The azaleas are, as every year, breathtaking. The yard is in need of maintenance but laziness is currently ascendant. I have a first draft of ‘Exophonic writing’ posted and an early comment pulled me up:
You have opened up a fascinating topic and I am sure that others will join this conversation. … My first impression reading this is it contains some gems but seems loosely connected. You don’t seem to have found your own point of view yet.
I not sure about the ‘loosely connected’ so will seek guidance. As for my ‘point of view’, I probably need to stress my wonder at how resilient and flexible English has been and still is – a growing language. I have yet to begin a Conclusion.
I am converting to digital, an old cassette tape of Bet and Bill Coote reminiscing, and to then edit and post in the Memoirs – first snippet sounds great. Having shed all of my analogue sound gear I have to play it in the car – the only tape machine I have and it sounds terrible. I will have to seek out a sound pro.
The Azaelias burst into bloom on the weekend.
And the fish have become more lively. Nice to be back to digital video after the ‘archived’ 8mm movie.
White bells
With Secretary of State Clinton’s speech on Thursday (USA time) added to the Google challenge of China’s net filtering, I wanted to look at the overall situation and then what we experience here in Australia. I was surprised to discover considerable local political censoring. The videocast from the New America Foundation offers an initial overview of the current situation.
My notes from “Authority, Meet Technology: Will China’s Great Firewall Hold?” http://www.newamerica.net/events/2010/authority_meet_technology
Alec Ross, Senior Advisor for Innovation, Office of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
Rebecca MacKinnon, Fellow – Open Society Institute, Co-Founder – Global Voices Online
Evgeny Morozov, Contributing Editor – Foreign Policy Magazine, Yahoo! Fellow, Institute for the Study of Diplomacy – Georgetown University
Tim Wu, Schwartz Fellow – New America Foundation, Professor of Law – Columbia Law School, Contributing Writer, Slate
Comments from the floor
Several paragraphs from Google’s Australian blog.
“Our views on Mandatory ISP Filtering”, Official Google Australia Blog, News and notes from Google Down Under, 16 December 2009, http://google-au.blogspot.com/2009/12/our-views-on-mandatory-isp-filtering.html
At Google we are concerned by the Government’s plans to introduce a mandatory filtering regime for Internet Service Providers (ISP) in Australia, the first of its kind amongst western democracies. Our primary concern is that the scope of content to be filtered is too wide. We have a bias in favour of people’s right to free expression. While we recognise that protecting the free exchange of ideas and information cannot be without some limits, we believe that more information generally means more choice, more freedom and ultimately more power for the individual.
Some limits, like child pornography, are obvious. No Australian wants that to be available – and we agree. Google, like many other Internet companies, has a global, all-product ban against child sexual abuse material and we filter out this content from our search results. But moving to a mandatory ISP filtering regime with a scope that goes well beyond such material is heavy handed and can raise genuine questions about restrictions on access to information.
Worth reading the rest. So it was with surprise that I found censoring of the internet is flourishing here.
“Internet censorship in Australia”, Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_in_Australia
In 2008, the Australian Labor Party introduced a policy of mandatory Internet filtering for all Australians. While the policy has not yet come into force, it has generated substantial opposition, with only a few groups in support. The Labor Party does not have enough votes in the Senate to enact any legislation to support the filter, so that the filter has “effectively been scuttled” unless the government is able to implement the filter by other means.
The Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) maintains a blacklist, since leaked, of websites which would form the basis for the mandatory filter. It has issued a take-down notice and threatened fines of $11,000 per day to at least one website hosted in Australia which contained a link to material on this blacklist.
On Tuesday 15 December 2009, it was announced that new legislation, entitled “Measures to improve safety of the internet for families”, would be introduced to support mandatory Internet filtering.
Enforcement
In 2002, New South Wales Police Minister Michael Costa attempted, without success, to shut down three protest websites by appealing to the then-communications minister Richard Alston, The Green Left Weekly stated these were Melbourne Indymedia and S11 websites, and that the Australian Broadcasting Authority cleared them of breaching government regulations on 30 October 2002.
Also in 2002, and under the terms of the Racial Discrimination Act 1975, the Federal Court ordered Dr Fredrick Töben to remove material from his Australian website which denied aspects of The Holocaust and vilified Jews.
In 2006, Richard Neville published a “spoof” website that had a fictional transcript of John Howard apologising to Aboriginal Australians. The website was forcibly taken offline by the government with no recourse.
In March 2009, after a user posted a link to a site on ACMA’s blacklist on the Whirlpool forum, Whirlpool’s service provider, Bulletproof Networks, was threatened with fines of $11,000 per day if the offending link was not removed. The same link in an article on EFA’s website was removed in May 2009 after ACMA issued a “link-deletion notice”, and the EFA took the precautionary step of also removing indirect links to the material in question.
After the Australian government announced plans to mandate Internet filtering in Australia in December 2009, an anti-censorship website hosted on stephenconroy.com.au … was taken offline by auDA after only 24 hours of being published online
Topics targeted for censorship
Euthanasia: On 22 May 2009 it was disclosed in the press, citing wikileaks.org, that the Australian Government had added Dr Philip Nitschke’s online Peaceful Pill Handbook (hosted at www.yudu.com), which deals with the topic of voluntary euthanasia, to the blacklist maintained by the Australian Communications and Media Authority used to filter internet access to citizens of Australia.
Video Games: In June 2009, it was confirmed that the Government’s proposed internet censorship regime would block downloadable games, flash-based web games and sites which sell physical copies of games that do not meet the MA15+ standard, such as Ebay and Amazon.
Racism: In January 2010, the Encyclopedia Dramatica article “Aboriginal” was removed from the search engine results of Google Australia, following a complaint that its content was racist. George Newhouse, the lawyer for the complainant, claims the site is “illegal” and should be blocked by the mandatory internet filter. A search on terms related to the article will produce a message that one of the results has been removed after a legal request relating to Australia’s Racial Discrimination Act 1975.
GetUp! … launched a campaign in Australia to raise awareness of the Australian Government’s flawed plans to introduce internet censorship. The campaign impersonated the Australian Federal Government by presenting internet censorship as a mock consumer product branded as Censordyne, a parody of the toothpaste brand, Sensodyne.
GetUp! raised over $45,000 in donations from the general public during July 2009 to see the Censordyne commercial on TV and on Qantas flights during the month of August 2009, where all Australian politicians would be travelling to Canberra. Following the Censordyne campaign launch, Qantas chose to censor the anti-censorship campaign from their flights. It was later revealed that David Epstein, the Qantas executive who stopped the Censordyne campaign from running on Qantas flights was the former chief of staff for the Australian Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd.
So, internet censorship here is targeting political issues rather than the stated ‘protect children from porn’. I will look further into this issue especially as internet censoring may become a trade barrier issue..
Cathleen Schine, “Growing Up Female”, When Everything Changed: The Amazing Journey of American Women from 1960 to the Present, by Gail Collins, Little, Brown.
Cathleen Schine
In When Everything Changed, Gail Collins picks up the saga of women and their role in the culture, economy, and political life of the United States where she left off in America’s Women: 400 Years of Dolls, Drudges, Helpmates, and Heroines (2003). That exhilarating earlier volume began with the Mayflower and ended in the Seventies. Lively, always entertaining, and frequently enlightening, When Everything Changed is a worthy sequel. Its subtitle is “The Amazing Journey of American Women from 1960 to the Present,” and amazing it is. In half a century, Collins shows us, everything really has changed. And yet…
http://media.nybooks.com/012110_schine.mp3
Not as spectacular as the 5 October 2009 photo but quite stately (at our back door)
The Lane Cove Tunnel is now under administration – traffic forecasts were optimistic. Corruption is apparently still rife at the State Rail Authority. The head of Sydney Ferries has apparently run up huge personal charges on his business credit card. The Metro is on-again off-again. There is very little positive news on our public transport and public-private infrastructure.
When I worked in the City, I used CityRail to get to Circular Quay, Town Hall or Central and at times it would test my patience but overall I usually got to work and back home. Since September 2009, I have been using a combination of rail, bus and ferry to get about and I am impressed. The key to successful arrival is the two internet sites, CityRail (http://www.cityrail.info/timetables/#landingPoint) and Sydney Buses (http://www.sydneybuses.info/timetables.htm) that are linked.
Example 1: To be at Dover Heights by 09:30 during the pre-Christmas period. I estimated driving would take a minimum of 90 minutes due to the bottlenecks that form trying to get across Southern Cross Drive. I caught the train to Redfern, train to Bondi Junction and then bus to my destination – total time, 55 minutes which made me early so had time to look at the Pacific Ocean. And the bus driver let me know when I was at my destination.
Example 2: To be at Harbord by 11:00. The website recommended two choices, train to Chatswood and then bus, or train to Circular Quay then ferry and bus. I choose the ferry option and:
The bus arrived on time and again; the driver dropped me off at the right stop.
Example 3: Last week I had to go to Liverpool and normally it’s a reasonably quick train ride but the rail was closed from Fairfield to Campbelltown for upgrading so bus connections were from Fairfield. With some apprehension I chose public transport rather than driving and was impressed by the bus service. It was regular, well organized and efficient. No hassles with tickets and plenty of busses. The additional time was of no consequence as I was able to enjoy the amazing multi-ethnic range of travelers at Liverpool. And I arrived at my appointment on time.
Example 4: Yesterday at Newtown, the driver waited for me to run up the street to return to Xanadu. I really appreciated his courtesy especially as the bus was air-conditioned.
I have these positive experiences every day and thoroughly enjoy the mix of train, bus and ferry. And because of the efficiency of Sydney’s public transport I can see letting go the second car is becoming more painless.
However, regarding busses, I am not struggling with a pusher and a child on foot, I am still agile enough to handle the multi-step entry on some of the older busses, and I am not attempting to get on with a full shopping trolley. For a number of people, bus travel can be difficult but more of the new busses are designed to cope with these needs.
“Authority, Meet Technology: A Slate/New America Foundation discussion about China, Google, and Internet freedom”, Slate, 21 January 2010, http://www.newamerica.net/events/2010/authority_meet_technology
Western media companies have long been faced with ethical challenges in order to access the vast Chinese market. But after accepting Beijing’s censorship and a series of attacks on its network, Google announced last week that it has had enough, and it is threatening to pull out of China. China aspires to be considered a trustworthy global economic leader, but plenty of companies doing business in that country share Google’s frustration at having to abide by different rules in the Middle Kingdom.
How will the China Internet skirmish shake out? What lessons or cautionary tales does China’s experience offer repressive governments and their tech-savvy opponents in places like Iran and Cuba? What, if anything, should the Obama administration do to keep the Web free, worldwide? On Thursday, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is expected to outline the administration’s plans in a major address on Internet freedom.
What startled me was the mention of Australian censorship in the forthcoming legislation. I will check this out further tomorrow.
Defintely a geranium with those ordered petals.
Some light journalizing after the Climate Change review.
04:00 Arose and had an espresso. Cleaned up last night’s dinner residue and the kitchen.
04:30 Walked dogs. Incredibly quiet this morning with crickets and a sprinkler at Wilkins Public School the only noise (and the occasional vehicle). I haven’t heard a sprinkler for months so wondered what they were watering there at 4:30am. Wilkins hosts a Community Garden and I hope is drawing its water from a bore.
05:30 Wasted 30 minutes reading The Australian and the SMH. The cup of tea was enjoyable though.
06:00 Emptied the compost bucket. Not sure what I will do with the amount of compost we are now manufacturing. Normally, I spread it about the garden early spring and in the past only just enough but now we seem to have about 25 per cent more.
06:30 Cut more branches off the collapsed peach tree overhanging the street. It is rotten and a major branch broke on Tuesday. Over the next few days will gradually cut it down.
07:30 Filleted a chicken for tonight’s Thai Green Chicken Curry and then made chicken stock. An efficient way to empty the fridge of marginal vegetables. Madeleine (the cat) gets the chicken’s wings, we get the stock and the dogs love the residue.
08:00 Caught up with email, Facebook and edited the Cook-book Glossary. I just have to keep working on getting rid of the many inconsistencies.
10:15 Left by bus for Newtown to do a strata inspection for O’Connors Property Reports (http://www.opr.com.au/).
14:00 Back to Xanadu to finish the report
14:30 Off in the CO2 belching Range Rover for vegetables and wine. Learned that brown onions are best stored in direct sunlight – it keeps them dry.
15:30 Lunch of curried vegetables and followed by a nap. Discovered that Beryl will be out until late so postponed the chicken curry until tomorrow night.
16:30 Check for OPR job tomorrow, get Google map of strata manager’s office, get bus timetable, catch up on Facebook, email, news and weather.
18:00 Waiting for outside temperature to drop – currently 33C – and writing this. Will then catch up on a few podcasts – one from Slate, “Authority, Meet Technology: A Slate/New America Foundation discussion about China, Google, and Internet freedom” – sounds interesting.
A normal day.
“Games for Good”, FutureTense, 21 January, 2010, http://www.abc.net.au/rn/futuretense/stories/2010/2720213.htm
‘Serious Games’ or ‘Games for Good’ have a greater purpose than just entertainment — they’re being used to help us understand and solve current problems as well as to identify future threats.
At the front gate -- Geranium or Pelargonium?
Local gardeners, when talking about “Geraniums”, are almost certainly referring to members of the genus Pelargonium. Long ago they were included in Geranium, but today the pelargoniums have their own genus. One of the distinguishing features is that all the petals of the Geranium flower are similar and are arranged evenly around the centre. On the other hand, the individual Pelargonium flower has an uneven distribution of petals, although this may be a little difficult to observe in some garden cutivars. http://www.calyx.com.au/pelargonium.html
New South Wales responses are being coordinated by the Department of Environment, Climate Change and Water. In summary:
DECC’s wide range of climate change programs include:
The broader whole-of-government approach to reducing the impacts of climate change is outlined in the NSW Greenhouse Plan, the NSW State Plan and the Climate Change Action Plan, which is currently under development. Key initiatives include:
Find out more on the following topics on DECC’s climate change website
http://www.environment.nsw.gov.au/climatechange/index.htm
Moving from the ‘govspeak’ above is a series of 30 case-studies on greenhouse reduction action featured on the Local Government and Shires website, http://www.lgsa-plus.net.au/www/html/1917-nsw-regions.asp?intSiteID=2
These are encouragingly proactive; curbing emissions and waste and saving money.
In 2008, The Nature Conservation Council of NSW coordinated a series of training workshops for LGA council staff and residents to:
…deliver local forums in urban, rural, coastal and inland locations across NSW. The input of forum participants has informed local council about the views of a diverse mix of the community who have worked together with local experts and facilitators and considered the issue of climate change in detail.
Coming home to Marrickville Council, their ‘Environment’ page at http://www.marrickville.nsw.gov.au/environment/climatechange.htm concentrates on energy (electricity) and oil reduction. This is not a thorough coverage for at the community and individual level, the Council:
Local Government is making the practical advances in contrast with the embarrassing Commonwealth political squabbling and the Koala suited protestors blockading mines, chaining themselves to locomotives and climbing light poles. Since beginning this review on 16 January, I have learnt much and feel I need no longer bother with the media reporting on Climategate, Glaciergate, the IPCC, COP15, anthropogenic global warming, climate skeptics, et al; CO2 emission reduction, waste reduction, water harvesting and energy reduction is occurring.
“A dinner date with the olympics (2010 version)”, Deconstructing Dinner, 14 January 2010, http://www.cjly.net/deconstructingdinner/011410.htm
On February 23, 2006, Deconstructing Dinner aired a one-hour feature titled “A Dinner Date With the Olympics”. The episode was produced alongside the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin. The show focused its attention on two of the Games major sponsors (Coca-Cola and McDonald’s). When we think of the Olympic Games, the athletes, the events, we think of human beings at the peak of performance, in optimal physical and psychological states. Sports do after all evoke images of health and well-being. So when two of the Games major sponsors are Coca-Cola and McDonald’s (perhaps the two most targeted food companies in the world for their unhealthy food and their environmental, social and animal welfare practices), it sparked that 2006 episode which deconstructed this seeming hypocrisy. On this 2010 Version of that original broadcast, we revisit with the episode and add some much-needed 2010 updates.
This orchid only flowered once.
As I wrote yesterday, ‘let’s get some sensible action in place’ and for us urban people, there is practical information. I recommend Business Guide to the Low Carbon Economy: New South Wales, November 2009, The Climate Group, http://www.theclimategroup.org/programs/australia/ and am reproducing three pages from this, which summarizes government initiatives. I am impressed.
I haven’t been closely following the CPRS (Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme) but now that I have an understanding of the legislation, will watch Government and Opposition strategies with increased interest.
GOOD NEWS ON CARBON EMISSIONS!
“Greenhouse Gas Emissions Fall In 2009 Across Australia’s Eastern States”, The Climate Group, 17 January 2010, http://www.theclimategroup.org/our-news/news/2010/1/17/Australia-Greenhouse%20Indicator-Annual%20Report/
Flowers -- Central Australia
As I seek clarification of this issue I continue to read text that is barely understandable and often an exercise in point scoring. The article below by Carmody is an example of ‘barely understandable’ – about halfway through I became lost; the jargon, titles of protocols and the lengthy enumeration of his solution became an exercise in disappointment. As is my practice, quoted selectively
Geoff Carmody, “From Rio to Copenhagen the model was wrong”. The Australian, 13 January 2010, http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/opinion/from-rio-to-copenhagen-the-model-was-wrong/story-e6frg6zo-1225818572530
THE UN’s Copenhagen climate conference was substantive failure and procedural debacle. Other assessments are dishonest or delusional. We must learn the lessons of history and adapt climate policy to reflect them.
First, a big-bang synchronised response by all nations to global climate threats is a pipe dream. This was acknowledged in the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change in Rio in 1992 and in the 1997 Kyoto Protocol. Late last year, Copenhagen amplified this lesson.
Second, nations won’t compromise economic growth by losing industry competitiveness in the name of mitigating climate change. This applies especially in the case of developing economies.
Third, a policy focused on where national emissions are produced, rather than where they are consumed, only made some sense under a big-bang synchronised global response. But it’s been retained since 1992 despite failure to secure such a response. Under a non-synchronised approach, this emissions production model generates national concerns about loss of competitiveness, job losses and carbon leakage. Nations won’t play or will only play dirty, via extensive policy exemptions, using this model.
Fourth, a focus on emissions reduction targets and their distribution funnelled negotiations into sterile, zero sum debates about who will commit to what emissions reduction outcomes when. There has been insufficient emphasis on putting a price on emissions, comprehensively applied and growing predictably through time. This caused many problems, including failure to start pricing emissions globally. No emissions price, no emissions reduction. No surprises there.
Fifth, we have failed to learn the preceding four lessons of history.
There are other lessons. From Rio to Copenhagen, the lesson has been loud and clear: it’s the wrong model, start again.
At this point I abandoned the quest for understanding.
And in the article below, Furedi moves from commenting on the northern hemisphere’s cold, Australia’s hottest decade on record to witch burning – perhaps commentators could abandon their jargon and wit and write for the people.
Frank Furedi, “It’s 15 below zero as weathermen go witch-hunting”, The Australian, 13 January 2010, http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/opinion/its-15-below-zero-as-weathermen-go-witch-hunting/story-e6frg6zo-1225818570353
IT is snowing big time in my town in Kent. The family sits in front of the television to discover whether there is more of the white stuff to come. However, instead of an informative weather forecast we are offered a political broadcast. A dramatic sounding voiceover informs us that David Shukman, who is the BBC’s environment and science correspondent, will report “on how one of the longest cold snaps for a generation fits in with theories of a warming planet and global climate change”.
Adopting a solemn tone that hints at catastrophes to come, Shukman announces that it is minus 15C in the Pennines and five cars are stranded before stating, “No wonder many are asking, `What about global warming?’ ” Just in case the cold temperature encourages the British public to assume a degree of scepticism towards climate change alarmism, Shukman reassuringly informs us that the big freeze is not inconsistent with theories of global warming. A swift cut to a chap from Kew Gardens who insists that “snowdrops are already blooming” . Apparently flowering is starting much earlier than previously, which must mean that the world is getting very, very warm.
“Britain’s cold snap does not prove climate science wrong,” argue two climate alarmist journalists in The Guardian. Leo Hickman and George Monbiot helpfully inform their readers that “weather is not the same as climate and single events are not the same as trends”. Just in case you are a complacent sceptic, Hickman and Monbiot seize on an announcement made by Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology that claims that the past 10 years are officially the hottest since records began. Apparently a rise in temperature in Australia may have direct significance for making sense of harsh wintry conditions in Britain. They speculate that the cold of the north and the warmth of the south “could be related”. It could be, and no doubt their alarmist imagination will have no problems in linking the two as different forms of extreme weather.
This then flows on to sixteenth century witch hunting and public burning at the stake, which leave me still puzzling over this connection.
Australian Government Bureau of Meteorology – Sydney
I use this site several times a day and was quite surprised on 6 January to see the new format. The old text bulletin was abandoned for a pleasing style.
http://www.bom.gov.au/weather/nsw/forecasts/sydney.shtml
Part of the front garden looking to the street.
The low temperatures and mild humidity, together with the compost spread last Spring, has the entire garden erupting with green and blooms. New rainbow lorikeets are flapping about being taught to feed from the banksia and grevilleas; they were quite awkward initially but rapidly developed graceful movement. It is rewarding to see these young birds –- I think it’s a first that the parents have nested nearby.
On the 31 December I commented on Facebook wondering if I need to review my conservative concerns for English. The article quoted below laments that our language is turning feral. However, having thought about how the language has continued to evolve since (I believe C800AD) , it is pointless to not embrace the changes that social media users are introducing. An evolution that we can actually watch.
Natasha Elks, “Absolutely time to unfriend a few words”, The Australian, 6 January 2010, http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/absolutely-time-to-unfriend-a-few-words/story-e6frg6nf-1225816388957
IF a group of grumpy grammarians had their way, you would no longer be able to “unfriend” someone on Facebook, download an “app” on your iPhone, “tweet” about mindless nonsense on Twitter or even indulge in a spot of “sexting” with your paramour.
Based on nominations from furious wordsmiths and language lovers worldwide, an American university has published its annual list of words it would like banished from the English language for “use, misuse and general uselessness”.
Micro-blogging site Twitter sparked ire from the tongue-in-cheek linguists at Michigan’s Lake Superior State University, with calls for the word tweet and all of its variations — including tweetaholic, twittersphere and twitterature — to be banned. Hipsters should also refrain from using friend and unfriend as verbs, such as “Peter was, like, totally getting on my nerves so I unfriended him on Facebook”.
