It’s been reported in The Australian that Queensland and South Australia are irate that centers of less than 1000 people in Tasmania will be getting the new 100Mbps broadband service.
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd say that this is because of the concentration of Tasmania, compared to the mainland of Australia makes it feasable.
What I would like to know is what The Australian’s Matthew Denholme’s Idea of Irate?
KEVIN Rudd faces a revolt among the states and territories
What Is Matthew Denholme’s idea of a revolt?
The Prime Minister yesterday left several states unhappy…
What is Matthew Denholme’s idea of unhappy, how can this be qualified?
Also – What is Matthem Denholme’s definition of the happiness, irateness or revoltedness of a State? Does he mean the state, its people, or state leaders? I can’t find evidence of either, last time I looked the states were fine if not a little cool, the people of Queensland and South Australia weren’t waving pitchforks around, and the politicians involved were having a standard political debate.
I would like to be proven wrong but this stinks of media sensationalism, which is a bad thing because, it makes intelligent readers out to be fools, persuades the foolish to be angry, muddies the water of important debates and because of this makes it a lot harder for politicians to do their job and serve Australia through the feedback loop of positively informed people, for Australia’s sake The Australian, let them do their job stop the sensationalism.
Categories: Media Watch
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Complaint about the ASA decision regarding Banning of the “Take Courage Beer Advertisement”The “Take Courage” beer campaign in the United Kingdom shows a man and a woman in a room in the typical “does my bum look big in this” situation, there is a veiled suggestion that the beer would give the man the courage to tell the truth to the woman.
Even without a double-blind study it is fairly obvious to anyone who has consumed alcohol that this situation represents a real-life situation where the consumption of alcohol, would in fact have the effect of enabling a person to speak a difficult truth. It is terrible the ASA has banned a beer ad for “suggesting that beer will give you confidence.” What is wrong with suggesting that beer gives you confidence? It is SCIENTIFIC FACT that as long as said beer contains alcohol, It will give you confidence.
According to the ASA Website “The Advertising Standards Authority works to keep advertising legal, decent, honest and truthful.”On deeper investigation it is evident that a core function of the ASA is to ban any link with alcohol and confidence, which is entirely unwarranted, according to this it would also be illegal for someone in a televised or other advertisement in the UK to merely read out the effects of alcohol from a scientific study, simply because the truth is censored.
It is a perspective-warping un-truth to suggest that alcohol does not give you confidence, what people need is not more myths about alcohol but a balanced display of the facts – the good and the bad, for people to make their own decisions, not to create illusions about the effects of drugs and let people find out the hard way when they are on their own in an unfamiliar place and have had an oversupply.
Imagine banning suggestions that sex is pleasurable, that food tastes good, or that paracetamol cures headaches. In the case of the latter, paracetamol, a highly dangerous drug when abused is allowed to be advertised as curing pain relief while alcohol, a drug with similar properties is not allowed to advertise its most sought after effect. It may be argued that advertising positive effects of pharmaceuticals is allowed because of the strict supply chain, however it must be noted that alcohol is generally a lot harder to purchase. There are plenty of pharmaceuticals out there which base their advertising campaigns on their “confidence-boosting” properties: eg. allergy, pain, and feminine sanitary products, even without scientific proof, but merely relying on secondary and objective assumptions which are difficult to prove. It also seems unfair given the current obesity crisis when highly sugared caffeinated drinks are advertised with slogans like “Red Bull Gives You Wings.” which it (obviously) doesn’t.
Categories: Censorship
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http://www.albumoftheday.com/facebook/The following is a transcription from a video at the above link. Do you have a facebook?Have you thought about the privacy you put at risk? Facebook allows users to post their favorite music, books, movies, their address, hometown, phone number, email, clubs, jobs, educational history, birth-dates, sexual orientation, interests, daily schedules, exactly how they are related to friends, upload pictures of themselves, and even political affiliations.Its privacy policy even goes so far as to states it collects information about you from other sources such as newspapers, and instant messaging services, this information is gathered regardless of your use of the website. Think that’s scary? Facebook’s term of services state: by posting member content to any part of the website; you automatically grant and represent and warrant that you have the right to grant to Facebook an irrevocable perpetual non exclusive transferrable, fully paid worldwide license, with the right to sublicense to use copy, perform, display, reformat, translate, excerpt in whole or in part, and distribute such information and content and to prepare derivative works of, or incorporate into other works such information and content, and to grant and authorize sublicences of the foregoing. Have you seen the Facebook’s Pulse feature?Pulse provides statistical trends among universities down to minute details such as the percentages of females with conservative views, the student body’s top ten movies, and the percentage of students who have read catcher in the rye. The so called privacy policy goes on to say that they: may share your information with third parties including responsible companies with which they may have a relationship. Can you think of any marketing group who would pass that by and such valid but easily collected marketing statistics such as these and others? So maybe they’re using us? But is there more? Part 2 will be transcribed soon.
Categories: Big Brother
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January 12, 2008 12:24 pm
Racist Advertising campaign for New Zealand
Recently on Virgin radio in London there was a radio advertisement, part of a campaign (by the New Zealand tourist board?) glorifying the joys of taking a trip to the land of the long white cloud. Well good on them for making some kind of attempt to compete with Australia’s successful “Where the bloody hell are you?” campaign; but in reality what do they suppose to convey by using the phrase “… and no Australian Accents”? There is only way to interpret this is that is that Australian accents are offensive, vulgar or unwanted – which is not simply racism, but much worse; It is nothing short of a propaganda campaign to tarnish the glow of Australia and Australians to those who are adore her. It is not based on fact, or even a trend but seeks to initiate a new trend by bringing the listener to make an unmeasured judgement based on hearsay of a voice over artist. New Zealand’s taunts are about as immature as the taunts of a schoolyard bully and are as destructive to Australia as if that bully was a sibling. New Zealand should be offering respect and protection on the international scene, not bringing Ausralia down.
What is wrong with the Australian Accent?
What is wrong with the Australian Accent? There is no consensus anywhere that the Australian accent is bad, in fact many people think that the Australian accent is a great thing, and in some cases consider it to be very sexy.
What’s the difference between the New Zealand and Australian accent?
It seems silly to make negative comments regarding the Australian Accent because the New Zealand accent is only marginally different to the Australian accent anyway; the only difference is the New Zealand nasal twang which could be considered annoying by a listener.
Where’s the good sense of humour gone?
New Zealand and Australia have a history of sharing humorous “digs” at eachother, but this is not the same; this is the world stage, it’s not between New Zealand and Australia, it’s mean, it’s spiteful, and most of all it’s not funny.
Racist propaganda
This advertising campaign should be seen for what it really is: racist propaganda. If any other country, or especially a minority group in th United Kingdom were to be the object of the “No Australian Accents” campaign there wound be an uproar. Total Unfair.
Categories: Uncategorized
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December 12, 2007 8:29 pm
Did you know that the song “Happy Birthday to You” is not a public domain song, and that Time Warner enforces its copyright through ASCAP and makes millions each year from doing so.
What you can do:
- You can hum the tune.
- You can sing amongst your family in private.
What you can’t do:
- You can’t sing within earshot of the general public, in a restaurant, at a campsite – even if you are a non-profit org.
- You can’t make profit from the song.
What we should do:
- Culture should never be allowed to mix with money. Sing a different song, now and forever.
Categories: Intellectual Property
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