The Free Software Foundation have a campaign running at the moment to stop Microsoft’s Office OpenXML becoming an ISO standard. File formats such as HTML, CSS, PHP and ODF are all open international standards which make interoperability better and stronger as well as allowing a much greater level of democratic access to information.
So voice your opposition by signing the petition and learning more about this important issue.
There’s a great article by Steve Biddulph in the SMH which adds weight to the idea that the Liberal party will never be elected again (which I mentioned in this post).
Incidentally, I was visiting my grandparents yesterday, and naturally the election result came up. My grandparents are both 90 years old and life long Liberal voters. A few weeks prior to the election we had discussed it and I mentioned to them that if I asked them to write a list of that they believed in and what issues were important to them, then lined these up with the policies of all the political parties, that they would be most closely aligned with the Greens. My grandmother seemed to agree with me but she doesn’t like heated political discussions and often tries to placate me a little by just agreeing with me.
So on this visit to my grandparents, my grandmother more or less opens with, “I must tell you, I took your advice and voted Green in the Senate.” They voted Liberal in the House of Reps but it was the first time they had ever voted for a party other than the Liberals, and they voted Green. I couldn’t believe it.
So perhaps there’s some weight behind the demise of the Liberals and the rise of the Greens after all. I must also note that they feel a real sense of worry and hopelessness about climate change and are starting to really understand intergenerational justice. Mind you I tried to argue intergenerational justice with them on the topic of a Republic but they didn’t listen.
Finally, i just wanted to draw your attention to this article by Phillip Adams in the Australian. Couldn’t agree more.
There’s a great post over at Barista about the AP photographer Bilal Hussein.
Hussein has been held captive by US forces since April 2006 on suspicion of terrorism. All the US’ claims have been substantiated and continually proven “false, overblown or microscopic in significance.”
Go and have a read, it’s worth your while.
The always eloquent Chris Graham notes in today’s Crikey:
Media have correctly noted that “Aboriginal booths” in Lingiari delivered votes to the ALP in the 90 percentile range. True enough, but once again the reporting has been sub-par. Just quoting the percentages from a few booths doesn’t come close to telling the real story.
It’s correct to say that at the Wadeye booth, for example, the ALP collected about 95 percent of the vote. But what does that actually mean in real numbers? Of the 723 people who cast a ballot, just 26 of them voted for the CLP. 26! And doubtless almost every one of those was white.
In Angkarripa, in central Australia, the CLP managed just five primary votes out of a potential 503. That’s 0.99 percent of the total vote.
But the really big story – one which went begging for the media – was from a small booth in Arnhem Land. Yirrikala is home to Galarrwuy Yunupingu, the prominent Aboriginal leader who outraged colleagues by reversing his opposition to the NT intervention on the eve of the official start to the election campaign.
Brough, no doubt, thought he had an ally in Yunupingu, but the electoral returns reveal otherwise. Of the 266 votes up for grabs, the CLP secured just two of them – 0.75 percent of the primary vote.
And what of the other great story that went begging? The vote for the ALP in the booth of Hopevale – Noel Pearson’s hometown. 75%.
Mr Rudd also wavered repeatedly during a recent radio interview when asked if he would use the word “sorry” in his apology. He finally clarified — after the question was asked for a sixth time — that “of course the substance of it is sorry”.
Yesterday he moved to smooth relations by confirming that a formal apology would come “early in the parliamentary term”, and reaffirming his pledge to eradicate, within a generation, a 17-year gap in life expectancy between indigenous and non-indigenous children (source)
I would be reprehensible if Rudd refused to say sorry at this early stage. I welcome and applaud the ALP decision to do this. Yes it is symbolic but you can’t move forward until you acknowledge the past.
But it worries me that Rudd “wavered repeatedly” when initially asked. He obviously wanted to check in with an advisor or two before he committed to it. Surely this would just be policy? Surely this is in the same boat as signing Kyoto in terms of part policy.
As for other post election matters. I’m certainly morning the loss of Andrew Bartlett and Kerry Nettle. Two outstanding senators whose contribution will be sorely missed.
…then there’s the Liberal Leadership. In my mind Turnbull is the most electable so in many senses I hope he doesn’t take over. What ever the case is though, it will be at least six years before we see another Liberal government.
There is some talk that the Liberals will never be elected again. While I quite like the idea, and certainly I’m certain the Libs will just implode, political parties the size and age of the Liberal party simply don’t go away. There is far too much history there.
Fingers crossed the Greens get another seat in the Senate, and does anyone know much about Nick Xenophon? Anti-pokies sounds fine to me but what else lurks beneath?
I’m really at a loss as to what I should say here. As you all know, Howard is now gone.
I was 16 when Howard was elected. I couldn’t even vote at the time. But finally I’ve partaken in an election that has kicked the Howard Government out and it looks like he will even loose his own seat.
This is great news for all… I hope.
Now I just really want to know what the Senate will look like.
“The Big Sellout” considers the real impact and shocking consequences of privatization on both a global and individual level, when essential services are redrawn as market goods. This new film, an Australian Premiere, humanizes the effects of ill-conceived economic models and show us the consequences with honesty, humour and compassion
You can read reviews here: www.imdb.com/title/tt1010399/
Details of the screening of “The Big Sellout” are:
Time: 1:30pm
Date: Sunday 2 December 2007
Venue: RMIT Capitol Theatre, 113 Swanston St, Melbourne.
Tix: Available online (recommended), or at the venue
Below is an outline of a forum I’ll be speaking at on Monday 3rd Dec from 6pm to 8pm.
We have just been compulsorily involved in choosing our next government. We have the immense good fortune of being born into an open democratic society – the result of thousands of years of struggle – and of having the choice to change the compulsion about turning up to vote, even of altering the very openness that permits us to do this!
Problems with our system are as numerous as those who think about the question but our system is open to criticism, open to our efforts to do something about our criticisms and indeed even provides rewards for doing it. For all that, the numbers involved in inquiries, in government and nongovernment committees charged with changing how society conducts itself and in public protest and advocacy are few. The involved tend to meet the same people on different committees.
Why do so few of us get involved? Why are so few involved in the everyday decision-making opportunities available to us? What are the consequences of non-involvement? And, in the case of young people in particular, what’s impeding their involvement and, how can we encourage them to get involved, i.e. to recognise
Panelists will outline the concern and some of its ramifications.
Speakers:
Convenor: Frank Fisher [A/Prof. & Director, Understandascope, Monash & Swinburne Uni, National Environmental Educator of the Year (2007)]
Time & Date: 6:00 – 8.00pm, Tuesday 6 November 2007
Location: BMW Edge theatre, Federation Square
Cost: Voluntary “gold coin” donation [proceeds to Oxfam!].
Increasingly the Howard government’s attacks on Unions simply serve to remind me of how important Unions are. I’m pretty over having to defend them and say things like “not all unions are great, but a lot of them do good work”.
No. Unions are a human right and without them our quality of life would be far worse. Sure there are the Mulletts of the world, but I still support their Union. Moreover, the Union is internally correcting it’s problems.
A friend said to me the other day that at least a few years back there was a “balance of power” between Unions and employers. The Unions had been reined in a little under Hawke/Keating and the power balance between employers and employees was about right. I disagree. There will be a balance when we don’t need unions and we always will.
(This post was inspired by this post over at The Road to Surfdom)
It’s projects like this that remind me that we haven’t even begun to understand the capabilities of the internet and it’s all power, necessarily, by open source ideas and software:
