Friday 20 November 2009

Did Stephen Conroy's live trial of national ISP-level Internet filtering run into trouble?

These are images from a Wikileaks document which purports to be a 2009 Watchdog International white paper called List Management Issues When Filtering using URL Blacklists.

Watchdog technology was used within a live trial of the Rudd-Conroy mandatory national ISP-level filtering of the Australian Internet.

It would appear that the Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy may have run into a few problems in testing his ACMA blacklist if the white paper is to be believed.

Perhaps this hints at the reason behind Senator Conroy's reluctance to release the live trial report, which has now been twice delayed with no guarantee as to when it will be published.

Click on images to enlarge

Thursday 19 November 2009

GCP Carbon Budget 2008: a brief outline of the major global polluters


The Global Carbon Project Carbon Budget 2008* released on 17 November 2009 reveals that the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide (CO2) is now 385ppm which is 38 per cent above pre-industrial levels and, global emissions now stand at 8.7 PgC**.

This is a 2008 growth rate of 2 per cent (up 41 per cent on 1990 levels) and the highest CO2 level in at least the last two million years according to the report.

China, USA and India are responsible for 50 per cent of all global emissions, with 90 per cent of the increase in CO2 emissions from coal emissions between 2006-2008 coming from China and India.

Globally the fraction of total CO2 emissions which remain in the air has risen to 45 percent (a five per cent increase since 1960). It is suggested that the increase may be due to earth and ocean sinks declining in efficiency.

An estimated 20-35 percent of today’s emissions will remain in the atmosphere for several centuries into the future.

2008 Top Six Countries for CO2 Emissions From Fossil Fuels and Cement in MtC/yr (TcG/yr):

1 CHINA 1922687
2 USA 1547460
3 INDIA 479039
4 RUSSIA 435126
5 JAPAN 357534
6 GERMANY 210480

Australia comes in at number 18 on this list with 96168 (down from 101086 in 2007 & 101458 in 2006). However our per capita emissions growth rate is still higher than many other comparable developed countries.

Carbon Budget 2008 full document including graphs here.
Carbon Budget 2008 Policy Brief here
.

*Carbon Budget 2008 highlights.
**[1 Pg = 1 Petagram = 1 Billion metric tonnes = 1 Gigatonne = 1x1015g]

Nomination shortlist for the 2009 Australian Human Rights Awards and Medals


On Wednesday 11 November 2009 the Australian Human Rights Commission announced the shortlist for this year's Human Rights Awards and Medals.
Winners will be announces on 10 December 2009.

These shortlisted entries are not listed in any order of preference.
The shortlist for the Law Award will be available shortly.
Please note there are no shortlists for the Human Rights Medal or the Young People's Human Rights Medal.

Print Media
  • Ticking boxes: Part I and II
    National Indigenous Times
  • Revealed: Australia's suicide epidemic
    Ruth Pollard
    The Sydney Morning Herald
  • Our schools for scandal
    Sushi Das
    The Age
  • Dying to be heard
    Ruth Pollard
    The Sydney Morning Herald
  • Diversity, Difference and Diagnosis (D3) - series
    Copeland Publishing - 'Child' Magazines

Television Award
  • Going back to Lajamanu
    Debbie Whitmont, Michael Doyle, Kate Wild, Anne Connolly
    Four Corners, ABC Television
  • Who killed Mr Ward?
    Liz Jackson, Janine Cohen, Kate Wild
    Four Corners, ABC Television
  • Kids' Business
    People Pictures
  • My name is Jack
    Helen Grasswill, Renata Gombac, Ian Harley, Quentin Davis, John Gunn
    Australian Story, ABC Television
  • Foetal Alcohol Syndrome: Part 1 and 2
    Suzanne Smith, Tony Jones, Brett Evans, John Bruce
    Lateline, ABC Television
Radio Award
  • Holding Our Tongues
    Lorena Allam
    Hindsight, ABC Radio National
  • Dementia and Anti-Psychotics: medication or management?
    Natasha Mitchell and Anita Barraud
    All in the Mind, ABC Radio National
  • Losing Erin
    Kirsti Melville
    360°, ABC Radio National
  • A Sense of Duty
    Heather Stewart
    360°, ABC Radio National
  • Crisis for Children
    Ian Townsend
    Background Briefing, ABC Radio National
Community Award (Individual)
  • Ivan-Tiwu Copley
  • Kate Locke
  • Ikebal Adam Patel
  • Doreen Green
  • Joan Dicka
Community Award (Organisation)
  • GetUp! Action for Australia
  • Accessible Arts
  • The Human Rights Law Resource Centre
  • ACON
  • Centre for Multicultural Youth
Literature Non-Fiction Award

The Native Title Market
David Ritter

Black Politics: Inside the complexity of Aboriginal political culture
Sarah Maddison

Culture is… Australian Stories Across Cultures: An Anthology
Anne - Marie Smith (Editor)
The Multicultural Writers Association of Australia

Blind Conscience
Margot O'Neill

Navigating Teenage Depression: A guide for parents and professionals
Gordon Parker and Kerrie Eyers

Better late than never in Coffs Harbour?


For literally decades the Coffs Harbour City Council has merrily developed the district to death, in the face of drinking water scarcity, farm land and floodplain issues.
Now after what is probably the fifth local flood in eleven months, the Coffs Coast News reports last Monday:
"FORMER Coffs Harbour deputy mayor Rod McKelvey has called for a ban on future development projects until proper flood protection is in place.
McKelvey, who stood down at the last local government elections because of family illness, believes future developments without protection could have serious consequences for a number of areas, including Coffs Harbour hospital.
"The more we develop Coffs, the worse the problem will get, McKelvey told The Advocate in an exclusive interview over the weekend.
"There are many possible actions worthy of investigation, including the GM's pump concept.
"But before we go rushing into developing West Boambee, which will add to the hospital's flood woes, or the airport and other areas in the path of floods, we should have a moratorium until proper protection is in place."
McKelvey said he felt there was a moral responsibility as well as an economical one to ensure property is safe from future flooding"
Definitely a case of wanting to close the door after the horse has bolted, but at least there is now some recognition of the deep doo-doo homeowners have been landed in by local powers that be.

Wednesday 18 November 2009

Did you know? A morning tea trivia break


World's digital content equivalent to stack of books stretching from Earth to Pluto 10 times....
The world's store of digital content is now the equivalent of one full top-of-the-range
iPod for every two people on the planet, following the explosion of social networking sites, internet-enabled mobile phones and government surveillance.

The Guardian, 18 May 2009
Internet data heads for 500bn gigabytes

French president Nicolas Sarcozy claims he was in Berlin on the evening the Berlin Wall fell and that he helped dismantle a part of the wall on the spot at Check Point Charlie. His claim has been torn to shreds by historial information available from Internet searches which appear to show that he did not arrive in Germany's capital until days later.

Simple Thoughts, 9 November 2009,
Skeptics question French President Sarkozy’s Facebook post suggesting he saw Berlin Wall fall
& The Australian, 12 November 2009, Sarkozy's Berlin Wall claim falls over

The average Australian adult male is only around 1.2 feet taller than the average adult male orang-utan. Australia's Environment Minister Peter Garrett is reputedly 2.1-2.4 feet taller than this red ape.
Wikipedia
Human height, & Orangutan Outreach & Mike Portnoy 2009

Researchers found a strong link between wages and height, particularly for men, with each additional 10 centimetres of height adding three per cent to hourly wages.
The "height premium" was two per cent per 10 centimetres for women, researchers from the University of Sydney and Canberra's Australian National University (ANU) found.
They calculated that every five centimetres above the average height of 178 centimetres boosted a male's wages by the equivalent of an extra year's experience in the labour force.
WA Today, 17 May 2009,
Study finds tall people at top of wages ladder

An Adelaide property developer, Ross Markris, heads the BRW 2009 young and rich list for the under 40s.
The Sydney Morning Herald
, 23 September 2009

U.S. billionaire Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates has only donated $340,358 to major American political parties since 1978 but film maker Steven Speilberg has donated over $1M in the same period.

Newsmeat, Hall of Fame-Billionaires, 2009

Monsanto staffer claims that 1 bale of cotton makes 215 pairs of jeans, but there is no data on how many litres of GM oil comes from those harvested cotton plants.
Monsanto & Co on Twitter, 13 November 2009

Google suggests over 26 million indexed entries when given the search term "how to get away with a lie" and then produces 47 million items if you proceed with this search.
Google Australia, 13 November 2009

There are at least 1,817 individuals in Australia who currently control wealth worth over $30 million.
Australian Tax Office, 19 October 2009, JCPAA Submssion

Australian Households



RESERVE BANK BULLETIN – APRIL 2009














U.S. National Debt



Newsmeat, 2009








Is it any wonder that the Murray Darling Basin river systems are in trouble?



Thirty major dams and over 4, 000 weirs clutter the Murray-Darling Basin's rivers. Total dam storage is two-and-half times the average annual runoff, meaning they exert enormous control over river flows. Most of the Basin's rivers are regulated by dams and weirs. [Australian Water Association, 2009]