ASIO take note: This is rather surreal, as the Orwellians are coming ... if your network administrators do not get their security act together. Any googler can Kafka with your security camera be it business office, railway stations, or a vet and even beyond ... There is nothing bad and power-seeking governments fear more that a virtuous and self-controlled population... Introducing the mentality of Bigheads
Speaking of self controlled population and camera heads, an irate CityRail guard had to be restrained by workmates when he tried to punch an elderly passenger in Sydney's Mortdale I asked what was the defect and he wanted to know whether I was thick and told me to 'use my f---ing brain During the melee, a CityRail staffer was also seen trying to prevent a passenger from recording the incident using a mobile phone camera. CityRail guard 'tried to punch elderly passenger'
Eye on Politics & Law Lords: The Problem with Tsunami and Putin
The big picture and little captions of tsunami updates by Polish Australian blogger Arthur Chrenoff
Among the many ironies of that moment was that the conservatives’ man of the hour has been, at best, a dubious ally in the war on terror. Even as Putin seemingly endorsed Bush, Russia was finalizing its deal with Iran—widely viewed as the chief terrorism-sponsoring state—to help launch that country’s nuclear reactor, despite American and European concerns that it would be used for weapons development. Russia has also remained on amicable terms with North Korea and Syria, and it almost certainly circumvented the sanctions against Iraq to supply weapons to Saddam Hussein’s regime right up to the invasion.
• An unreliable ally, an unlikely democrat [Give them a country, they want the world War & Peace Prospects for 2005]
• · And the US has dropped out of the top 10 freest economies in the world, according to the Index of Economic Freedom Hail Estonia! ; [Geographically Close to Zolitude: Naturally, out of curiosity I asked one of my classes if they liked living in the suburbs. No, they all said, with an almost choral degree of harmony. Why not? I asked. There's nothing to do, they replied. A reflection on the philosophical realities of a life in the Latvian labyrinth ]
• · · A NY Times article talks about the fine-line people are walking in this time of tragedy: Don’t capitalize on the tsunami, please ;
• · · · The politics of disaster: Corrupt governments such as that in Burma are only adding to the suffering of their people; [Elections of Disaster: You would think the story would have died by now. What looks like raw exit poll data has been posted by someone on a website Raw Exit Poll Data Leaked ; I d-d-don't care who's got the n-n-numbers brother, as long as I g-g-get to c-c-count the v-v-v-votes. - Stammering Senator Patrick Kennelly, when told before an ALP Caucus meeting that the Left had the numbers Keep counting till you win election ]
• · · · · How the Left Betrayed My Country - Iraq
The opening lines of the Communist Manifesto - "A spectre is haunting Europe - the spectre of Communism" - were initially translated as "A frightful hobgoblin stalks through Europe".
• · · · · · Germany has an 18-year-old MP - Julia Bonk, a member of the Saxony legislature ; [ We spend a lot of time in the office these days and the more time we spend with people the more likely we are to strike up close bonking relationships with them ]