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I cite this incident as an example of just how long an allegation of rape will continue to haunt the accused ,even years after the matter has been dismissed by the law. Somehow I expect that Ray will point out that as we are talking about Collingwood supporters then we should not expect anything approaching reasonable behaviour.
Cheers Comrades
There are some social trends that just make sense and one of them for which I think its fair to say that I am an early adopter, In fact I have had a beard for most of my adult life. I just worked out very early on that there was something innately unnatural about removing facial hair on a daily basis. so I found thsi piece from the Age rather amusing .
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The downside to the raising popularity of the beard is that those of us who have been trend leaders are likely to lose that distinctive novelty of our facial hair. Ah well at least we won’t have to explain why we have a beard so often.
Cheers Comrades
They're wet and just wild about breaking the world record for the largest number of people ever to shower together.
This is just a simple post to show that a mob of Poms can all come together for a bit of clean fun rather than mayhem and destruction
Cheers Comrades
"It's all Tony Abbott's fault"
Apparently consumer confidence in Australia is currently at low levels, particularly among Coalition voters. What are the causes of this dip in confidence?
You might attribute much of it to what’s happening in other countries. After-all, the United States has such high debt levels coupled with sluggish economic growth, and almost defaulted recently. Meanwhile, Europe seems to be experiencing a financial meltdown with countries such as Greece and Spain in deep, deep trouble.
You might also think that the federal government’s ineptitude is also a factor. Whether its pink batts, school halls, health, mining taxes, the East Timor Solution, the Malaysian Solution, carbon taxes or even set top boxes, nearly everything this government has touched has turned into disaster. Not since the Whitlam Government has Australia suffered from such governmental ineptitude.
If you thought that either of those factors were primarily to blame, you are wrong. According to Jeremy Sear, the true cause of the lack of consumer confidence is…. wait for it…. Tony Abbott!
That’s what happens when you believe Tony Abbott and listen to right-wing talk radio. You become scared, you jump at shadows, you think any small tax is going to DESTROY THE ECONOMY and SEND YOU TO RUIN, even though at the most basic level you know you’ve survived much bigger ones in the past (say, the GST). And by refusing to participate in the economy, you actually do damage it. Which you then blame on everyone else.
It’s amazing how successful as a political strategy sabotaging the country can be. Tony terrifies the gullible into thinking disaster is looming and the gullible then make it happen. Which ultimately makes Tony look right, and could conceivably propel him to government – of a country he’s selfishly wrecked, of an economy he’s done everything he can to undermine, of people whose well-being he’s deliberately sacrificed, in order to get there. What strength! What fortitude! What a friend of the working Australian!
Who would have thought that Tony Abbott was so influential? Apparently he is, and he’s been wrecking the Australian economy by dong his job and holding the government to account. Were it not for Abbott, I’m sure that hardly anyone would have tweaked that this government was hopeless, and consumer confidence would therefore be higher.
Perhaps Jeremy will now propose laws that restrict conservatives from criticising Labor-Green governments? After-all his beloved Greens have been doing that recently by suggesting that newspapers should obtain publishing licenses from government and should not criticise the left side of politics harshly. And being the loyal Greens member that he is, Jeremy portrayed the Green’s sinister attempts to muzzle conservative dissent as just making “sure that everyone is living up to [John] Hartigan’s declared standards”.
Perhaps I should report Jeremy’s latest intellectual dishonesty to Pure Poison, the blog that allegedly detects and exposes it.
Who is the main blogger from Pure Poison again? Oh wait…
I bought KillZone 2 on Friday, (on special for just $18) the game in the vid above is the complete antithesis of the new addition to the gaming library at Chez Hall, but the clip is actually quite funny so please check it out
Cheers Comrades
I have long thought that this boy was dead and I have winced at the innumerable posters asking the public for information about the disappearance of Daniel Morcombe, Now that a man has been charged I am just glad that Daniel Morcombe’s parents may at last get a chance to properly lay him to rest.
With respect Comrades
Sorry but no comments on this one
If there is one thing that has very quickly become clear about the demographic from which many of the rioters and looters come it is that they are certainly not from the poorest of the poor eking out a mean existence in the down at heal housing authority ghettoes that inspire our learned friend to make this ridiculous suggestion:
There you have it folks someone who is involved in the business of the Law who does not understand that there has to be severe consequences for serious breaches of the law especially when those breaches show utter contempt for the standards of behaviour that are essential for the functioning of civil society. the thing that is very clearly evident though from the people who have already been appearing before the courts is that they are not at all what Jezza assumes them to be, like this young woman:
The criminal law should perform several functions, in the first instance it should make clear what sort of behaviour is required for a properly functioning civil society, secondly it should provide the mechanisms to test any accusation of wrongdoing in as fair a way as possible, but thirdly it has to contain sanctions of sufficient magnitude to deter those who would breach them from doing so. For far too long whimpy lefties like our learned friend has thought that every criminal can be redeemed by the sort of community “punishments” that he obviously has so much faith in. What he fails to appreciate is that such punishments mean nothing and have no deterrent effect at all, I heard one female rioter taunt police by daring them to put an ASBO on her(the equivalent of our apprehended violence order)in a clip of the riots, which demonstrated the utter contempt that these people have for the laws civil society. Well I for one don’t think that women like Laura Johnson deserve a precious place in a university and I very much look froward to her being both convicted for her crimes and excluded from further study, then again with her background she is hardly likely to starve now is she Jezza?
Finally I want to take issue with this claim form our learned friend:
it’s completely unjust to punish a poor rioter more harshly than a wealthy one.
The problem here is that for a wealthier person the potential loss of their employment or the probability that they will be shunned and rejected by their peers if they are convicted of criminality is generally a powerful deterrent that usually ensures that they won’t ever wilfully commit crimes. But for the “poor” that Jeremy so lovingly cites there is no deterrent effect because they just have no reputation or good name to lose. So a conviction is in fact a lesser punishment for them than it will be someone who is employed or more generally a part of respectable society. A legal punishment has to be significant to the miscreant being punished for it to be true justice and as they say its different strokes for different folks.
Cheers Comrades
For all of the bluff, bluster and attempts to talk tough about the (cough) efficacy of Gillard’s Malaysian solution what we are seeing as the boats still keep coming is more proof of just how stupid and inept the current government is. Now it is trying to re-open Manus Island in New Guinea and I even heard vague suggestions that Nauru may not be entirely off their agenda on the radio this morning. So clearly the empty threat of being sent to Malaysia is not deterring anyone. Read this and then think what is the most important element that enables people smugglers to sell the tickets on their boats?
The people on these boats know one crucial fact and it is this: Under the Labor government if they can convince the immigration officials that they do meet the criteria of the refugee convention they will be able to get permanent residency and the “right” for family reunion. That is the very carrot that has to be taken away to stem the flow of boats. If they are real refugees then all we are obliged to offer under that treaty is some sort of temporary protection visa. Frankly until that is all that any illegal immigrant can expect then the boats will just keep coming.
Cheers Comrades
At the risk be being accused of fascism (again 
) I’m going to once again talk about the rioting in the UK and in particular the response to the lawlessness by both the government and the ordinary people. There is no image form the riots that is more inspiring to me than the woman wearing the shirt with a simple message:
People gather to clean up Clapham Junction Photo: REUTERS
Fortunately for the UK they currently have a government who are prepared to take decisive action against the rioters without a cause as the report in the Age informs us not only do these scum face the righteous wrath of the courts bit they will be evicted form public housing as well:
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For far too long members of the so called “underclass” have been able to operate on the assumption that no matter what they do there will be no significant consequences well its seems that they will not be able to maintain such a belief any longer,Frankly I am rather sure that no one will be at all sympathetic to their plight if they end up on the streets as the winter approaches, As David Cameron suggests, with rights come responsibilities. If people are not prepared to behave in a civil manner then they have no right to be supported by a civil society.
Cheers Comrades
As I’ve said before, I love living in north-east Victoria, even though it’s pretty quiet up here at the moment and the ski fields are doing it real tough despite the excellent conditions they’ve had. It looks like skiing is a stuffed industry but, as far as I’m concerned, tell someone who cares. We do well enough down here in Bright over the other 9 months of the year so the greedy corporates up there at the over-developed mountain resorts are getting exactly what they deserve in my opinion – i.e. bankruptcy.
Anyway, I guess the near deserted state of the ski resorts might explain this guy’s Darwin Club attempt last night at nearby Falls Creek.
Well, that and some, err, substances perhaps:
‘Naked’ man found in snow unconscious
MYSTERY surrounds the discovery of a reportedly naked man, suffering from hypothermia at Falls Creek.
Men heard the man groaning in the snow below a chalet about 4am and he was taken to the Falls Creek Medical Centre where he was attended by Dr Dominic Blanks.
Some reports stated he was wearing shorts and a T-shirt, but the doctor said that did not appear the case.
“I don’t even think he was wearing that, I think he was naked in the snow,” Dr Blanks said.
The man was believed to be semi-conscious when he was found and had lost consciousness when he arrived at the clinic.
“Initially he had a temperature of 24.5, normal would start about 36 and anything below 30 is quite severe hypothermia,” Dr Blanks said.
Police are investigating how the man came to spend the night in the freezing temperatures.
Look, I hope he recovers, but I think he should be named & shamed.
Better still let’s see a photo of him. Or a video … preferably clothed!
In the meantime, this video that I found on YouTube will have to do. It’s not him (or maybe it was) but he’s obviously not the first to try this little party trick.
What an idiot:
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One of the things that I have often said here at the Sandpit is that Vegetarians are evil and if the accusation revealed in the senate committee hearing yesterday are factually correct then they are very evil indeed:
THE row over live cattle exports has reignited amid claims Indonesian peasant meat workers were bribed to mistreat animals for explosive television footage that sparked a four-week suspension of the industry.
Liberal senator Chris Back made the allegations before a Senate committee yesterday, raising the possibility that the damaging shutdown of the $320 million-a-year industry could have been based on a lie.
As the ABC television journalist who produced the program that aired the disturbing scenes described Senator Back’s claims as ludicrous, and Agriculture Minister Joe Ludwig stood by his decision to suspend the live trade, Senator Back, a veterinarian, said he was not in a position to publicly release his evidence.
The animal welfare activist who helped produce the footage denied making any payments, saying that the claims were outrageous. She said that she did not reveal her identity to the meat workers and pretended she was a tourist when she visited the abattoir.
After all just what could possibly be more evil than to create a subterfuge to exaggerate the levels of cruelty in Indonesia so that the trade with them could be suspended?
Watching this one with some serious interest…
Cheers Comrades
The Good Doctor Jason Wilson
For someone who teaches about the new media the good doctor seems to be extremely naive about the issue of internet anonymity, as his opinion piece at Crikey demonstrates
Free speech at risk as Google embroiled in ‘nym wars’
by Jason Wilson, an assistant professor in journalism at the University of CanberraThere’s a struggle going on at the moment between the world’s biggest internet company and its users over the right to be pseudonymous or anonymous online.
There is just NO right to anonymity in the law of any country on the planet, in fact most legal systems are predicated upon the notion that citizens should be obliged to speak and act in their own names so that if they violate the law by doing so that they can he held to account
Google is facing a growing backlash over a policy that effectively forces people to use their “real names” on its new social media service, Google+.
Personally I think that this is a good thing because it means that discourse will be more civil
At first Google deleted several accounts set up with pseudonyms or online handles. When this turned into a PR disaster, it tried a different approach, but with the same end point in mind. Whatever your reasons, however legitimate your concerns, revealing your real name to the world is a condition of using their service.
If there are the rules set up by the service provider that you don’t like, you are quite easily able to avoid them by simply not using the service
This has taken some of the shine off the factory-fresh social network.
No not really it just means that those who use the service will be able to enjoy an environment where those that they interact with are real people rather than fakes with potentially underhanded agendas
It’s reminded many of the catastrophic handling of privacy issues in its last attempt at getting on the social media bandwagon, Google Buzz.
Well this is the curse of not checking what is involved in enabling any thing on the net isn’t it?
Some users are furious. Many argue that their pseudonymity is necessary because speaking under their real names would endanger their employment, their relationships, or even their personal safety. A website, my.nameis.me, showcases the concerns of those who feel they can only speak freely under a pseudonym, because of their fears of harassment, discrimination, physical harm, and in some jurisdictions, arrest and punishment up to and including execution.
If you don’t want to use the social media internet in your real name then the solution is simple just don’t use it at all
Testimonies there show that it is the most marginalised who have the most to lose. Part of their indignation arises from the arrogance of large internet firms who seem to be trying to change the rules of online speech, and thus remove the protections people have enjoyed for decades.
This is utter bollocks those with the most to lose are the scum-bags and arseholes who use the net for malicious purposes, no one is obliged to participate in anyway on-line but if they do then they have to abide by the rules and expectations of the entities that offer the social media platforms.
An incensed blog post from danah boyd characterised this as an “abuse of power”.
This is part of what are being called the nym wars, a genuine free speech battle overlooked by some in Australia who are currently too busy defending Rupert Murdoch’s right to own 150 newspapers.
What rot! besides the fact that there is no right to anonymity no one’s right to free speech is at risk in this or most western countries, if you are mindful of the laws of defamation you can say anything you please on the internet and there is no doubt that civility is enhanced when your identity is known.
The often crude privilege-blindness of the other side of the debate was given expression last week by Facebook’s former marketing director, Randi Zuckerberg (who left the company to launch a social media firm called RtoZ Media), who said:
I think anonymity on the internet has to go away. People behave a lot better when they have their real names down … I think people hide behind anonymity and they feel like they can say whatever they want behind closed doors.
What she failed to consider was that many “hide behind anonymity” online because of very real risks to them and their families.
There is only a risk to anyone from their on-line utterances come when they act like arseholes Jason, like when they defame or try to discredit people who post in their real names from behind those Pseudonyms that you so endorse. Your problem is that you don’t appreciate that it is the mixed population on line that is the problem, If everyone was equally anonymous then it would not matter at all what anyone says about another person, but when you have some who post under pseudonyms and some who post under their real names you run in to the accountability problems that I know all to well
Similar arguments are made frequently in this country by some journalists who are irritated by pseudonymous online critics. Indeed, it’s the same sentiment that was expressed in justifying the “outing” of the pseudonymous “Grog” as Greg Jericho by The Australian last year.
While I tend to agree that there was no real need to out Greg Jericho he has clearly not suffered form the experience, in fact it served to raise his profile substantially and he certainly has not lost his day job either. Then again he has always written as if his name was known and that he could be held accountable for anything that he has said.
Coming from the profession that should be most committed to free speech, it’s pretty ugly. The idea seems to be that operating under their real names will make people moderate their criticisms. Whichever way you look at it, it’s an attempt to limit people’s speech.
There has always been some limits on “free speech” so the suggestion that it could or should be otherwise is just a furphy here. The question is all about getting the right balance and expecting that on-line speech should be be bound by the same expectations as we have for other types of public expression like the print media, radio or television is not unreasonable.
A lot of people making these complaints are relatively new to online debate — we can hope that they will toughen up and see that the odd flaming is the price we pay for a relatively free flow of information.
No Jason some of us have been going on about this issue for years mate and we do so because we have had the first hand experience of people using anonymity of the internet to disparage and defame them and their being no practicable way to bring those offenders to account.
Meanwhile, we need to reflect on what the “nym wars” show us: that the most powerful internet giants will actively erode our freedoms when it suits their interests. How should we respond?
Perhaps there is a middle way to be advocated here, namely that the providers of the social media platforms should oblige their users to disclose their verifiable identities to sign up but allow people to then post under a screen name. Thus if there is a problem with what is said an aggrieved party can seek redress either by direct negotiation or through the courts. Thus people will be encouraged to good on-line behaviour and those squeamish souls who lack the courage to speak in their own names can still play in the On-line sandpits .
Cheers Comrades
Burnt-out cars litter the streets of London's Ealing Green in the aftermath of a night of rioting, looting, arson and clashes with police. Picture: Getty Images Source: Getty Images
I hope that readers will understand that the news of riots in London have distressed me a great deal:
“This is criminality, pure and simple, and it has to be confronted and defeated. It is quite clear that we need more police on the streets, and we need even more robust police action,” he said.
All police leave in London had been cancelled and help would be drafted in from police forces up and down the country.
Police said they could for the first time on the British mainland use plastic bullets to protect firefighters and ambulance officers.
At least 525 people have been arrested in three nights of rioting in London and a further 100 were arrested in Birmingham after the violence spread there, as well as to Manchester, Liverpool, Bristol and Nottingham. There have been so many arrests in London that all police cells are full and those arrested are being shipped to police stations outside the capital.
A woman in Croydon was filmed leaping from a burning building, one of dozens that have been torched by arsonists.
The youngest looter arrested yesterday was 11 years old and youth gangs from areas such as Hackney, Stratford and Brixton played a prominent role in clashes with police in more than 20 parts of the capital.
The violence began on Saturday after a peaceful protest over the police shooting of a suspected drug dealer in Tottenham last week but it has quickly spiralled into the most widespread lawlessness seen in Britain since the 1980s. The third day of clashes began when youths attacked a police car in a busy shopping street in Hackney, prompting confrontations with mounted police and police dog squads.
There is no political reason for this disgusting behaviour and as I have been watching the fourth season of the Tudors over the last few nights I just can’t help but think that some very stern punishments for the people responsible would be very much in order. Maybe authorising the use of lethal force against any looters has merit, sadly I think that the minions of the left will be going into excuse-making overdrive, sadly I think that these riots are a result of softly softly community policing.
Angry Comrades
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Ah I bet all of the Luvvies are just going all gooey at the idea that this lesbian couple are bringing a child into their relationship and at the prospect of its arrival in December. Personally I wish them fair winds and fine weather in what can be a worrisome period of anticipation, however I can’t help thinking that there is and element of self deception here and the clear possibility that the child will be deprived of a father despite the claim that the father will have some (very limited by the sound of it) contact with the child. Sadly I suspect that all of the commentary is going to be about the “right” of Gay couples to have children rather than the rights of a child to know both of their biological parents …
Oh and am I the only one out there who gets peeved when they insist on describing this as an “IVF” conception when it is more likely to be just a case of artificial insemination by donor? My guess is that by calling it an ” IVF” process it disguises the fact that there is no fertility problem here rather it is a consequence of a homosexual lifestyle and lesbian misandry.
Cheers Comrades
