My Place and Yours

I’ve always been tempted to join meme-type things where you take a photo of someone/thing/whatever, but hadn’t found one that really jumped out at me.

Until tonight, when I see the gorgeous Danielle from helloowl is hosting My Place and Yours. Whee! Let’s give it a burl.

This week’s theme is ‘Behind the camera’ a.k.a. a self-portrait challenge.

Seeing as I’ve already posted my 365 pic for today (day 67!), my chosen pic is an outtake from earlier today:

Normally I don’t crop/photoshop self-portrait pics, but this one needed cropping desperately. Turns out that I’d left my shirt tucked in when I changed out of my work gear when I got home. Um, NOT a pretty look. Trust me.

Ha! Even flickr knows of my love of all things Obama

Particularly, Obama in relation to the words

• Happiness
• Hope (bit obvious, that one)
• Smile
• Love (Love is a bit strong, though…)
• Happy
• Joy

Why I’m against Australia’s planned interwebs censorship

If you get to this here blog in the traditional way (i.e. not with Google Reader), you would have noticed a popup protest about the Australian Government’s planned censorship of our internet:

The idea that MY internet connection could be filtered by “my” Government is nothing short of ridiculous.

Yes, there are horrible things on the internet. But “my” Government has no right to tell me what I can have access to.

A beautiful friend of mine has been battling Crohn’s disease for as long as I can remember. She finds it difficult to deal with the reality of her disease—the hospitalisation, the treatments (she’s even had chemo to try to cure this). She’s fighting to have a healthy life, something that I take for granted. She seeks solace in online Crohn’s support forums—places where she can connect with other Crohn’s sufferers; where they share their journeys and give each other strength.

Under a 2009 trial of the internet filter with certain Australian ISPs, this Crohn’s support forum was blocked. I can’t tell you how heartbreaking it was to hear that something so important to MY friend was going to be denied to her by “my” Government’s internet filter.

Tell me, how is a web site like this a risk to children? Children can get Crohn’s too, you know.

The filter won’t stop cyber-bullying. It won’t stop all child pornography. The list of banned sites will not be publicly available or open to review.

All throughout this post, I’ve referred to the current Australian Government as “my” Government.

Why?

Because:

• Regardless of the fact that I am a moderate leftie
• Regardless of the fact that I danced like a crazy lady when Howard was voted out
• Regardless of the fact that I had big hopes for K-Rudd during his election campaign, when I voted for him and when he won
• Regardless of the fact that my grandfather was Assistant General Secretary of the New South Wales Labor Party and DLP Senator for NSW (and I’m proud of my Pop’s political history, rest his soul)
• If the internet filter becomes one of K-Rudd’s next election promises, you can be sure as shit that I’ll be voting the other way

The filter is just plain wrong.

If you want to find out more, visit The Great Australian Internet Blackout. Their ability to articulate the point of being anti-censorship is far more eloquent than I could ever be.

Flight attendants will never be this awesome in Australia

Safety demonstration: you’re doing it right!

Friday night lazy post brought to you by YouTube!

Minces Hitler (and some Colbert porn)

I love some of the random phrases that come up on Captcha occasionally. I got this one just now when I was leaving a comment over at No Fact Zone:

There’s no real message in this popping up when the words are randomly generated, but it’s funny to imagine a programmer hunched over her/his computer choosing these two words to go together.

Because this all started because I wanted to leave a comment on my favourite Stephen Colbert fansite, so here’s some Colbert porn:

Don’t forget that ABC2 (bless their little cotton socks) now shows the Colbert Report (mere hours after it airs in the ’states) at 7.30pm Tuesday to Friday.