Almost speechless...

Britain, what are you doing?

The notion of having free speech in Britain seems to be paper thin, rather than solid rock.

Update: Ok... how thin would you like your free speech? Wafer?
...

As a sidenote, sadly Manchester United won the European Champions' League this morning (my time). On second thoughts, perhaps not so sad; I would have been sadder had Chelsea won.

Budgeting pain...

So, the new federal budget is out, and there's obviously a lot of people doing it tough in the community.

I've been fairly critical of the media in previous posts, and this case wouldn't be an exception.

Choice quote:

Their combined income of more than $150,000 is quickly swallowed by the cost of raising two children, an average-sized mortgage, running a financial planning business and meeting car payments and private school fees.

"Average-sized" mortgage. Like what, over $200,000? More than $400,000?

Running a financial planning business... so they "only" pay themselves $150,000p.a.? Does that mean the business isn't going that well? Are they blaming the government for that too?

As for car payments:

They would have been hit with the luxury car tax, which jumped to 33 per cent for $57,000-plus cars, had they delayed buying a 4WD.

What kind of 4WD, and why do they need one? Do they really go out and use it (bush), or is it for carting the kids' friends around?

The article says nowhere what private school the kids are attending. Should I take it to mean he's going to Prince Alfred College, and she's at St Peter's (two of the most expensive schools in Adelaide)? Or are they going to some of the "cheaper" ones?

It seems to me that they expect the government to support them through their lifestyle choices, which they say are bad by complaining how much it costs, but do it anyway. And further, the lack of detail on exactly why they're "doing it tough" implies to me that the article is simply a beat-up for the Liberal party, because they're having trouble finding something relevant to complain about.

Remember, every baby is created equal. Of course, some are more equal than others.

Did you know Brendan Nelson's a doctor?

Update: Somebody's thinking of the children. I'm thinking along the lines of Senator Conroy not actually knowing what he's talking about, and some muppet from his department sent him out to face the media under-prepared.

And two: Ross Gittens gets stuck in.

Won't Somebody Think Of The Children?!

Oh, the pain. So, Labor's in government, everyone's happy (enough), and then... an idiot comes along.

I mean, is he stupid? Are we governed by Family First? Are we actually in China?!

This man somehow thinks that you can't just bypass a filter by a little bit of traffic redirection. Fool. More fool those Victorians, too, who didn't vote below the line.

So... the stats are in. Expected: 1.4 million downloads. Received: 30,000. Call centre receives 20-40 calls, per day. Waste of AU$84 million. What does this imply? Well, to about, lessee... 100 - 100*(30,000/21,000,000) = 99.85% of Australians don't want to have their internet filtered. And I wonder about what the percentage of those using the filter are concerned parents - that is, they probably don't want their internet usage filtered, but rather just their childrens'.

Seriously. I want the proportion of my tax that went to this department back.

For moar, here and here.