Strange but true from the legendary past.....

Thinking about the Rudd-Conroy foray into Internet censorship brought to mind this American court case, John Doe et al v Alberto Gonzales, Attorney General of the United States of America et al from 2005.

Litigation from a time when the US Government, as part of the War On Terror, even wanted to find out what library books its citizens were reading.
Using the mechanism of National Security Letters (NSLs) which request information from a third party and are issued by the FBI or by other government agencies with authority to conduct national security investigations.

Eventually the US Government dropped its pursuit of the Executive Director of the Library Connection, an online service.
He does not appear to have ever given the FBI the information it requested.

However NSLs which attempt to force silence on recipients still exist according to the American Civil Liberties Union:

Through NSLs the FBI can compile vast dossiers about innocent people and obtain sensitive information such as the web sites a person visits, a list of e-mail addresses with which a person has corresponded, or even unmask the identity of a person who has posted anonymous speech on a political website. The provision also allows the FBI to forbid or "gag" anyone who receives an NSL from telling anyone about the record demand.

Although the burden of proof as to why a citizen should be gagged is now on government agencies.

This little piece of government spying history is again relevant, as at the end of March 2009 two House of Representatives Democrats have re-introduced the Nadler/Flake bill now known as the National Security Letters Reform Act 2009 to curb excessive snooping using these NSFs.

Barack Obama is said to have supported the bill when it was first introduced in 2007.
Will he now as president support this reform or fight it?

Japan complains about kill numbers as 220 whales go free

Minke whale being dragged onboard a Japanese whaling vessel

The Telegraph UK article on 2009 whale kill numbers on 13 April 2009:
We had set a target of 850 minke whales but were only able to catch 679, and only one out of a quota of 50 fin whales," said Hideaki Okada, a ministry spokesman.
"One of our vessels was damaged in a dangerous attack, so we lost about two weeks of the season, so we could not reach our target," he said. "We needed to reach the 850 quota to carry out effective scientific research, so we have lost that opportunity."

This is what was said during a Radio Australia interview on 15 April last year:

SHANE MCLEOD: Japan had planned to kill around 1,000 whales in the Southern Ocean this season, 850, give or take 10 per cent were to be minke whales, 50 fin whales and 50 humpbacks. The humpbacks were taken out of the formula in December, after Australia led protests lodged directly with Japan's Government. And now with the main whaling the ship, the Nisshin Maru due back in port this morning, Japan has confirmed that it's had trouble meeting the quota it set itself - with 551 minke whales making up roughly 60 per cent of the quota. Shigeki Takaya is a spokesman for Japan's Fisheries Agency.

SHIGEKI TAKAYA: 551 is not reached to the 850 but is not so small numbers. We will get the good result from this number.

SHANE MCLEOD: Japan's whale researchers say part of the reason for not catching so many whales is that they didn't see quite so many of them. But they say it's premature to draw conclusions from that about overall whale numbers.

So a catch of 551 Minke whales in 2008 is still a good result, but a catch of 679 Minke whales in 2009 is not?
It would appear that Japan has been caught out spinning a whale of a tale.

Comic relief ... it's just not cricket

More about that "No penis, no microphone" business

ABC TV's Media Watch has hit The Daily Examiner commentator Peter Chapman, the bloke who started the business, for six.

Media Watch didn't buy Chapman's assurances that he's not a male chauvinist ["...as one of the first sports editors in Channel Ten to employ female sports journalists, I can't be labelled a male chauvinist (The Daily Examiner, 7th April, 2009)"]

Media Watch: The horror! Peter Chapman is a sports buff from way back - with views to match.

According to him, this female person didn't have a clue what she was talking about.

Instead she...

...tried to bluff her way through by explaining how we need more swing bowlers and the difference a hard and soft ball can make to scoring rates.

— The Daily Examiner, 7th April, 2009

She has a name, Peter. It's Natalie Germanos, and she's been calling cricket for the South African Broadcasting Corp since 2005.

She's a former player, and coach.

Here she is, bluffing away about swing bowling:

Natalie Germanos: What you've seen in this game that Wayne Parnell, a decent amount of swing and Dale Steyn as well, he hasn't got much swing over the summer, especially here in South Africa, but moved that white ball around quite a bit and was very effective.

— Fox Sports 2, Aus vs RSA ODI, 5th April, 2009

Funnily enough, right after the game, Allan Border seemed to think South Africa's swing bowling was quite important too.

...the way they struck with the new hard ball early, they swung the ball at good pace and our top order crumbled...

— Fox Sports 2 web video, 5th April, 2009

We got a long response from Peter Chapman, who now argues that it's Natalie Germanos's commentary he took issue with, not her gender...

I have no concerns should a female commentator arrive who can deliver the goods, I welcome her.

— Email from Peter Chapman (Editor, The Daily Examiner) to Media Watch, 9th April, 2009

Read Peter Chapman's response to Media Watch’s questions.

That's not quite what you wrote, Peter:

I don't mind female sports journos doing interviews and giving us the colour reports, but for blow-by-blow, it has to be a male.

— The Daily Examiner, 7th April, 2009

Mind you, Peter assures us:

...as one of the first sports editors in Channel Ten to employ female sports journalists, I can't be labelled a male chauvinist.

— The Daily Examiner, 7th April, 2009

Oh, I think you can, Peter...

Worrying times under this feathered fascism

All the old newspapers on the farm are used as mulch and weed suppressors in the garden and it works really well. I did not think that there was a downside to this practice until very recently.

Those of you who follow this group blog will know I have been having problems with fascist geese taking over the farm. However, up to this week there was one area permanently declared a goose-free zone and that is the vegie garden.

Yesterday afternoon a panzer division of geese stormed the frontline fence and broke into the forbidden garden.

It was a stealth attack, they made no noise at all.

Which is very hard for geese, since they seem to have opinions about everything and insist on telling the world at the top of their lungs.

By the time I discovered the invasion and rallied the troops (the old dog and myself) to counter attack these geese and drive them from their new found territory, they had a few hours worth of eating all the vegetables they could find.

At first I thought that it was only the vegetables they wanted, but I am not too sure now.

There's been a change in their tactics and something about the way they are conducting themselves does not bode well.

This morning I think I may have found the answer.

While repairing the damage and cleaning up the mess I happened to glance down at the mulch headline screaming up at me, Fiji crisis deepens!!!

It had a muddy goose footprint on it, and one of Commodore Barney's quotes had been ripped out (as was a photo of the infamous leader) and was missing .

The geese have found a soul mate, a hero; with him as inspiration who knows what will happen here on the farm in coming days.

Goldman Sachs threatens blogger but only ends up advertising the dissident blog

Goldman Sachs like any other big financial institution is more than a little sensitive to criticism since the global financial crisis exposed the greedy underbelly of financial institutions.

On 25 March 2009 Mike Morgan set up a blog at www.goldmansachs666.com aimed at airing information about this merchant bank.

The blog's banner is Info, Comments, Opinions and Facts About Goldman Sachs, its first post was on 26 March and its first legal letter on behalf of Goldman Sachs was dated 8 April.

Apparently the banking group is asserting that use of the wording goldmansachs666 is a breach of copyright, unfair competition and implies the blogger has an affiliation or relationship with Goldman Sachs.

Rather a thin argument to put forward I would have thought and somewhat misleading; as it is clear as day that what these bankers are really objecting to is information being published about such matters as the amount of taxpayer money Goldman Sachs received from the US Government's financial institutions bailout.
Information which unsurprisingly is already in the public domain at websites such as Market Watch.

It is very interesting to note that a copy of the legal letter was sent to the blog's host GoDaddy Inc. in what looks like a move to unsettle the host and have it bring pressure to bear on Mike Morgan.

This would have to be a first surely for a young blog - threatened with litigation within the first fortnight of its existence.

One wonders if Sinewave who created the Goldman Sucks blog in April 2009 will also eventually fall foul of these bankers.

Of course once Goldman Sachs decided to set out down the legal path the outcome was inevitable.

Now the blogosphere is discussing the situation with posts such as What's Goldman Sachs Hiding? Is it another Madoff scam?, Goldman Sachs is worried about its reputation ~ LOL and Goldman Sachs Seeks To Stifle Blogger Critic (GS)
While Google is returning over 2,000 results on a search for the term goldmansachs666.

Goldman Sachs Group Inc Chairman and CEO Lloyd Blankfein stated in a speech to the Council of Institutional Investors in Washington earlier this month:

To begin with an obvious point, much of the past year has been deeply humbling for my industry. We held ourselves up as the experts, and the loss of public confidence from failing to live up to the expectations that we created will take years to rebuild. Worse, decisions on compensation and other actions taken and not taken, particularly at banks that rapidly lost a lot of shareholder value, look self-serving and greedy in hindsight.

Might I suggest to Mr. Blankfein that trying to bully a blogger into silence when he does not appear to have actually breached any law (yet) is not the way to rebuild confidence in the Goldman Sachs brand.

Not in front of the children Aussie-style

Caught sight of this over at the Rabbit Scan blog.
A post by Bunny Blighter:
"Be careful of what you do in front of young children. They learn from you!
I grew up in the mallee during the horrific rabbit plagues of the late forties-early fifties; before Myxo helped to control the pest. When I was barely three I was out with my father and a farm worker who were digging up warrens .
Apparently some dear little rabbit kittens were dug up and Dad gave his sweet little daughter one to cuddle.
Sweet little daughter did what she had only ever seen what people do to rabbits. She picked it up by the hind legs and smashed its head into a nearby tree, killing it. Be very, very careful what behaviour you model in front of children!"

Media and blogs respond to Fiji military dictatorship

Chris Merrit and John Stapleton writing in The Australian this morning:

THE Australian judges who triggered Fiji's latest political crisis have branded the Pacific nation's president a dictator and warned that any expatriate judges who accept job offers from him could be seen as treasonous.
The attack on president Josefa Iloilo was unleashed yesterday after he had sacked the country's judiciary, torn up the constitution and reappointed a prime minister whose regime the judges had declared illegal.
"He is effectively a dictator - that is a strong word, but that is the situation," said Ian Lloyd, one of the three Australian judges on Fiji's Court of Appeal who last Thursday ruled that military leader Frank Bainimarama's seizure of power in a 2006 coup was illegal.

The Canberra Times reported today:

Life becomes difficult for the Fiji press during a constitutional crisis. And so it has proved once again for the Fiji Times. Yesterday's edition featured some unusual page layouts, courtesy of the "khaki subeditors" - military censors placed in the newspaper offices by the interim prime minister, Commodore Frank Bainimarama.

It is also being reported that Fiji blogs are stepping into the breach and supplying information despite the Fiji Government's attempts to censor media.

From Raw Fiji News on Sunday:

As you are aware His Excellency our President yesterday morning abrogated the 1997 Constitution. His Excellency has informed me that the decision of the then Court of Appeal; the anomaly in the decision, the serious consequent vacuum created by that decision; the existing circumstances in Fiji and the way forward as mapped out by the Charter left His Excellency no choice but to abrogate the 1997 constitution.

RFN says - Frank, there was no anomaly in the appeals court decision. It was consistent with the rule of law and consistent with what many people thought of your illegal acts. Even if there was some degree of anomaly, you could have instructed those taxpayer money thieves QCs who represented you to take that same argument to the Supreme Court. You didn't take it any further Frank because you and your team knew all along that there ain't no chance for you at Supreme Court who without doubt would have upheld the Appeals Court ruling denouncing you as an illegal usurper.

[Our response to Frank's yah dah yah dah yah dah, April 12, 2009]

Short list of other blogs commenting on the military regime and its media censorship posted by Andrew Bartlett over at Crikey:

 Discombobulated Bubu;
 Fiji Girl's Weblog;
 Luvei Viti – Children of Fiji;
 Soli Vakasama;
 Fiji Democracy Now;
 Tears for Fiji;
 Coup Four and a Half.

Goose stepping in all this rain.....

The rain came, the water rises. Since February our little creek has been out of its bed more times than an insomniac with diarrhoea.

The ground is as soft as half-set jelly and I've taken to going barefoot around the farm since I bogged the gum boots too many times to count.

One good thing to come out of the latest flood is that since it shorted out and then washed away the neighbour’s electric fence, I no longer have the continual ticking on the phone line which left an impression that the phone was going to blow up at any moment.

The new fully-automatic weather station I installed couldn't cope with both rainfall and blackouts so we are back using the old rain gauge - a large tin can and a measuring beaker.

It is more reliable that the electric, battery and solar powered gee whiz bang new weather station.
The main problem with the old tin is assessing the frog variable.
How much fluid do the frogs extract or add to the rainwater caught in a tin?

I must admit it has been very peaceful the last few months sitting listening to the rain on the tin roof.
Not much can be done outside until there is a break in the weather.

We've not had any visitors. Even the religious fraternity that use to turn up on our doorstep has taken to leaving pamphlets in our letter box on the main road - they may trust the Lord but not our rain raddled driveway.

The only animals that have completely enjoyed the past few months have been the geese.
They clearly believe they're meant to rule this new watery kingdom and are currently out harassing swans in their new found domain.

When not involved in that pursuit they march in squadrons over sodden pasture without sinking, as they go telling everything to stand clear for the new overlords.

They have definitely turned fascist. So as I sit here, with rain drumming on the roof, I am planning a counter-insurgence.
When the weather breaks the geese had better be on guard for I have found the receipe for pate de foie gras.

To all those Australian politicians out there - especially the Rees Government

Click on image to enlarge

I know its hard if you don't live right on a coast or river to visualise the type of residential land vulnerable to the ravages of climate change.
So here's an aerial view of the small northern NSW coastal town of Yamba, at the mouth of the Clarence River.

You will notice that its northern border is the Clarence River, its eastern border is the Pacific Ocean, its western border is Oyster Channel and its southern border is mostly Lake Wooloweyah with a narrow strip of land on the ocean side.
All of these bodies of water are influenced by the tide.

If the Rees Government consents to furthering urban development of West Yamba by consenting to the recent Clarence Valley Council Draft West Yamba Local Environment Plan then an extra 2,500 people will probably be added to the town's present population of around 6,000 residents (a population which basically doubles during peak holiday periods).

The proposed West Yamba development (involving significant landfill) would be on an identified flood storage area and therefore its bulk would divert some of any future flood water to elsewhere in Yamba and the smaller Wooloweyah village.

That would mean an estimated 4,000 households at the very least would be lining up to be included in any litigation against Clarence Valley Council and the NSW Government for a failure to exercise duty of care.