Slashdot Mirror

Not really:

I used to think gun control was the answer...

I researched the strictly tightened gun laws in Britain and Australia and concluded that they didn’t prove much about what America’s policy should be. Neither nation experienced drops in mass shootings or other gun related-crime that could be attributed to their buybacks and bans. Mass shootings were too rare in Australia for their absence after the buyback program to be clear evidence of progress. And in both Australia and Britain, the gun restrictions had an ambiguous effect on other gun-related crimes or deaths.

Despite Australia’s strict gun control regime, criminals are now better armed than at any time since then-Prime Minister John Howard introduced a nationwide firearm buyback scheme in response to the 1996 Port Arthur massacre.

It's all a sideshow. Look at the Swiss and the Czechs for the solution. Neither involves banning guns.

ASD incident response manager Mitchell Clarke told the Australian Information Security Association conference that the ASD had codenamed the hacker 'Alf' after the Home and Away character played by Ray Meagher.

Source

And don't forget the extreme health problems associated with long periods in space/low gravity. We are a long way from making the "monkeys in a can" model of space exploration workable.

If you read the Australian news article they make it clear the the virus was introduced to the cameras from an infected USB stick. On top of that, their camera systems don't work very well, and there is another investigation going on in Australia looking into that issue.

It was never about saving money but making a point of differentiation from Labour at the 2013 election, which, like the last election, was a very close race.

Also, it was sabotage, but presumably as a matter of collusion between the Liberals and the higher-ups at Telstra and Foxtel, as well as Rupert Murdoch himself. Fun fact: Telstra and News Corp. (i.e. Murdoch) each own 50% of Foxtel, who hold a virtual monopoly on satellite and cable TV in Australia. Interestingly, throughout the 2013 election period News Corp. was highly critical of Labour while tending to champion the Liberal Party's policies--most likely a significant factor in them winning the election. https://www.crikey.com.au/2013...

In 2014 it was announced that rather than decommissioning Telstra's technically unsuitable copper network and HFC network (that Foxtel relies upon), the assets would be transferred to NBN Co for indefinite maintenance. https://www.gizmodo.com.au/201...

It comes to no great surprise that the former opposition communications minister during the 2013 election, now-Prime Minister--Mr. Turnbull himself--has been in communication with Telstra, through all of this and appears to have intentions to privatise NBN Co and possibly sell it off to Telstra for no apparent economic benefit. https://www.crikey.com.au/2016... http://www.nbnco.com.au/corpor...

Former ABC technology journalist Nick Ross, one of the few journalists who bothered to cover the NBN situation in any great depth, came out last year claiming he was "gagged" by his superiors for reporting critically of the obviously flawed Liberal NBN. https://delimiter.com.au/2016/...

Stephen Ellis, former NBN advisor under Turnbull's NBN, last year transitioned to a senior advisor role at Telstra with a spokesperson stating "We have engaged Mr Ellis as a consultant on a specific project to advise Telstra on longer term policy reform options. We will not be commenting further". http://www.theage.com.au/victo...

The Liberal NBN policy has been a knowing scam since day one. "Business as usual", indeed.

Uhh there was one busted in Australia not too long ago who was raping, torturing, and murdering kids on a private darknet PPV. I can't remember the guy's name but they gave the "genre" a name..."hurtcore" because it was as much about causing pain and suffering as it was the rape. The article I read about the case said it was shit that made "A Serbian Film" look tame and it was all real.

I don't want to search too actively for the terms that would bring up the article for obvious reasons but I did find an article about their web admin being busted where they mention hurtcore.

Yes, the church did some horrible things throughout history,

They still are:

One case, and another, and a few more, and a few more, just for good measure. Even down under boys aren't safe. Nor are dogs.

Even the UN called out the Vatican for its systemic adoption of policies allowing priests to rape and sexually abuse tens of thousands of children.

But as always, these are just isolated cases.

Chinese do use these antics. Oh thats a male security researcher, lets' send a shemail to seduce him. If it is a women-voice over a phone, it may be more certain it was women seducing, otherwise safe to assume it was shemail - that works out cheaper for Chinese. Btw I hear Mao proposed to send millions of Chinese women to US to improve relations : http://www.theage.com.au/news/...

And Russia is not the biggest loser here. They just try to gain some cheap political points because the US isn't high on the list.

That's because a lot of the tax shelters and loopholes being exploited in Panama are perfectly legal in the US

BTW, The Panama Papers leak also overshadowed this other bribery leak that also includes the global elite and many multinational corporations. www.theage.com.au/interactive/2016/the-bribe-factory/day-1/the-company-that-bribed-the-world.html

I have flown a A380, and the toilet had barely enough space to sit.

http://images.theage.com.au/ft...

(note: I was on a lufthansa, not qantas)

I actually need to spread my legs a little to pee while sitting.

However, there is a glimpse of hope, as there is supposed to be larger lavatories like these somewhere:
http://www.wired.com/images_bl...

Sheep are changing colour and short-nosed dogs are stressed out.

If you can by-pass it then it effectively nullifies any security provided, so yes, it does count.

So if I try to rob a house, and I "bypass" the security system by robbing the next house over, does that mean the security system of the first house sucks?

If you are able to use entry into the second house to steal stuff from the first house, then yes, that the security on the first house is insufficient protection. If the two are completely unrelated, then the security of the first makes no difference.

In this case, card vs card+chip+pin is like two homes with a tunnel between them. The first home might be more secure, but the tunnel is doesn't have any security on it. So the valuables in the first house are still at risk through entry into the second house; and the guy that sold the first house to the current owners failed to mention the existence of the tunnel.

Even aside from that, chip+PIN it no where near as secure as things like Google Wallet that provide single-use card numbers for each transaction.

How is this more secure?

The card number is single use. If they try to use it again, it doesn't work. So it's more secure in the same way that a one-time password is more secure. Google approves the single transaction, and denies any further ones. So yes, it's actually more secure but it also relies on NFC (Wallet+NFC, now Android Pay). It's less secure in that you're putting your bank/credit cards at a single source (Google, Apple, etc) and then using their services to make more secure transactions with others - so single point of failure in security. However, you're card numbers won't be stolen from Target, Home Depot, Walmart, or any other vendor you do business with.

It's also been shown that people can completely clone a chip+PIN card, again rendering the added security null and void.

Do you have a citation?

here's a couple:

http://securityaffairs.co/word...
http://www.theage.com.au/it-pr... - also referenced at http://krebsonsecurity.com/201...

So yeah, if Krebs mentions it, it's probably been proven sufficiently, and likely happening.

Here is link about washing machines.

Portable ultrasound machines may also be highly disruptive in terms of the impact they are having on gender ratios.

Ok, so we've moved from 'it's a myth' to 'it's a stupid law that people ignore,' yes? I'd assume that the Victoria Police aren't 'utterly clueless' about the law, but I could certainly be mistaken. Another official government reference to plastic knives being considered a controlled weapon and unavailable for sale to minors.

The Age article I have no idea if this is considered a legitimate news source in Australia or not.

Picture of plastic knives requiring ID to purchase

Sidebar: The South Austrailia Police actually refer to a Ka-bar as a 'Marine Core' knife.Somebody is a Farker me thinks.

http://journalstar.com/news/lo... http://www.nydailynews.com/new... http://www.nola.com/crime/inde... http://www.derbytelegraph.co.u... http://www.local10.com/news/mi... http://thenationonlineng.net/c... http://www.wowt.com/home/headl... http://www.nydailynews.com/new... http://ktla.com/2015/07/23/pol... http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/u... http://www.theage.com.au/victo... http://kdvr.com/2015/03/16/wom...

And those companies pay about the same amount per megalitre of water as you do per bottle!

Source:
http://www.theage.com.au/news/...

However, in Australia there is a push to ban bottled water too, because it's just tap water and the bottles are harmful. The alternative is paying more for an empty bottle (which you reuse) and basically nothing for water refills.
Some municipalities have already banned the sale of bottled water.

Reminds me of that Mario brothers movie, where their van has overheated and one is coming out of a shop with armfuls of bottled water because the shopkeeper had claimed not to have a tap...

The Maker Movement is really just another Hater Movement practicing The Politics of Exclusion. Maker Privilege must be Checked and Confronted wherever it may try to hide -- even in the deep subconscious of Haters -- as yet another Badge of Slavery.

How can we remedy this attempt to revive the antebellum South in a new and insidious guise?

Are we to wait decades upon decades for True Equality to triumph as it hasn't yet in the area of Racial Equality?

NO!

Slavery must be met with slavery!

Haters should be forced to Make whatever people who aren't want.

Only then can we achieve Social Justice In Our Time.

That's interesting about Kaspersky. I wonder if that's an indication that they may be working with criminals, or if it's just some sort of sense of patriotic pride (we have the best criminals, AND the best researchers!), or even if the researchers feel like there would be repercussions if they said anything. I have no doubt that cybercriminals in Russia are probably receiving some sort of direction, support, or protection from their government.

Or because they live in the same place? (don't throw stones when you live in a glasshouse?).

Ask the people who live/work near gangsters what they think of their infamous neighbors - be sure to tell them their comments will be made public. Few are likely to lack the sense of self-preservation that stops them from putting dog shit in their mouth to test whether it really tastes as bad as they've been led to believe. That's not a phenomena that only occurs in Russia. Same in Melbourne as it is in Chicago - there's always a chance that when you offend those with power by shining lights on their activities they'll find out. The nature of "organized" crime is that it not only "taxes" other criminal activities (i.e. cybercriminals making real money), it pays for protection (politicians and police don't have to "solicit" bribes).
It's a little simplistic to say cybercriminals get support from politicians - they do, but only in the same way that burglars and prostitutes do, via a pyramid of "taxes" and a host of not necessarily enthusiastic third-parties. Politicians rarely sit at the top of those pyramids.

I am a non-native Australian and hence things like a 'Fair Go' http://www.theage.com.au/news/..., supporting the 'Battler' https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/..., cause me some problem with regard to the treatment of the 'adjective' people of Australia (adjective as the Australian government refers to them via an adjective rather than the names of their appropriate nations) and just like other countries their culture and religion are somehow considered foreign to Australian religion and culture. So it is not the question of a particular cultural or religious element but how it is refereed to as not being part of that countries culture and religious elements.

So you're saying everyone knew she was lying about her charity donations as well [theage.com.au]? Or was it only the charities that knew that? From the article:

Everyone? No. But anyone who wasn't some doe-eyed true believer? Yes and Yes.

So you're saying the 300,000 downloads are by people that knew they were downloading the app architected by a liar? And they were paying $3.79 to Apple and this liar for a recipe app that contain recipes that someone lied about helping her cure cancer?

Of course not. They are those psuedo-science nutjobs that I referred to. The same idiots who by crap from Kevin Trudeau, etc. Did you even bother to read everything I wrote or did you just read up to the "everyone" part of the sentence and then start foaming at the mouth?

Everyone knows that water is wet. You compared this to announcing that water is wet.

So you're saying everyone knew she was lying about her charity donations as well [theage.com.au]? Or was it only the charities that knew that? From the article:

Everyone? No. But anyone who wasn't some doe-eyed true believer? Yes and Yes.

So you're saying the 300,000 downloads are by people that knew they were downloading the app architected by a liar? And they were paying $3.79 to Apple and this liar for a recipe app that contain recipes that someone lied about helping her cure cancer?

Of course not. They are those psuedo-science nutjobs that I referred to. The same idiots who by crap from Kevin Trudeau, etc. Did you even bother to read everything I wrote or did you just read up to the "everyone" part of the sentence and then start foaming at the mouth?

Wait. A person who made dubious claims that had no scientific backing to them was actually lying? What next? Water is wet?!!

I think pretty much everyone but the nutjob, true believers in psuedo-science knew all along that this woman was lying.

So you're saying everyone knew she was lying about her charity donations as well? Or was it only the charities that knew that? From the article:

The 26-year-old's popular recipe app, which costs $3.79, has been downloaded 300,000 times and is being developed as one of the first apps for the soon-to-be-released Apple Watch. Her debut cook book The Whole Pantry, published by Penguin in Australia last year, will soon hit shelves in the United States and Britain.

So you're saying the 300,000 downloads are by people that knew they were downloading the app architected by a liar? And they were paying $3.79 to Apple and this liar for a recipe app that contain recipes that someone lied about helping her cure cancer? And you're saying that everyone at Apple that featured her app on the Apple Watch knew they were showing a snake oil app on their brand new shiny device? And that the people at Penguin did all their fact checking on any additional information this cookbook might contain about Belle Gibson's alleged cancer survival? And that everybody involved in these events know society's been parading around a fucking liar and rewarding her with cash money while she basically capitalizes on a horrendous disease that afflicts millions of people worldwide ... that she never had?

No, this is not the same as "water is wet" and it needs to be shown that holistic medicine is temporarily propped up on a bed of anecdotal lies ... anybody who accepts it as the sole cure for their ailment is putting their health in the hands of such charlatans and quacks.

And they will be scorned for creating a "white elephant" when the drought breaks.The last drought here in Victoria saw the states drinking water supplies down to 10% capacity (basically the mud at the bottom), which is why they built one of the world's largest desal plants (as did almost every state capital in Oz at the time). The drought broke before it was completed and everyone started bitching it was a waste of money. When PDO flips to el-nino, the rains will come to California and the drought will return to Australia's east coast. Why my fellow Victorians think we won't need the desal plant next time is a complete mystery to me?

Note that here in Oz we have strict water rationing during a severe drought, ration levels are based on dam levels with different rationing rules for residential, industrial, and agricultural. The rationing receives overwhelming support and "neighborhood watch" style policing from society. My brother lost his wholesale nursery business to the last drought, yet still supports the rationing. Maybe I'm wrong but I just can't see that level of political and economic cooperation happening in 'freedom loving' CA.

This is one reason I'm glad that in my country, Australia, an MMR vaccination (Measles, Mumps and Rubella) is mandatory unless you have a damn good reason not to get one (and being an idiot isn't good enough).

I think that depends on what state you're in. In NSW and Victoria, "vaccines are against my religion" seems to be enough.

The AVN is giving it a try by setting up a fake church.

In Australia that make it illegal for the taxi driver to refuse a fare.

But they still do it, because short trips are not very profitable

Whilst I agree the government is using fear to implement draconian laws, you've only told one side of the story.

I'll just leave this article about a man stabbing police officers and allegedly planning to behead them here.

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.

Where you outlaws get those guns? Oh from good guys in states where it is legal to sell them in bulk.

In the U.S., they get them from friends who buy them in proxy "straw purchases", or from corrupt gun dealers.

But if you think that getting rid of these sources is possible and would stop bad guys from getting guns, nope; in the Philippines and Australia and India bad guys get guns from back alley gunsmiths. And these are not just zip guns, some of them are high quality firearms.

Guns just are not hard to make. The Nazis couldn't keep resistance movements from churning out submachine guns in clandestine factories.

If we magically made all guns in the U.S. disappear and sealed the borders so none could get in, your local meth lab would open up a metalworking annex and become a one-shop shop for crime. Only ordinary citizens -- the folks who are unlikely to shoot people anyway -- would be disarmed.

Why do you automatically believe the athlete?

I believe the athlete in this situation because everything that comes out of the drone operator's mouth is being proven to be either false or purposefully misleading. It turns out that he wasn't even operating the drone at the time - he had given someone else a go at the controls. From The Age

Mr Abrams told Fairfax he held a licence to fly, but would not say whether his company had one.
It's understood Mr Abrams has a fixed-wing pilot licence, but not the type that allows him or his company to operate quadcopter drones for commercial purposes.

Photographs show the drone involved in Sunday's incident was a quadcopter.
The Geraldton Triathlon Club said Mr Abrams' company was not paid a fee to take footage using the drone on Sunday.
Instead it filmed in return for having ads placed on event promotional material, the club said.
Whether the drones were filming for commercial purposes will be important to CASA's investigation, as different regulations apply to commercial and recreational operators.

Mr Abrams said he was in charge at the time of the incident and that another person had their hands on the controller.
He would not name who was flying it, nor say whether they had a licence to fly.
"I am licensed and I was there with the pilot," Mr Abrams told Fairfax.
Asked repeatedly if the pilot was licensed, Mr Abrams refused to answer and became defensive.

He is full of it. He's lying about being having the correct license for that class of vehicle, and he is refusing to even say who was flying the drone at the time.

Then he goes and blames hackers as an out... So, why do you automatically believe the drone operator?

You do know that "rule of thumb" doesn't refer to men being allowed to beat women, right? On the contrary, men have fought and died to protect women throughout all of history. Ye Olde Days weren't as beaty as you imagine.

I do agree that violence from either gender is unacceptable however. I wouldn't want to see a repeat of this incident (found not guilty) despite leading feminists like Professor Sheehy in Canada arguing for the legalisation of mankilling by women: http://www.theage.com.au/victo...

The "pro-nuclear" "crowd" makes up bullshit "victimstance" to try to pretend there is nothing unsafe about 3 melted down nuclear reactors.

What meltdown?

It seems like lying is a prerequisite for joining the anti-nuclear brigade.

http://www.theage.com.au/comme...

The only thing I can think of that is more pure profitable than telephone service is telephone company text messages.

Profitable is an understatement - telcos are making up to 90 000% profit on text messages,

That seems unlikely.

Just wait for MS to die off

You may not have to wait too long.

The news is full of stories suggesting that investors want to break Microsoft up.

Microsoft's new leadership could almost double the company's valuation by parting with a good chunk of the businesses it uses to court consumers.
Jettisoning units such as Xbox video-game consoles and the Bing search engine may be the change Microsoft needs to rejuvenate growth as it prepares to make Satya Nadella chief executive, said Schwartz Investment Counsel, which owns Microsoft shares. The world's biggest software maker should go further by also splitting off Windows and smartphones to focus on providing services to business customers, said Stifel Financial.

http://www.theage.com.au/it-pr...

Of course Slasdot won't discuss this, beacuse they're paid not to.

This reminds me of the SCO lawsuit, where the most they ever found was, what, 7 lines of infringing code which SCO themselves had nicked from AT&T UNIX?

A little off-topic I know, but IBM was never found to have infringed on any code from SCO. SCO tried to *claim* some code that was already licensed under a FLOSS license was the same as their code and thus infringed on their IP. They made a big deal of this to the press forcing them to sign NDA's & "showing them the code".

Joshua, a self-described ''white hat'' security researcher, said he was motivated by a desire to improve online security. He first contacted PTV by email on Boxing Day, but received no response. He later contacted Fairfax Media.

Schoolboy hacks Public Transport Victoria website

The Age is owned by Faitax Media.

Boxing Day in Australia is a public holiday.

It's a very strange time of year for an sixteen year old kid to be trying to gain the attention of anyone in or out of government. People are on vacation. Offices are closed or very thinly staffed...

Unauthorized access to systems and data --- white hat or black hat hacking --- is a crime under Australian law.

The end doesn't justify the means.

http://www.theage.com.au/technology/technology-news/schoolboy-hacks-public-transport-victoria-website-20140107-30fkg.html

For anyone who is interested

The best approach is to deal with the motivations of terrorists. Find out what they want, why they want it, and persuade them that violence is not the best way to get it.

OK, let's try that method with Osama Bin Ladin.

His goal was in brief to become a Caliph over all the muslim world, instigate a fight between the believers and non-believers, and then beat down the non-believers. (one source).

How exactly do you persuade him that violence is not the best way to get that goal? I am really interested in hearing what you have to say.

You make some good points, but you also make some key questionable assumptions. Bill Gates was himself born a millionaire (trust fund from banker granddad) and also he did not write most of the software he resold, and what he wrote,he wrote based on knowledge gained in part from dumpster diving to find program listings from a computer center. Without his mother's knowing someone at IBM, he probably would not have gotten the deal for an OS for the IBM PC. IBM probably would have been better off using an in-house Forth that had been written bu David Frank, or Unix like the CS-9000, but suffered from internal politics.

The deep question is what part of the the fruits of our infrastructure (air, water, farmland, roads, machines, seeds, internet, books, software, ICs, etc.) should be shared equally (not "means-tested") and what part should somehow be used to "reward" hard work or risk taking or whatever. So you make an assumption with being "OK" with a huge wealth disparity whatever its cause (in this case, Bill Gates indeed being bright and hard working, but also rich from birth and part of a socially well-connected family). But another point of view might be that, say, half the economic output of the USA should be shared equally (US$25K per person per year) as social security payments from birth as a "basic income", and the other half should then be "earned"or divided based on effort or merit somehow.

Dan Pink questions the whole notion of financial reward as a motivator for intellectual work (even as we all need some money to survive and thrive in this culture we have built):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc

See also:
http://philip.greenspun.com/bg/
"William Henry Gates III made his best decision on October 28, 1955, the night he was born. He chose J.W. Maxwell as his great-grandfather. Maxwell founded Seattle's National City Bank in 1906. His son, James Willard Maxwell was also a banker and established a million-dollar trust fund for William (Bill) Henry Gates III. In some of the later lessons, you will be encouraged to take entrepreneurial risks. You may find it comforting to remember that at any time you can fall back on a trust fund worth many millions of 1998 dollars. "

On Bill Gates and dumpster diving:
http://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=437640&cid=22255952

Bill Gates made a lot of money by damaging the community of people freely sharing knowledge and software with each other, while hypocritically pleading poverty:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Letter_to_Hobbyists

Often people can make a lot of money by disempowering other people and disrupting communities.

That said, is Windows a useful standard given its backward compatibility? Yes it is (as much as I don't like to have to admit that).

The JK Rowling story is more complex too. Many people write amazing stories, but few get widely published by the nature of our publishing industry. Still, her story is a good example of the value of a "basic income" to promote creativity.
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2002/08/27/1030053057866.html
"Too good, it turns out. Yes, Rowling was a single mother with a bad marriage behind her, and yes, she was briefly on the dole. But the coffee shop was owned by her brother-in-law and Rowling was never far from her middle-class origins. ... "In fact," harrumphs the Yorkshire Post, "this middle-class English girl with an Exeter University degree and a career as a teacher didn't try to dispel the myth that she'd been a penniless, single mother." ..."

If the dole effectively promotes the arts effectively in a compassionate way, then why do we have copyright instead?

In a world of

The funny thing is that everybody seems to want to roll out an oyster card system, but many places want to roll out their own oyster card system, and that leads to cost blowouts because (it seems) many organisations can't manage to do an IT project without falling on their face.
e.g. Auckland Transport with their AT HOP card.
myki in Melbourne, Australia which blew out by about $1 billion (on an original ~$0.5 billion cost). To quote from a report discussed in this article: ''Keane [who won the contract to make the card system] had no corporate experience in developing, implementing and operating a ticketing system Keane has barely demonstrated adequate capacity.''

Actually, the best question is in that same article:
"Another question is why, given the ambitions for the project, the company was chosen over smartcard specialists, including Cubic, which created many US systems and worked on Oyster, and the group behind Hong Kong's Octopus smartcard."
And why does everyone make this same mistake.

Exhibit A:

http://www.theage.com.au/world/indonesia-recalls-ambassador-to-australia-over-spying-claim-20131118-2xr5x.html

I must be retarded, because if this is an act of political genius by Snowden and his contemptible band of homosexual compulsive Judases, I fail to see it.

FUD laws about radiation and all other things nuclear out to the FUD farm where they belong.

I know it's the popular internet "groupthink" to assume radiation poisoning/fallout/exposure is all BS because independent studies on the Fukishama disaster show nobody has died from it. A word of caution: radiation induced cancers can take a long time to develop. 40 years in some cases. That's long enough to completely screw up the planet for the course of your lifetime and many of your descendents lifetimes. Nuclear energy's biggest problem is that it leaves no room for error - and humans are full of error. There is no tenable way right now to make these energy facilities idiot proof when greed, corruption and power are in charge of the safety.

Australia' crooked federal police force have been deleting wikipedia edits telling people how corrupt the AFP are. Can wikipedia please add these and ban the AFP censors?:

http://www.theage.com.au/national/afp-ignored-corruption-complaint-20100524-w81a.html
http://www.theage.com.au/national/afp-allegedly-shut-down-awb-case-prematurely-20120606-1zwz7.html
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/archive/business/afp-withheld-key-whistleblower-evidence-in-kessing-case/story-e6frg97x-1226117735249
http://www.lawyersweekly.com.au/news/afp-defends-record-on-foreign-bribery-1
http://kangaroocourtofaustralia.com/category/australian-federal-police/
http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/content/2008/s2402675.htm

"Policing a citizenâ(TM)s right to expression"

Should Duncan Kerr's concern about a pamphleteer in his electorate allow him to involve the Australian Federal Police, asks Richard Ackland.

While Justice Minister Duncan Kerr was in Sydney yesterday splashing around some federal funding on legal aid, back in his Hobart electorate of Denison things have not been entirely glossy and wonderful. Last Sunday and Monday he had Mr Mick Skrijel stamping over his borough spreading leaflets that said some beastly things about poor Dunky.

Skrijel will be familiar to readers of this column as the former South Australian fisherman who made allegations of drug trafficking and official protection. The NCA subsequently brought a drug cultivation charge against him. An inquiry into the NCAâ(TM)s conduct in this case found there was substantial evidence that the NCA fabricated the case against Skrijel in order to secure his conviction.

Kerr rejected the recommendation that a royal commission be held and has sent the matter to the Victorian Deputy Ombudsman for further investigation. Skrijel claims this is a totally inadequate response.

The material that Skrijel was distributing in Denison contained all those details, plus some flourishes that Kerr was trying to silence him. The Minister for Justice was on notice that Skrijel was going to publish this pamphlet because he had sent him a copy on January 30 and asked him to read it carefully and tell him where he was wrong.
The minister did not take up Mr Skrijelâ(TM)s generous offer. Instead on February 2 he wrote to Skrijelâ(TM)s lawyer in Melbourne, John Howie, of Howie and Maher, and said that the pamphlet was âoewildly defamatoryâ and urged that the legal implications of distributing such material be made clear to Mr Howieâ(TM)s client.

He also sent a letter to members of the media in Hobart, dated February 5, warning that he âoewould be obliged to take legal action if any of the false and defamatory material were to be repeated in the mediaâ.

That letter went to the Hobart branch manager of ABC radio, among others, on the same day that the ABC metropolitan radio host, Annie Warburton, was planning to interview Skrijel on her afternoon radio show. Before going to air she talked to a friend, Mr George Haddad, who is working with Kerrâ(TM)s campaign team in Denison. Haddad cautioned her about interviewing Skrijel because he was likely to say something defamatory about Kerr on air. Warburton then pulled the plug on the interview.

Kerr says he was concerned about his own safety and his office requested the AFP conduct an âoeassessmentâ of Skrijel. This is quaint since

Australia' crooked federal police force have been deleting wikipedia edits telling people how corrupt the AFP are. Can wikipedia please add these and ban the AFP censors?:

http://www.theage.com.au/national/afp-ignored-corruption-complaint-20100524-w81a.html
http://www.theage.com.au/national/afp-allegedly-shut-down-awb-case-prematurely-20120606-1zwz7.html
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/archive/business/afp-withheld-key-whistleblower-evidence-in-kessing-case/story-e6frg97x-1226117735249
http://www.lawyersweekly.com.au/news/afp-defends-record-on-foreign-bribery-1
http://kangaroocourtofaustralia.com/category/australian-federal-police/
http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/content/2008/s2402675.htm

"Policing a citizenâ(TM)s right to expression"

Should Duncan Kerr's concern about a pamphleteer in his electorate allow him to involve the Australian Federal Police, asks Richard Ackland.

While Justice Minister Duncan Kerr was in Sydney yesterday splashing around some federal funding on legal aid, back in his Hobart electorate of Denison things have not been entirely glossy and wonderful. Last Sunday and Monday he had Mr Mick Skrijel stamping over his borough spreading leaflets that said some beastly things about poor Dunky.

Skrijel will be familiar to readers of this column as the former South Australian fisherman who made allegations of drug trafficking and official protection. The NCA subsequently brought a drug cultivation charge against him. An inquiry into the NCAâ(TM)s conduct in this case found there was substantial evidence that the NCA fabricated the case against Skrijel in order to secure his conviction.

Kerr rejected the recommendation that a royal commission be held and has sent the matter to the Victorian Deputy Ombudsman for further investigation. Skrijel claims this is a totally inadequate response.

The material that Skrijel was distributing in Denison contained all those details, plus some flourishes that Kerr was trying to silence him. The Minister for Justice was on notice that Skrijel was going to publish this pamphlet because he had sent him a copy on January 30 and asked him to read it carefully and tell him where he was wrong.
The minister did not take up Mr Skrijelâ(TM)s generous offer. Instead on February 2 he wrote to Skrijelâ(TM)s lawyer in Melbourne, John Howie, of Howie and Maher, and said that the pamphlet was âoewildly defamatoryâ and urged that the legal implications of distributing such material be made clear to Mr Howieâ(TM)s client.

He also sent a letter to members of the media in Hobart, dated February 5, warning that he âoewould be obliged to take legal action if any of the false and defamatory material were to be repeated in the mediaâ.

That letter went to the Hobart branch manager of ABC radio, among others, on the same day that the ABC metropolitan radio host, Annie Warburton, was planning to interview Skrijel on her afternoon radio show. Before going to air she talked to a friend, Mr George Haddad, who is working with Kerrâ(TM)s campaign team in Denison. Haddad cautioned her about interviewing Skrijel because he was likely to say something defamatory about Kerr on air. Warburton then pulled the plug on the interview.

Kerr says he was concerned about his own safety and his office requested the AFP conduct an âoeassessmentâ of Skrijel. This is quaint since

Neither of those were loading for me and/or seemed to be broken. This one works for me...just in case anyone needed more options: http://media.theage.com.au/national/selections/livestream-costa-concordia-salvage-4751321.html

footage of him in a kangaroo poo fight

Yes, he is evidently a man of some character. It seems he enjoys dropping other peoples pants, hitting them with sticks, and spitting on the camera man. And he did have clip up on YouTube of him partaking in root poo fight.

But look on the bright side. Given the state Australian politics over the past 3 years this might be a plus. Surely he was just planning ahead, and picking up survival skills.

I wonder what his position is on the how VDSL vectoring will effect competition in the broadband wholesale market?

Nobody is suggesting a conspiracy. They are, however, suggesting certain biases may be responsible -- possibly unconscious, possibly promoted as much by other women as by men.

The idea that men are "naturally" more interested in programming is something that's possible but should be treated with appropriate skepticism. It's not like there were programming contests a million years ago that were evolved into us, and it's not like obvious different circumstances like pregnancy go particularly well with a lot of other currently-female-dominated jobs (e.g. nursing). So either there's some very indirect inherent cause, or there's some cultural motivation. The cultural thing might even be good on net compared to not having it. Or horrible beyond just a gender imbalance in a particular industry.

Both of these things are, of course, much easier to claim than to prove. But one thing that is pretty much proven is that people who think they aren't sexist often do have biases (eg. http://www.theage.com.au/national/how-the-sex-bias-prevails-20100514-v4mv.html). Same goes for race.

Aside from base assumptions, what makes you believe that Snowden entered employment with the NSA with the intent to release data he was exposed to?

Because he said that.

Snowden to newspaper: I took contractor job to gather evidence

Also, what gives you the impression that he has an interest backing him

He did manage to steal an enormous amount of wide ranging data in only 90 days of employment, don't you think?

Who Helped Snowden Steal State Secrets?

In my opinion, the fact that the US gov't has hunted him so furiously and has taken the exact opposite approach that they mandate regarding any other nation's political refugees ...

He isn't a political refuge. He stole national defense secrets and has revealed a few of them. Nobody really knows what he is doing with the rest of them.

Charles Moore: Snowden is a traitor - The beneficiaries of his betrayal are not civil liberties, but those who wish to embarrass us.

Snowden leaks give edge to U.S. rivals, officials say - Russia, China and terrorism suspects have altered how they communicate to evade U.S. detection, current and former U.S. intelligence officials say.

Snowden’s Nuclear War on Intelligence

Geoffrey Ingersoll: It's Now Clear That Russian Intelligence Speaks For Edward Snowden

Well, from what I just read, it shows the press council got three complaints in 2011, about three articles during June and July.

OK, well here's some much more recent and relevant food for thought:

Murdoch sends trusted general 'Col Pot' to bring down Rudd over NBN

Is that specific enough for you?

I would be prepared to let this go and not make an issue of it, but he has prior form in letting his religious views affect his judgement on matters which should be secular:

Like this