17 posts tagged “politics”
In less than a week David Hicks will face a military commission (of course the full trail for his charge of "providing material support for terrorism won't take place until around July) after spending the last 5 years of his life in a shoe box, let out for the occasional recreation or waterboarding, he is finally getting some support from his government.
Well if you count one rogue senator supporting a failed Democrats motion as support. (Source: ABC News)
Nothing like being sold to the US military for $1000 after being captured by a Northern Alliance warlord and sent to Cuba for processing (that's right he was never actually seen taking arms against the US just handed over for a bounty).
Perhaps David might have more effectively spent his time doing drug runs to Bali, at least he'd be in line for some more sympathy and a speed trial.
"Panorama" of Amnesty International replica Guantánamo cell
"A solitary life...David Hicks's cell, where he is confined for 23
hours a day, his lawyer says and inset, the reading room, with no
books."
Source: motherjones.com
Not my thing but this is nice...
According to Associated Press writers Cheryl Wittenauer, Jim Suhr and Jim Salter, the LA Times' Nicholas Riccardi, ABC News, MSNBC and numerous other news outlets (including others here in Australia that pretty much cover overseas news word for word) Shawn Hornbeck may now be an ATHEIST.
That's right after while being held captive for four years, before his subsequent salvation last week, Shawn Hornbeck of Kirkwood, Mo. had posted on several social networking websites. The most alarming profile found was on mindviz.com which listed Shawn as an atheist. While references to other website profiles can be found throughout the numerous articles on Shawn's disappearance/return, there is only one that is consistent, Shawn's, perhaps coerced, conversion to disbelief by his unholy captor. In fact while it seems that Shawn posting on his own parents website asking "how long" they will keep looking for their son is occasionally of no concern to reporters, his ungodliness is universally disturbing.
This of course is no surprise for three reasons,
News outlets worldwide will of course carry word for word almost any article by the AP to cut down on costs at risk of losing all integrity;
American christians (like all good Christians) in the words of Martin Luther "...should tear the eyes out of reason" and therefore fear anyone who seeks it;
And its no wonder at all the Shawn Hornbeck/Devlin became an atheist after being pronounced dead by two psychics. After the obvious sham of one supernatural act he merely took it one step further.
In short, good reporting has lead to the outing of another atheist, don't forget to keep with you the words of the reformist Martin Luther. "Reason should be destroyed in all Christians".
Good Search is a search engine that no only gets you where you are going on the internets, but by the time you got there you would have donated to a charity or school.
In the same way the Google Search earns a gazillion dollars a day, Good Search is taking advertising money raised via search queries and helping. More than 23,000 charities & schools are signed up. Might be worth switching over to a new search engine and still getting what you need.
You can also install Good Search in your Firefox search bar.
Disclaimer: By using Good Search you maybe helping religious groups and perpetuating the use of religious iconography to imply goodness.
Helen Coonan friend of the media mogul gets friendlier. Cross-media ownership reform allowing for an all out frenzy on media ownership in Australia and now draconian copyright laws that make it illegal to "perform" Happy Birthday.
The Internet Industry Association today warned that changes to Australia’s copyright laws being rushed through Parliament risked making criminals out of everyday Australians.
“As an example,” said Mr Coroneos, “a family who holds a birthday picnic in a place of public entertainment (for example, the grounds of a zoo) and sings ‘Happy Birthday’ in a manner that can be heard by others, risks an infringement notice carrying a fine of up to $1320. If they make a video recording of the event, they risk a further fine for the possession of a device for the purpose of making an infringing copy of a song. And if they go home and upload the clip to the internet where it can be accessed by others, they risk a further fine of up to $1320 for illegal distribution. All in all, possible fines of up to $3960 for this series of acts – and the new offences do not require knowledge or improper intent. Just the doing of the acts is enough to ground a legal liability under the new ‘strict liability’ offences.”
And some people thought we had to go halfway across the world to fight for freedom. Happy Birthday to You originated as a greeting song sung by teachers to student and it's current form goes back as far as 1893. The copyright royalties for the song are owned by AOL Time Warner (clearly not the two lovely ladies who invented the song 100+ years ago), and it generates approximately $2 million p.a. for the company. Both the melody and the words are protected by copyright in those
jurisdictions with a copyright term of length of life of the author
plus 70 years. In life of the author
plus 70 years jurisdictions the lyrics will come out of copyright at
the end of 2008 and the music will come out of copyright at the end of
2016. So the next time you can public sing Happy Birthday for me won't be till I'm 34. Party at Roma Street Parklands!!! Details closer to date...
Source: Internet Industry Association
"Crisis plan to re-use water", reads today's Courier Mail. The Queensland Water Commission is taking into consideration the use of reclaimed water throughout South East Queensland, which could send us back to the polls early next year for a referendum.
So here is a little case study from the world leader in reclaimed water (and coincidently health care) Singapore. Since 2002 Singapore has used it's trademarked NEWater to help bolster is water supplies in the world's fastest growing region. They open their first water reclamation factory in late 2002 and two more since. At present, the total capacity of the three factories is about 20 million US gallons per day (0.9 m³/s). About 6% of this is used for indirect potable use, which contributes 1% of Singapore's potable water requirements of 300 million US gallons per day (13 m³/s). The rest goes to be used in water fabrication plants and non-potable water industry uses.
Why only 6%, well the first reason is that this water is not safe for human consumption. Why I hear you think?
Because the water is dual membrane filtered through microfiltration and reverse-osmosis and UV light treated most of the minerals are removed meaning that longer term use at high concentrations would mean people would need vitamin supplements!!!!!.
So is it going to look like shit?
So far 20,000 analyses over the last two years have been conducted and these have established that NEWater is cleaner than PUB water.
Full of bacteria maybe?
NEWater is as good as PUB water due to the fact that presence of
bacteria and virus is not detectable.
Ok but there is still shit (organic substances) in it right?
The organic substance of NEWater is less than one-tenth of PUB water.
In fact under the World Health Organization's 4 categories (Colour, Clarity, Organic Substances and Bacteria Count) of water quality "the quality of NEWater consistently exceeds the requirements set by USEPA and WHO guidelines and is, in fact, cleaner than the other sources of Singapore's water."
Of course Singapore isn't in a water shortage, river systems of the tiny Asian country provide more than enough for their current usage levels. However with some foresight a water shortage was seen coming and action was taken to increase the carrying capacity of Singapore's water system. With further increases in the use of NEWater (to 2.5% of indirect potable use) by 2011, Singapore should never get where we are.
The main reason why NEWater is not used more widely (according to their website), the psychological barrier... that's why I won't drink the shit....
Side note: when the referendum comes round vote YES
Sources:
Singapore's NEWater information site
NEWater on Wikipedia
EPA & WHO
Cut and running!!
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15622266/
Now that the Democrats have control of the Lower House, and with a little luck and honest recount of the Virgina Senate race, the Upper House, so begins the Lame Duck phase of the Bush presidency. First tactic, cut and run on your dad's buddies that got you into this mess...
That's right 1 in 40 (or 2.5% of the population) have died since the United States, United Kingdom and Australia invaded the sovereign nation of Iraq. No weapons of mass destruction, except for the schematics posted on US government web site: or how to stop worrying and give up the plans for the bomb.... Just plenty of dead civilians.
With odds like that suicide bombing looks a little less stupid, don't get me wrong still very stupid.
