This morning John Raymond Zimmerman was sentenced to a minimum of 12 years for raping 55 child sex victims he groomed through The Getaway Plan and their social media sites. The media reported that the ‘now-defunct’ band is still under investigation, but according to their website and Facebook they seem oblivious (as do their fans), and have an active touring calendar, no surprise there.

The 12 year sentence in the County Court today after pleading guilty to multiple rapes, sex acts, grooming and stalking charges, which means he’ll be almost 40 before his release. Normally nothing comes of these types of charges, and teenage girls are dismissed as groupies, yet it’s good to see that at least in Australia if you put someone on a soap box, shine a spotlight on them and call them a band it doesn’t mean they’re above the law.

He would lure young girls into sex, via webcam and in person, and then forced some to continue submitting to his depraved acts by threatening to post naked photos of them or telling friends and family. He was also charged with numerous child porn related crimes, from production, exchange, transmission and possession.

Ironically, the bands wikipedia page has managed to keep suppression on the news, with one editor having to point out that it’s in big press media and highly relevant and verifiable in hopes it wouldn’t be taken down.

It appears many new Wikipedian’s are editing the page and removing any mention of this, and most have never contributed to Wikipedia before. (Itt: The bands fans.)

From my point of view, it’s pretty lol to see a bunch of scum bags get rolled like that. It’s very, very rare you see justice in motion, especially amongst even the most Z-class celebrities Australian pub music can muster.

Edit: After a troll post on their facebook page I managed to have a chat with a few ‘ex-fans’ of theirs, and it sounds like the police investigation is far from over.

Another edit: They took down my troll post, naww.

This article really makes me rage at the fact we’re waiting for up to ten years for this to happen in our areas. It’s an ESSENTIAL piece of infrastructure, worst part is the Liberal party are going to bin the NBN if they get in, which ties my hands as to who I and all geeks will be voting for in future. I really hope other parties wake up though, as it is in Australia we have ultra-conservative Liberal, and ultra-conservative Labor.

Labor dicked us over when Julia Gillard ran a coup, dethroning Kevin Rudd, possibly the most popular PM in our history due to his accessibility through social networks, et cetera. So they really deserve to be punished, although at the last election they held on with Julia because most Australian females thought they were ‘voting in Australia’s first woman prime minister’, when in reality they were just voting in a dog who didn’t care about the voters and wanted power; ultimately costing us trillions of dollars and a GDP to put us in the top three nations globally when she got the nod from the mining giants to run her coup over the mining tax.

Ironically, she’s facing being voted out because after costing us trillions (which no one cared about and voted her in again anyway, al la George Dubya) she is going to cost us an extra $50 a year with a pollution tax. Ohnoes. Sigh, this is why Australia is destined to always be a back water, the voters are so ill-informed and uneducated.

Anyway, enough nerdraging, here’s the article: -

WELCOME to Gunnedah, population 12,000, 440km from Sydney – and the first Wi-Fi town in Australia.

IT walks like the NBN, talks like the NBN – but is about $40 billion cheaper.

Welcome to Gunnedah, population 12,000. It’s 440km from Sydney and is now the first Wi-Fi town in Australia.

Instead of waiting years for fibre optic cables to be laid out to their doorsteps while small surrounding communities were left unconnected, the council teamed up with a new company to deliver high-speed Wi-Fi internet to doctors, patients, school students and every business in town.

The main street boasts free Wi-Fi as the new pilot scheme connects to the web using fibre-optic cables that were laid three decades ago.

Prior to Wi-Fi, the only options for the town were slow dial-up or pricey satellite internet.

Now video conferencing is allowing doctors to talk to patients at home, the mayor to confer with emergency services during storms and students to connect to the school curriculum from home.

Gunnedah Mayor Adam Marshall said it would allow Gunnedah businesses to have high quality internet without the broadband cost.

“We can save the government a heap of money but they are only going to bring it (the NBN) to the edge of town anyway. This uses the existing fibre optic and we can provide that cover to every home in Gunnedah,” he said.

Mr Marshall said the scheme could hook up any community with fibre optics.

“You could argue that it can negate the need for NBN Co to be rolling it out in these communities,” he said.

TUPS Company managing director Geoff Peach said the NBN forgets about 7 per cent of people in the most remote areas.

“There is a massive advantage for the population in having high speed broadband – it’s just the delivery I am confused about,” he said.

“I think if the approach that we had taken in Gunnedah was taken in every town we would save a great bit of money.”

A spokesman for Communications Minister Stephen Conroy said Wi-Fi would not be as fast as fibre-optic broadband.

“The Wi-Fi service is shared by many users, which causes a decrease in speed for every user accessing the service and is influenced by other factors which also significantly decrease speeds,” he said.

“Fibre to the premises technology is the state-of-the-art, future proof, fixed-line broadband technology that provides consistent speeds to all users. This is why it was chosen.”
Read more: http://www.news.com.au/technology/gunnedah-high-speed-wi-fi-internet-works-as-leaked-reports-reveal-nbn-cost-could-blow-out-to-50b/story-e6frfro0-1226213817476#ixzz1fcQj2ivC

In two states that I know of, police often confiscate things from the populus, like disgruntled school teachers. I once had a utility / dive knife (2″ blade, tiny) secured to a dive belt confiscated that was locked in the boot of my car by Manly Police (known as notoriously pathological and unstable authoratarian nutjobs to most Sydney siders) that was given to me by my dead father on my 13th birthday as a reward for my first successful scuba. I explained it had priceless emotional value to me, and they said the alternative is a huge fine, I stated even if it’s a few grand, give me the fine. They took the knife.

Needless to say, there’s a lot of very over the top policing practices in Australia, a nation with a crime rate one tenth that of Britain where police (aside from being polite, nice, and there to help the community and capable of being approached and chatted to, whereas here (specifically NSW) the police have a chip on their shoulder, won’t talk to you (unless you’re female, as one colleage just pointed out to me), and wouldn’t piss on you if you were on fire) are unarmed and … well, normal. Here they drive high performance luxury cars (which if you live near Reservoir Road, in Prospect, you’ll quite often see them doing burn outs at the old drive through when they think no one is watching) that cost a packet, and carry melee weapons, chemical weapons, electroshock weapons, and firearms.

This all probably stems from the ‘us and them’ mentality of Australia originally being a penal colony, the police here really do think they’re NYPD and that we’re all gangbanging black guys who need a good Rodney King’ing to teach us our station in life. The attitude is unbelievable, especially when it comes to civil rights matters. Hell, in NSW they try and strong-arm protestors into believing they need police permission to protest and that police can tell them how long for, what they can and can’t do, whether they’re allowed to use bull-horns, or even carry signs. It really is an ugly, ugly thing to behold, as an international (British citizen) who’s toured the world many times over and encountered enough to make this ugly sore on human rights insult me personally to such a degree, moreso the fact that Australian citizens tolerate it, albeit are brainwashed into thinking it’s a good thing.

Maybe they’re just not a 18-35 year old white middle class male (who tend to cop a lot of harassment because the police know they’ll cop it on the chin, and pay any subsequent fines like a good bitch and not take it to court), and especially not indigenous (who have a notorious track record of instances of police abusing move on and profanity laws to persecute them if they ‘get smart’). You’ll always have that posse who’d argue to my prior parenthetical comment that it ‘serves them right for getting smart’, but I’m sorry to say, such an argument is fundamentally flawed; it’s their perogative to express their freedom in whatever way they choose and it’s the police REQUIREMENT that they remain patient and not be tossers. Except in Australia.

In the last five or so years laws to allow them to impound vehicles have come into play. Recently, in Adelaide (South Australia, for my international readers) five Nissan Skylines were impounded, a mere google shows multiple POLICE WEBSITES lauding that ‘hoons’ will ‘lose their cars for good’ under new ‘hoon laws’. This isn’t going to solve the problem by any means, as education is the only reform possible, but merely impact financially on people and clog up the courts, let alone the occasional innocent victim being wronged so harshly by the government given the price of vehicles over here.

POLICE have impounded five Nissan Skylines after a video of six cars racing through Adelaide’s Heysen Tunnel was posted on YouTube.

Five men, aged 21 to 34, also face a range of driving offences in relation to the race in May when the cars reached speeds of up to 143km/h in a 90km/h zone.

Police used the YouTube video, along with closed circuit camera vision, to identify five of the six cars.

A light-coloured Skyline is the only car outstanding.

Officer in charge of traffic support Linda Fellows said the cars would be impounded for 28 days.

“Police will take every opportunity to investigate dangerous driving behaviour and take people off the roads if they can’t obey the rules and drive responsibly,” Superintendent Fellows said.

“We have a rising road toll and it’s actions like this that can result in further carnage and road trauma.

“Police will not tolerate the public being put at risk by the reckless and irresponsible actions of a few.”

Whilst their agenda seems idealistic, and perhaps a bit on the goose stepping storm trooper line, the apalling part is that this is arguably constitutional and thus even more of an alarming proof that we NEED a bill of rights in Australia, there are three RIGHTS which the Constitution guarantees against the Commonwealth – religious freedom, trial by jury, and “just terms” compensation. (A referendum proposal to amend the Constitution to clarify these rights and to make them good also against the States was defeated in 1988.) As will be seen, guaranteed access to the High Court can itself amount to an important right. And the guarantee of free trade and commerce was for a time interpreted as something like an individual right.

The Constitution however clearly gives the Commonwealth power “with respect to … the acquisition of property on just terms” in Section 51(xxxi). By contrast, the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution contains a prohibition: “nor shall private property be taken … without just compensation”. The differences between acquisition and taking, and between terms and compensation, combined with the fact that the Australian provision is expressed as a positive grant of power coupled with a limitation, have been read so as to weaken the Australian guarantee relative to the American one.

The use of the term “acquisition” has been abused by the government so as to require that the Commonwealth (or some other party for a Commonwealth purpose) actually acquire possessory or proprietary rights over the property in question, or at least some benefit so that the mere extinguishment of a person’s proprietary rights by the Commonwealth (or a prohibition on effectively exercising them) is insufficient to amount to an acquisition¹. And “just terms” has been taken to mean something less than “just compensation”; in particular, it does not necessarily require payment to the owner of the value of the property when it was compulsorily acquired². The Australian film The Castle addresses this issue also.

These issues are very disheartening as a person who has had much life experience and done the rounds and seen what the rest of the world experience and live with. It honestly often makes me question how I can be a dual citizen, live here, let alone pay taxes to finance such lunacy. But the worst part of Australia, if you ask me, is their cattle-like complacency with their rights being stripped from them.

From internet censorship, through to a duly elected Prime Minister (the leader of our national, like the US President) having a bloodless coup d’etat run against him because he was negotiating a fair 50/50 split to our resources and minerals with mining giants, only to have the leader of the coup (or rather the muppet who was given the nod by the mining giants and those protecting their interests) RE-ELECTED (albeit the votes stated she didn’t win, but they claimed they did and then got a few independent senators to share power) as Prime Minister.

That makes Australia’s first Prime Minister an anti-democratic dog who has screwed us out of trillions of dollars, ironically she may face the axe soon because she’s bringing in an environmental tax that will make our ecology significantly stronger, our overall health increase, and make us billions from high poluuters but cost families $50 a year or so. So she cost us trillions, but because she’s going to cost us $50 a year but make us billions, she’s out. I mean, what the fuck?

Okay, that’s the end of my rant. But seriously, be thankful you live in a sane nation. Unless you’re an American. :P

I’ve been reading the Dalai Lama’s drivel for quite some time on Twitter, and he is currently in my fair nation of Australia at the moment running around skirt lifting and being a twat for very large fees to trendy wanky folks who’re into contemplating division by zero. I’ve never really found him compelling in any way.

His Twitter feed reads like a Multi-Level Marketing scammers empty headed random quotes.txt. In interviews he takes the generic asian mystic role of spouting utter shit as answers trying to pass himself off as deep or intellectual when in reality koan style responses are just batshit zealot cop outs. But what I want to address is, is he dangerous?

“Rather than working only to acquire wealth, we need to focus on the welfare of humanity as a whole.”

That’s a dangerous idea. Why? Because it deflects the problem, the starving suffering masses NEED to acquire wealth, and not touch each other in the pants and sing kumbyah.

Here’s a little snippet from a TED talk that I hope the Dalai Lama can check out to try and get a LITTLE bit of understanding before spouting crap. Sure, he thinks he’s Yoda, that’s his pitch, it’s how he pulls the bitches, but really; he needs to get a grip, his guru babble puts poisonous ideas into already unintelligent peoples minds who seek out a little asian Yoda in the first place to fill a void in their souls (or minds, given that souls do not exist). But I digress.

So, here we see a perfect example of why altruism won’t solve a situation that a clear lack of finances and especially food will.

“Friends, genuine friends, have much more to do with whether we have a warm heart, not money or power.”

Another example of hippy communist bullshit. People need money. Money is inadvertantly power, the power to control your future, the power to control your life, and the power to be able to obtain resources needed to survive. Circle jerks won’t feed you (aside from protein, if a sao is involved) and good feelings won’t put a roof over your head. This is again nonsense from a man who lives in extreme comfort, toting a rolex, and not in the piss poor nation he is from or represents. That brings me to this little gem.

“We should value our enemies because they provide us with unique opportunities to practice patience, tolerance and forbearance.”

This is from a man who was run out of his own country. He’s definitely not scared of mincing words, oh wait, actually he is, as this excerpt from The Australian from August 22, 2008 outlines: -

PARIS: The Dalai Lama has denied telling a French newspaper that Chinese soldiers may have shot dead 140 Tibetan protesters on Monday. The exiled spiritual leader was quoted in Le Monde as saying troops fired on protesters on Monday and 400 people have been killed since unrest erupted in March.

But his office said he denied a comment attributed to him by Le Monde that 140 people had died on Monday when the Chinese security forces opened fire. His office said there were casualties.

“The Chinese army again fired on a crowd on Monday August 18, in the Kham region in eastern Tibet,” said the Nobel Peace prize winner who is on a 12-day visit to France.

Le Monde quoted him as saying that up to 140 people had been killed, though the figure was not confirmed.

“His Holiness did not mention any number of casualties,” his office said in a statement after the interview was published, adding that “he clearly stated that we had no specific information on the number of casualties.”

Another gem:

“To arrive at certainty, you need to start from a skeptical posture. The best scientists are impartial, not swayed by their own beliefs.”

I particularly find it hillarious when religious nuts comment about science, scientists or skepticism. If he followed his own advice, he’d stop wearing dresses, buy himself a nice suit, and entirely give up his religious faggotry. And I don’t meant faggotry of the fun kind. Another example:

“The aim of spiritual practice is to become the friend of all beings, concerned about them and ready and able to help them.”

In closing, I have found a fantastic replacement for the Dalai Lama, and I propose should he or his representatives read this (you’d be surprised how many people I @reply in my titles of blog posts read the posts in question, I do have an 8 millionpw reader demographic after all), this person has the same character, intelligence, education, and charisma as the Dalai Lama and I propose she should step into his role forthwith.

How can anyone NOT prefer her, at least she can answer fucking questions put to her. Feel free to check out her other videos, she will definitely culturally enrich the readers of his Twitter feed far more than he is currently doing. Enjoy.

Addendum: For the record, I am not Chinese, I am not being paid by the Chinese government, I am not racist, I hate all races equally, I’m not sectarian, I’m a hypocritical Roman Catholic Jewish Atheist Ninja (it’s a religion!) with Jedi leanings who believes in the Ancient Astronaut theory and evolution (and other wonderous scientific mumbo jumbo!), I am also not in any way being paid, bribed, or given free shit to post this blog post, I just sincerely hate fucking moochers who run around touting hypocritical party pieces who live in comfort and tell everyone also living in comfort that circle jerks will cure all the woes in the world rather than addressing the food shortage or even the fact that PIG’s in the UNITED STATES alone consume SIX TIMES the food supply that it would take to FEED THE ENTIRE WORLD each year. Fuck. Seriously. He’s a fucking putz, what more can I say.

</rant> :)

Battlestar Galactica ended, Caprica came out and got canned. Star Trek Enterprise got canned, even after the Star Trek film came out nothing came of it. Stargate Universe lasted a season. Let’s not mention Firefly. Big Bang is on hiatus until next year. Walking Dead had like three eps then went off until a year or more later (10-2011) .

It just seems bleak for me, no shows I like are in production at present, NO science fiction is being made anywhere in the world. ScifiTV and Syfy show non-sci fi ,ore than sci fi, it just really seems like the entertainment sector of TV world is anti-mensus and only mass producing crap that appeals to the brainless under achieving teenage demographic.

I know I’m not alone as I see many complaints on social networks and blogs everywhere, but how are the market research departments of these big networks utterly OBLIVIOUS to the huge demographic I’m a part of?

I just can’t fathom why it is acceptable in any way to have a year between seasons, BBC’s Torchwood is a perfect example of a huge offender. Season 1 was a MASSIVE hit, season 2 was a year and a half in the waiting and they decided to make a three part miniseries instead, then another season was ‘pending’ announcement for a year or more and now in six months we’ll see ANOTHER miniseries, this time only two lousy parts.

How do these fucks justify anywhere up to a year in wait? Is it all based on the fact ratings are measured over a short period and not the entire year? Surely given that 99% of people have digital cable with set top boxes measuring ratings can be a constant thing?

I propose lobbying ratings measuring companies to make their rating system based on a full calendar year, ensuring that ALL the year is filled with new material as opposed to lame repeats, or worse in the case of Scifi TV in Australia which airs mostly non-science fiction like Xena, Buffy, Angel and Charmed. They obviously think that all speculative fiction is the same as science fiction, but given that their entire customer service department is outsourced to a Mongol living in a yak skin tent drinking his own urine on a satellite phone remnant from the cold war 80′s and a mildly retarded Daschund that can type running their social network presence getting your complaint heard is as unlikely as banging Kaley Couco in the bum.

I’m just so frustrated and totally over how shit TV and even movies have been lately, even the music scene has been lame of late, if I hear another song with choir vox effects or the same but with little kids singing in addendum to main vocalist chorus I’ll self immolate.

What happened to the entertainment industry? Where did it all go wrong?

In February, the citizens of Detroit successfully lobbied for a giant statue of RoboCop to keep its crims in line.

In the same week, news broke that a three-metre tall Arnold Schwarzenegger statue will stand guard outside the Governator’s former home in Thal, Austria.

Both of which kick Robertson’s giant poo-tato and Ballina’s prawn to the kerb when it comes to cool icons for your country.

And now you can add — possibly, unless George Lucas hears of it — a lifesize, fully-functioning replica of a Galactic Empire AT-AT walker to the countryside somewhere in Oklahoma, if Mike Koehler gets his way.

Note fully-functioning — not like that static tat at Disneyland’s Hollywood theme park.

The 16m tall (some nerds experts put them at 23m) All Terrain Armoured Transports featured most famously in the attack on the Rebel forces’ secret base on Hoth in Empire Strikes Back, where one tripped over a bit of rope and exploded.

Another one makes a cameo in Return of the Jedi after a smaller version — an AT-ST — gets smashed by monkeys with logs.

But they look fearsome enough and Mr Koehler has been given the green light by online fundraiser Kickstarter to begin collecting cash to realise his dream.

It’s called AT-AT for America and Mr Koehler’s welcoming any offers of help or donations.

We chatted to him about why his country needs it…

Why did you choose a symbol of the Empire’s destructive capabilities to represent the US?

The AT-AT is not so much a representation of the US as it is a monument to what geek culture and its know-how has done for people in the country and, as I am quickly learning, folks all over the world. The can-do and cooperative spirit that nerdy pop culture has inspired can’t be overlooked in the past 30, 40, 50 years.

I wanted to make something that was: A) Doable. Fast-than-light and force field technology made many options unrealistic. B) Big enough to be awe-inspiring. Many people have made R2 units and Back to the Future Deloreans. The AT-AT is 50-feet tall.

If it proves too difficult, do you have any smaller scale Star Wars projects in mind?

I guess we could do one of the smaller scout walkers, but that seems like copping out.

If it proves easy, would you consider building a Death Star?

The Death Star would involve too much red tape I’m afraid, unless I could get Richard Branson on board.

The original AT-ATs had some notable design flaws. How will you Ewok-proof it?

No Ewoks will be allowed around the build sites. Sharpened logs will also be strictly prohibited. We are working towards some strong anti-log technology.

Have you had any interest from Mythbusters et al?

No word yet from the Mythbusters, though I hope as we continue to build momentum that we will get a lot of help from some of our geek heroes. When I first thought of this, my ideal project managers were Adam and Jamie.

If Detroit can get a RoboCop statue, maybe you should pitch your AT-AT for a permanent public space…

Once we’re done, I would like for the AT-AT to find some place nice to be housed and admired as a monument. Since it will be fully operational, people will be able to ride it. It would be an art piece on par with the Statue of Liberty, but with the ability to mosey around the block.

Have you had any cease and desist orders from George Lucas yet?

We have not heard from Lucasfilm yet, though there is that expectation. All I can say is that we won’t be making any money off this project, we consider it a public work of art and we would gladly locate it where ever Mr Lucas would like us to. This is a testament to how many dreams his work and other work like his has inspired in people my age and younger.

Will you live in it once it’s finished?

No, I won’t live in it.

Can I?

You can’t live inside it, though you are welcome to string a hammock between its knees.

Is there ever a chance that such a monolithic, relentless corporate machine could ever be seen in Australia?

Given enough support and volunteers, the AT-AT, like Oprah, would be happy to visit Australia.

Related Coverage

The National Broadband Network is meant to bring Australia up to speed with the rest of the world. Our Trading Practices Act will shank you like a bitch in a jail house if you promise X and deliver an inferior Y but our ISP’s (Telstra, Optus, Iinet and the worst of the worst TPG (who still owe me a few fucking grand I might add)) sell us ‘ADSL 2+’ connections that run at 3 – 5 megabit (ADSL2+ is 24 megabit with a 4 megabit fall off to it’s operational perimeter of 7 kilometers) when you’re located a mere 3 kilometers from the DSLAMM.

That’s ADSL speeds being passed off as ADSL2+ and being charged at a premium rate too.

It’s even worse that the NBN won’t be out until 2030 at current estimates (IF the other party doesn’t get in and can it) but earlier this morning Patrick Flannigan has quit as NBN Co’s head of construction. An acting head of construction has been appointed, Dan Flemming, who was until now the company’s general manager of construction, design and planning.

“We are disappointed with his decision to resign as he was a valuable member of the leadership team,” a spokeswoman for NBN Co told the press, “We wish him all the best for the future.”

This comes after the Government business enterprise last week “indefinitely” suspended tendering for construction firms, saying the 14 quotes they were presented were inflated. According to the NBN Co website, Mr Flannigan was the founding managing director and chief executive of Service Stream, a major provider of infrastructure, construction and maintenance services to the telecommunications sector and broader utilities sectors.

I swear I should just move to a more technophillic nation.

Most recently, moviegoers complained about the near-realistic depiction of humans in Disney’s 3D flick Mars Needs Moms, which bombed at the box office despite costing hundreds of millions of dollars.

A theory called the “uncanny valley” says we tend to feel attracted to inanimate objects with human traits, the way a teddy bear or a rag doll seems cute.

Our affection grows as an object looks more human. But if it looks too human, we suddenly become repulsed.

Instead of seeing what’s similar, we notice the flaws — and the motionless eyes or awkward movements suddenly make us uncomfortable.

Mars may have plunged to the bottom of this valley of fear.

“People always comment on things feeling strangely dead around the eyes,” said Chuck Sheetz, an animation director of The Simpsons and a professor at the University of California, Los Angeles.

“If it gets too literal, it starts to feel false or has a strange effect.”

Skin texture that is slightly off can especially leave people feeling unsettled, said Patrick Markey, a psychologist and director of Villanova University’s Interpersonal Research Laboratory.

The near-realistic animation style championed by producer Robert Zemeckis uses motion-capture technology, where actors are covered with dots and skin suits and have their performances captured on computer. The dots provide the frame, and the rest is filled in with computerised graphics.

Mars creates humans that are more realistic and detailed than Zemeckis’ earlier attempts in such movies as Beowulf and The Polar Express — which were also criticised for inviting this discomfort. The greater detail might have made things worse.

Doug McGoldrick, who took his two daughters to see the movie, said the faces of the main characters “were just wrong”.

Their foreheads were lifeless and plastic-looking, “like they used way too much botox or something”, said the 41-year-old photographer in Chicago, Illinois.

Marc Kelley, a 32-year-old pastor in Allegan, Michigan, who went with his two young children, said he found the renditions of characters “all annoying in their own way”.

Indeed, when the mother of the main character Milo mentioned the word “zombies” at the start of the movie, it conjured up a feeling that the characters were themselves undead.

Animation experts say the key to success is to be only authentic enough to tug at our heart strings.

The best example of this was Avatar, the 2009 blockbuster that made $US2.8 billion in theatres around the world.

The humanoid, but blue-bodied Na’vi were alien enough not to trigger our inner rejection mechanism.

“My own personal opinion is try to stay away from photo-real with a human,” said Greg Philyaw, the business development director at Giant Studios, which captured the performance of human actors for their digital re-creation in Avatar.

“Subconsciously you know what you’re looking at isn’t quite right.”

Disney, by its actions, has already voted against the super-real animation format.

Last March, it said it would shut down the Zemeckis-run company ImageMovers Digital, which made Mars, to cut costs.

Several months ago, Disney also nixed a plan to fund and distribute Zemeckis’ Yellow Submarine, a half-finished work he is now free to shop to other studios.

Disney declined to comment for this story, and Zemeckis declined interview requests through an agent.

Mars had an estimated $US150 million production budget, but has brought in just $US34 million globally since its March 11 opening.

To be fair, there were other problems besides being visually unnerving.

For one, it appeared to be marketed at young boys who are interested in science fiction but also are closely attached to their mothers. That’s a small group to begin with, and neglects dads and daughters.

Some young children also got scared about the plot involving mommy abduction.

Mars also came just a week after Paramount’s 2D animated movie Rango, starring Johnny Depp.

And instead of appealing to fans because of the increasingly popular 3D format, Mars may have annoyed theatregoers faced with higher 3D ticket prices.

“If a movie’s unappealing and you’re trying to charge a higher ticket price for it, it makes it even less appealing,” said Brandon Gray, president of tracking company Box Office Mojo.

Mr Gray noted that Mars had the lowest opening weekend for a wide-release 3D movie ever.

Maija Burnett, associate director of character animation at California Institute of the Arts, took a broader view, even though the school teaches about the pitfalls of the “uncanny valley” in class.

“There’s a continuing attempt to explore what the boundaries are within (computer generated) animation,” she said.

“Every film that uses this is one important step along the way.”

In the “uncanny valley” theory, the valley isn’t bottomless. As things grow more realistically human, our affection starts increasing again, climbing out of the valley on the other side.

In other words, increasingly sophisticated animation might stop creeping us out and start fooling us.

I’ve often cited of all the vile ‘religions’ out there, Islam takes the cake and slits it’s throat while screaming it’s name for it’s variant of the sky fairy. I always state that where Islam goes, suffering and death soon follow. But these guys really expound on that.

I’m quoting it textually, without hyperlinks, as each second word was linked to articles depicting videos or photos of each point in question, sometimes entire folders and galleries of these atrocities a hundred fold over, emphasising that their words aren’t hollow and that their about us write up wasn’t bullshitting or beating around the bush.

I’d like to post it with the links included because I personally feel that any hate crime or atrocity should be exposed, but honestly, it was all too much even for me. And I grew up on the interwebs, most of you know how much of a tolerance I have to midgets fucking goats while giraffes juggle chainsaw weilding cows tweaking their nipples and eating green jello. But this shit’s just fucked up.

Anyway, their write up is as follows, and if you’re curious, the website is thereligionofpeace.com (and no, don’t go there just because you’re a gore creep, your kind generate MANY deaths of sick fat lifeless fucks like yourselves who want to be internet famous by making a gore contribution and go out and fucking kill some poor cunt just to feed your filthy habits, go get laid or something) and their about us section (partial) is as follows: -

What other religion’s most devoted members videotape themselves cutting people’s throats while screaming praises to their god?

What other faith has tens of thousands of terrorists across the globe united by an explicit commitment to advance the cause of their religion by pursuing horrific mass murder and mutilation?

What other religion has clerics lauded as ‘moderates’, ‘bridge-builders’, and advocates of ‘peace and tolerance’ who, at best cannot even bring themselves to condemn suicide bombers or denounce Islamist terror organizations, or at worst actually support the terrorism, along with wife-beating, female genital mutilation and the justified killing of apostates and homosexuals?

What other religion kills innocent people over cartoons and teddy bears, and murders humanitarian workers of other faiths who are merely trying to help them?

What other religion actually celebrated the 9/11 attacks, described the carnage as “one of the miracles of the Quran” and proclaimed it to be “God’s work against oppressors”?

What other religion childishly brags about its growth while at the same time openly denies other religions equal opportunity to evangelize and even endorses killing those who leave?

What other religion has prominent PR organizations and charities so closely tied to terrorism – organizations like CAIR, which whine about dress codes and rubber ducks in the West while ignoring the Jihad genocide of thousands in Darfur?

What other religion has verses in its holy book that remind men of their divine permission to beat their wives and rape their slaves?

The list could go on (and does – each day on TheReligionof-Peace.com). Islam so routinely produces horrible atrocities in the name of Allah that no one is all that surprised when…

Adults are tied to a tree or planted in the ground and bludgeoned to death by fundamentalists for engaging in consensual sex…

A New York woman trying to file for divorce is beheaded by her husband, who also happens to be the founder of a Muslim-American TV channel dedicated to combating “misconceptions” and “stereotypes” about Islam…

Religious leaders are charged by authorities with plotting spectacular acts of mass murder in the name of their god…

Clerics advocate raping virgins prior to executing them for verbal crimes such as political dissent…

Pollsters admit that about 1 out of 3 Muslims worldwide (450 million) view the terrorism of 9/11 as justified…

A Christian is murdered in front of his own family for leaving Islam, and his children then kidnapped and ‘conscripted’ by his killers…

A religious faith that comprises 1% of all Americans accounts for 80% of all federal terror prosecutions…

How shocking all of this would be if it didn’t involve devout Muslims. As it is, most of it barely registers in the media. The very fact that the bar of expectation is set so low for “the Religion of Peace” underscores just how different it really is from others.

In fact, Islam is more than a religion. It is a rigid political and cultural system with a mandate to conquer and govern the lives of others via necessary force “until religion is only for Allah.” As the Ayatollah Khomeini once put it, “people cannot be made obedient except with the sword.”

Thus, the enemy of this orthodoxy is not just intellectual dissent and free speech, but human freedom. The divine charter of Islam is to impose itself and thus prevent the individual from discovering a different meaning for their own lives.

Islam breeds arrogance and self-absorption. The Quran and Islamic law glaringly define a supremacist ideology which draws the sharpest distinction between those within the group of believers and those without – towards whom arbitrary denigration is cast and hatred, harsh treatment and eternal punishment is prescribed.

As a consequence, not a day goes by that someone, somewhere in the world, is horribly murdered by devout Muslims in the name of this religion – over ten thousand persons each year. More innocent lives were taken in two hours by devoted Muslims on 9/11 than by the Ku Klux Klan in its entire 140-year history.

Where Islam dominates, there is systematic discrimination and oppression of those of other faiths. Where Muslims are a minority, there is peevish self-interest, disloyalty and eventual rebellion and terror when special demands are not met – all part of the eternal jihad to bring about the rule of Islam as Muhammad ordered of true believers.

It isn’t the victims who need lessons in tolerance and understanding – it is the Islamic world.

Those willing to open their minds will find that, regardless of the excuse-du-jour, the remarkable level of narcissism, repression and violence is deeply ingrained in the teachings, double standards and early history of the Islamic religion. While there is not a single verse in the Quran that commands love for those outside Islam, there are over 493 that either promote violence or speak of Allah’s hatred for unbelievers – in a book that is largely about how to think of and deal harshly with those outside the “true” faith.

Why rely on rosy platitudes and carefully-edited fragments of Quran verses from apologists when Islam speaks so well for itself? Beyond the whitewashing are obvious reasons why so many devotees do horrible things in the name of Allah, while most of the rest never seem to get terribly upset by it – busy as they are demanding for themselves what they deny others.

How much favor are we really doing Muslims by not challenging them to the sort of self-critique necessary for moral progress? How much favor are we doing ourselves by desperately trying to accommodate that which has no intention of accommodating us, or by continuing to sacrifice blood and budgets for those who hate us in return? Is it really in our best interests to assist the expansion within our own borders of a religion that is consistently incapable of building countries in which even Muslims themselves want to live?

Tolerance is a good thing, but not when we allow it to be used cynically against us by those who have no use for it once they obtain power. We need to back away from the altar of political correctness and abandon our preconceptions. We need to rediscover critical thinking.

The truth is that Islam is not a religion of peace and it is not like other religion. Sometimes the truth isn’t comfortable. Sometimes the truth offends. But it is far better that we offend others than lose our own freedom

This is one of those cases. Ftr, I got a Pakistani bloke I know to contact the division of the police department mentioned, they wouldn’t confirm or deny anything (ie: it happened), and had no comment to make on the issue (ie: we got caught). I’d up the mp3 of his resultant call, but … well, it’s not in English and was quite anticlimactic for me. But god they talk fast over there. >_> My two cents of the day.

Article sourced from asianews.com: -

Kot Addu’s Christian community is facing more wrongdoings by local landlords who grabbed Christian-owned fields and shops with the complicity of local police and officials. Christian symbols are desecrated but the blasphemy law is not applied in this case. Local authorities say accusations are all made up but fail to provide legal backing for grabbing Christian property.

Lahore (AsiaNews) – More.. “I have worked all my life to buy this property. My ancestors are buried in the graveyard. I am an old man now with four four daughters. I had planned to save this property for their marriage,” said Boota Masih, as he lamented Christian powerlessness against local landlords grabbing Christian-owned land and property with the complicity of local administrators and police. His woes come as tensions rise the wake of Minority Affairs Minister Shahbaz Bhatti’s murder. If the authorities do not act, security forces warn, a tragedy like Gojra could happen again.
Kot Addu is a city in Muzaffargarh district, southern Punjab. A fresh wave of anti-Christian violence has swept over it. Last year, Christians suffered discrimination when aid was handed out to flood victims. In July 2009, a Christian man, Anwar Masih, was charged with blasphemy based on false accusations. When his family agreed to give a local Muslim lawmaker their property, they were dropped.

In recent days, Christians have had to endure even more abuse. Landowners in Kot Addu have grabbed Christian-owned stores and fields as well as a Christian cemetery. With the backing of local lawmakers and administrators, they threatened local Christians, desecrated Bibles and crosses in a local church and destroyed 150 tombs.

Local Christian leaders tried to file a case against the attackers at the Jaggi Moor Police station but got nowhere. Station House Officer Zubair Khalid drafted a First Information Report, but failed to include crucial details, thus allowing the culprits to walk free.

Speaking to AsiaNews, Boota Masih, one of the victims of local potentates, said that the local police refused to hear his complaint. Instead, they accused “Christians of illegally occupying the land on which they built their church and cemetery.”

Another Christian, Ghani Masih, noted that even though the attackers “desecrated Bibles, crosses and tombs,” the complaint against them was registered under Section 297 of the Pakistan Penal Code rather than Sections 295- and 295-B, which involve blasphemy.

Tensions have reached a critical point and many people fear outbreaks of large-scale violence like in Gojra, where thousands of extremists attacked Christian residents in August 2009 (pictured), burning eight people alive.

Last January’s murder of Punjab Governor Salman Taseer and yesterday’s execution-style assassination of Shahbaz Bhatti have made the situation worse for Christians, who now fear more than ever blasphemy-related attacks.

A Christian representative from the minority wing of Pakistan People’s Party visited Kot Addu. He promised that action would be taken in support of Kot Addu Christians.

Similarly, a local district police officer denied that anything untoward had actually happened. Instead, he said that the local Christian community made the whole thing up in order to stir up trouble.

When asked about Anwar Masih, who was forced to hand over his property under duress to have false charges dropped, the officer refused to comment.

I came across something very, very disturbing.

Professor Matt Warren, the head of Deakin University’s School of Information Systems, said as long as parents who don’t understand the internet kept giving their children access to it, there needed to be ways to control its use. “You simply can’t have free access to the internet,” he said. “It has to be controlled, censored and people have to be held accountable for their actions on it. “We punish people who drink, we punish people who speed and we have to implement laws to that effect when it comes to the internet.”

Prof Warren said that parents might think allowing children to access the internet in their bedroom was a way of helping them do their schoolwork, but the reality was, a lot of parents simply didn’t understand the medium. “The child isn’t ethically aware of what they’re doing,” he said.

Allegedly angered by a morning newspaper report leaked from the Prime Minister’s office, questioning her loyalty, Julia Gillard called senior powerbroker and fellow Victorian MP Bill Shorten. “It pissed everyone in the caucus off,” said a NSW senior factional leader. “And it pissed her off, too. She has been nothing but loyal. And to have that happen was not only stupid but unwarranted.” Sadly actions speak louder than words as our first female Prime Minister–something much overdue–may very well be in power through skullduggery as opposed to free election. This taints all progress of equal rights for women in Australia and will put the potential of our first female PM into a situation where people will point out that it wasn’t the fill of the people.

Just before Question Time at 2.30pm, the Deputy Prime Minister assembled a select group of Cabinet colleagues and co-conspirators. They had been trying to get her to challenge his leadership ‘for weeks’, giving strong backing to the claims from the Prime Ministerial office questioning her loyalty to the elected leadership and the will of Australian voters.

By late afternoon, Shorten, fellow Victorian Senator David Feeney, NSW MP Tony Burke and South Australian right wing factional leader Don Farrell went to see Ms Gillard in her office.

They had been conspiring for the past week and they wanted her to challenge. Powerful AWU boss Bill Ludwig told the ABC Mr Rudd is “toxic”. “We have a better chance of holding government with Julia Gillard that we would have with Rudd,” Mr Ludwig said. Former Premier Peter Beattie has backed Ms Gillard, telling the ABC “she is a very talented woman”. Transport Union boss Hughie Williams said Ms Gillard will prevail. “It’s quite obvious they have the numbers. We’ll have a new prime minister of Australia,” Mr Williams said.

Queensland Senator Barnaby Joyce said the overnight coup attempt against Mr Rudd has been engineered by factional leaders who have taken over the running of the country. “It is running on auto-pilot in the face of faceless people and faceless men who (were) never elected,” Senator Joyce said.

“We’re basically realising that the whole direction and metaphor of this Government was flawed and we’re off to – gosh only knows.”

It is interesting to note that many conservative biased media outlets are painting this as ‘loyal Gillard reluctantly challenges leadership’, media outlets that tend to follow the normative Liberal bias, however it should be noted that the ‘factions’ behind this coup are ultra-conservative Laborites and traditionalists as opposed to progressives.

Shortly after 7pm, Ms Gillard’s office called the Prime Minister’s Office and told them that Ms Gillard wanted to see the PM. The pair had been due to have dinner later in the evening at the Lodge. Mr Rudd was called back from a function to celebrate the 20th anniversary of parliamentary service for Senator Nick Sherry, around the corner from his office in the Ministerial wing of Parliament House.

With Ms Gillard was Defence Minister and fellow left-wing factional heavyweight John Faulkner, a NSW senator.

She informed the PM that she intended to challenge him for the leadership. She wanted a ballot. The pair remained behind closed doors for almost two hours.

As the two were locked in an intense negotiation, interrupted twice by Rudd loyalists Anthony Albanese and Lindsay Tanner, the factional leader from NSW Mark Arbib hit the phones.

Shorten, dining in the Canberra suburb of Kingston with colleagues including Sports Minister Kate Ellis, was also glued to the phone. But by 9pm the conspirators were confident they had the numbers to swing behind her should she decide to do it.

The answer was revealed at 10.20pm when the PM called a press conference and revealed he had been visited by Ms Gillard, and confirmed that the challenge was on, after media outlets erroneously claimed his press conference was because he was ‘resigning as prime minister’.

This morning, at 9am, she goes into a special caucus meeting with the conspiratorial bulk of the members of the NSW Labor Right, the Victorian Right, the South Australian Right and the Victorian Left behind her.

Queensland right-wing powerbroker, Senator Joe Ludwig, was also on board. The deal was that Treasurer Wayne Swan – the man who voted against Rudd in the spill against Kim Beazley – would be Ms Gillard’s deputy.

The Victorian Right had been courting Gillard for the past two weeks, urging her to challenge. “We can’t win with this bloke,” they told her. Ironically, if Labor enact a change in leadership the chance of them winning at the next election, or next several elections is slim to none given that trechery is not really smiled upon by the average punter.

Arbib, the NSW numbers man who put Rudd into the leadership in 2006, had been sounding out support among select MPs for a change.

The internal polling provided by the party’s national secretary Karl Bitar was worse than the public polling, which had already put the Government in a losing position. But some outlets Gillard’s loyalty prevented her from doing the unthinkable.

The House of Representatives Standing Committee on Communication (They don’t represent us, just batshit vocal minorities, I assure you) have stated that all Australian’s should be forced to install anti-virus and firewall software on their computers before being allowed to connect to the internet under a ‘new plan’ to ‘fight cyber crime’. And if their computer did get infected, internet service providers could cut off their connection until the problem was resolved.

Those are two of the recommendations to come from a year-long multi-million inquiry into cyber crime. They spent all the money on K-Rudd’s crack and then did an all nighter the night the findings were due. Results of the inquiry, titled Hackers, Fraudsters and Botnets: Tackling the Problem of Cyber Crime, were released last night in a 260-page report, there is no mention whether it met copyspace clearance however and may have been plagerised from first year ethics students at UWA.

In her foreword, committee chair Belinda Neal said cyber crime had turned into a “sophisticated underground economy”, before taking a rasping breath from the pipe under the table. “In the past decade, cyber crime has grown from the nuisance of the cyber smart hacker into an organised transnational crime committed for vast profit and often with devastating consequences for its victims,” Ms Neal said. I postulate whether she is referring to the ‘russian mobsters’ who ‘hacked’ a dentists website and ‘uploaded child pornography’ to ‘make money’ as Senator Conman Conroy stated when asked why a dentists office was on the super secret government black list.

During its inquiry the committee heard a growing number of Australians were being targeted by cyber criminals and that increasing internet speeds were likely to make the situation worse. Something we don’t inherently need to worry about in Australia given that we still pay several hundred dollars per month for speeds not exceeding ADSL1 technology branded as ADSL2+ with a lot of fine print that anything over 56k dialup ‘in their terms’ is ADSL2+ (forget international standards here folks).

It also heard the problem was costing Australian businesses as much as $649 million a year. Including dentists with large kiddy porn collections replacing their virtual store front. The committee looked at several different examples of cyber crime, including hacking, phishing, malware and botnets. They intently carried out this research by leeching torrents, using Back Orifice on inter-office computers, and asking each other for their banking details from fraudulent hotmail accounts, such as imnotsenatorconroy@hotmail.com.

Among its final 34 recommendations were:

• The creation of an around-the-clock cyber crime helpline. This, I agree with. I don’t pay for phone calls so I will ring them and chant “Cocks, cocks, cocks.” until the end of time.
• Changes to the law to make unauthorised installation of software illegal. What the fuck, seriously.
• Companies who release IT products with security vulnerabilities should be open to claims for compensation by consumers. This I agree with. Microsoft, give me moneys.
• Another of its recommendations was to create a new “e-security code of practice” that would define the responsibilities of internet service providers and their customers. Cocks, cocks, cocks.
• The code of practice would see companies like Telstra give their customers security advice when they signed up and inform them if their computer ever appeared to be compromised. More fine print we won’t read and will click yes to.

For their part, customers would have to install anti-virus and firewall software before their connection was activated and endeavour to keep the software up-to-date. It pisses me off enough as it is when they ask what kind of computer I’m using to access the net, when half the time I’m not even using a computer at all, nor any OS they’d have heard of. Find me anti-virus software for my xbox, or my iPhone hard-booted to run Lunix (yes, Lunix, no, it’s not a typo)  please K-Rudd.

If a customer’s computer was infected by malware, the service provider could introduce gradual restrictions and eventually cut off their internet connection entirely until the machine was “remediated”. This implies that the Government will not only be ‘filtering’ us, but also packet sniffing our shit in a clandestine way.

This entire thing just makes me want to pre-emptively ring that hotline, or maybe Senator Conroy’s office. In fact, brb, cocks, cocks, cocks time.

I’ve always said if they don’t give us what we want when we want it we’ll pirate it. Screw going to the movies, my plasma is higher def than your projector and my sound quality is vastly superior. Screw waiting years to see 20 minute shows stretched to 1.5 hours of adverts, I’ll download my shows and watch them nao kthx. :P Below are the results of News Ltd’s survey, please note a lot of their inferences are based on the assumption that all persons answered honestly (ie: ‘rich get stingy’, more like people lie about their income, etc) so evaluate it with critical thought: -

WHY do people turn to the web to get TV shows, movies and music without paying for them when they know they should?

We asked more than 7000 illegal downloaders to tell us just that. Here’s the breakdown of their answers.

Overview

The online survey was completed by 7324 respondents who said they had illegally downloaded or streamed TV shows, movies or music in the past 12 months.

Respondents were asked to choose the most applicable reasons for illegally downloading or streaming media from a list of about 12 possible choices, for each type of media — TV shows, movies and music.

They were also asked how much they would be prepared to pay for a similar legal and convenient service if it existed.

Some of the key findings were:

CONVENIENCE was as much of a motivating factor as money for people who illegally downloaded or streamed media.

MORE than two-thirds of respondents say they would be prepared to pay for a similar legal service if it existed.

GEN Y is prepared to pay more for legal downloads of TV shows and movies than any other age group, while people between 31 and 50 are more likely to pay top dollar for music.

THE young (under 20) and elderly (61 and over) are least likely to say they would pay for legal content.

TV shows are illegally downloaded more regularly, and by more people, than movies or music.

Click here to read the original story

Read on for more results on each type of media.

TV shows

6694 respondents said they had illegally downloaded or streamed a TV show in the past 12 months. Of these, 86.8 per cent said they did so regularly.

When given multiple choices to explain why they illegally downloaded or streamed TV shows, most respondents chose:

1) I’ll have to wait too long to see it on TV (50.7 per cent)
2) I want to be able to watch it whenever I want (41.5 per cent)
3) It doesn’t have ads (38.9 per cent)
4) It isn’t shown on TV at all (35.9 per cent)
5) It’s convenient (35.6 per cent)

When asked how much they would pay for a convenient legal option, respondents chose:

1) $1 per episode (39.2 per cent)
2) Nothing (33.6 per cent)
3) $2 per episode (18.7 per cent)
4) $3 per episode (8.4 per cent)

Shows not so social: Less than 1 per cent of respondents said they downloaded TV shows to share them with friends.

Movies

5902 respondents said they had illegally downloaded or streamed a movie in the past 12 months. Of these, 72.7 per cent said they did so regularly.

When given multiple choices to explain why they illegally downloaded or streamed movies, most respondents chose:

1) Going to the cinema is too expensive (43.5 per cent)
2) It’s convenient (42.4 per cent)
3) I want to be able to watch it whenever I want (42.4 per cent)
4) It’s free (28.7 per cent)
5) It’s an old movie I can’t find on DVD or Blu-ray (25.8 per cent)

When asked how much they would pay for a convenient legal option, respondents chose:

1) $2 per episode (45.6 per cent)
2) $5 per episode (28.3 per cent)
3) Nothing (21.6 per cent)
4) $10 per episode (4.4 per cent)

Paying promise: More pirates said they would pay $5 per film through a convenient legal service than those who wouldn’t pay anything. The most popular choice was $2.

Rebel retirees?: Respondents aged 61 or above were the most likely of all age groups to say they illegally downloaded movies once a week or more.

Music

5712 respondents said they had illegally downloaded or streamed music in the past 12 months. Of these, 69.5 per cent said they did so regularly.

When given multiple choices to explain why they illegally downloaded or streamed music, most respondents chose:

1) I want it in MP3 format without copy protection (43.2 per cent)
2) It’s convenient (37.0 per cent)
3) CDs are too expensive (36.5 per cent)
4) It’s free (33.2 per cent)
5) I want to know if I like it before I decide whether to buy it (28.2 per cent)

When asked how much they would pay for a convenient legal option, respondents chose:

1) 50c per song (48.8 per cent)
2) Nothing (33.6 per cent)
3) $1 per song (14.7 per cent)
4) $2 per song (2.8 per cent)

The rich get stingy: Respondents with an annual household salary of more than $350,000 were more likely than other income groups to admit illegally downloading music on a regular basis.

The news.com.au illegal downloads survey was carried out between April 16 and April 22 in conjunction with market research firm CoreData.

This information is disemmination of news data as per the Copyright Act.

You know, that almost makes you sound like a rapper. I am writing this merely to mock you, knowing the people reading it will appreciate the tongue in cheek as I illustrate the ‘fair shake of the sauce bottle’ you’re dishing out to smokers. I’m aware you’re about as detached from reality as a politician can get, but I do know the 12 year old korean sweat shop workers you have in your off shore PR department will read this and hopefully also get a chuckle at your expense.

Smoking, filthy habit, right? Some say it’s as hard as heroin to kick. In Australia, the land of the ‘surprise tax’ as I like to call it (we’re already one of the most taxed nations yet we have ‘stamp duty’ tax on … everything, which is usually 10% (see: bankrupting on your first home or car purchase by surprise tax) as well as road tax, breathing tax, you fucking name it tax) but now we have taxes on taxes. Cigarettes were always taxed at a premium, where a pack of fags would set you back $7 in the 80′s and early 90′s as opposed to $1-2 outside Australia.

Smokers clog up the healthcare system, right? What with their dying all the time and stuff, why not tax them? Fine. Smokers pay a lot more tax than any other Australian, with almost 90% of the price of them being ‘tax’ all going to the medical system. But fuck giving them organs, they’re smokers. Hell, let’s tax them more. Now we’re nearing $1 per cigarette, and what happens? The price of ‘quit smoking aids’ which always work out to cost more than cigarettes go up too.

As much as governments pretend to want us to not smoke they realise that the tax they can milk out of us by keeping us alive an average 10 years more is far less than what they can by taxing our addiction. I say this as an intermittant lifelong smoker, who quits as often as he restarts, but fairs fair this new tax has gone way too far.

Heroin addicts get shooting galleries, social support, free housing, $380 a fortnight and FREE methadone to inject instead. Smokers get mortgages, bills, two point seven five children, two cars, and a fuckload of surprise tax on top of their taxed taxes of cigartaxes and placebo ‘quit’ substitutes that freely state in their instructions that they won’t give you the ‘fix’ or ‘buzz’ of cigarettes (and thus never last more than a week in a smokers addiction).

So, I propose this K-rudd, rather than making heroin far more appealing to Australian’s, how about you cut back on the smoking tax, or even it out across the three big killers, obesity (being the biggest killer in this nation) and alcohol (and see how long it takes until parliament house is burnt down and you’r nailed to the flag pole given how crazed Aussies seem to be about drinking (coming from a non drinker here)), which I might add are two elements I do not participate in. Maybe we should have photos of the mega-litres of fat sucked out of womens arses and thighs and the horrible chaffed cellulite gone necrotic fat people get attached to every edible product? Why stop there, why don’t we up the gore level and throw up some awesome pics from ogrish of splatter deaths from drunken road kills of people?

Or better yet, maybe repeal the tax and stop being a cunt, eh?

Much love,

BaSH (Your #1 Fan) PR0MPT

Ps: Why the fuck did I vote for him? I guess he was Obama before Obama, he looked good because the competition was horrendous, and promised the right things, then backflipped on all of them.

What’s wrong with this picture? What the fuck is right with it? (If you answered nothing, read on, else beat yourself across the head, re-read, and repeat until enlightenment)

It’s 2010, when our prime minister lied about stopping Japanese illegal whaling, withdrawing our troops from America’s war against adjectives, and getting rid of the vile fuck-the-workers “work choices” scheme … we saw no one swamp the streets to protest.

In 2008 during the mandatory censorship protests we saw only 5,000 mob Town Hall to protest the decay of Internet freedom in our nation not to mention free speech at the draconian hands of Senator-can’t-program-a-VCR Conroy.

What is wrong with a society which has crazed teen girls acting like sleazy 40 year old men with their hand in their pocket over some kid? In what jilted fucked up take of reality do we see people mobbing barricades and police lines over some b-grade net celebrity? When did Australia turn into the US?

Don’t get me wrong, I’m well aware that teenage females are the least intellectually gifted let alone autonomous minority in our society and I’m also aware that they’re brain washed to be the future of mindless consumption technicians that will keep our male workforce subjugated; but there’s something seriously wrong with parents who don’t discourage clearly unhealthy behaviour.

I don’t have children, well none that Centrelink can prove are mine, and I’m personally a fan of ‘late term’ abortions up to the age of 35, but seriously, seeing this in the news disgusted me.

These silly little trollops need to watch less OC/hills/jersey shore and get the fuck back into a classroom or better yet an adidas sweat shop. We boggle our logic to no end trying to figure out why women are paid less than men and have more dick-in-butt ratio in the socio-economic front yet allow borderline psychotic behaviour and encourage hive mentality and worship of TV-told-me-to tin gods. No male would get away with that over any female without their mates outright telling them they’re bent in the head and probably slap them around when they won’t talk about anything but their obsession. Not to mention the extremes many young girls go to (see: changing their online surnames everywhere to reflect obsessed marital fantasies) are just bizarre and unhealthy.

How young females can’t see that there’s no such tangible thing as a ‘fanboy’ but ‘fangirl’ is an ever present term and not appreciate that they’re jipping themselves out of individualistic thought or gender rights progression is beyond me.

Pre-pube girls, grow the fuck up. Pre-pube girl parents, put them in therapy you disillusioned cunts.

In her autobiography, In The Best Interests of the Child, Hetty Johnston, founder of Bravehearts and unquestionably Australia’s most prominent voice on child sexual assault, documents three childhood incidents that, as far as she is concerned, place her within the realm of the abused: the first sees Hetty and her sisters returning from the beach one day when “a man stepped out of a public toilet that happened to be situated in a park on our route and dropped his towel to reveal his nakedness”; the second takes place at the beach also, when an argument with an unknown adult results in the man slapping young Hetty in the face “so hard that I could only see stars for about five minutes”; and the third involves a man at an indoor pool who, while playfully throwing children in the pool, places “a hand in my crutch as he thrust me skyward.

“For me,” Hetty writes, “these occurrences have not left any indelible imprint but they do raise an interesting point. Statistically speaking, I had become the ‘one in four’ girls who had been sexually assaulted before the age of eighteen. But these were statistics I was to discover later in life. Right now, I was just a kid trying to negotiate the adult world. No big deal really.”

This passage is striking. Not only does it reveal to us the relatively commonplace occurrences that pass for “child sexual assault” in the minds of today’s crusaders, but it exposes them as incidents that, as unsavoury as they may be, are almost rites of passage for children of the modern world, blown off as “no big deal” by Hetty Johnston herself, one of the hottest, angriest winds in the current storm of hysteria. Could all this fear and counter-fear be about something which, for the most part, is nothing to get excited about?

To read more, go here: http://blogs.news.com.au/jackmarxlive/index.php/news/comments/the_abuse_of_child_abuse/

“The Rudd Government does not support Refused Classification content being available on the internet. This content includes child sexual abuse imagery, bestiality, sexual violence, detailed instruction in crime, violence or drug use and/or material that advocates the doing of a terrorist act.

Under Australia’s existing classification regulations this material is not available in newsagencies, it is not on library shelves, you cannot watch it on a DVD or at the cinema and it is not shown on television. Refused Classification material is not available on Australian hosted websites.”

I’m going to go out on a limb here, and will probably have this thrown in my face at a later date, but … ever wonder WHY the internet is so popular? Because you can’t get good porn in a newsagent, fuck, when have you EVER seen a porn flick in a cinema? Or on TV? Maybe 60 year old pollies can get their budgie smugglers in a bunch over softcore nipple slips, but seriously.

It’s 2010, let’s all be mature here. Permit me another copy-paste: -

“Hunt’s 1974 study suggests that the demographic changes led to a significant change in reported occurrence. Males in 1974 were 4.9% (1948: 8.3%), and in females in 1974 were 1.9% (1953: 3.6%). Miletski believes this is not a reduction in interest but a reduction in opportunity.[9]

Nancy Friday’s 1973 book on female sexuality, My Secret Garden, comprised around 190 fantasies from different women; of these, 23 involve zoosexual activity.[10]

In one study, psychiatric patients were found to have a statistically-significant higher prevalence rate (55 percent) of reported bestiality, both actual sexual contacts (45 percent) and sexual fantasy (30 percent) than the control groups of medical in-patients (10 percent) and psychiatric staff (15 percent).[11] Crépault and Couture (1980) reported that 5.3 percent of the men they surveyed have fantasized about sexual activity with an animal during heterosexual intercourse.[12] A 1982 study suggested that 7.5 percent of 186 university students had interacted sexually with an animal.[13]”

This is ganked straight from Wikipedia. Another quote from Wikipedia on HUMAN sexuality: -

“The largest and most thorough survey in Australia to date was conducted by telephone interview with 19,307 respondents between the ages of 16 and 59 in 2001/2002. The study found that 97.4% of men identified as heterosexual, 1.6% as gay and 0.9% as bisexual. For women 97.7% identified as heterosexual, 0.8% as lesbian and 1.4% as bisexual.”

So whilst I’m well aware that the statistics used were from the US, let’s also point out that they were in the 70′s, before the internet has opened the minds (and beds) of billions of people to freaky shit.

Now let’s just take a minute to evaluate things. The ACMA is trying to enforce morals and values of the average Australian. What is the average Australian in 2010 with internet access? Do we find bestiality that abhorrent? It’s popularity in no way validates it as being moral, or right, nor does it’s immorality imply it is inherently wrong as let’s face it, on my shelf in my study I have a book published in the 70′s of human psychological problems and paraphillias, and listed amongst all kinds of fucked up stuff is homosexuality. That’s 30-40 years ago. Attitudes change, society becomes more open minded, or at least tolerant of the fact that it’s no ones business who fucks what in the where as long as it doesn’t involve abuse, harm, or illegality, right?

I’m not so much defending merely bestiality; let’s face it sexualised violence is NORMAL in porn. Be it Rocco Sifreddi turkey slapping the neighbourhood bike through to gently-gently spank me I’ve been bad crap it’s absolutely beyond any doubt blown into the mainstream with BDSM becoming almost ‘trendy’.

So what do we do here? Do we blanket arrest people who participate in bestiality and sexualised violence? I’m not even going to TOUCH on the issue of kiddy fiddling that is indefensible, however the pedo’s will still be trading their filth on CD’s in flea markets or where ever rock spiders hang out these days, but the fact of the matter is that blanket arrests seem dumb for people who like spankings, right? So to does the idea of censoring MILLIONS of internet users access to the net at a MANDATORY level of ‘RC’ content when your concept of ‘RC’ is so fucking outdated that it makes your tie look en vogue.

In conclusion, Senator Conroy and the nanny state Waffen-Shutzstaffel … kindly fuck off.

Case in point: Venezuela, where we may be witnessing the signs of an Iran-like brouhaha. With its economy floundering, crime rates skyrocketing, and civil unrest escalating, Venezuela isn’t exactly the happiest place on Earth these days. In the face of this discontent, President Hugo Chavez has decided to step up his propaganda game and has unleashed a major campaign to suppress any oppositional media outlets. When five cable stations recently refused to broadcast one of his speeches, Chavez ordered them to shut down operations, a decree that set off a firestorm of protests, police intervention, and the eventual death of two student dissidents.

The catalyst behind most of these protests is, of course, Twitter, which anti-Chavez activists have used to organize demonstrations and to spread their cause internationally. Dissidents have also taken to Facebook, where a group titled “Chavez esta PONCHAO!” (“Chavez, you struck out!”) is already 80,000 members strong. Chavez, not surprisingly, has undertaken efforts to squash this social media mini-revolution, going so far as to equate Twitter, the Internet, and text-messaging (?) with “terrorism”. As FOX News reports, Chavez has promised a “radical” response to the Twitter-fueled uprising, and has already “launched an army of Twitter users to bring down online networks and try to infiltrate student groups.”

Chavez used his weekly propaganda television and radio show ‘Alo Presidente’ to rally Latin America behind the ’cause’ of his Argentine counterpart Cristina Kirchner by making a direct demands to Buckingham Palace.

“Look, England, how long are you going to be in Las Malvinas? Queen of England, I’m talking to you. The time for empires are over, haven’t you noticed? Return the Malvinas to the Argentine people.” ignoring the fact all occupants of the Falklands are British citizens and don’t want a bar of South America and their petty dictators.

Still addressing the Queen, he went on: “The English are still threatening Argentina. Things have changed. We are no longer in 1982. If conflict breaks out, be sure Argentina will not be alone like it was back then.”

He described British control of the islands in the South Atlantic as “anti-historic and irrational”.

Mrs Kirchner sought to win new allies in Argentina’s claims to the islands when she made a direct appeal for support at a meeting in Mexico of the Rio Group of Latin American and Caribbean countries. Venezuela and Nicaragua rallied to Argentina’s side even before Mrs Krichner’s appeal, and it was reported that Brazil was ready to support any resolution backing Argentina’s sovereignty claims.

Argentine anger is likely to increase after Desire Petroleum, the British oil company that has towed a rig from Scotland to about 60 miles off the north of the Falklands, announced on Monday it had begun drilling, the natural gas and oil surrounding the Falklands are naturally the only reason Argentinians suddenly interested, as most South American countries are in dire financial shape.

Argentina is attempting to hamper oil exploration, insisting last week that all vessels using its ports must now seek permission if they plan to enter or leave British-controlled waters. Argentina wants other South American countries to impose its transport restrictions to the Falklands but it is unlikely to win support from those closest to the islands such as Chile and Uruguay.

Chile, Argentina’s traditional enemy, has long been a major supplier to the Falklands. An operations manager of a Uruguayan shipping agency who came out to Port Stanley on Saturday to discuss business was dismissive about the effectiveness of the latest Argentine decree.

Meanwhile, passengers from the British cruise liner Star Princess disembarked at Port Stanley on Monday for a day trip after the vessel reported leaving Buenos Aires with no demand for permission to sail to the Falklands.
Stepping on to the jetty for a few hours watching penguins or touring one of the battlefields from the 1982 war, passengers said the ship’s captain had reassured them several days ago it was “perfectly safe” to get off at when they reached the islands.

However, Maurice and Sylvia Bellamy from Felixstowe reported some unusual Falklands-related advice had been issued over the ship’s tannoy system.
“They told us we had to refer to the islands as the Falklands when we were there but as the Malvinas when we were in Argentina,” said Mr Bellamy, 74.

Argentina wants other South American countries to impose its transport restrictions to the Falklands but this would mean that they, too, could miss out on the lucrative profits from providing refining and port facilities if, as drillers believe, large amounts of oil and natural gas are retrieved off the Falklands.

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Skatestan. Australian skaters in Afghanistan trying to use skating as a segue to engage kids there, a nation where 50% of the population are 16 and under.

The organizers pointed out that girls thrashing boys gives them a life lesson that they can do anything men can. I can’t help but wonder how many stonings will derive from changing one element such as the belief of Afghani women.

Sure, empowerment is good, but when you forget to tell the boys a girl beating them doesn’t mean they can flog her; well that’s plain silly. Need I even mention the fact skateboards will just provide suicide bombers with a way to go out kickin’ rad style? :P

The second is Anonymous DDoSing Australian government websites. It merely reaffirmed politicians detached-from-reality belief that the Internet is a haven of criminals and kiddy touchers. Especially given every anon and ther dog were throwing themselves, curtains and all, at the press wanting to get their name in print; such awesome soundbytes of “Don’t fuck with our porn!” isn’t marginalizing your cause at all!