The Australian Federal Government intends to implement mandatory ISP-level traffic filtering. They neglected to mention this during their election campaign. Filtering of this type is being spun as a necessary measure to "protect the children", although those same children can and will bypass the filtering within minutes.

By inference anyone opposed to these measures is pro child porn, of course, making it politically unassailable. The proposed filtering will slow Internet traffic considerably for everyone in Australia, and the loads and costs involved will drive smaller ISPs out of business. And once this goes in it's not going away.

Does anyone seriously doubt that legitimate sites are going to be blocked for political purposes? Is everyone happy to let the Government decide which websites are considered acceptable, and to have their Internet bandwidth reduced by 30-75%? How much bullshit legislation can you get up on the pretense of protecting children?

As expected multiple vendors have smelt a large pile of taxpayers cash and are circling like vultures.

Despite the disinformation being supplied by the responsible minister, Stephen Conroy the idiot, the only other countries on the planet using filtering of this magnitude are China, Cuba and North Korea. Detecting a trend? Anyway, these people are fighting this bullshit and deserve full support

If you're in Melbourne, Australia, you really should think about going to the Tote hotel, or maybe the Corner.

If anyone gives a toss, the last recordings the (Australian) Guttersnipes have been mixed at Birdland Studios. Not sure if we can get anyone to release it as yet. If anyone's interested bang an email over, address is below. Don't be shy. There will be a website here soon.

I've scanned and formatted my great uncle's stories from the Second World War. Check em out. It's a little known fact that members of my family pretty much won the war single-handed.

I grew up in and around a very small town (500 people) called Toora in Victoria, Australia. It's an economic backwater but a beautiful place. It used to have a milk factory until the chief idiot at Bonlac shut it down. I just found this article about the town. I love this line:

Toora in South Gippsland has an active community and they've been busy beautifying their town with painted light poles.

Makes the town sound like a barrel of laughs. No mention of the Royal Standard Hotel. You can get as drunk as hell in there, and the locals probably won't stare at you. They have really good food (unless you're a vegan), and a great bar. You can't beat old-style country pubs.

Toora is now probably best known for being the location of one of the first wind farms in Victoria. They don't actually generate much power. Here's a photo.

Hello there Bisso you cranky old drunken Tasmanian sausage-making bastard.

"It's damn near unwatchable, a buttload of shit fired at the cineplex screens. It's gruesome without being scary. It's stupid without being funny. It was written on toilet paper by chimpanzees with diarrhea."

The Filthy Critic did not like Blair Witch 2

"Mr Latham's plans include blasting the ghettos with multi-level government money and programs, and making the residents try to take control of their own destinies."

Mark Latham is the Australian Opposition leader, and is most famous for breaking the arm of a taxi-driver, and using the term skanky ho under parliamentary privilege to describe a female journalist. When later questioned about this comment, he said he didn't know what it meant as he's a Meatloaf fan. Great save, genius.

"First we'll coax Saddam out of his bunker with a trail of delicious candy. Then, once his belly is full and he's all sleepy and happy, we'll calmly explain that we don't approve of what he's been doing and it's not very nice and we wish he'd stop. And he'll be like, "Whoa, I never thought of it that way. You guys are my friends! I like you!" And then everybody will hug and cry, and then get a little embarrassed about crying, and then make some jokes to cover up being embarrassed. And then a beautiful rainbow will appear, and a shy unicorn will walk down it, and Saddam will ride the unicorn to the North Pole, and he'll spend the rest of his life helping Santa make wonderful toys for all the good little girls and boys, and there'll be hot chocolate, and, and, and, and nobody will ever ever die again for any reason ever."

Jim Treacher unveils a winning strategy.

We are not fighting so that you will offer us something. We are fighting to eliminate you.

Hussein Massawi, former leader of Hezbollah, spells it out for the hippies.

contact me at mark at gumrak.net. Not sure why you would want to, but you can, and that's the important thing.

If you want to be all sneaky, my PGP key is here