Rubénerd!

It seems as though Kevin Rudd and Barack Obama finally have something they disagree on: the US government has expressed concern over Senator Stephen Conroy's plan for a mandatory internet filter. Guess that old headline above somehow isn't as true anymore :P.

According to The Punch:

US State Department spokesman Noel Clay said: “The US and Australia are close partners on issues related to cyber matters generally, including national security and economic issues.

“We do not discuss the details of specific diplomatic exchanges, but can say that in the context of that ongoing relationship, we have raised our concerns on this matter with Australian officials.”

It's been ages since I've posted something on Slashdot but I put in my $0.01. It would have been two cents, but the other cent was used to pay taxes to fund some massively expensive filter thing.

This news isn't on the scale of Google redirecting mainland Chinese search results to Google.cn but has more in common than Senator Conroy here in Australia would like people to think. Wait, no, that isn't even right, he's openly compared the proposed Great Firewall of Australia to the filters in China.

When Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and Federal Labor won the last election and Barack Obama and the Democrats won the elections in the US, Australian newspapers reported their first meetings as being one with kindred spirits, in much of the same way as George Bush and John Howard. This filter is perhaps the first large(ish) crack in this relationship, and I'm really hoping the Americans kick up as much of a fuss about Australia's laws as China's if the filter in Australia goes through.

The problem for the voting public here is in our version of the two party system, the opposition are considered the more conservative party, and its new Christian far-right leader Tony Abbott has been fairly silent on the whole issue. One can imagine he supports it in spirit but doesn't want to seem as though he's agreeing with Labor. Either way, we're royally stuffed.

In the meantime if you're an Aussie, don't forget the Electronic Frontiers Australia is accepting donations for their Open Internet campaign.

As is typical of someone with my writing style, I could probably have written that entire posting in a few lines. Verbosity and I get along really well, she's like a really dorky girl with huge glasses that hangs out with me and strings together huge paragraphs of words for fun on lazy autumn evenings :).

Did that trip a filter? Anyone? If you can't read this sentence, let me know.

Congratulations to all my American friends!

I just finished watching Barack Obama's moving live speech about the passing of healthcare reform. It isn't everything we wanted, but the fact it was able to pass is nothing short of miraculous. History will judge this as not only the defining moment of the Obama administration, but the day when America started caring for her people as she promised to.

"For all those whose cares have been our concern,
the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives
and the dream shall never die."

~ Edward M. Kennedy, RIP

American flag by ShakataGaNai on Wikimedia Commons

I would say "yahoo!", but that's a trademark right? Anyway, it's official folks, the United States has rejoined the United Nations Human Rights Forum. Cynics may decry it as a token gesture by a government to rejoin a fundamentally flawed organisation, but as I always say, I'm cautiously optimistic.

Truthout: US Rejoins UN's Human Rights Forum

United Nations, New York - The United States won a seat on the United Nations' top human rights organization Tuesday, closing out another vestige of the Bush administration's confrontational relationship with the world body.

The US ambassador to the UN, Susan Rice, hailed the return to the human rights forum as part of America's determination "to again play a meaningful leadership role in multilateral organizations." The US will not wait for a 2011 review of the council to try to reform it, she added, but "will be working very hard from an early stage to try to support the strengthening and improvement of this body."

Original Clipmark Link

Congratulations to my American friends, this a bold step in the right direction! I can already see the world's perception of the US starting to change for the better again.

Special thanks to Sparx for sharing this article in Google Reader.

I'm not quite sure why I find images like this so heartening. Perhaps it's because he looks like... a real human being. And there are many more where that came from.

The eerie thing is, no sooner had I viewed this picture on Flickr than The Scorpions "Wind of Change" started playing in iTunes. Synchronicity?

Aussie PM Kevin Rudd with Barack Obama

Reading the Adelaide Advertiser online this morning I noticed this photo of Kevin Rudd and Barack Obama. According to the article, Kev and Barack have had their first formal meeting which aside from some awkwardness regarding troop deployments in Afghanistan (which most Australian's don't support), it went really well.

Barack Obama gives Kevin Rudd the thumbs up

The US President has made much of his rapport with the Prime Minister after their first face to face talks in Washington. Reports of the meeting carried around the world have described the pair as political "soul mates".

"I think he's doing a terrific job, and I'm looking forward to partnering with him for some years to come," Mr Obama said after meeting Mr Rudd for more than an hour.

Mr Rudd has said it was good to have the US "back on board" on world economics and global warming.

I just have to say this, right up front, that the relief I feel seeing our new PM with America's new President is overwhelming. Whenever I saw photos of our former conservative PM John Howard standing with George W. Bush it made me shiver and cringe more than nails on a blackboard. To be fair, they were suited for each other!

Browsing through Thorn In Paw's archives to kill some time, I came across this photo by Callie Shell. It was taken in 2007 so in political terms it's documenting ancient history, but it's still just as relevant now.

The caption from the site:

A Mother's Grief: This woman had lost her son in Iraq. She wanted people to know that it was not unpatriotic to be against the war and for Obama. Cedar Rapids, Iowa, 2/11/2007.

I've always found the convolution of military service and patriotism to be kind of creepy. While certainly not perfect, I like how the Singapore government talks about and advertises the idea of what they call "Total Defence". The idea is, doing your job well, helping your community, being well educated and so on are just as important to protecting a society as the people guiding the missiles. In bus shelters they show people in camouflage uniform standing next to someone wearing a business shirt, or a stethoscope, or a school textbook. You get the idea.

Even if (as my cynical side assumes) it is just hollow propaganda in disguise, I think certain people in the US and other parts of the world could benefit from thinking like that. Unfortunately I doubt they ever will though.

The Barack Obama and Nikon D60 Part One episode!

Terribly good jokes told by people who can't tell jokes; Barack Obama's inauguration on TV; relieved farewell to Dubbya; more relieved Sarah Palin didn't win than Barack did; silly thing John McCain said; the American founding fathers; Thomas Jefferson on church and state; getting a Nikon D60 for Christmas; pixel density is more important then megapixels; my old FinePix S9600; how bridge cameras compare to real single lens reflex (SLR) cameras; realising shows shouldn't be recorded at 2am; an exciting new hobby and discovering green tea is... green tea!

Download MP3 to listen ↓ 20:45 9.7MiB

You can also stream this episode and view its Internet Archive page.

Now that the United States is finally no longer in control of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney and we've all heaved a collective -- and much anticipated -- sigh of relief, the work begins cleaning up the royal mess this incompetent pair made domestically and internationally. It's not all their fault of course, but even if you thought none of it was (and believe it or not there are people on Twitter telling me this) you can at least admit they did nothing to improve the world during their tenure. Yuck.

Barack Obama, Joe Biden and their team have their work cut out for them, if by "work cut out for them" I mean "they have Mount Everest to climb to even reach the base camp at foot of the summit".

ASIDE: I think I can be confident in saying thought that Obama and Biden would have to royally screw up on a scale unseen in history to beat the Bush/Cheney record. Would it be safe to say George W. Bush was the worst American president of all time?

All around Singapore today as I walked around you could see the change.

As you could see from the photo above, the front page of the local Straits Times broadsheet were all about Obama. Given the media control in Singapore (the only negative things about living here in my opinion) I generally don't read the papers, but let's just say yesterday and today were special occasions.

I walked past the Starbucks in Shaw House and noticed an American couple roaring with laugher with a barista as they talked about Bushisms and the relief they felt. In the underpass between Shaw House and Wheelock Place the buskers were singing about Obama. The radio waves were saturated. Plasma TVs in shopping centres, restaurants and bars were playing the swearing in on what seemed like an infinite loop. Mmm... infinite loop.

Less tangible was the overall jubilation but at the same time a sense of restraint and calm. You could tell some people were pleased and relieved at the same time. When I strolled into the Coffee Bean at Wheelock Place the women serving me asked if I was an American before I opened my mouth. My accident quickly showed for her that I wasn't, but she commented that it was such a relief to get that "bleeping moron out of ruling the world!". She was cute :).

This may be a honeymoon period, but boy does it feel good! I remember when our Aussie Prime Minister John Howard was relieved of duty and all those who didn't support the war in Iraq felt so much better in an instant. I can't imagine what Americans themselves must be feeling now.