Slashdot Mirror

In Australia a State Government used a ridiculously expensive "off the shelf" SAP payroll solution that turned into a complete disaster. A year later and staff still aren't being paid properly. Lots of finger pointing between IBM, SAP and Corptech who is the State Government's IT corporation. They paid $40M for software that didn't work, and still doesn't work.

Take that number in. $40M. Ridiculously overpriced even if it did work, but this doesn't even do that. Payroll isn't rocket science. A few competent programmers locked away for 6 months could do better. Far too much money is thrown at so-called 'enterprise software'.
http://www.itnews.com.au/News/218348,ibm-under-fire-for-qld-health-bungle.aspx
http://www.arnnet.com.au/article/351650/ibm_says_queensland_health_sap_failure_its_fault/
http://www.zdnet.com.au/qld-health-sap-woes-lead-to-cash-advances-339302381.htm
http://www.goldcoast.com.au/article/2010/05/07/215335_gold-coast-news.html
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/australian-it/qld-health-pays-hefty-price-for-sick-payroll-system/story-e6frgakx-1225813063057
http://www.computerworld.com.au/article/351608/updated_qld_govt_blames_ibm_health_payroll_bungle/

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.

How on earth are the people using Government computers supposed to "research" all of the dangers and issues associated with Child Pornography if they can't find it?

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/national/christian-mp-fred-nile-engulfed-in-net-porn-scandal/story-e6frf7l6-1225913110721
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/nsw-mp-fred-nile-denies-porn-has-been-viewed-on-computers-in-his-office/story-e6frg6nf-1225913267507
http://www.crikey.com.au/2010/09/03/nsw-parliament%E2%80%99s-flawed-prn-hunt/
http://www.computerworld.com.au/article/370016/child_porn_alarm_nsw_parliament/
http://www.advocate.com/News/Daily_News/2010/09/02/Antigay_NSW_MP_Blames_Porn_on_Research/

Sorry mate, that's puny. You'd need about 1500 of those to match what a bush fire can do.

carrying packages with bombs in them in Afghanistan

Child soldiers in Sri Lanka, in Iraq, and in Israel/Palestine.

I looked for, but did not immediately find, references to children (or women) serving as bomb carriers (or proxy bombers) in Vietnam, though I recall hearing of such specifically in the Israel conflict (women wired with remote-detonated vests).

ALLEGATIONS of bribery involving Australian-based banknote firm Securency International have led to three arrests in Malaysia.

'The Commonwealth Bank has cancelled some 8000 credit cards after it detected a data breach at a merchant .. The bank did not release the name of the affected merchant and its acquiring bank, or when the breach occurred.

“[CommBank] continuously monitors all credit card transactions to protect our customers from fraud and during this process we became aware of a potential credit card compromise through an Australian merchant acquired by another bank,”

So, it took CommBank to noticed the fraudulent transactions and inform the client before they even noticed anything wrong. Which begs the question as to what technology they were running their system on.

"Banking sources would not identify the merchant or bank involved, however St George Bank emerged as the only institution that would not flatly deny it was the bank in question."

' St.George Bank Cuts Server Deployment and Management Costs with Virtualized Infrastructure'

The fact they have never had a fatal crash (the only such major airline) is reason I would rather NOT fly with anyone else.

They had a fatal crash in 1951 So that one is a myth.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QANTAS#Airline_incidents

Given their abysmal safety record of late (a lot of engine trouble and hull loss incidents not including the problems with the Trent engines on the A380, QANTAS cant fairly be held responsible for a design fault). The Wikipedia list is a bit incomplete missing, including a pair of engine fires in a B747 (Link 1) (Link 2) in late in 2010. Not to mention Flight QF30

QANTAS have seriously dropped in the last few years from one of the safest western airlines to one of the least safest. But it's everything else that makes me want to fly Singapore Air, Air Asia, Virgin Blue or even Tiger instead of QANTAS, bad service, surly flight attendants, dodgy luggage collection, uncompetitive prices, bad food. Why pay $1100 to fly QANTAS from PER-BKK when I can pay Singapore $1050 for the same trip (Air Asia is often around $500 but they are a budget airline).

All prices in AUD, just add 5% to get USD.

He wasn't arrested, just questioned.

read the link in the post you replied to, it clearly quotes police media as saying they arrested him for questioning.

He wasn't arrested, just questioned.

According to this article AusCERT is independant of goverment The government version seems to be called "CERT Australia".

Yep, they need the smoke screen of pseudo-independence to justify the stupidity they force on their employees.

According to this article AusCERT is independant of goverment The government version seems to be called "CERT Australia".

That's all? So TEPCO did not falsify safety inspection records, cover-up a defective reactor, use the yakuza to get expendable workers, continue on with a foreign journalist QA session even without the foreign journalists, or make numerous blunders immediately after the tsunami to put us into the current situation ?

What a relief . . . here I was thinking TEPCO would become the poster child of the part of Japanese society that remains corrupt, arrogant, and incompetent. Good thing they have apologists like yourself . . .

. . . fighting the drone wars - http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/barack-obama-sends-drones-to-libya/story-e6frg6so-1226043520342 and over Pakistan, fighting the rebels - http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/pakistan/US-promises-Pak-mini-drones-but-launches-mega-attack/articleshow/8059928.cms to bother with Amazon. That is the problem when you mix movie plots.

BTW, It is a PR nightmare when a single military can be compared to imperial forces and sentient killer machines in the same satirical reference.

OK, I did some digging in PACER, where it looks like the documents have probably been filed but are probably still sealed.

The relevant case is in the Southern District of New York (https://ecf.nysd.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/ShowIndex.pl - anyone can sign up for a PACER account, they're free but you pay 8 cents per page, and if you charge less than $10 in a quarter it's free).

They're using an existing case, 1:10-cr-00336-LAK, which is all about the arrest and indictment of a gambling payment processor dude a year ago in April 2010.

See http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/arrests-follow-internet-high-flyers-release/story-e6frg6nf-1226039942478 for more on the dude.

So the timeline is:
1) Gambling dude is arrested in 2010 and charged with some gambling-related crimes. See his indictment at http://tech.mit.edu/~mherdeg/10-cr-00336-lak-1.pdf
2) Some time recently, he is (according to an Australian newspaper) secretly released from prison and prosecutors have not said whether he's still being charged
3) These 11 people are all being charged with 9 new crimes (documents not yet available, but apparently they'll be stored in this place / as part of this case number)

There have been a bunch of sealed documents added to the case recently; maybe they include the complaint and indictment that the press release talks about. You can see the history I got from PACER at http://tech.mit.edu/~mherdeg/10-cr-00336-entries.txt.

Cited in an Australian patent?

He cloned the invite page and reupped it after she closed hers. Along with home address, phone etc.

From The Australian Newspaper

A police statement released to Associated Press today said a 17-year-old boy had been charged with using a telecommunications carrier to harass or offend someone.

He is due in court in April.

You've got it all wrong. They're going with style (easy, sexy, and makes for good admissions brochures) over substance (tedious, frustrating, difficult to market).

Yeap. Being a college that prepares overseas students for undergraduate university entry (TFA) and given that the number of international students studying in Australia is dropping, the competition is heating up: anything to lure them students is welcomed, they are paying higher tuition fees anyway.

The point of this isn't to be more open. The point is to make people think about what the CIA can do with today's technology if they could do that with the technology of yesteryear. Making the enemy overestimate your power is an important principle in deterrence.

Yea... I don't think that's true. You want the enemy to underestimate you're ability to spy on them so that you can, you know, spy on them.

Unless you want them to think that you can train sharks and vultures as agents.

No one is calling Assange a terrorist or a combatant of any form

No one? I thought a number of people had, including the US vice president.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/assange-a-high-tech-terrorist-biden/story-e6frg6so-1225973696881

And didn't Sarah Palin say "He is an anti-American operative with blood on his hands. His past posting of classified documents revealed the identity of more than 100 Afghan sources to the Taliban. Why was he not pursued with the same urgency we pursue al Qaeda and Taliban leaders?"

http://www.salon.com/news/politics/war_room/2010/11/29/palin_hunt_down_assange

Okay, she doesn't represent the US government like Biden does but she's still "someone" and has a definite following amongst the US populace.

Or you could hold onto your US dollars for about another week, at which point they will translate into alot more Australian dollars of aid than they will today.

The Australian dollar has been peaking out at one-to-one with the US dollar for a while now, which is really overvalued, even given the rat-shit state of the US dollar (cheers/jeers to the speculators). Looks like the fallout from the flooding might be about to trigger the correction...

This has been written up in the Toronto Star, Wired UK, The Australian and a few others.

Interesting, and saddening, that overseas media has picked this up and US media doesn't seem to be terribly interested. From one of TFAs,

But why has Nasa taken the day off from searching the galaxy to try its hand at movie criticism? Well, the agency argues that bad flicks can worry viewers. In fact, so many people wrote in to the agency, worried about potential 2012-related catastrophes, that Nasa had to publish a special website just days before the film's November 2009 release.

The myth debunking page reads "Nothing bad will happen to the Earth in 2012. Our planet has been getting along just fine for more than 4 billion years, and credible scientists worldwide know of no threat associated with 2012."

Scientific illiteracy is becoming a big problem in the US. Kudos to NASA for tackling it.

If Slashdotted, try this instead.

So far he has recieved much better treatment by the Aussie government than David Hicks did.

What? You're saying that the Australian government actually treated an Al Qaeda trainee more harshly in some fashion than Mr. Wikileaks? For shame!

Jihad" diary reveals David Hicks terror training
DAVID Hicks's handwritten "jihad diary" gives new insight into the sophisticated terrorism training he underwent, exploding claims that he was an innocent abroad.
The confessed terrorism supporter used a school exercise book - complete with boy's-own images of fighter aircraft - to write up the detailed instruction he received in weapon use, explosives and military tactics from Islamic extremists in Pakistan.

After describing how "to kill a VIP", Hicks noted that guerilla war involved "sacrifice for Allah". He sketched the mechanism of the telescopic sight of a sniper's rifle and the circuitry of deadly rocket-launched warheads. The exercise book was released yesterday by federal magistrate Warren Donald who, in easing the interim control order covering Hicks since his release from jail last month, found that, on balance, he remained at risk of committing a terrorist act or of undertaking further terrorism training......

The exercise book was filled out by Hicks while he was training with the Lashkar-e-Toiba terror group in northern Pakistan between March and June 2000.

Hmmm.... Lashkar-e-Toiba .... where have we heard of them before?

US blames Lashkar-e-Toiba for Mumbai
About 10 gunmen landed in rubber dinghies in Mumbai on Wednesday and wreaked havoc with automatic weapons and hand grenades, in an assault that killed 188 and injured more than 300. The dead included 22 foreign nationals, among them two Australian men....

Jihad" diary reveals David Hicks terror training
The Adelaide man, now 32, went on to train with al-Qa'ida and the Taliban in Afghanistan, where he was captured and handed over to US forces.

Training with al-Qaeda.... hmm....
Mumbai attacks: al-Qaeda plotter behind Bali bombing linked to terror attacks

I'm sure most Australians remember the horror of the Bali Bombings and the many Australians killed there. Most people probably remember their handiwork on September 11, 2001 as well.

Of course, the Taliban are reaching out as well.

I would say that Mr. Hicks was involved with a rather nasty bunch, and is quite lucky he didn't get himself killed.

The Aussie politicians asked the federal police to see if Assange had broken any laws, they came back with a definite "no".

Well, it's actually a bit more subtle than that.

"The AFP has completed its evaluation of the material available and has not established the existence of any criminal offences where Australia would have jurisdiction," it said in a statement.

"Where additional cables are published and criminal offences are suspected, these matters should be referred to the AFP for evaluation."

Attorney-General Robert McClelland said the AFP had noted a number of offences that could be applied depending on the circums

So far he has recieved much better treatment by the Aussie government than David Hicks did.

What? You're saying that the Australian government actually treated an Al Qaeda trainee more harshly in some fashion than Mr. Wikileaks? For shame!

Jihad" diary reveals David Hicks terror training
DAVID Hicks's handwritten "jihad diary" gives new insight into the sophisticated terrorism training he underwent, exploding claims that he was an innocent abroad.
The confessed terrorism supporter used a school exercise book - complete with boy's-own images of fighter aircraft - to write up the detailed instruction he received in weapon use, explosives and military tactics from Islamic extremists in Pakistan.

After describing how "to kill a VIP", Hicks noted that guerilla war involved "sacrifice for Allah". He sketched the mechanism of the telescopic sight of a sniper's rifle and the circuitry of deadly rocket-launched warheads. The exercise book was released yesterday by federal magistrate Warren Donald who, in easing the interim control order covering Hicks since his release from jail last month, found that, on balance, he remained at risk of committing a terrorist act or of undertaking further terrorism training......

The exercise book was filled out by Hicks while he was training with the Lashkar-e-Toiba terror group in northern Pakistan between March and June 2000.

Hmmm.... Lashkar-e-Toiba .... where have we heard of them before?

US blames Lashkar-e-Toiba for Mumbai
About 10 gunmen landed in rubber dinghies in Mumbai on Wednesday and wreaked havoc with automatic weapons and hand grenades, in an assault that killed 188 and injured more than 300. The dead included 22 foreign nationals, among them two Australian men....

Jihad" diary reveals David Hicks terror training
The Adelaide man, now 32, went on to train with al-Qa'ida and the Taliban in Afghanistan, where he was captured and handed over to US forces.

Training with al-Qaeda.... hmm....
Mumbai attacks: al-Qaeda plotter behind Bali bombing linked to terror attacks

I'm sure most Australians remember the horror of the Bali Bombings and the many Australians killed there. Most people probably remember their handiwork on September 11, 2001 as well.

Of course, the Taliban are reaching out as well.

I would say that Mr. Hicks was involved with a rather nasty bunch, and is quite lucky he didn't get himself killed.

The Aussie politicians asked the federal police to see if Assange had broken any laws, they came back with a definite "no".

Well, it's actually a bit more subtle than that.

"The AFP has completed its evaluation of the material available and has not established the existence of any criminal offences where Australia would have jurisdiction," it said in a statement.

"Where additional cables are published and criminal offences are suspected, these matters should be referred to the AFP for evaluation."

Attorney-General Robert McClelland said the AFP had noted a number of offences that could be applied depending on the circums

So far he has recieved much better treatment by the Aussie government than David Hicks did.

What? You're saying that the Australian government actually treated an Al Qaeda trainee more harshly in some fashion than Mr. Wikileaks? For shame!

Jihad" diary reveals David Hicks terror training
DAVID Hicks's handwritten "jihad diary" gives new insight into the sophisticated terrorism training he underwent, exploding claims that he was an innocent abroad.
The confessed terrorism supporter used a school exercise book - complete with boy's-own images of fighter aircraft - to write up the detailed instruction he received in weapon use, explosives and military tactics from Islamic extremists in Pakistan.

After describing how "to kill a VIP", Hicks noted that guerilla war involved "sacrifice for Allah". He sketched the mechanism of the telescopic sight of a sniper's rifle and the circuitry of deadly rocket-launched warheads. The exercise book was released yesterday by federal magistrate Warren Donald who, in easing the interim control order covering Hicks since his release from jail last month, found that, on balance, he remained at risk of committing a terrorist act or of undertaking further terrorism training......

The exercise book was filled out by Hicks while he was training with the Lashkar-e-Toiba terror group in northern Pakistan between March and June 2000.

Hmmm.... Lashkar-e-Toiba .... where have we heard of them before?

US blames Lashkar-e-Toiba for Mumbai
About 10 gunmen landed in rubber dinghies in Mumbai on Wednesday and wreaked havoc with automatic weapons and hand grenades, in an assault that killed 188 and injured more than 300. The dead included 22 foreign nationals, among them two Australian men....

Jihad" diary reveals David Hicks terror training
The Adelaide man, now 32, went on to train with al-Qa'ida and the Taliban in Afghanistan, where he was captured and handed over to US forces.

Training with al-Qaeda.... hmm....
Mumbai attacks: al-Qaeda plotter behind Bali bombing linked to terror attacks

I'm sure most Australians remember the horror of the Bali Bombings and the many Australians killed there. Most people probably remember their handiwork on September 11, 2001 as well.

Of course, the Taliban are reaching out as well.

I would say that Mr. Hicks was involved with a rather nasty bunch, and is quite lucky he didn't get himself killed.

The Aussie politicians asked the federal police to see if Assange had broken any laws, they came back with a definite "no".

Well, it's actually a bit more subtle than that.

"The AFP has completed its evaluation of the material available and has not established the existence of any criminal offences where Australia would have jurisdiction," it said in a statement.

"Where additional cables are published and criminal offences are suspected, these matters should be referred to the AFP for evaluation."

Attorney-General Robert McClelland said the AFP had noted a number of offences that could be applied depending on the circums

So is he waffling on his long-time insistence that he is not wikileaks, but merely a member?

If he is just a member, he is clearly a member with "benefits".

Julian Assange paid two thirds of WikiLeaks salary budget

That makes for an interesting contrast to the way Assange / Wikileaks has treated the alleged primary source of the classified US government documents they've been so recently leaking:

Is WikiLeaks Reneging on its Financial Promise to Bradley Manning?

As to how he views himself....

Now that shadowy organization Wikileaks has unleashed another wave of military field reports, people want to know more about its founder, Julian Assange. According to a Times profile today, he's running Wikileaks with an iron fist.

Even remotely, his style is imperious. When Herbert Snorrason, a 25-year-old political activist in Iceland, questioned Mr. Assange’s judgment over a number of issues in an online exchange last month, Mr. Assange was uncompromising. “I don’t like your tone,” he said, according to a transcript. “If it continues, you’re out.”

Mr. Assange cast himself as indispensable. “I am the heart and soul of this organization, its founder, philosopher, spokesperson, original coder, organizer, financier, and all the rest,” he said. “If you have a problem with me,” he told Mr. Snorrason, using an expletive, he should quit.

A reported twelve Wikileaks members have left. Julian Assange: On the Run, Even During CNN Interviews

Pied Piper Julian Assange brooks no dissent in land of WikiLeaks

I guess the above also explains: ‘Chaos’ at WikiLeaks Follows Assange Arrest

Homosexuals represent one of the greatest disease vectors in society and that alone is reason to keep them out of military. Emergency medical staff have to wear protective clothing because of AIDS. It makes no sense to inflict people with a known 44x(CDC) AIDs rate on soldiers who can't protect themselves from blood in battle. Homosexuals also account (CDC) for 10% of hepatitis A and 20% of hepatitis B. New syphilis cases are homosexuals 64% of the time (CDC). Anal infection with human papilloma virus (HPV) is "at near universal levels in gay men". Homosexual populations in cities are undergoing a huge epidemic of a new MRSA strain - a strain a research doctor in San Francisco said would be lethal to the general population if combined with VRE infections also taking place. The homosexual groups went after that doctor to silence her.

Homosexuality was never proven not to be a disorder. It was dropped as one under political pressure. Indeed GID (Gender Identity Disorder) still exists but will be dropped because of political pressure as well. Of course they will want the military to be forced to accommodate them as well. The behavior of homosexuality is not the same as race etc and deserves no special rights and protections. Like the hoax of global warming, the "homosexual behavior as civil rights issue" is more heat then light. Liberals push the agenda just like they support for terrorists over CIA, illegals over citizens, speech rights for pornographers but not the religious (unless they are terrorists etc). The Democrats pulled the rug from under US troops in 2005 and the left generally resent the military. Homosexualizing it is more important to them than making is safe and effective for members.

On a final note, a congressional report showed most soldiers who were discharged from military under DADT where homosexuals who reported themselves as a way to get out of the military. The idea that there are legions of soldiers waiting to die for the country but being witched hunted out is false. Indeed its a testament to how unintelligent America has become that Dems repeal DADT juts as story broke about an emotionally disturbed (he attacked an officer in Iraq etc) homosexual wiki-leaker betrayed the country because of his displeasure with military. Average people think the DADT thing is over now and they fail to appreciate the PC carnival that is about to fire up and how it will harm the military (and Americans love their military). Repeal of DADT will backfire in a major way. Homosexuals really should have left well enough alone.

"Flesh-eating bug spreads among gays"

"Once this reaches the general population, it will be truly unstoppable," Binh Diep, a researcher at the University of California, San Francisco, who led the study, told the Telegraph. "That's why we're trying to spread the message of prevention."

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/flesh-eating-bug-spreads-among-gays/story-e6frg6to-1111115341040

Lawyers cry foul over leak of Julian Assange sex-case papers

Incriminating police files were published in the British newspaper that has used him as its source for hundreds of leaked US embassy cables.

In a move that surprised many of Mr Assange's closest supporters on Saturday, The Guardian newspaper published previously unseen police documents that accused Mr Assange in graphic detail of sexually assaulting two Swedish women. One witness is said to have stated: "Not only had it been the world's worst screw, it had also been violent."

Oh, the irony.

• http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-11921220
• http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/dec/05/julian-assange-lawyers-being-watched
• http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/wikileaks-reveals-ugly-truth-about-iran-appeasers/story-fn59niix-1225966020409
• http://www.mercurynews.com/business/ci_16762752?source=rss&nclick_check=1
• http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2010/12/must-read-nyt-wikileaks-on-china-and-google/67499/
• http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Wikileaks+indictment+diplomacy/3927123/story.html

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/opinion/billions-to-be-spent-on-dubious-benefits/story-e6frg6zo-1225961705602

Not only that, but it benefits for city folk are heavily debated, while the country folk will reap much of the rewards. I don't have a problem with country folk, but I do have a problem with us subsidizing their life choices by living remote from services offered in heavily populated cities. Hell, I'd love to move out to the countryside, and have all the services offered in a city location.

I lived in Sydney for 35 years before recently moving to London for contract work, and the last 6 years of that I had a 20 MB pipe, without the need for Telstra - the peddlers of an over the top expensive product.

The govt all the long wanted Telstra to stump up for NBN and when the pollies rubbished their proposal, it seemed like the smaller operators had a chance to collectively provide services at an equal rate.

Anyway guys, the NBN may come to your door, but in order to use it you'll have to shell out up to $450 and $750, and up to $3,000 to get a connection. Good luck with that.

These public-private consortiums are ruining our country, hiding our debt and placing the burden on the citizens to stump up extra for services that should spearheaded by govt - if they deem them so important.

Maybe not american, still accusation is theft of state secrets: 10 years prison.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/mining-energy/rio-tintos-stern-hu-jailed-10-years/story-e6frg9df-1225847088979

A report by an Australian news organization notes, "Russian President Dmitry Medvedev agreed yesterday to involve technicians in development plans, but did not make a commitment if it became operational and warned that Russia might decide against joining the US-led effort if it were not treated as an equal partner." Though Russia is assisting NATO, Russia is not necessarily committing to using the system.

That response by Russia should have raised suspicions about the Kremlin's actually sabotaging the design of the missile system. After all, if the Kremlin is not committed to using the system, why would the Kremlin bother to ensure that the system can actually work?

Worse, "President" Medvedev has accused the Europeans of using the shield to neutralize Russian nuclear missiles. If the Kremlin were a true supporter of NATO, why would the Russian "president" still present Russia as an adversary of the West?

WE MUST NOT ALLOW A MINE-SHAFT GAP!

Seriously - quit fapping to Red Dawn and realize that the Cold War is over.

That response by Russia should have raised suspicions about the Kremlin's actually sabotaging the design of the missile system. After all, if the Kremlin is not committed to using the system, why would the Kremlin bother to ensure that the system can actually work?

Worse, "President" Medvedev has accused the Europeans of using the shield to neutralize Russian nuclear missiles. If the Kremlin were a true supporter of NATO, why would the Russian "president" still present Russia as an adversary of the West?

It's ironic that so many that don't like Fox or Newcorp pumped so much money into the organization by paying to see Avatar.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/avatar-leads-news-corp-to-us25bn-profit/story-fn65t1pq-1225901426210

That in mind, there's a bit of irony running into conservatives complaining that Avatar had a liberal agenda.

I guess it is also ironic to see those that like Newscorp and dislike MS-NBC liking Microsoft.

Maybe it's time for Microsoft to produce a movie, but what? I doubt they'd go for a remake of Antitrust.

http://www.linux.com/archive/feed/6854

I suggest that if an iPad is indeed critical business tool for a Doctor, he might be able to spring for the six hundred bucks without too much trouble.

He doesn't need John Brumby to buy it for him (or her). In contrast, there are plenty of school kids who could use that sort of investment in technology. Perhaps some of the billions of dollars that were wasted on the latest Public transport fiasco could be spent there.

Investment in health care needs more serious consideration than simply buying the doctors more shiny objects.

Careful on what you wish.Virgin Blue airlines in Australia suffered a 2 day blackout costing $20 million due to a single solid state drive failure. They have since gone back to normal drive. Read it at http://www.theaustralian.com.au/australian-it/still-no-clue-to-virgin-blues-20m-question/story-e6frgakx-1225937335722

Do I think he should be fired? No. What he did was thoughtless and inconsiderate, but it wasn't illegal and it wasn't on behalf of the school.

Well, four years ago some Muslim boys urinated on, spat on, and "smoked" a Bible. This was in a school in Australia, and last I heard they were expelled. So, maybe that would be par for the course. You may have missed the 2006 pee/fire/spit Bible incident since it didn't go global, so here it is: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/muslim-boys-urinated-on-bible/story-e6frg6nf-1111112640400

The NBN will be implmented by by:
Labour

Therefore it is guaranteed to go over budget and be ridiculously expensive (unless they decide to tax something else to subsidize it).
Liberal may not have promised the same kind of penetration on the same time scale, but at least they considered all of the costs. It's not even off the ground and we're already seeing the costs increase.

Wikileaks source documents are received in Sweden and published from Sweden so as to derive maximum benefit from this legal protection. Should the Senator or anyone else attempt to discover our source we will refer the matter to the Constitutional Police for prosecution, and, if necessary, ask that the Senator and anyone else involved be extradited to face justice for breaching fundamental rights."

Newspaper article from 2010:

“We're registered as a library in Australia, we're registered as a foundation in France, we're registered as a newspaper in Sweden,” Mr Assange said.

The inventor of the black box flight recorder, David Warren, died recently. http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/aviation/black-box-inventor-david-warren-dies-at-85/story-e6frg95x-1225895120709 David said in his talks that The RAAF went as far as to note that “such a device is not required the recorder would yield more expletives than explanations”. Live telemetry of aeroplane data could help revive this objection.

the author of the paper and his conclusions have already been called into question

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/australians-say-uss-oldest-fossil-claims-dont-hold-water/story-e6frg6nf-1225907040826

from TFA

Moreover, Dr Gehling said better, older fossils had been found three years ago by University of Melbourne geologist Malcolm Wallace and his team. Dr Gehling suggested that competitive pressure might have been the reason Dr Wallace's group has been unable to publish their results.

The Australian understands that one of the co-authors of the contentious paper is a reviewer for the journal Science, to which Dr Wallace's group has submitted a paper. It is not clear whether the reviewer has read the paper but Dr Wallace acknowledged that "we've had difficulties getting our results published". He preferred not to discuss Dr Gehling's suspicions. He did affirm that his group's finds were roughly 20 million years older than those reported by the Princeton team, headed by paleontologist Adam Maloof.

"faith based filtering" = ?? Julia & Conroy are offering us censorship, did you miss the debate on this topic?
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/web-filter-to-block-internet-nasties-will-compromise-nbn-say-providers/story-e6frg6nf-1225811143407
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/05/07/2893687.htm
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/04/21/2879345.htm

"all they did was stall adsl2, milk the international interconnects, keep exchanges difficult to access, charge use up and down by the mb and muddy any NBN press."

Telstra was the product of both Labor & coalition governments spread across several terms. The Monopoly that was changed into the system we have today is less than perfect. The reality is we now have other private companies investing in infrastructure and providing competitive service. For example - TPG have invested in exchanges and sell monopoly access to their infrastructure. No security of investment results in no investment.

Creating a new monopoly (NBN) will result in a repeat of the original Telecom problems. Any investment in infrastructure will demand a return on investment. Any politician/government that fails to subject to accountability will be accused of vote buying (pork barreling their electorate).

I'm all for open debate. Please justify & expand on your claim "Tony is offering Australia more of the worst of a US Bell system".

I think I'll go with the Greens...

Please, think twice. Is this guy still on the Greens ticket? Because if this is the kind people they put up, then they don't sound very anti-filter to me.

You'll have to excuse me if I don't assist Mr. Assange in killing Afghan civilians - I'm not going to reproduce names for you here because you're too lazy to read the links I've pointed out. Seriously - have you bothered reading a bit of the news coverage around this, other than what's on Slashdot, where WikiLeaks can do no wrong because it's "taking on the big evil nasty military"?

(from http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/leaked-details-put-informant-lives-in-danger/story-e6frg6so-1225898206990):

In just two hours of searching the WikiLeaks archive, The Times found the names of dozens of Afghans credited with handing intelligence to US forces. Their villages are given for identification and, in many cases, their fathers' names.

Julian Assange has *acknowledged* that they did so. And said, "Well it's not my fault, I didn't mean to harm anybody, and if anybody is hurt, I'll regret it very much," while having the cojones to blame the government for not helping him vet thousands of classified documents which have no business being distributed in the first place. Once again, his regret will be cold comfort for the people who will be injured and killed as a result of his organization publishing the names of informants as a result of an incomplete & sloppy review process.

(from http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/publication-of-afghan-informant-details-worth-the-risk-wikileaks-founder-julian-assange/story-e6frg6so-1225898273552):

Julian Assange, the founder of the whistleblowing website, told The Times that he would "deeply regret" any harm caused by the disclosures.

But in an extensive interview he defended his actions: he claimed that many informers in Afghanistan were "acting in a criminal way" by sharing false information with Nato authorities;

he said the White House knew that informants' names could be exposed before the release but did nothing to help WikiLeaks to vet the data;

he insisted that any risk to informants' lives was outweighed by the overall importance of publishing the information.

Mr Assange said: "No one has been harmed, but should anyone come to harm of course that would be a matter of deep regret - our goal is justice to innocents, not to harm them. That said, if we were forced into a position of publishing all of the archives or none of the archives we would publish all of the archives because it's extremely important to the history of this war."

Connect these two stories with the original story I linked, where a Taliban spokesman has already stated that they are looking through the documents in order to "punish" people who've collaborated with NATO forces. If you really think nobody will be substantially harmed by WikiLeaks' actions, you're living in a fantasy world.

You'll have to excuse me if I don't assist Mr. Assange in killing Afghan civilians - I'm not going to reproduce names for you here because you're too lazy to read the links I've pointed out. Seriously - have you bothered reading a bit of the news coverage around this, other than what's on Slashdot, where WikiLeaks can do no wrong because it's "taking on the big evil nasty military"?

(from http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/leaked-details-put-informant-lives-in-danger/story-e6frg6so-1225898206990):

In just two hours of searching the WikiLeaks archive, The Times found the names of dozens of Afghans credited with handing intelligence to US forces. Their villages are given for identification and, in many cases, their fathers' names.

Julian Assange has *acknowledged* that they did so. And said, "Well it's not my fault, I didn't mean to harm anybody, and if anybody is hurt, I'll regret it very much," while having the cojones to blame the government for not helping him vet thousands of classified documents which have no business being distributed in the first place. Once again, his regret will be cold comfort for the people who will be injured and killed as a result of his organization publishing the names of informants as a result of an incomplete & sloppy review process.

(from http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/publication-of-afghan-informant-details-worth-the-risk-wikileaks-founder-julian-assange/story-e6frg6so-1225898273552):

Julian Assange, the founder of the whistleblowing website, told The Times that he would "deeply regret" any harm caused by the disclosures.

But in an extensive interview he defended his actions: he claimed that many informers in Afghanistan were "acting in a criminal way" by sharing false information with Nato authorities;

he said the White House knew that informants' names could be exposed before the release but did nothing to help WikiLeaks to vet the data;

he insisted that any risk to informants' lives was outweighed by the overall importance of publishing the information.

Mr Assange said: "No one has been harmed, but should anyone come to harm of course that would be a matter of deep regret - our goal is justice to innocents, not to harm them. That said, if we were forced into a position of publishing all of the archives or none of the archives we would publish all of the archives because it's extremely important to the history of this war."

Connect these two stories with the original story I linked, where a Taliban spokesman has already stated that they are looking through the documents in order to "punish" people who've collaborated with NATO forces. If you really think nobody will be substantially harmed by WikiLeaks' actions, you're living in a fantasy world.

Did you actually read them?

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/publication-of-afghan-informant-details-worth-the-risk-wikileaks-founder-julian-assange/story-e6frg6so-1225898273552

The sanitized version in papers had names blacked out, but the actual leaked docs were basically unedited. The Taliban has already announced they're using it to compile a list of people to kill.

http://www.newsweek.com/2010/07/30/taliban-says-it-will-target-names-exposed-by-wikileaks.html

Even with only 5% royalties and six years, that's apparently still a six-figure sum.

Wouldn't have guessed they were still averaging $333K+ a year in royalties. I can see why these aging rockers tend to fight for copyright extensions.

I particularly like this report about the judgement where "the flute riff made up only 5.8 per cent" of the song. Five point eight percent? You have got to be kidding me!

It speaks volumes when the legal system must resort to distillation and quantification of art to such spurious accuracy. It reeks of the text book explainging the linear programming of poetry that gets ripped up in Dead Poets Society or the King of Austria as portrayed in Amadeus, "And there are simply too many notes, that's all. Just cut a few and it will be perfect!".

Xix.

I just read another article about this, NBN deal , which indicates:

* Telstra gets to be removed from universal service obligation
* and there will be yet another company setup to look after unprofitable telco services to rural and regional Australian - called USO Co - with only 50 million to do with with (at least to begin with)

As to filtering - I still think it is a part of a master plan to create a backbone which is filtered before it ever reaches ISPs. They won't/aren't concerned with filtering overhead and never will be. They only want to be able to control the flow of free information into Australia.