/virus-hits-integral-energy-desktops-339298861.htm
Australia has a lot to learn at the low and mid level computing, usually buying in systems from the USA and letting the locals try their best. The NSA and GCHQ have worked with our top level defence staff, so thats more safe.

and Australia/Canada are less free then even the US. (Australia is filtering the net, arrests people who DRAW sex images of children,

Settle down sport - there's no need to exaggerate. BigPuddle censors the 'net, but that entirely voluntary.

Just wait till *our*( National Broadband Network comes on line. We're gunna raise some eyebrows then. We'll see who's laughing at us then.... [mutters - bloody yanks]

So is there a significant benefit to these checkpoints that couldn't be solved by more police patrolling?

Until the drunk driver hits somebody they are unlikely to draw the attention of the police, so I doubt more patrols would put a dent in the problem. Breath test stations "booze buses" are very common here in Melbourne, Australia. I have only seen them causing significant disruption when they stake out events which are notorious for leading to drunk driving. Otherwise they just sample the traffic flow and wave people past if they have too many customers. I have been tested a dozen times over the years and I make damn sure I blow zero. My family's life depends on that.

This was a classic alcohol related crash, just near my house a few weeks ago.

Not really:

http://www.securecomputing.net.au/News/241927,cablegate-dsd-unprepared-for-cyberwar.aspx

The group also discussed Israeli nervousness over Iran's nuclear programme, the ONA expressing interest in Fort's and INR's assessments on Israeli "red lines" and the "likelihood of an Israeli strike against Iranian nuclear facilities".

Source:

http://images.theage.com.au/file/2010/12/15/2096934/Cables.htm

Only a small sample has been released so far. Of the 251,287 documents, only 1,442 are on WikiLeaks so far.

Once they *do* have nukes, their credibility will be miraculously restored! Look at Pakistan, India, North Korea, Israel,...

My previous rebuttal was too vague. Look at the USSR.

In 1982, US president Ronald Reagan approved a CIA plan to sabotage the Soviet Union's economy through covert transfers of technology that contained hidden malfunctions, including software that later triggered a huge explosion in a gas pipeline, according to a former White House official.

The USSR wasn't just a nuclear power, but one of the two superpowers. Yet they didn't complain about this substantial act of sabotage. That's because they would have to admit to some sleazy stuff. And Iran complaining about sabotage after getting nuclear weapons? All Israel has to do is point out that if they had done this, which of course, they wouldn't ever do, then they were entirely justified in doing so.

I thought we had this resolved, or coming close to it: http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/making-an-exact-difference/2007/06/14/1181414466901.html