Wednesday 17 December 2008
Amendments to the Same-Sex Relationships (Equal Treatment in Commonwealth Laws - General Law Reform) Bill 2008
Amendments cover many aspects of legal discrimination against same-sex couples and addresses some rights and obligations, including those of children of the relationship.
Explanatory Statement at ComLaw here.
Those U.S. Army-Navy jocks take their football seriously!
West Point airdrops Army propaganda on Naval Academy
Psychological operation rattles midshipmen before big game
Recordonline.com, December 06, 2008
WEST POINT — Army cadets and aviators from West Point waged an aerial ambush over hapless midshipmen and sailors at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis this week.
At 12:05 p.m. Thursday, as the midshipmen gathered for lunch formation, a green and white Bell UH-1 series Iroquois, better known as a "Huey," pounded into view. From its side door, soldiers launched an exploding box of propaganda, including hundreds of dollar-bill-sized "Trash Navy" leaflets and inflatable plastic swords.
"They were all looking up at us and shaking their fists," said Senior cadet Gary Haning, 22, of Maryland. He helped with the airdrop from the Superintendent's bird. The "psychological operation" was designed to rattle the Navy before Saturday's annual football grudge match in Philadelphia.......
Follow the link to see the video of the leaflet drop:
http://www.recordonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20081206/NEWS/81206008
Tuesday 16 December 2008
Iz waitin' Santa (a message for those who will be alone on Christmas Day)
Conroy cleans up without a universal Internet censor
Today the AFP announced the identification of 22 Australian men following a 12-month investigation into an online child abuse image and video-sharing network. The AFP's Child Protection Operations Teams seized more than 15,000 videos and 500,000 images of child abuse.
I'm willing to hazard a guess that this sting would be more effective than the Minister's plan to impose mandatory national ISP-level filtering to censor the Australian Internet and, probably didn't cost as much as any proposed implementation phase of Conroy's mad scheme.
With his national 'live' trial now in tatters, as Australian ISPs realise just how many problems he is wishing on their commercial business, Senator Conroy appears ready to conduct another 'closed' trial (this time without any ISP customers involved) in order to save face an push forward with the Great Firewall of Australia.
Has the Prime Minister considered that perhaps the Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy is becoming tired and emotional?
Just in time for Christmas?
"A Toronto-based researcher has built what he claims is the world's first fully functional female robot -- a lifelike android named Aiko that is capable of recognizing faces, identifying medication, and even buttering toast.
33-year-old researcher Le Trung, a graduate of York University, built Aiko with silicon and computer parts. Programming her internal software took over a year. To date, Trung has spent $24,000 building his robo-girl. Aiko sports delicate, Geisha-like features and is armed with sensors that allow her to respond to touch and voice commands. A camera in her neck provides her with visual input. All told, the robot weighs in at about 70 pounds. With a vocabulary of more than 13,000 words, Aiko can, among other things, tell you what the weather is outside. Despite her lifelike appearance and 32-23-33, anatomically correct measurements, Trung insists Aiko is not a s*x doll. "I'm attached to it, but do I sleep with it? No," said Aiko, in an interview published Thursday in Toronto's Globe & Mail newspaper."
Aussie farmers will remain faithful to the real flesh-and-blood version though - a robot couldn't do as much farm work at Teh Wife, carry heavy loads like The Ute or be as faithful as The Heeler.
And they would know it would be London to a brick that Aiko would break down more times than the bore pump!