Rubénerd!

Labor is staying in power in the misleadingly-titled South Australia, but to my surprise when I woke up this morning I read Attorney General Michael Atkinson will be stepping down as... Attorney General. I could have phrased that better.

I'm hoping their reduced majority in the state parliament (are those words supposed to be capitalised... hey that was a pun!) will force the existing Labor folk to think long and hard about future appointments to key positions like this. It probably won't, but one can wish.

Atkinson's departure as AG isn't just a win for online civil liberties and computer gamers who now have a potential chance for being treated as adults in the R18AU debate, but for people who have had cancer painfully strike down someone so dear to them and didn't appreciate his cold and daft comparisons.

Don't let the door hit you on the way out sir.

Quite a big swing against Labor, but looks like they're back for another term in South Australia, the outcome is less clear for Tasmania. And to think just a few years ago even the Singapore news was awash of Labor's federal win, I wonder what the results would be if there were a national election tomorrow?

I was pleased with Labor's win over the Libs in the state and federal elections last time, but this internet filtering and Michael Atkinson nonsense leaves me somewhat disappointed. Then again, what would the alternative be? :(

Discussion about the #octopusbattle will be undertaken tomorrow as I have already blogged far too much this evening. Good night.

Voting for The Greens in the South Aussie state elections today, and you'd better too if you know what's good for you. That goes for you too Tasmania. I mean come on, Labor? Liberal? Family First?!

First some shameless, self serving quoting:

Tomorrow, South Australian voters have a genuine alternative to the old parties, and can join over million voters Australia wide who vote Green, says Greens MLC Mark Parnell.

This election the Greens have run on a positive platform of green jobs, water security and ensuring a better government.

“I urge all South Australians to consider a fresh, positive alternative to the old parties and vote for the fastest growing political force in the country – the Greens,” he said.

I still think it's ironic I've only been here a few years (cumulatively) but I have full voting rights because of my passport, and I lived in Singapore most of my life and I have no voice there at all. I could tell you more about GRCs than electorates. I know more about Goh Chok Tong than Rob Kerin. That's politics for you.

Some related thoughts, when I was in Adelaide back in 2006 I remember Nick Xenophon walking around wearing those sandwich boards in Rundle Mall. Are people angry that he went Federal? What ever happened to his state seat thingy?

As an extra fun tidbit, Mark Parnell is one of the few politicians who has ever replied to emails I've sent. Heck, he has his own dedicated tag here! Even when I was back in Singapore and technically outside of his jurisdiction (and cares) entirely he still took the time to answer my questions and have some lighthearted discussion. That counts for a lot in my book :).

Not many tech posts today, getting up on my soap box. I arrived back in Adelaide just as the South Australian elections are starting to heat up. This post shows a letter response I sent to sent to sent to sent to sent to (sorry, got stuck in an infinite loop) Trevor Grace who sent me a leaflet in the mail for his AbortSA party.

Ruben Schade
Mawson Lakes, SA 5095
Australia, Earth

Dear Trevor Grace of AbortSA,

Regarding your 2010 South Australian state election leaflet

Despite a "No Junk Mail" sign on my mailbox, I recently received your leaflet for AbortSA. Suffice to say I could argue for women's rights including the right to an abortion if...

• she's been raped and/or subject to abuse
• pregnancy will endanger her life
• her birth control measures unintentionally failed
• or for any other reason a grown woman with full suffrage under the law who can make her own decisions deems necessary and who doesn't need to justify to you

...but we clearly have different views and such an exercise would get us nowhere. What I will say sir is that what a woman does with her own body -- or a man with his for that matter -- is none of the State's business.

I can tell you care deeply about this issue and I honestly and sincerely respect your convictions, but this debate belongs in the wider public discourse alongside discussions on education, safe sex and violence against women, not in a Parliament chamber. Legislating morality like this sir is a dangerous path to tread with grave ramifications. I need only point to elections with our brothers and sisters in America to demonstrate this, or Malaysia where I spent part of my life growing up.

I would also advise (nay, encourage) you to rethink your daft and questionable comparison between whaling and abortion. I don't see how belittling the intelligence of your voters will allow you to enter public office. A more apt comparison would be women's rights and the global emancipation movement, though I doubt that would gel with your party's stated objectives. Perhaps best to leave comparisons out entirely.

I will be publishing this letter along with your leaflet on my website at http://rubenerd.com/trevor-grace-leaflet/ in which you're free to post your own comments if you so desire.

Finally as a matter of disclosure, I am a 23 year old who has never got a women pregnant, though I'd love to be a dad one day if friendly and wickedly funny Ms. Right enters my life and we adopt. If the State permits of course.

Peace, health and happiness,
Ruben Schade

And here I was thinking Australia was above all this biased, scaremongering stuff in elections. Hah.

If we needed any [further] proof that Australian federal and state governments are losing the plot, this latest move by the South Australian government to restrict free speech online with regards to the next elections would be it, and in no way is it more succinctly represented than by Michael Atkinson. For someone with such a cool name, I would have expected more, I blame myself.

So here's the latest enlightened law from the state that was the second in the world to offer women's suffrage amongst other world leading political reforms: if you wish to write online about the latest South Australian state elections, you must post your name in full along with your postcode, your blood type and how many times you've been convicted of thought crimes. Well yes I made those last two up, but with the way things are going it might be less humorous in the future.

Did I mention my brain hurts

As with the Great Firewall of Australia, the key point is such a ridiculous scheme simply would not work and has obviously been dreamt up by government officials who probably use their computers by proxy through a secretary who transcribes his ramblings and dies a little inside each time. It bears repeating: it simply would not work. Technically, all other points are moot as long as this stands. Put the book down, go outside, have a Coopers or whatever it is South Australians do. Go play Roulette with ZombiePlan, that's a plan.

Such a scheme is also completely unenforceable. Sites like AdelaideNow can moderate comments that contain blatantly false names, but that would be the practical limit of their control. Names and addresses could (and would) be forged, even attempting to map an IP address to a user provided location would be iffy to impossible. Look out for that being proposed by the same government officials in the future though, and don't say I didn't warn you.

Kids, don't post your details online! Oh wait...

Tarale penned (or would it be typed?) a scathing rebuttal (not skating or scating!) of these silly laws and even brought up an issue I hadn't considered: by forcing the posting of names and locations online, honest people who provide accurate information could be tracked down not just by the government, but those who would cause them physical harm. Online safety becomes an issue, and would the same government asking for such information take responsibility if such information was abused? Insert hollow laughter.

Michael Atkinson would clearly benefit from some education and grounding in reality, the former I doubt he would ever accept and latter he would never acknowledge. I guess it's true what that senator from Bill Maher's Religilous film said: you don't have to pass an intelligence test to serve in the [South Australian] government.

Required statement thing

I will be complying with this new law by tagging South Australian election posts with the requested information, as nonsensical as it is. My name is Ruben Schade and my current postcode is 259847.

I know there are a lot of people who hate Twitter with such a rabid passion I'm surprised I'm not seeing more people wearing those "Twitter Fail" shirts. For every site that talks about positive uses for Twitter there are at least half a dozen discussing how useless or nonsensical it is, or how they don't "get it". For people complaining at what they perceive as the embracement of mediocrity, such excessive negative coverage is also quite... mediocre. If you don't get it, don't use it, it's very simple!

But we're getting sidetracked. I've been really thankful for Twitter over the last few days for following the current turmoil over in Iran. As you can see from the screenshot above, I have TweetDeck configured to show the latest news regarding #IranElection. By putting it on an external monitor plugged into my MacBook Pro it's like having a live wire service on my desk.

If you haven't been following the news, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad claimed victory in the 2009 presidential election despite claims of corruption in the process. Supporters of the primary opposition leader Mir-Hossein Mousavi have been staging protests with violent results. Of course none of this is new, when my father visited Iran back in 2003 he said the water was already starting to bubble, but the situation is reaching critical.

What's surprising though I've been told is how comparatively little the mainstream media is covering these events compared to services such as Twitter. We have BBC World and CNN International on cable here in Singapore which we rarely watch but their coverage is spotty at best. Stories such as these on CNET are even suggesting the domestic American CNN is barely covering the events at all:

Twitterverse slams CNN's Iran absence
The network that became famous by having reporters on the ground as bombs fell on Baghdad in 1991 missed the boat on the Iranian riots, and Twitter users noticed.
(Posted in Webware by Daniel Terdiman)

I've been following @Change_for_Iran who @ev has confirmed is reporting from Iran. The #IranElection, khamenei and #CNNFail hashtags and terms are also worth watching.

Reposted from OliYoung on Twitter.

Port Pirie Railway Station Museum, by User:Tirin

Less than a week after claiming victory, the South Australian state Liberal party has conceded defeat in the by-election for the electoral seat of Frome (Wikipedia link). Instead the seat has gone to independent Geoff Brock, the former Port Pirie mayor with 51.7% of the vote. You can read more if you're interested at the Adelade Now website. Having mixed feeling about it.

ASIDE: For those who don't know, Adelaide is in South Australia, and the "Liberal" party are the conservatives/Tories that run against the left leaning Labor party, whom I consider the infinitely lesser of two evils... but still not quite with it!

I voted for the Greens in the state and federal elections (Australia's third largest political party), but I also think a healthy mix of independents who won't just automatically vote on party lines are critical to a well functioning government. If I read the above article correctly he's Labor leaning though, which means we might be able to expect where his votes will be going.

In other news, Mark Parnell is still the smartest guy in South Australian politics.

In light of Barack Obama's historic presidential election victory, it's easy to forget other elections have been going on around the world recently, such as in New Zealand. Given my interest in Whole Wheat Radio, the fact I bumped into a couple of people from Alaska in one particular coffee shop in Singapore quite regularly, the fact my dad is interested in Canada next door (thought I'd throw that in), and the fact our neighbours across the street in our rented house in Australia are from Alaska, I've also been watching the Alaskan State Senate elections. Whew, that was a long sentence.

I don't pretend to know the details and inner workings of Alaskan politics, but I know enough about incumbent (or should I say "incompetent") Ted Stevens to know that if he was reelected it would be a crying shame. According to Wikipedia, if he did win he would also be the first convicted felon to be elected to the United States senate.

According to Republican pollster David Dittman in a Huffington Post article (can we trust him?), it looks as though Democrat Mark Begich will take the senate seat:

Alaska-based GOP pollster David Dittman, who worked for Sen. Ted Stevens during this year's primary race, believes Democratic challenger Mark Begich is all but certain to expand his current razor-thin lead and snatch the seat.

"I don't think Stevens can come back," Dittman said, noting that he thinks the remaining trove of uncounted ballots will help Begich "increase his lead."

After trying to find other sources of information on this from sites ranging from Swamp Politics to Mark Crispin Miller's News From Underground, they all seem to be pointing to one Alaskan Daily News article:

Begich takes lead in latest vote count
SENATE RACE: Anchorage mayor swings from 3,000-vote deficit to 814-vote advantage.
By SEAN COCKERHAM and KYLE HOPKINS
(08/11/13 01:20:41)

Mark Begich made a dramatic comeback Wednesday to overtake 40-year incumbent Ted Stevens for the lead in Alaska’s U.S. Senate race.

Begich, who was losing after election night, now leads Stevens by 814 votes — 132,196 to 131,382 — with the state still to count roughly 40,000 more ballots over the next week.

The state Division of Elections tallied about 60,000 absentee, early and questioned ballots from around the state on Wednesday. The ballots broke heavily in the Democrat’s favor, erasing the 3,000-vote lead the Republican Stevens held after election night Nov. 4.

Here's hoping Alaska makes the right choice, just as the United States on the whole did last week. I'm being pessimistic in advance again, but I'd love to have that overturned.