Well, the World Cup is almost over, only 4 games to go. While I can’t wait to see the conclusion of events, I am already starting to feel the withdrawals. So far I have watched all 60 games over the past month which was no mean feat considering down under the early games started at 9:30pm with the late ones at 4:30am. Thank god for university holidays! Now that the semi-finals are here, I’m finally able to settle back into a diurnal routine, albeit with some early morning starts.

Now for some thoughts on the Cup, starting with the performance of Australia, the Socceroos (or Footballroos, hmm, FFA should think about this one!). That opening game against Germany was horrific, an absolute annihilation. 4 – 0. A game that will (unfortunately) live forever in Australian football supporter’s minds alongside the 1997 draw with Iran. However, we can all take some comfort in the fact that Germany went on to put 4 past England and Argentina as well, so perhaps we should just be thankful we didn’t lose by 6, or 8, or 10. I’m not going to badmouth Pim Verbeek for his terrible tactics, as that’s already been well and truly done. I’m not so sure we would have done much better had we fielded our favourite 11. In fact, I have been wondering whether Pim’s strategy was a ‘German gambit’, hustling the rest of the group into underestimating the Aussie team in a game we never really expected to win. If that was the case, it backfired enormously, with goal difference the only thing that eventually sealed our fate of an early exit. Having said all that, perhaps the result and the stain on our memories was the wake-up call we needed, perhaps we will look back and smile in 20 years when Australia goes all the way in 2030.

Anyway, following that game the boys pulled themselves together and Pim pulled his head out of his arse. A 1 – 1 draw with Ghana, played mostly with 10 men after Harry’s unfortunate sending off, and a brilliant 2 – 1 win over Serbia brought us up to 4 points, the same result we had in 2006. Overall I am pleased with Australia’s performance. I feel that in a fairly strong group such as that we did ok, and given it was only our 3^rd World Cup, 2^nd with professional players, we probably lived up to our ranking outside the top 16 but inside the top 32.

Apart from Australia’s early exit, this World Cup has been quite amazing, it started slowly and cautiously with so few goals scored. But as the tournament wore on, the goals started piling up with some fantastic games and some even more fantastic referee decisions. The England goal that wasn’t against Germany and Suarez’ goal saving handball will go down in football folklore. The latter resulted in a Ghana penalty that missed, thus pushing the game into a penalty shootout which Uruguay won. The incident was a textbook professional foul, the kind that coaches and parents all over the world can show their kids when trying to explain why sometimes professional fouls are a good idea. Of course, the goal that wasn’t as well as an Argentine offside goal stirred the world into a frenzied debate as to whether technology should be introduced into the game. My thoughts are that video refs are a terrible idea, if technology must be introduced, then perhaps invisible technology, like micro-chipping the balls to see if they crossed the line is acceptable. But I think a couple of extra goal-line linesmen is the next step in trying to minimise game changing mistakes by referees. While many despair about the bad decisions made in 2010, few will forget them; the human element is part of what makes the game so exciting and so universal.

In just a few days time after the dust settles on the World Cup Final, I will be sad to see it end. Back to the regular domestic seasons, whether it be the English Premier League, La Liga or the new A-League, none of them stir the same emotions in me as the mighty World Cup. I think it’s partly to do with money effecting the big football leagues, those who can afford the players, win the games. There is something natural, tribal and genuine about the world game, where each country must rely on its own efforts to train and develop local players. Watching each national team reflect their culture in the style they play brings the game down to its pure essence. The world game is truly the beautiful game.

Football beautiful game, Football, socceroos, video ref, world cup, world game

The planned Internet censorship for Australia is an absolute disgrace and brings shame to an otherwise good Labor government.  After months of good Labor government, seeing a rise in respect for the democratic system among the younger generations who loathed John Howard, it is like a dagger in the spine from Senator Conroy, with the blessing of Prime Minister Rudd, to rip the heart out of the Internet’s inherent free speech.

Let’s be clear, the Internet is uncontrollable, after years of working in the IT industry, I can attest to that first hand, many ordinary Australians will also have first hand knowledge of this after paying good money for a AntiVirus software only to have their computer infected.  But don’t be disturbed, this is the way the Internet is supposed to be, this is the magic, the beauty of the Internet: it is an unfiltered repository of human knowledge.  To think that censoring the Internet under any circumstances has moral merit is ludicrous and insulting to the West’s most prized possession, freedom of speech.

By some estimates, the Rudd censorship plan could slow down the countries Internet by up to 85%.  Which hardly seems worth it considering it would take just 5 minutes to install TOR if one wanted to bypass the useless censor.  In other words, those who want to bypass the censor will be able to do it with ease, those who don’t even realise it’s there will suffer the consequences every day through decreased download speeds, and of course the occasional legitimate site which is blocked (such as the breast feeding site that was blocked in Parliament House using similar software).

The clean feed censorship software that the Rudd Labor government is planning on using to restrict our access to the world’s knowledge is the same software being run in Iran and China, where even though their Internet censorship laws include the prospect of arresting dissenting bloggers, it fails to work.  It fails miserably, in fact the inherent failures of Internet censorship have allowed the world insights into some of the most closed nations on Earth.  This was seen clearly in Burma, where during protests in 2007 our TV screens were flooded with images uploaded through the Internet and mobile phones.  It is impossible to successfully censor the Internet, yet Senator Conroy has his dirty hands on $44 million of our tax dollars ready to waste.  It wouldn’t even be so bad if he threw it down the drain, but to spend it ruining the countries Internet from a technical and moral standpoint is outright detrimental.

There is so much more I could rant about this issue, but these are some of the main points which particularly anger me I couldn’t wait to vent.  I’m sure if this doomed project gets off the ground I will have much more to say on the subject.  But for the moment, if you are as angry as I am about this Internet censorship, check out Stop The Clean Feed or email Senator Conroy at minister@dbcde.gov.au

Politics, Technology australia, censorship, clean feed, internet, kevin rudd, Politics, Technology

Dear Kevin,

It is now a little over a year since this country swept you into office on the back of 12 shameful but prosperous years under Howard.  You have offered and fulfilled your promises honourably, yet I can’t help to feel, conservatively.  When you campaigned on an Education Revolution, you surely weren’t referring to incremental baby steps for a 20 year revamp of the education system?  I was rather more hoping that the ‘revolution’ part of your catch phrase meant we were in for a rollercoaster overhaul of an education system in dire need.  I’m quite sure that many people who saw the degredation of our schools throughout the Howard years expected the same.  The mandate is there Mr. Rudd and you would be crazy not to act on it because after the next election cycle, people may not be so interested anymore.

So the world’s been thrown into a bit of a global recession since then and you may not be so keen to spend the little money you now realise you have.  I say, whip out the credit card and build us 21st century infrastructure, sideline the blame game and get spending!  Build hospitals and roads… but most importantly build public schools and accessible universities that are at the forefront of world education.  No century old blackboards and crumbling walls, but modern class rooms with technology embedded into the learning process, making Australian students the best trained in the world.  Nothing goes as far towards nation building as a world class public education system and you were given the mandate for an education revolution Mr. Rudd, please don’t pass it up.

Politics australia, education, education revolution, kevin rudd, labor, Politics

Governments are the most powerful entities in the world we live in.  They only exist to serve the people they represent, unfortunately history has shown us, they are also the most likely to violate our rights, our privacy and our freedom.  This is why human rights are essential to protect the citizenry from its most likely oppressor, its government.

Australia is the only western liberal democracy that does not have a charter or bill of rights.  This may change in the near future as the new Rudd Labor government supports it, however the argument that has until now stopped the creation of a Charter of Rights goes something like this: “unelected judges shouldn’t be able to limit elected officials decisions”.  This is a terribly misguided argument, because it assumes that elected officials always act for the good of everybody (as opposed to what will win them some votes).  Judges have much less vested interest in the outcome of a human rights case than the politicians do.  In Australia,  mandatory detention of refugees (including children) and the wrongful detention without trial of Dr. Haneef under terrorism suspicion show that governments can often win the majority vote by picking on the minority.

Perhaps to understand this, the idea of democracy has to be quickly reconsidered.  We do not live in a Democracy, we live in a Liberal Democracy, popularly considered the same thing, but in reality very different.  Democracy is majority rules, Liberalism is individual liberty.  In ancient Rome, they fed Jews to the lions for the majority Romans entertainment, if they had taken a vote on it, the majority would have said it was ok to feed the minority to wild beasts.  In Australia up until the 1970’s the majority voted in governments who instituted a policy of taking the minority Indigenous children from their parents and raising them in white Christian schools.  In Rwanda in 1994, the majority Hutu’s of the country ganged up and massacred up to a million minority Tutsi’s, if they had taken a vote on the genocide, it would have passed with a large majority.  We live in a Liberal Democracy, which means that although its essentially majority rules, we should never undermine the basic liberal and minority rights of society.

Every death caused by war, every wrongful imprisonment, every wire-tap, every person who is banned from speaking, writing or praying about what he choses are caused by governments.  Governments are the most powerful entities on Earth, and to claim that we should trust them beyond encoding some basic protections of our (liberal) human rights is at best misguided, and at worst sinister.

Australia urgently needs a Charter of Human Rights.

Politics australia, charter of rights, democracy, human rights, liberalism, Politics

Hello World!

Well, I figured it was about time I started to write a blog about things that I am interested in… as I like to bore the people around me with endless thoughts on politics, technology, life, the universe and everything.

Now you too can be bored by my online antics… but don’t take my word for it! Take a look around and let me know what you think!

Interest