I was wrong.

The real credit for the portable tape player is to Andreas Pavel, a Brazillian national, making his first portable personal stereo player in the late 1960′s.

With irony, he was unable to enthral people with the device. He recounts the confusion he raised in Milan in 1976 with massive earmuff headphones (the kind scumbag hipsters wear today, but larger, affectionately called ‘cans’), “people would look at me sometimes on a bus, and you could see they were asking themselves, ‘Why is this crazy man running around with headphones?”‘

Pavel filed patents in five countries, and Sony agreed to license his technology in 1986 — although they refused to acknowledge him as the technology’s inventor. He fought long and hard, and it wasn’t until 2003 that he reached an agreement with Sony that saw him credited for his idea, along with a sizable cash settlement rumored to be over $10 million. To his credit, he never let his legal battle consume him or define his life, even when faced with financial ruin.

Below is the earliest article I can find on the subject, from 2005.

Portable Stereo’s Creator got his Due, Eventually
By: Larry Rohter
Published: New York Times, Friday, December 16, 2005

In the late 1960s, Andreas Pavel and his friends gathered regularly at his house here to listen to records, from Bach to Janis Joplin, and talk politics and philosophy. In their flights of fancy, they wondered why it should not be possible to take their music with them wherever they went.

Inspired by those discussions, Pavel invented the device known today as the Walkman. But it took more than 25 years of battling the Sony Corporation and others in courts and patent offices around the world before he finally won the right to say it: Andreas Pavel invented the portable personal stereo player.

“I filed my first patent a complete innocent, thinking it would be a simple matter, 12 months or so, to establish my ownership and begin production,” he said at the house where he first conceived of the device. “I never imagined that it would end up consuming so much time and taking me away from my real interests in life.”

In person, Pavel seems an unlikely protagonist in such an epic struggle. He is an intellectual with a gentle, enthusiastic, earnest demeanor, more interested in ideas and the arts than in commerce, cosmopolitan by nature and upbringing.

Born in Germany, Pavel came to Brazil at the age of 6, when his father was recruited to work for the Matarazzo industrial group, at the time the most important one here. His mother, an artist named Ninca Bordano, had a home built for the family that included a studio for her and an open-air salon with high-end audio equipment, meant for literary and musical gatherings.

Except for a period in the mid-1960s when he studied philosophy at a German university, Pavel, now 59, spent the remainder of his childhood and early adulthood here in South America’s largest city, “to my great advantage,” he said. São Paulo was experiencing a period of unusual creative and intellectual ferment then, culminating in the Tropicalist movement, and he was delighted to be a part of it.

When a station called TV Cultura was licensed to go on the air, Pavel was hired to be its director of educational programming. After he was forced to leave because of what he thinks was political pressure, he edited a “Great Thinkers” book series for Brazil’s leading publishing house in another effort to “counterbalance the censorship and lack of information” then prevailing.

In the end, what drove Pavel back to Europe was his discontent with the military dictatorship then in power in Brazil. By that time, though, he had already invented the device he initially called the “stereobelt,” which he saw more as a means to “add a sound track to real life” than an item to be mass marketed.

“Oh, it was purely aesthetic,” he said when asked his motivation in creating a portable personal stereo player. “It took years to discover that I had made a discovery and that I could file a patent.”

Pavel still remembers when and where he was the first time he tested his invention and which piece of music he chose for his experiment. It was February 1972, he was in Switzerland with his girlfriend and the cassette they heard playing on their headphones was “Push Push,” a collaboration between the jazz flutist Herbie Mann and the blues-rock guitarist Duane Allman.

“I was in the woods in St. Moritz, in the mountains, the snow was falling down, I pressed the button and suddenly we were floating,” he recalled. “It was an incredible feeling, to realize that I now had the means to multiply the aesthetic potential of any situation.”

Over the next few years, he took his invention to one audio company after another – Grundig, Philips, Yamaha and ITT among them – to see if there was interest in manufacturing his device. But everywhere he went, he said, he met with rejection or ridicule.

“They all said they didn’t think people would be so crazy as to run around with headphones, that this is just a gadget, a useless gadget of a crazy nut,” he said. In New York, where he moved in 1974, and then in Milan, where he relocated in 1976, “people would look at me sometimes on a bus, and you could see they were asking themselves, ‘Why is this crazy man running around with headphones?”‘

Ignoring the doors slammed in his face, Pavel filed a patent in March of 1977 in Milan. Over the next year and a half, he took the same step in the United States, Germany, England and Japan.

Sony started selling the Walkman in 1979, and in 1980 began negotiating with Pavel, who was seeking a royalty fee. The company agreed to that in 1986, he said, but would not acknowledge him as the Walkman’s inventor, so in 1989 he began new proceedings, this time in British courts, that dragged on and on and ate up his limited financial resources.

At one point, Pavel said, he owed his lawyer hundreds of thousands of dollars and was being followed by private detectives and countersued by Sony. “They had frozen all my assets, I couldn’t use checks or credit cards,” and the outlook for him was looking grim.

In 1996, the case was dismissed, leaving Pavel with more than $3 million in court costs to pay. But he persisted, warning Sony that he would file new suits in every country where he had patented his invention, and in 2003, after another round of negotiations, the company agreed to settle out of court.

Pavel declined to say how much Sony was obliged to pay him, citing a confidentiality clause. But European press accounts said that Pavel received a cash settlement for damages in the low eight figures and is now also receiving royalties on some Walkman sales.

These days, Pavel divides his time between Italy and Brazil, and once again considers himself primarily a philosopher. But he is also using some of his money to develop an invention he calls a “dreamkit,” a personal, multimedia sense-extension device, and to indulge his unflagging interest in music.

Recently, he has been promoting the career of a somewhat overlooked flutist named Altamiro Carrilho, whom he regards as “the greatest living Brazilian musician.”

He is also financing a project that he describes as “the complete discography of every record ever released in Brazil, so that we will know every track and who is playing on it.”

In addition, some of his friends have suggested he might have a case against the manufacturers of MP3 players, reasoning that those devices are a direct descendant of the Walkman. Pavel said that while he sees a kinship, he is not eager to take on another long legal battle.

“I have known other inventors in similar predicaments and most of them become that story, which is the most tragic, sad and melancholic thing that can happen,” he said.

“Somebody becomes a lawsuit, he loses all interest in other things and deals only with the lawsuit. Nobody ever said I was obsessed. I kept my other interests alive, in philosophy and music and literature.

“I didn’t have time to pursue them, but now I have reconquered my time,” he continued.

“So no, I’m not interested anymore in patents or legal fights or anything like that. I don’t want to be reduced to the label of being the inventor of the Walkman.”

I’ve noticed how easy it would be if I use bit.ly as my main shortening site, and then anyone who gets a random combination of six or so random letters and numbers can just add in the rest in their browser, especially given how much content I put out in peak periods.

I realised however that the more I did that, the more I’s and l’s, or O’s and 0′s, and other such things can become confusing with various fonts of various phone operating systems through SMS (text messaging, for my mentally handicapped friends) and that if they were removed, and say, a seventh slot added, it would expand the variability of URL’s to allow more traffic from their end, along with eliminating you sending your mother to a lolcat only for her to accidentally be URL hijacked to goatse.

So, I have blogged, and I shall email this blog post to them, and update you all with the reply I get.

This shit was all spread on Facebook mind you, and has subsequently ended up all over the Hawkesbury Gazette.

So, being the fearless internet tough guy blogger that I am, I decided to apply my complete lack of media training (unlike the Hawkesbury Gazette) and … fucking ask?

A brief chat with the duty officer of the LAC in question, and I was informed it’s bullshit, although they’d just received a call prior notifying them that it was all over the Hawkesbury Gazette. The entire thing is the product of an overactive imagination, and inbred hicks posting things all over face book without thinking to check the news, or call their local police station, who would have confirmed that it did not happen, and is not true.

For my international readers, who aren’t Aussie’s or locals: In Australia, rape is infrequent, fuck violent crime itself is pretty infrequent, gang rape is almost unheard of. Almost all gang rape over here occurs in Sydney’s south-southwest, or three public instances in the Parramatta area.
A brief overview of the justice systems PDF mail outs of crimes and punishments shows the above to be true, and almost all gang rape exclusively involves ‘persons of middle eastern appearance’ and ‘muslim’ identified as their religious beliefs when (if) they are processed into the prison system post-sentencing.
In the past there have been huge public outcries in relation to the constant affiliation of Islam and rape, along with batshit insane mullah’s promoting vile sexist beliefs, blaming women for being raped, and defending gang rapists such as Bilal Skaff, who got thirty years prison sentence while most of his mates got off because they were young (including tax payer funded renames, and relocations, so they don’t get lynched) for a spate of gang rapes.
As an anti-theist, I’m unsurprised by this, although I couldn’t particularly see any religion aside from Islam being responsible for … well, most vile disgusting racist, sexist, and immoral acts because, of all the religions, they tend to have the most vapid vitriolic fuckwits of the less than 23% of the population who consider religion to be important to them here.
As an aside, I find it ironic that for a nation where religious types are a significantly dwindling minority (google the correlation between lifespan, education, and quality of life and the lack of religion if you want your mind blown, we’re the seventh most atheistic nation and the seventh highest in quality of life), they sure are vocal, obnoxious, and make up a disproportionate amount of gun crime, sexual crimes, etc.
So from an Australian point of view, the Hawkesbury region is the polar opposite, as it’s a very quiet little region, where at most you get stories of drunken yobs punching on on a Friday night, and that’s about it. A crime spree for those kinds of areas would probably be a bunch of graffiti occurring, or a junkie breaking into a couple of houses in one night.

My cat disappeared for a night a couple of days ago, but reappeared in the middle of the night. The next morning, she vanished again. Turns out she was abducted by some moron who thought she was a stray, from our front yard, and taken to their home where she caused a fuss until they let her go the first night, assumedly, and the next time they took her to the pound. Now, I’m not saying they’re dickheads, they probably thought they were doing the right thing in some twisted bunny boiler bizarre way, but .. well, they’re dickheads.

But the biggest dickhead of this entire encounter is Blacktown City Council. The Companion Animals Act 1998 has provisions for animals born before the date it came in, which includes my cat, however on arriving at the pound they insisted I fork out $350 or there abouts, for ‘Lifetime Registration’, microchipping, and her stay. Now these are things I didn’t ask for, and if it weren’t for the negligence of the idiot who catnapped her in the first place, and these are things I wouldn’t have to do per the act. However, I was directed to the usual scabby print outs on walls of misquoted legislation you get at places that deal with people who might not be too impressed getting surprise blackmailed for their pets. It cited a subclause of a clause of a regulation of an act,[1] whereas the ACT itself said she is exempt. The parenthetical terms that they based their entire ransom on was ‘including a council pound’.

Now statutory interpretation is a very fickle fiend. That’s sarcasm, it’s written in plain English and is pretty simple to understand, especially if you apply a purposive evaluation of the legislation or look to extrinsic materials that were used in the framing period such as reading speeches. Either way, unless an act states that it is retroactive it isn’t. So my argument that the act didn’t apply to her was valid. The regulation on the wall was also invalid, even if it were valid it would be a stretch.

The problem with this situation is, you’ve lost your pet, you’re in a tizz, you heard from a neighbor that some dickhead took it, then suddenly you’re at a front desk desperate to get your pet out and they’re telling you all these things and costs you have to do and pay which always include extortionate fees from the state government in the way of the constant ‘surprise taxation’ I keep telling my international viewers about. To resolve this situation I would have to had gone and gotten an injunction from the local courthouse, which would take a week, or I have to pay the ransom and let them hurt my elderly cat who’s just recovering from a very, very serious operation which was extremely touch and go, most of you might remember that.

I had booked in to visit my vet, he asked to bring her to him if she had to be chipped, so he could do it under anaesthetic to lessen the trauma and injury. This wasn’t accepted. I understand the people there were doing there job, and they were very empathic to the situation, but the bottom line is this is a disgusting and inappropriate act. We are the only state in the country, and one of two countries in the world where it’s mandatory to chip or register, and I understand the purpose of it, however it could be resolved with an ear tattoo, or a collar and tag, registerable online by the owner, bringing the entire administrative costs to $0 and the physical cost incurred to a few bucks. If the PURPOSE of this rubbish is to ensure animals are registered and reduce lost animals / increase returns, this would be the approach, as I guarantee you every owner would do it, breeders, stores, and adoption agencies could foot the $2 bill and give them away, hell I’d even throw a few grand into a public fund to launch such a scheme.

But I truly and utterly don’t believe the purpose of this is so Blacktown City Council, or the NSW Government, can look after the well being of companion animals, and believe beyond any doubt it is just another underhanded little fee that adds to the entire most-taxed-nation-on-earth along with compounded surprise taxes along the way.

Microchipping is a cool idea, but it’s cruel, painful, and uneccessary (the latter as I outlined above), it uses a 12-14 guage needle, and is done without anaesthetic, even when I asked if anaesthetic could be used, and offered to pay extra, I was told they can’t and aren’t taught to do it that way. I discussed it with a staff member there, who assured me it’s not very painful to the animal and they don’t show pain. I countered that that’s because the animals are all shitting themselves because they just got shanked by a stranger in a strange place so they’ll just go limp and take whatever is done to them or flip out, the latter often being put down to circumstance.

He was reassuring and very professional, I must say, although I did challenge him and ask if he’d microchip himself. He explained that it’d hurt him, and if he got stabbed in the neck with it he’d be hospitalized and probably need stitches. I pointed out that whilst I believe he believes they don’t feel pain, 80+ years ago we believed animals don’t feel pain at all because they have ‘no soul,’ and pointed out that common sense would say a giant piece of steel piercing your flesh will hurt like a bitch. I also pointed out that while he’d be scared of getting stabbed with it, it’s 20 times larger for a cat who’s 20 times smaller than a human, so it’d be like getting shanked with a bayonette.

The reason I’m making a big deal out of this is because I have been ambushed by the system, had my cat ransomed to me, and it was all done in a way that assured I did not have access to legal remedy in a way that I could take my cat and we could settle the matter civilly at a later point, the fact their rules and regulations force you to have to either do as they say to get your pet then chase it up later, or abandon your pet for a week to a month (by which point it may probably be up for adoption or destroyed) is utterly ridiculous in a civilised nation in 2012.

Blacktown City Council, you ought to be ashamed of yourself, as should the NSW Government or any body supporting this nonsense. I spent the car ride home covered in blood, trying to settle an injured animal down that was bleeding profusely (I’ve only just finally stopped the bleeding, an hour later, and she’s in serious discomfort and pain from it) all because some dickhead decided to try and steal my pet. You’ve made a victim of crime a victim of the system, without reason, rationality, or common sense applied anywhere therein. You’ve taken away my constitutional right to legal remedy by holding my animal ransom. And you’ve pissed off the wrong nerd.

Note: The people at the animal holding facility were fantastic, professional, and did Blacktown Council more justice than they should have, so I don’t want this in any way to reflect badly on them. They were obeying idiotic internal rules and regulations enforced on them by some desk jockey twenty miles away who has no idea of the internal running of the facility, and clearly has no common sense. It just makes me disgusted even more that such fantastic employees have to also suffer this idiocy. The entire costs came to approx. $200 as she was desexed, etc, etc, but could have exceeded $350 as I was first appraised on the phone including holding and sustenance.

[1] Companion Animals Regulation 2008 (3) 23, which also is not retroactive and thus still not valid to the animal in question if it was born prior to 2008. Meaning they don’t need to be registered or chipped if they were born before 1998, and the ‘once they turn up here they have to be’ part doesn’t apply if they were born prior to 2008. This doesn’t mean that the regulation itself isn’t completely moronic and just good old New South Wales revenue raising.

Email sent to Blacktown City Council on the issue, to see what kind of escalation I can get about their horribly moronic practices:

Dear Sir / Madam,

Just touching base further to our conversation today when I picked up Mang (now known as Prisoner 00546) relating to the Companion Animals Act 1998. I wish to have this issue looked into and escalated, and hope to at least provide some form of systemic change to allow staff members, who are clearly experienced in animal management, to have the right to discretion in these matters.

I investigated what I had said about the Act not being retroactive, nor the Regulations, and on returning home and examining the regulations in full on AustLII I found that it isn’t retroactive. Meaning any animal born before the end of 1998 need not be forcibly microchipped and registered, and the parenthetical of the subclause of the clause of the Regulation of the Act on the wall is spurious at best but could only be applied to animals born after 2008.

The purpose of the legislation is obvious, and the reasoning for it not including animals born before X date is to prevent having to register an animal that is probably on it’s last legs anyway. With statutory interpretation, common sense rules. Our laws are written so the average person can understand them, and if it were meant to apply to animals before a date, it will say so. In a situation like this, I was left with the alternative of seeking my constitutionally afforded access to legal remedy but at a cost of not having my animal released into my custody for the duration of the matter, which could be weeks to months. Or to agree to what I am told and do as I am told to get my pet back.

The logical way of handling this in the best interest of the animal, the owner, and most definitely the pound itself–given that my address, and contact details, and registered state identification were surrendered in the retrieval process and that chipping and registration were to occur at my private vet at a 2PM appointment–would be to release the animal into the custody of the owner pending resolution of the matter.

Most people will not follow these situations up because they’re just thankful and relieved to have their animal back, but that is how horrible and unjust issues fly under the radar and go so long without being repealed or remedied.

I do strongly wish to stress however that your staff were extremely professional, courteous, and patient in handling this matter and I commend this thoroughly. You have done Blacktown City Council more justice than they deserve on this issue. But the whole matter becomes even more disgusting when staff members’ hands are tied by desk jockeys who have only a pen and paper understanding of the running of the facility.

On leaving this morning, my cat has yet to cease showing signs of extreme discomfort from the implant, and is walking crouched (as they do when they have something stuck to their fur) and growling if touched or approached, all extremely out of character for a super friendly, loving, affectionate animal that behaves more like a loyal dog than a cat, inclusive of obedience to commands or even hand signals. It took me half an hour to stop the bleeding.

On a brief review of chipping practice, local anaesthetic appears to be (and rightly so, it’s illogical not to) the norm for everywhere but Australia, with most private vets seeming to opt for it also, given that it would be the equivalent of a human being stuck with a bayonet on a size based ratio with a pager being shoved under their skin between their shoulder blades.

This practice could be averted with a collar and tag, or ear tattoo, costing a few dollars, with owners filling out the registration on line at a central database. I’d even hazard a guess that adoption agencies, animal welfare groups, and animal rights organisations would give collars and tags with e-registration methods away free of charge. If the purpose of registration and chipping is in the interest of animals and owners, then the current system is not the way as people will only do it when forced to. I honestly believe the purpose of registration is revenue raising by the state government, as from my reading on the matter none of the funding goes into the hands of the pound or to companion animal care.

The practice itself is something that cannot be resolved at this level, and I am aware of this, but the manner in which the practice is meted out while animals are held ransom is inappropriate in a civilised society. The fact that staff are not given the discretion to waive this issue, or handle it within their professional judgment being persons who are on the front lines and dealing with the reprocussions of silly policies is even worse than the practice itself.

Note to Blacktown City Council: My blog has a demographic reach of in excess of 40 times your cities population. It provides more exposure than a prime time television advertising campaign operated for in excess of a month on Australian television. The demographic includes many celebrities, influential people, and people you really don’t want to look like a complete dick in front of. Congratulations.

Ummm, what’s that thing I do again? It’ll come to me in a minute… Oh yeah, play football! Yeah, that’s it!

Welcome to contemporary America, where the fad of “Tebowing” is both sweeping and dividing the nation. Tee-what? Tebowing, named after hyper-religious Denver Broncos quarterback, Tim Tebow, is the act of taking a knee in prayer, usually while you’re actually doing something else. Like playing footy.

Tebow has been doing it for months in Broncos games, although he won’t be doing it any more this season, or not onfield anyway, after his team was thumped by the New England Patriots on the weekend. Apparently God prefers a patriot to a believer.

You know, watching the above video I’m quite surprised that not a single hand has headed in for a grope. What is wrong with those people? Ok, crudeness aside, well, no, not aside, I’m going straight into the land of crude and setting off fireworks.

So, Katy Perry has a great rack, I think we can all agree on that (except maybe socially awkward mildly retarded introverts who get angry at other females who have sex appeal above that of a toad), she always wears low cut tiny tops, and always seems to like draping her fans faces in her giant jugs while singing and leaning forward.

Thus, I present to you my ultimate challenge for 2012.

If you ever get a front row seat to one of her concerts, and are within boob groping range, ensure your friends all have their mobile phones out, bring a printed A4 sign saying something corny like “KATY, I has teh cancer n amb dying, pls to be kissing me!” and when she leans in to give you a smooch, or does her usual drape the audience faces in her norks, that is the moment!

The moment you cease to be a useless waste of skin and become an internet god.

I want you to reach up with both hands, as though you are about to embrace her tenderly, then take a firm hold of the top of her shirt and rip her fucking top off.

If you succeed, I needn’t explain the level of awesome rewards life will offer you, but the mere fact you’d have a face full of K-titty should be reward enough. Now pass this on to all your friends to increase the odds of this operation being successful.

There was also a metric fucktonne of child porn. I’m not talking messed up baby fucking stuff, but still quite messed up ‘nudist’ scenes of 13-15 year old girls flouncing around naked, or 16-18 year old teenagers from Czechoslovakia banging like rabbits. What? Crazy cunt admitting to downloading CP online? No, not really. Look at it this way. I was 13-15. What is more sick, me downloading and fapping over girls my age, or me jerking off over 30-40 year old crackwhores in pig tails wearing tacky synthetic oversized school girl outfits and knee high socks?

Not so bad in that perspective, right? It still is bad though, because unwittingly I created demand (albeit it wasn’t purchased or obtained through the exchange of anything) for such material by actively seeking girls my age, and thus the demand gives pedo’s an excuse to produce, and it’s the production where the exploitation and harm is perpetrated.

Now, in an era where there is law pertaining to cyber crime (back then you’d probably get generic possession charges) it’s a criminal offence, even if you’re a minor, even if you’re a hormone fuelled ignorant kid who doesn’t understand what he’s doing aside from wanting to look at pretty girls while fapping in his bedroom at night. This is kind of stupid, and rubs me up the wrong way. There was an instance recently where several young men were charged with possess and produce, they were 15-16, and the girls in question wilfully sent them lewd photos in photographic exchanges, and had done so with ‘many other’ boys before. All parties involved thought it was normal.

This irks me because kids of that age, like I was, are ignorant of those sorts of things. I mean, sure, these days they probably have been warned not just about ‘stranger danger’ and men in white vans with candy, but are also told not to wave their willies at people via the interwebz. But really, do you think that’s going to stop hormonal teenagers?

The part that pisses me off the most is, in these situations above, the females are let off without charge. These boys are now registered sex offenders with an obligation to declare that they have been charged with sex related crimes for the rest of their lives. This is wrong, and annoys me. That is all.

This is a good example, a bunch of kids hold a party, it gets ‘out of control’, the cops rock up and no one wants to talk to them, so the police try and force entry, the kids lock themselves indoors, then the cops call in the entire Tactical Response Group in the middle of the night for a ‘tense six hour stand off’, fuck knows what was tense about it, you’ve got body armor wearing goons with MP5′s versus unarmed 16 year olds who’re terrified and don’t want to move let alone talk to the cops.

This entire operation would have probably cost us tax paying fools tens of thousands of dollars of misappropriated police funding, aside from the fact we’re the only country in the world that, for an extremely low crime rate, arm our police with assault weaponry, handguns, chemical weapons, electrical weapons, melee weapons, body armor, the most expensive encrypted radio network in the world and heavily modified luxury sports cars that break in at $120 a pop which they then proceed to use to hoon around for no reason or do doughnuts in up near the old drive-in theatre in Blacktown.

Anyway, read the article, you’ll be QQing at how the media even tried to pretend this was legitimate news and not a shocking and disgusting example of police over-reaction and typical thuggery of a law enforcement culture that thinks it’s NYPD versus crips when our crims are so low key and laughable … well, the UK has 8 times our crime rate, 40 times our population, and their cops aren’t even armed!

A TENSE five and a half hour siege in Melbourne’s west has been ended peacefully by police today.
Heavily armed police surrounded a Deer Park property, in Melbourne’s west, after a group of teens locked themselves inside and refused to come out.

Police were called to the scene about 3.30am when neighbours complained that a party had got out of control with windows broken and damage caused to neighboring cars and houses.

Police had been told a gun had been brandished at the party and were today still investigating the claim despite not finding one at the property this morning.

When occupants of the house – aged between 16 and 20 – refused to leave the house to speak to police Special Operations Group officers, uniformed police and the dog squad blocked off the suburban street and ordered about 11 people out of the house.

Using megaphones, police coerced several people out of the house and took them away one by one in hand cuffs for questioning.

But it was not until just before 9am that the end finally ended when the final person surrendered to police as officers threatened to storm the house at gunpoint.

Several charges are expected to be laid in relation to the siege which came a day after a 23-year-old man was charged in relation to a siege at Werribee.

On September 30, 2011, the Japanese government announced that they would increase the whaling program budget by almost 600 percent, drawing that money from funds intended to rebuild the country after the earthquake and tsunami. This drew the ire of civil groups in Japan along with an official protest by over sixty international organizations.

The following article was published on December 16th by Centro de Conservación Cetacea and outlines their abuse of worldwide funds for rebuilding and charity after their earth quakes and tsunamis.
(reprinted with permission)

Japan’s “Scientific Whaling,” Much More than Whales

On December 7th, three ships of the Japanese whaling fleet, led by the Yushin Maru, sailed from the port of Shimonoseki towards the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary to capture 900 Antarctic minke whales and 50 Endangered fin whales under the alleged purpose of conducting “scientific research.”

The characteristics of the fleet, sailing dates and operational plans remain a mystery. The Japanese government justifies this secrecy citing security reasons. However, this type of information should be public since whales are a natural patrimony that does not belong to the government of Japan.

Whaling Industry Receives Recovery Funds Despite Crisis

On September 30th Japanese press reported that its government would increase by almost 600 percent the annual budget given to the whaling program in Antarctica to strengthen the security of the whaling fleet. In 2010 the fleet returned home with less than 20 percent of the self-granted catch quota after it ended the season earlier arguing that Sea Shepherd threatened the safety of its operations. In order to make this substantial budget increase, the government announced it would use public money from Japanese taxpayers that were originally intended to rebuild the country.

The announcement produced the immediate opposition of Japanese civil society. More than a dozen organizations, including Japan’s Environmental Lawyers Federation, the Association for Protection of Marine Communities and the Whale Action Network, sent a strong message to the Japanese Prime Minister, Yoshihiko Noda, denouncing the use public funds originally intended for rebuilding of the country to “to conduct scientific whaling in the Southern Ocean according to the original plan.” The letter, which was later joined by a dozen Latin American organizations, including the Cetacean Conservation Center and the Ecoceanos Center of Chile, also states that the use of these funds creates inevitable questions about the vested interests of the government of Japan in prolonging “the dying whaling program with taxpayer money.”

Officers of the Japan Fisheries Agency (JFA) came out quickly to defend the government’s decision saying that the money will go to support the whaling industry and some communities that were affected by the earthquake and tsunami of last March. They added that by returning with a “full load” [of whales] they would be able to revive the community of Ayukawa, the only whaling vicinity in the east coast of Ojika peninsula which was destroyed in March that used to have only one whaling station. However, the funds requested by the JFA clearly specify that the final destination of the money is to “increase the safety of the whaling fleet and allow stable operation of the season in Antarctica.” Similarly, the statements of JFA officials evidence the true commercial nature of the so-called “scientific whaling” and confirm once more the illegality of these operations.

Following these disconcerting statements the response of the Japanese civil society was immediate. On December 2nd several organizations urged their authorities to review the use of public funds in the maintenance of the whaling industry, in a strong and compelling public sign of opposition to the Japanese government’s whaling policy.

For those who have not heard of this Christmas day tragedy, there is an article below related to it. It’s possibly one of the worst fucking things I’ve heard of someone going through in my life, so I feel it only right to use my social network presence to attempt to provide some relief financially to Matt Golinski or those who are currently trying to make sure this tragedy doesn’t take a turn for the worse.

THEY were childhood sweethearts and best friends.
By all accounts, Matt Golinski and his wife Rachael always put their marriage and children first – never compromising on the importance of family.
“I’ve known Matt for a decade (and) he’s the embodiment of a family man,” friend and fellow chef Alastair McLeod said.
“It was an extraordinary and profound relationship that they (Rachael and Matt) had . . . it really struck me just how loving they were and what a lovely husband and father he was.”
A blaze, which erupted at the couple’s Sunshine Coast home about 3.30am yesterday, claimed the lives of Rachael and daughters Starlia, Sage and Willow.
Mr Golinski was left in a critical condition with burns to 40 per cent of his body.
McLeod, who works with Matt on TV show Ready Steady Cook and is executive chef at Brisbane restaurant Brett’s Wharf, said to put your family first and cook for a living was like “an oxymoron” but that Matt had made it work.
“He’s proudly parochial, a real staunch advocate for the Sunshine Coast and all the produce of the Sunshine Coast, but he does put his family first,” he said. “He’s a lovely man and my heart goes out to him.
“There was no bombast with Matt, no ego with him, (he’s) a real gentleman.
“I’ve had other chefs from around the country call me today just (to say) ‘anything we can do to help’. There’s a lovely fraternity that exists, but it also just shows the regard in which Matt is held.
“It’s just an absolute tragedy, an absolute tragic end, real harrowing stuff.”
Residents of Jacaranda Place – a normally peaceful cul-de-sac brimming with palm trees and kids having fun on trampolines and in pools – were struggling with the enormity of the tragedy.
Neighbours such as Gary Saljic rushed to help when they heard an explosion in the early hours of yesterday.
They grabbed hoses, moved cars and warned those who lived closest to evacuate.
Others tried to help the badly burnt Mr Golinski as he lay screaming in pain waiting for paramedics to arrive.
Unfortunately, with the three-bedroom timber and Colorbond home an inferno, there was nothing that could be done to save Mrs Golinski and the girls.
Mr Saljic, among the first on the scene, said not being able to do anything to save the family would haunt him: “There was nothing anyone could do.”

Read more: http://www.news.com.au/national/chef-matt-golinski-lived-for-the-love-of-his-family-rachael-starlia-sage-and-willow/story-e6frfkvr-1226230880085#ixzz1hf5qNAxk

I found it whilst reading over reddit, he submitted it to Wikimedia Foundations ‘share your wikipedian story’, naturally it will never get shared, however his story is the story of tens of thousands of people who have extremely grand academic qualifications yet have fallen foul of over zealous administrators (my life ban is unappealable, I tried, but was banned from editing my own page (which you have to do to be able to appeal a ban), I edited it from my IP instead and got my IP banned and told I can’t appeal another persons ban (even though it was my ban), I tried again at a later point, the same resulted, etc ad nauseum).

I was shocked at how common this is, but here is the guys post in full, please give it a read, and definitely reproduce it if you can, and let’s hope Jimmy Wales pays attention.

I started editing wikipedia literally the week it launched. I spent many years, and many, many hours per day contributing and assisting with the development of many projects. I never really got involved in the politics behind the scene, and I gradually watched as it became a prominant part of the Wikipedia community, to the point where more often than not edits that weren’t pushing the appropriate admins agenda would literally get people banned.

One day, after reverting what I thought was a NPOV breach, I woke up to find my account banned, for good, with no reason other than ‘vandalism’, which was absurd. I couldn’t even appeal my ban as I was unable to post on my talk page to do so. I logged out and appealed on my talk page, my IP was banned and I was told I cannot appeal a ban for a user from a random IP as they cannot tell if I’m that user. Again, I couldn’t appeal the ban, and it was a forever and ever ban.

So, I cycled my IP, and posted an appeal in regards to the matter, I dealt with it as diplomatically as possible as I thought it was clearly an oversight or mistake. I was banned again. In frustration, and with no way to appeal without just getting banned and told I cannot appeal the ban of ‘another user’, I googled to see if this was a common thing.

I soon discovered that there are tens of thousands of wikipedia editors who fell foul to politics and ego tripping admins, people who, like me, contributed large portions of their life to establishing and getting Wikipedia off the ground.

People who, like me, were level headed normal individuals, with exemplary service contributing 2,500+ hours, like me, including many people who went out into the world to procure documents, photos, and other elements we needed for articles for our encyclopedia, and, like me, felt they were participating in something great.

As time has progressed, you find less and less editors sticking around, the few that do tend to fall foul of such politics. An academic friend of mine recently edited their dormatory IP links Talk page, he said “These users can’t be fucked registering accounts, but please don’t mind them, they’re academics contributing through our dorm’s secure gateway, if you need to contact us, *email*”

His page was reverted for ‘vandalism’ by a wikipedian. He reverted that, removed ‘fuck’, and told the editor through the edit note to go away because it’s a talk page and not srs bsns. This got him banned for ‘harassing a user’. He couldn’t appeal it as he was disabled from editing his own talk page. He used his mobile phone to appeal it, it was banned, the gateway was banned for life as an ‘open proxy’, and he was told he cannot appeal another users ban. He cycled his IP, and petitioned for an admin, who life banned that IP also, along with his phone network.

These are experiences and rewards you too can expect as a wikipedian, contributing to our great encyclopedia, for the few hours to maybe weeks that you may be able to do so without rubbing some over officious ban-zealous crazy. How wikipedia survives is purely by exploiting the ignorance of it’s other members who are unaware that there are tens of thousands of highly qualified individuals out there who have fallen foul of politics.

I have several hundred thousand dollars of education under my belt, I am a doctor of philosophy with three bachelors and two masters degrees. My associate is a professor of law, and his dorm consisted of doctoral candidates (academics completing their doctorates), so right there was a think tank of millions of dollars of the worlds finest education. All written off because there is no policy to deal with over officious persons and people offended by ‘sod off’, or worse, you enforcing NPOV on articles they disagree with.

You will also encounter:

* Obsessive list makers who wish to document members of any ethnic group, religious group, political group, or what not.
* Obsessive image adders who will get into huge flame wars with people because they want photographs of peoples anuses, or genitalia, on various pages, in various manners. They actually get into heated debates on which anus is better.
* Psychologically disturbed administrators like one girl SlimVirgin who claimed to be a member of MI5, the Mossad, and other pathological things that one would assume an organisation would distance themselves from but is still an untouchable administrator.
* The list really goes on, so; I leave you with this parting advice.

Educate yourself, google ‘wiki watch’, ‘wikipedia corruption’, ‘arbitrary banning on wikipedia’, ‘slimvirgin’, ‘wikipedia working for government agendas’, ‘government departments having sole editing rights to public articles on events’, ‘wikipedia 911 cover ups’ (be careful with that one though, there’s a lot of crazy conspiracy nuts out there, but any rational minded person can weed this out), among many others.

Don’t waste your life helping Wikipedia until they take out the trash. Ignore their director’s appeals for money, give to the red cross, give to your local homeless shelters, hell, give to the local pound, do something that matters in your community and in your world.

Leave encyclopedian pursuits to encyclopedians, real ones, ones who spend their life learning and conducting the documentation of such things. Buy a membership to Encyclopedia Britannica, it’s cheap and supports real academics not crackpot internet users with hidden agendas.

Most of all, I ask all of you reading this, to please, PLEASE replicate this appeal and place it anywhere it can gain attention and maybe get some traction amongst existing wikipedians who could push for justice for the tens of thousands of us arbitrarily life banned for no good reason.

Regards,

Dr. A. Swadling
Director of CIRO Project
University of Sydney

What do I mean? Well, you post a few comments, maybe (heaven fucking forbid!) get into a conversation with someone, and next thing you know you get a warning in angry red text of: You are doing that too much, try again in 8 minutes.

I mean, what the fuck? Isn’t the point of a circle jerk cool-stuff-on-the-internet type website to engage your viewers and have them actively participate in the circle jerking wasting precious hours of their finite existence? I’d say yes, but apparently the idiots at Reddit HQ don’t seem to think that’s the point.

I’m posting this out of sheer frustration, and because I have a 10,000,000+ reader demographic through all social network cascading of this post, and direct surf-in views of my blog, and I really, really hope that if enough of us complain, we can maybe, just maybe, get them to remove that bullshit. I mean, sure, have some form of count down to prevent spammers, but EIGHT FUCKING MINUTES? In 2011 8 minutes is practically a lifetime on the interwebs!

Go here and upvote if you agree: http://www.reddit.com/r/fffffffuuuuuuuuuuuu/comments/nhwt8/dear_reddit_please_remove_this_its_full_of_dicks/

Lots of YouTube videos show great examples of this, and lots of try hard religious nuts try and pull his arguments apart with stupid anecdotal claims.

One of his seminal works (really important book, for religious types) was named God Is Not Great, he, like I, is a fan of the provocative title line and slug. It’s actually a very good read, I recommend grabbing a copy.

Anyway, that’s beside the point. It became a trending topic on Twitter. Within hours, religious nuts started to rage, threatening atheists with death and physical violence, threatening Twitter demanding it be taken down, and just all around proving that religious people aren’t just mentally handicapped, but psychopathic.

Twitter, disgustingly, bowed to their pressure and removed the topic along with #Hitchens. One of the greatest minds of the 21st century was censored into oblivion by their cowardly management. I can’t even express my rage on the issue, censorship is abhorrent, it’s one thing filtering out anything involving Bustin’ Jeeber, but seriously, what the fuck?

Anyway, here are a few great examples of replies that were tagged with the #GodIsNotGreat hash tag from theists: -

http://www.buzzfeed.com/mjs538/25-dumbest-reactions-to-godisnotgreat

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.

I’m SO glad to see this that I literally tracked down and emailed thanks to the people involved in the petition. For idiots who believe in this rubbish, check out whatstheharm.net and see just how many tens of thousands of people alt. med. kills, maims or ruins. If alternative medicine worked it wouldn’t be alternative, we have  a word for things that work, medicine. I understand that a lot of folks are superstitious, but they’re so ignorant they don’t even realise chiropractic is a cult of opening chakras to let your chi flow, and NOT physiotherapists, further they started with some quack who claimed to cure a blind man with it and it’s trained like a pyramid scheme for registration.

Investigate whether your health insurance or other insurance companies ALLOW you to seek alternative medicine on their dollar, if they do, drop them and tell them why; don’t pay for ignorant dullards who live in the dark ages to waste your funds and your insurance firms funds on quackery. People who offer alt. med. are con men, and are disgusting, terrible people who should be thrown in gaol as they are plain and simply criminals. People who talk about alt. med. or promote it or are ‘open minded’ but too stupid to go to scholar.google.com and read scientific evaluations are just as bad, their negligence proliferates this nonsense and causes significant damage the world over.

My pet hate is chinese traditional medicine. Everyone’s all OH DEY BIN DOIN DIS SINCE 48 MILN YERZ AGO. Sure, they have. And their average life expectancy is 1/3rd of yours. And their lack of real medicine is fucking well why. Also, keep in mind the Chinese government has a propaganda unit that scour the internet, especially places like wiki, forcing and enforcing their claims on EVERY technology ever invented. The muslims are hot on the heals with a lot of islamofascists pushing their agendas and trying to claim they invented it first when half the time it’s some fat little balding Italian geezer or something far less glamorous.

tl;dr — Fuck alternative medicine and anyone who believes in it, you are cancer in human society and my shot gun is the chemo.

AUSTRALIA’S top doctors want university courses in acupuncture, chiropractic and naturopathy scrapped, claiming they are a misuse of public money and encourage quackery.

Thirty-four of Australia’s top doctors, medical researchers and scientists have signed a petition challenging universities that “give undeserved credibility to ‘alternative’ therapies”.

Signatories include Australian Medical Association president Dr Steve Hambleton and University of NSW Medicine Professor John Dwyer, who is also the founder of the Australian Health Care Reform Alliance.

Doctors penned an open letter after Central Queensland University announced it would offer a new chiropractic course next year.

They argue it is necessary to protect consumers from the dangers of scientifically unproven practices.

“We have shared with each other our concern about the increasing numbers of universities that are allowing non-evidence based ‘pseudo’ disciplines to be offered to their students,” they wrote.

“It is difficult to counter the massive amount of misleading, often fraudulent, information provided to consumers … the task becomes harder when tertiary institutes give to unacceptable practices an undeserved imprimatur by including them among the courses they offer for study.”

Professor Alastair MacLennan from the University of Adelaide said the group made its concerns public to rally support.

“We condemn the ‘teaching’ of unproven beliefs such as homeopathy, naturopathy and iridology in public institutions,” Professor MacLennan said, describing the practices as shonky.

Professor Marcello Costa of Flinders University said it was a misuse of public dollars.

“It is disturbing to see a centre of learning, of supposed excellence, teaching and perpetuating health practices based on beliefs in principles that are totally unscientific,” he said.

“It encourages the spread of quackery within the health system, misuses the public’s health dollars, encourages unnecessary ‘treatments’ and may delay effective treatment when true disease is present.”

The letter comes as Sydney University published a report showing acupuncture failed to assist disability or improve quality of life in patients suffering whiplash.

The study, published this week in Spine, found acupuncture slightly improved pain scores but had no clinical importance.

tl;dr: Tony Burke is a tosser for jeapordising lives and not enforcing our laws on our oceans to protect our citizens. He should be ashamed of himself, and international readers, trust me when I say this, this guy is NOT a typical example of an Aussie, in fact he’s shown all of the qualities we’d deem unaustralian.

Captain Paul Watson spoke personally to Australian Environment Minister Tony Burke while attending the Australian Antarctic Expedition’s 100^th year anniversary dinner in Hobart on December 1^st.

Captain Paul Watson: Mr. Burke will you be sending a ship to keep the peace this year?

Tony Burke: That’s not going to happen.

Captain Paul Watson: I think it would be the responsible thing for Australia to do considering the potential threat from the whalers who have indicated they intend to be far more aggressive this season.

Tony Burke: Look, Japan requested that we send a ship to protect their ships from you. If we turned them down it’s only fair that we deny your request also.

Captain Paul Watson: Well, except for one thing. Our ships carry Australian citizens on our crew and we will be in the Australian Antarctic Territorial waters and it is your duty to protect Australian waters and Australian citizens.

Tony Burke: (shakes Captain Watson’s hand) It’s nice to meet you and stay safe down there.

Captain Watson said after that conversation, “I wonder what the Minister will say if the Japanese injure any Australian citizens in Australian waters? I think this is grossly irresponsible of the government to refrain from due diligence in keeping the peace. Australia has stated that Japanese whaling is illegal and they recognize that it is being carried out in waters claimed by Australia. They know that Australian lives will be at risk and yet they refuse to get involved.”

Now, that being said, here’s a story about a fat hairy man in short shorts: -

Shahram Forozandeh is being prosecuted by the Transport, Energy and Infrastructure Department over an alleged breach of the state’s taxi driver uniform standards.

The department claims he wore blue jeans “with orange stitching” but the Passenger Transport Act requires him to wear dress pants.

In another case this week, a driver was charged for allegedly obscuring his white dress shirt with a jacket.

Yesterday Bill Gonis, manager of public transport for the State Government, said uniforms were an important part of driver compliance.

“It’s especially important at this time of year that the public has confidence that taxi drivers are properly accredited and professional in the way they present themselves,” he said.
“Wearing proper uniform is one way to ensure a driver is complying with the regulations.”

Mr Forozandeh, 44, of Brooklyn Park, has pleaded not guilty to one count of failing to wear a uniform as specified.

Giving evidence yesterday, Senior Transport Compliance Safety Officer Larry Cutufia said he issued an on-the-spot fine at Victoria Square on January 20.

“I knew they were jeans because of the colour, the material, the studs on the pockets and the predominately orange stitching on the seams,” he said. “That’s not wearing the proper uniform (of) navy blue, brown or black business-style trousers.”

Mr Cutufia said Mr Forozandeh claimed his work pants “had been ripped” and declined to step out of the taxi to be photographed.

Mr Forozandeh, representing himself, challenged Mr Cutufia’s account.

“You cautioned me that morning, you did not fine me on the spot … I did not receive the fine until May,” he said. “You cautioned me, I took a fare to Darlington and you decided to fine me after I left.”

Outside court, Mr Gonis said compliance officers were not required to meet a fines quota.

Read more: http://www.news.com.au/national/cabbie-in-court-for-wearing-denim-jeans/story-e6frfkvr-1226217443144#ixzz1fvl2bkqj

Also, clearly none of them are Battlestar Galactica fans or they’d know the cure is to not use networked computers, duh. Schooled, Edward James Olmos style.

The fact everyone pulled their diplomats out of Iran, and then the US UAV drone was shot down on the border, I think we all know what middle eastern country we will be ‘liberating’ and ‘bringing freedom’ to next. ._.

Anyway, here’s the puff piece: -

THE CIA is the chief suspect behind a computer virus dubbed the world’s first cyber “super weapon” that attacked an Iranian nuclear plant.
Experts believe it was so sophisticated it could have only been invented by designers with the backing of a nation state.
The launch of Stuxnet in 2010 marked the transformation of viruses into weapons of war.
It was purpose-built to attack Iran’s Busehr nuclear plant, overriding and controlling circuits inside the plant to cause physical damage.
“With Stuxnet we have opened a new chapter in human history,” says Ralph Langner, the security expert who unravelled the attack.
“There is now no way we can stop or control the proliferation of cyber weapons.”
The sheer sophistication of the attack dazzled experts. It exploited four separate vulnerabilities in Windows to penetrate and override industrial control systems designed by Siemens.
It would have taken experts months to design.
The Stuxnet attack was proof that the software in many industrial plants was vulnerable to attack.
Since then, there has been increased interest in the idea both from researchers and potential attackers.
Other software has “copied” Stuxnet, raising the alarming possibility of attackers simply downloading such weapons and unleashing them at will.
Nations across the world have long warned that future wars will include cyber assaults.
Potential targets include power plants, pipelines and air traffic control systems.

Read more: http://www.news.com.au/technology/cia-suspected-for-super-weapon-attack-on-iranian-nuclear-plant/story-e6frfro0-1226216902746#ixzz1fvS9VELZ

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

The following article excerpt is from Time, cited in part for commentary purpose (within the DMCA scope): -

In Nigeria’s arid north these days, it may as well be 2003 all over again. This month, news began to circulate that a recent polio outbreak in the predominantly Muslim region was triggered by a vaccine designed to eliminate it, and it is jarring already raw nerves in the historically volatile setting.

In the summer of 2003, Muslim clerics and disgruntled northern politicians banned polio vaccinations in the area, claiming that the drugs were a Western ploy to spread HIV and sterilize Muslim girls. The year-long mass boycott of the vaccine sparked a rash of new infections, and the virus jumped to about a dozen other countries — a devastating rollback for a polio eradication campaign that seemed finally on the verge of success.

Health workers in Nigeria fear they’re on the verge again — of collapse. When the World Health Organization and the Centers for Disease Control revealed in early October that 69 Nigerian children had been paralyzed by polio virus since 2005 — and had contracted the illness through exposure to the live virus found in the oral vaccine drop — it was the nightmare situation public health workers had been dreading: the rare vaccine-related outbreak that could spark renewed paranoia and permanently halt eradication efforts.

In the teeming mercantile metropolis of Kano, northern Nigeria’s largest city of some 10 million and the epicenter of the 2003 boycott, glittering mosques rise above streets lined with green steel plates bearing scrawled quotes from the Koran, while women hurry past tucked into their hijabs and veils. There’s no doubt that Kano is deeply entrenched in Islamic fundamentalism. “Religion is really big here,” says Aminu Isa, 32, a taxi driver. “Anything about Islam and the typical Kano man is ready to lose his head.”

Anti-Western sentiments run deep here too, fueled lately by a battle between the Nigerian government and U.S. drugmaker Pfizer. In an $8.5 billion lawsuit filed against the company, the Nigerian government says Pfizer caused the deaths of 11 children in Kano as a result of unauthorized clinical trials of an experimental antibiotic for meningitis in 1996 — charges that Pfizer denies, but which Islamic leaders have exploited as proof of a conspiracy.

Here, Western education is also seen as a pointedly Christian concept — an apostasy — and literacy levels are virtually nonexistent. “By the time Western education came to Nigeria,” says Musa Salisu, 47, an advocate for polio victims in Kano, “most northerners said to anybody agreeing to learn English, ‘When you die, you’ll enter hellfire.’”

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1675423,00.html#ixzz1fRzOi71Y