Let's Take Over - Brisbane Politics and Activism

Pro-Choice Labour Day march, and anti-abortion counter-protest - planning meeting Mon Apr 11 - Trades Hall, South Brisbane

2011-04-05T11:30:00.000+10:00

The Pro Choice Action Collective is planning both to march on Labour Day, and a counter-protest against an anti-abortion rally. They're having a planning meeting on Monday April 11.

The meeting will also discuss sending a group to a feminist conference in Melbourne in late May, and plans to organise a big rally sometime before the State election.

If you can't get to the meeting but you'd like to help, you can email prochoiceaction@gmail.com

The meeting is on Monday April 11 at 6.30pm at the Trades and Labor Council bulding at 16 Peel St, South Brisbane, on the corner of Merivale St - click here for a Google Map with public transport details.There's a Facebook event for the meeting, and the Pro-Choice Action Collective also has a FB group.

Public Meeting Tonight - Will Thousands of Refugees be Sent Back to Afghanistan?

2011-03-29T10:00:00.000+10:00

The Refugee Action Collective is holding a public meeting tonight about the risk that thousands of refugees will be sent back to Afghanistan from Australia. The risk comes after a Memorandum of Understanding was signed by Australia, Afghanistan, and the United Nations High Commission for Refugees in January. A media release issued by the Australian Government in January said the Memorandum "paved the way for the return from Australia to Afghanistan of unsuccessful Afghan asylum seekers".

Speakers at the meeting will be immigration lawyer Sonia Caton, Dr Sarah Davies from Griffith University, and Hassan Ghulam, an Afghan community worker at the Romero Centre in Dutton Park.

Hassan Ghulam (with microphone)

The meeting is on the second floor at the Trades and Labour Council building at 16 Peel St, South Brisbane. Click here for a Google Map with public transport details.

Photos and Speeches from Pro-Choice Rally, Brisbane, October 9 2010

2010-10-10T17:01:00.001+10:00

The rally was organised by the Pro-Choice Action Collective (PCAC) to protest the upcoming trial of Tegan Simone Leach in Cairns. Ms Leach is charged with aborting her pregnancy, under Section 225 of the Queensland Criminal Code.

Press “play” on the audio players under each photo to hear what that speaker said.

Click here to see a set of 30 photos from the rally.

Panorama of the audience. Click on this photo (and all the other photos) to see larger versions at Flickr.

101009 Pro Choice Rally - Susan Shaw of PCAC

101009 Pro Choice Rally - Helen of PCAC reads message from Margaret Kirkby of Womens Abortion Action Campaign

Anti-abortion protesters are countered.

101009 Pro Choice Rally - Kate Calcutt of Children By Choice

101009 Pro Choice Rally - Sarah of PCAC reads message from Debbie Brenner of Radical Women in Melbourne

101009 Pro Choice Rally - Margaret Lee, Secretary, Queensland Division of the National Tertiary Education Union, speaks at Brisbane Pro-Choice rally 101009

101009 Pro Choice Rally - Kathy Newnham of Pro-Choice Action Collective

101009 Pro Choice Rally - Ellen from PCAC reads out message from pro-choice activists in Perth

101009 Pro Choice Rally - Priya from PCAC reads a message from Tanya Roberts of the Womens Global Network for Reproductive Rights

101009 Pro Choice Rally - Queensland Greens Senator-Elect Larissa Waters

Liberals preferencing Family First in Qld Senate; FF think gay marriage is like child abuse

2010-08-08T18:15:00.003+10:00

In the race for the Queensland Senate, the Liberal National party is giving its preferences in the Senate to Family First, led by Wendy Francis. Francis said today on Twitter that legalising gay marriage is like legitimising child abuse. Even though she appears to have deleted her tweet, quick action by Twitter user Toby Nieboer means we have a copy of what she said:

Click here to see the original Twitpic by Toby Nieboer

So, what does it mean when I say the Liberals (actually the Liberal National Party, the Queensland branch of the Liberal Party, led federally by Tony Abbott) are giving their preferences to Family First?

Well, if people voting for the Senate in Queensland just put “1” in the box for the Liberal National Party, they give the LNP control of where their vote goes if the LNP has any votes left over after all their candidates have been elected, or have been knocked out of the race. And the LNP have made a decision that Family First will be the very first party with a chance to use any of their left-over votes. Makes you wonder just what sort of ignorant bigotry the LNP leadership is comfortable with.

So, if you’re voting for the Senate in Queensland (or anywhere else in Australia), you should vote “below the line” instead. This means you control where your vote goes, not some party boss you’ve never heard of. In Queensland this means you need to fill out all 60 boxes in the Senate, from 1 to 60, in order, with your favourite candidate at number 1 and the one you hate the most at number 60.

There’s a site called “Below the Line” which helps you – you still have to work out which parties you like, but once you’ve done that, it lets you print out a personalised How to Vote card reminding you how to fill out your Senate voting paper. You can take that card into the polling booth with you.

Update: Over on the Brisneyland community on LiveJournal, GreenGlowGrrl has done some research into the Queensland Independent Senate candidates - well worth a read if you are voting below the line in Qld

Pro Choice rally on Saturday March 13 outside Parliament House, Brisbane

2010-03-11T14:30:00.000+10:00

4ZZZ News reported on Monday on a pro-choice rally to be held outside Parliament House this Saturday, March 13 2010.

The rally is being organised by the Pro-Choice Action Collective - there's a Facebook event here.

Click here for a Google Map with the details of how to get to Parliament House by public transport.

Racist Bigot sets up "Boong Drunk" Facebook page for people to become fans of - Please RT

2010-03-11T07:29:00.002+10:00

Some racist bigot on Facebook has set up a page where people can become a fan of being "Boong Drunk". A counter-page has been set up calling for the first page to be banned.

The delightful picture used as the logo for the page

If you'd like to report this page to Facebook as being inappropriate because it's bigoted and racist, click on the link above to go to the page and hit the "Report" button, shown in this screenshot with a big red circle around it:

Just in case you're unaware, "Boong" is a highly offensive term for Aboriginal Australians. You may want to click on the "thumbs up icon there for the non-offensive definitions and the "thumbs down" icon there for the offensive ones.

Rally protesting Aboriginal Deaths in Custody, Thu Mar 11, Parliament House

2010-03-09T14:30:00.000+10:00

There's a rally this Thursday, March 11 2010, protesting the recent death of an Aboriginal man in custody in Brisbane. The 4ZZZ News blog reported the story on Monday and has all the details.

Sound and pictures: Black Deaths in Custody Rally

2010-02-08T20:08:00.001+10:00

This article has a recording of the rally held today at Police Headquarters, Roma St, Brisbane City. There are also photos of the rally.

To listen to the recording of the rally, click on the link and press "play" on the audio player at the Let's Take Over Posterous blog.

There will be another community rally to discuss what to do about police violence against Aboriginal people this Saturday, at 11am outside Parliament House. There's also a forum about Indigenous people and Queensland's legal system at All Hallows School in Fortitude Valley at 3pm on Sunday.

Download now or listen on posterous

Black deaths in custody rally 100208.mp3 (10679 KB)

See and download the full gallery on posterous

Posted via email from Let's Take Over

Interview with Sam Watson re tomorrow's rally against black deaths in custody

2010-02-07T15:31:00.001+10:00

Download now or listen on posterous

Sam Watson Interview re black deaths in custody rally 100208.mp3 (2901 KB)

I spoke to Sam Watson yesterday about tomorrow's rally against black deaths in custody. The rally will be held at 1pm on Monday February 8th outside Queensland police headquarters at 200 Roma St, Brisbane City - for public transport details click here.

Press "play" on the audio player to hear the interview.

Posted via email from Let's Take Over

Rally against black deaths in custody - Mon Feb 8 2010, Roma St, Outside police HQ

2010-02-06T13:50:00.000+10:00

There's a rally on Monday February 8th 2010 to protest black deaths in custody. It's at 1pm outside the Queensland Police HQ at 200 Roma St in town - click here for a Google Map.

The rally will call for an end to bashings and deaths of black deaths in custody, and for justice for black prisoners who have already been killed in custody. Rally organisers state that no Queensland police officer has ever been convicted of any Aboriginal death in custody, despite Senior Sergeant Chris Hurley changing his story before giving evidence into the death of Mulrunji Doomadgee in Palm Island in 2006.

The rally will also demand another Royal Commission into black deaths in custody.

The best way to get to the rally by public transport is to catch a train or a bus to the Roma St Transit Centre - the Google Map shows the Roma St transit centre and the police HQ. The Translink journey planner will help you find bus or train timetables.

Australia Bans Small Breasts? No, these reports are UNCONFIRMED! #nocleanfeed

2010-01-28T20:29:00.001+10:00

NOTE: I am a member of an anti-censorship group in Brisbane. This article is my own opinion, not the opinion of that group, and has not been shown to or approved by any members of that group.

There has been anger and much head-shaking over a report claiming that "Australia bans small breasts", published on the Somebody Think of the Children blog. The report is based on a media release from the Australian Sex Party, in which the Party's Fiona Patten says:

The Board has also started to ban depictions of small-breasted women in adult publications and films. This is in response to a campaign led by Kids Free 2 B Kids and promoted by Barnaby Joyce and Guy Barnett in Senate Estimates late last year. Mainstream companies such as Larry Flint’s Hustler produce some of the publications that have been banned. These companies are regulated by the FBI to ensure that only adult performers are featured in their publications. “We are starting to see depictions of women in their late 20s being banned because they have an A cup size”

However, the original media release contained no more detail than that. One publishing company mentioned, no specific decisions cited, no basis for the story other than the an unconfirmed statement by a leading figure of a political party. I happen to support the broad aims of the Australian Sex Party, but they have taken a side in public debate which means their words must not be taken at face value, but checked.

The original story spread quickly throughout the Internet, as this Google search shows. It wasn't until 18 hours after publication that an update was published on the STOTC blog. There is no information from the Classification Board on any specific ban, only a general statement that publications with depictions of persons who appear to be under 18 must be refused classification (that is, banned).

The second article also says Ms Patten attended a training session at the Censorship Board where she was shown material that had been refused classificiation due to the size of women's breasts in the material. The article says Ms Patten says some of the banned titles include "Barely Legal", Finally Legal" and "Purely 18" - the links go to the Classification Board's database showing the bans on each of those publications.

However, one of these bans was made in 2008, one in 2003, and the rest in 2001 or before. [EDIT: April 21 2012 - there are now more banned publications under the Barely Legal search - but still no evidence to back up Ms Patten's original claims].

Reasons for these bans are not given in the database. Ms Patten says:

That information [details of why a publication is banned] is not provided to the applicant when their publication is Refused Classification.

However, the Classification Board's website says:

What if I disagree with the Classification Board's decision?
You can ask a Classification Applications Officer for a copy of the
Classification Board's reasons for decision. You can also apply for a
review to the Classification Review Board, an independent review body.

Reasons why a publication is banned can be seen by the publisher. Not a single one of the classification decisions so far alluded to by Ms Patten took place after "Senate Estimates late last year". And yet this media release, and the reporting of it by a leading anti-censorship blog, has led to the impression that small breasts are to be automatically banned by Australia's censorship board. Well, I call bullshit.

For what it's worth, it may well be true that moral conservatives are trying to pressure the Classification Board to clamp down on depictions of "barely legal" type pornographic magazines which usually try to imply that their models are only a few days or weeks older than 18. Australia seems to be a pretty dirty-minded country which likes to hide it's dirty-mindedness behind rage at even slight sexual deviancy. But there's no proof of that in anything the Australian Sex Party has said in their media release. When we fight against censorship we need to have our facts clear and make sure they can't be easily shown to be wrong. We shouldn't whip up a moral panic by claiming that others are trying to whip up a moral panic. We certainly shouldn't upset people (and I've seen quite a few people upset about this today) without knowing our facts are correct.

And if someone has a barrow to push - even if (especially if) we agree with them - we need to make sure we don't take what they say at face value, but carefully check everything they claim before getting people angry about something that might turn out to be not true.

Pro-Choice Action Collective Working Bee, Wed Jan 13

2010-01-10T14:00:00.002+10:00

The Pro-Choice Action Collective is having a working bee at QUT's Kelvin Grove campus on Wednesday January 13 to prepare for their stall at the Big Day Out.

The meeting is in the Queer space on Level 1 of C Block (the Student Services building) - click here for a Google Map.

The current campaign is because a young woman in Cairns, and her partner, were charged with allegedly importing a drug so she could have an abortion. If you're on Facebook, there is a FB event here, and you can join the Pro-Choice Action Collective's FB group here.

The working bee is from 2pm till 8pm. The best way to get there is to catch a bus to the QUT Kelvin Grove Busway station - click here to use Translink's journey planner to find bus timetables.

If you'd like to try a simple way to get all new stories from Let's Take Over (and many other sites) sent to one place, click here for info on the Let's Take Over 'news feed' (sometimes called an 'RSS feed' or 'XML')

If you have a fast connection, use this feed instead - it takes longer, but you can read the full stories in your newsreader

Click here to get all new stories from Let's Take Over sent to your email address

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 Australia License.

This means that you may use any work by me, David Jackmanson, that you find on this site for any purpose at all, as long as you give credit to Let's Take Over and include the site's web address.

It's your responsibility to check that the work is created by me and not somebody else. Accounts on sites like flickr or Odeo that are listed as belonging to 'Let's Take Over' or 'djackmanson' will probably be mine.

Refugee Action Collective organising meeting Wed Dec 2 6.30pm

2009-11-30T14:00:00.001+10:00

The Refugee Action Collective Queensland is holding an organising meeting on Wednesday December 2.

The meeting is at the Trades and Labour Council building at 16 Peel St in South Brisbane (click here for a Google Map) and starts at 6.30pm.

The TLC building is right near the Cultural Centre bus station and the South Brisbane train station. Click here to use the Translink journey planner.

For more information on what's happening at the meeting, call Paul at the Refugee Action Collective on (07) 3392 3843

If you'd like to try a simple way to get all new stories from Let's Take Over (and many other sites) sent to one place, click here for info on the Let's Take Over 'news feed' (sometimes called an 'RSS feed' or 'XML')

If you have a fast connection, use this feed instead - it takes longer, but you can read the full stories in your newsreader

Click here to get all new stories from Let's Take Over sent to your email address

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 Australia License.

This means that you may use any work by me, David Jackmanson, that you find on this site for any purpose at all, as long as you give credit to Let's Take Over and include the site's web address.

It's your responsibility to check that the work is created by me and not somebody else. Accounts on sites like flickr or Odeo that are listed as belonging to 'Let's Take Over' or 'djackmanson' will probably be mine.

2009-10-12T13:00:00.000+10:00

The Justice for Palestine group is presenting the Palestinian Days film festival from this Friday, October 16, to Sunday, October 18, at the Schonell Theatre at the University of Queensland's St Lucia campus - click here for a Google Map.

There are seven sessions over the weekend. The opening session at 6.30pm on Friday October 16 costs $20 or $12 concession, and includes food and will be opened by Ambassador Izzat Abdul Hadi, head of the Palestinian delegation to Australia. All other sessions are $10, or $8 concession. Tickets for the entire festival are $50, or a day pass is $15 or $15 concession. If you can't afford a session, please book and let the organisers know and they'll be able to arrange a discount or free entry for you.

The features at each session are:

Friday October 16, 6.30pm

Lemonade - Palestinian brothers try to transcend their predicament as refugees by selling lemonade in their school break.

Arna's Children: a film about a children's theatre group in Jenin run by Arna Mer-Khamis.

Saturday October 17, 11am

Letter from Sarah - a 12-year old Palestinian girl writes a script about her life.

Palestine Blues - looks at how the Israeli occupation of Palestine, and the building of the Wall, has affected the Palestinian people. By Nida Sinnokrot.

Saturday October 17, 2pm

Frontiers of Dreams and Fears: looks at the life of Palestinian children living in refugee camps.

Jerusalem - the East Side Story: about the Israeli efforts to drive Palestinians out of East Jerusalem.

Saturday October 17, 7.30pm

Palestine, Summer 06: Captures the mood of Palestine as Israel attacked Gaza and Lebanon.

Arus el Jaleel (Bride of Galillee): Story of Fatma HAwari, bombed by Israeli forces in 1948 and left in a wheelchair.

Sunday October 18, 11am

Gaza Strip

Sunday October 18, 2pm

Jenin Jenin: The Palestinian side of 2002's Battle of Jenin.

Since You Left: Mohammed Bakri visits the graveside of his mentor, Emile Habibi and reflects on what has happened since Habibi's death.

Sunday, October 18 6pm

My Beloved Homeland: Features music from Palestinians, including warsinger Rim Banna, Jawaher Shofan, the El-Funoun Popular Palestinian Dance Troupe, Mustafa al-Kurd, and the Sarayett Rammallah Troupe for Performance and Dance.

The Iron Wall.

test autopost to facebook from LTO posterous

2009-09-03T15:19:00.001+10:00

test autopost to facebook from LTO posterous

Let's see if this works

Posted via web from Let's Take Over

Brisbane Pro Choice Action Collective rally this Saturday Aug 29

2009-08-27T15:09:00.002+10:00

The Pro-Choice Action Collective is holding a rally this Saturday, August 29 2009, at 11am in Queens Park, Brisbane City (click here for a Google Map), to demand that the Queensland Police drop all charges against a young woman in Cairns who allegedly used misoprostol to abort a foetus she was carrying, and that the Government also repeal all anti-abortion laws.

This issue has become more urgent as this week Queensland doctors have said they will not carry out abortions unless the Government assures them that they will not be charged with a crime.

If you're on Facebook, there's an event about the rally if you click here, and also the Pro-Choice Action Collective has a group set up on Facebook.

Brisforcewatch meeting Fri Aug 21 6.30pm : The community watching the cops

2009-08-20T13:52:00.001+10:00

Almost three years ago, Adrian Walker spoke at a rally demanding justice over the death of Mulrunji Doomadgee, an Aboriginal man killed by Queensland Police Senior Sergeant Chris Hurley. Walker said that black people need to start "policing the police":

On Friday night, at the Kurilpa Hall, 174 Boundary St, West End, at 6.30pm, Brisforcewatch is starting up. That's what they plan to do - watch the cops, and help try to keep the notoriously violent and abusive Queensland Police under control. There's going to be a discussion led by someone from the Caxton Legal Service, about your rights when you've been arrested, and an introduction to the concept of Brisforcewatch. There's also going to be music by Brisbane band Run Pig Run.

It's a drug and alcohol free event, entry is free and free food is available. If you can bring a plate or some cash to cover the costs, that would be really good.

Click here for a Google Map showing where the Kurilpa Hall is at 174 Boundary St.

Thank you Twitter - maintenance time changed to help Iranian protesters #iran9 #nomaintenance

2009-06-16T13:25:00.002+10:00

You probably know by now that there are big protests going on in Iran, after allegations that the recent election there was rigged by the Government of President Ahmedinijad and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khameni. This morning (Australian Eastern time) I noticed some messages on Twitter asking Twitter to hold off on some maintenance, so that Twitter would be available for use by the Iranian protesters who are being attacked by the police.

This led to a pretty ugly discussion with one Twitter user in particular. I'll update this story with some details of the discussion later, but the more important thing to talk about is this poll and this article posted by Twitter user @samclifford.

The poll asks:

With regards to the delaying of Twitter's maintenance and the troubles in Iran, where do you stand on the issue of corporate responsibility?

And the three possible answers are:

Service providers have an obligation to the safety of their users if a diminishing in the quality of service would have an adverse effect on user safety

Service providers have no obligation to the safety of their users but may choose to get involved if they wish

Service providers should do no more than provide the service

I voted for the first option, as it is the closest to my opinion, but I think things are a bit more complex than that, so this article is about what I think.

The main difference I have with the first question is that it talks about a fairly abstract obligation of safety to users. I think that rather than having just that obligation to users, Twitter should be actively taking sides in the current Iranian protests. The people who are protesting right now in Iran are the natural allies of the Internet-aware generation in the Western world, and one of our common enemies is the repressive dictatorship of reactionary priests that runs Iran.

Twitter is of course a capitalist, privately owned business. There are no legal obligations on it to support protest against dictatorships. But what happens if the Iranian people overthrow their regime and install a modern bourgeois democracy in its place? That democracy is bound to remember who helped it, and who it was that cowardly supported the old regime because they didn't want to rock the boat. I'd argue that not only does Twitter have an obligation to help the Iranian protestors, but that it is also in their strategic interests to win allies among people who are struggling for freedom right now.

On a more selfish level, many people on Twitter have noticed that CNN, a leading 24-hour cable news channel, utterly failed to spread news of the Iranian protests, while Twitter was ablaze with the news. It's definitely in Twitter's interest to be known as the place where news breaks first, and Twitter's ability to spread news quickly might just lead to it catching up on the cable networks that have dominated the 24-hour news cycle for the last two decades.

And those reasons might just be why Twitter agreed to change the time of the scheduled maintenance. In fact, it was a little more involved than that. Twitter's network is hosted by a company called NTT America - their Enterprise Hosting Services division, to be precise. It was NTT that had planned the maintenance on their system, so Twitter had to go to NTT and make a case for postponing the maintenance, and the final call was NTT's. Even if the decision was made for purely selfish reasons, it's the right one. Congratulations and thanks to Twitter, and to NTT.

UPDATE: Now the important part of the post is online, here's the details of this morning's silly conversation.

I noticed the #nomaintenance hashtag (click here for an explanation of hashtags on Twitter) this morning and retweeted a message asking for Twitter to postpone maintenance so that the protesters in Iran could use Twitter. Almost immediately I was challenged by user @Geordieguy who asked if I were serious. He also posted a message for all his followers to see, claiming that asking Twitter to postpone maintenance was "Luddism" and "bullying". The discussion went on for a bit, and I was misrepresented, and the #nomaintenance hashtag was said to be the same as lynchmobbing.

I pointed out that at least by actively supporting the Iranian regime (by attacking efforts to help their opponents), Goerdieguy had placed himself on their side. This was met with laughter, but it is in fact exactly what I meant.

If people under attack from riot police say they want and need a service like Twitter to be up so they can use it, and other people try and help them, and you attack the people who are trying to help, you put yourself on the side of the riot police. No ifs, buts or maybes. And if you put yourself on the side of the cops, expect to be called out for it.

Sure, it's a minor thing and Twitter being available isn't going to overthrow the Iranian regime by itself. A lot more needs to happen. But a free flow of information is absolutely vital to help rebellions like this succeed. It's not enough on its own, but without it, you've got nothing.

Sex Party calls for NRL players to organise group sex at brothels #fb

2009-05-18T11:30:00.000+10:00

I've just been sent a media release by the Australian Sex Party, thanks to Michael Meloni of the Somebody Think of the Children blog, who passed it on to me after getting it from them.

The release says that the NRL should make all players get educated about brothels, and that NRL clubs should arrange legal group sex sessions for players who want them.

The release comes after a week and a half of allegations that former Rugby League star and now TV personality Matthew Johns helped to gang rape a young woman in New Zealand in 2002.

The release says:

Sex Party Calls for Brothel Education in NRL

Footballers who wanted to engage in group sex should be educated by their clubs about how to organise these liaisons as legal, commercial arrangements.

Australian Sex Party convenor Fiona Patten, said that most Rugby League clubs had made brothels and escort agencies ‘no go’ areas for their players thinking that they were enhancing the moral standing of their teams. “In reality, these prudish bans on commercial sex have inadvertently led to an increase in group sex with groupies who try to access popular players”, she said.

“ The NRL needs to set up a brothel liaison office and to conduct brothel information sessions with all players, including those who profess to be religious.”

Ms Patten said that most teams in the NRL would have a local brothel they could adopt as their own and which would bend over backwards to help them learn about how to use its many services. “If players are away on tour, they could ring a local brothel or escort agency and arrange a service with a qualified sex worker for five or six players. Strict times would be adhered to, numbers of clients would be checked and fees would be paid up front.”

There are approximately 200 legal brothels and up to 6,000 sex workers in NSW. Commercial sex has been legal since 1995 and one of the main reasons that state governments went down this road was to ensure the safety of workers and clients alike. Rugby League clubs which actively discourage their players from seeking out legal commercial sexual services on moral grounds have inadvertently contributed to sexual violence and bad behaviour in the code.

Ms Patten said she would be happy to broker a meeting with NRL officials and representatives of the sex industry to establish a discreet and professional relationship between the two. “This relationship could then become a model for other sporting organisations who have to coordinate large numbers of sexually active men who sometimes drink to excess with groupies and fans around them”, she said.

The Australian Sex Party was in the process of developing policies on sex and gender in the sport.

Some other articles worth reading about a culture that punishes the victims of rape while supporting the men who rape women:

Sleepydumpling on just what rape is, exactly, with a classic example of a woman doing the "slut shaming" in the comments, following on from this comment of hers on Twitter.

This article by Zomb1etron.

This article at Hoyden About Town by Lauredhel, about Sydney Morning Herald reporter Asher Moses who called the woman involved in the group sex with Matthew Johns and others a "slutty groupy", and claimed on Twitter the group sex was consensual even though he is in no position to know the truth:

Moses has since deleted this post on Twitter but this screenshot is from Twitter Search, which archives Twitter messages for 55 days.

And finally this article from Sydney's Daily Telegraph, about the reaction of gay former Rugby League player Ian Roberts to the way The Footy Show rallied around its star Matthew Johns, and how this is similar to the way the Footy Show has consistently mocked him:

He'd tuned into The Footy Show to see what Johns would say, and was disappointed that the apology, and Johns' subsequent remarks, have focused mainly on the pain of his own wife and family.

About the girl involved, Johns has repeatedly said he's sorry for her "embarrassment and pain" - implying that although she was an entirely willing participant at the time, she is now motivated by shame and anger.

"It was almost like he was the victim, that she asked for it," Roberts told me. "My God - that poor woman has suffered for all this time.

I've been hearing talkback callers this week saying she's being vindictive, that she asked for it. My God, she was 19!

"It's taken her seven years to mature. She was totally outnumbered in the room. She was a defenceless human being.

She was alone with all those men, and none of them said, 'Come on, guys, that's enough.' Not one of them was man enough to admit to this before now, and none of the other men who were in that room are brave enough to own their actions, to step up now and say 'Yeah, it was me.'

"And anyone who says she asked for it - shame on you. She was just a kid."

Brisbane Unions: Labour Day celebrations Monday 4th of May 2009

2009-04-29T10:00:00.000+10:00

The Labour Day 2009 celebrations are on on Monday May 4th, at the oval at the RNA Showgrounds in Fortitude Valley - click here for a Google Map.

Brisbane's union members will be marching from Spring Hill through Fortitude Valley from 10am and the celebrations will kick off at the showgrounds from 11am, with free bands, free kids' rides and lots of political debate. If you want to march, click here for more info, or visit your union's website.

This slideshow shows the photos I took of the march and celebrations two years ago, in 2007:

And this video shows Kevin Rudd, then Opposition Leader and now Prime Minister of Australia, talking at the same event in 2007:

Fight back against #stalkdaily and its worm that hijacked Twitter today

2009-04-12T20:38:00.007+10:00

UPDATE: Anonymous in comments says to go here to find out what to do if the worm has infected your Twitter account - the info looks pretty good. The comment also says that the domain uuuq.net was hosted at Zymic.com, not GoDaddy.

UPDATE: Twitter user jay_neff has done some research on Mikeyy Mooney and found out he appears to be from from Winnfield, Louisiana

UPDATE: I have made mistakes about who is hosting the servers. This is because I thought the companies that rented the domain names - apparently GoDaddy and Dreamhost - were the same ones renting the server space. See further corrections below and in the comments.

A 17 year old embryo scammer/spammer calling himself "Mikeyy [sic] Mooney", who says he is the founder of Twitter rip-off stalkdaily.com, has admitted launching a worm that has hijacked people's Twitter accounts today.

UPDATE: before admitting to being behind the worm, "Mikeyy" LIED to people on his own stalkdaily.com site asking him about the twitter hijacking - see Screenshot 5 below for the evidence of this, or check the account "mikeyy" on stalkdaily.com - No, I'm not linking to it!

A full account of the worm is available here at the Mashable site. The worm has deliberately changed the web link in people's Twitter profiles to point to "Mikeyy"'s own rip-off site, and has also hijacked people's twitter accounts and sent spam messages from them, promoting himself. If you notice an account that is sending messages about "Mikeyy", DO NOT CLICK ON IT!!!! Your account will be hijacked too. Twitter will no doubt let us know when all is safe again.

I did a whois lookup to see who owns the stalkdaily.com account. There is no personal info available, unfortunately, but ~~the whois search reveals that the stalkdaily.com site is hosted by Dreamhost~~.

UPDATE/CORRECTION: The stalkdaily site is hosted by FastServers, NOT Dreamhost. FastServers' abuse reporting address is abuse@fastservers.com

I have sent a similar email to the one I sent to Dreamhost to FastServers - please consider sending one yourself. CORRECTION ENDS.

So I have sent an email to abuse@dreamhost.com asking them to cancel this loser's accounts:

Dear Madam, or Sir,

I am writing to let you know that a website hosted by you - according to a whois lookup - admits responsibility for launching a worm that has exploited security holes in the Twitter.com website, of which I am a member. The worm has been hijacking accounts and sending spam updates from those accounts, which has directly impacted my enjoyment and use of the twitter.com site. I attach a screenshot of the Twitter Search site, showing these spam messages.

The website is www.stalkdaily.com

I attach a screenshot of the front page of www.stalkdaily.com where the purported owner of the site - or someone with permission to post to that site's front page - admits that they are responsible for creating the worm. The article the link on the front page leads to is at http://www.bnonews.com/news/242.html

Since the worm links people's Twitter accounts to stalkdaily without their knowledge or consent, I can only assume that this is a breach of your terms of service.

I would appreciate it if you would delete all accounts held by this account holder immediately.

If you want to get this moron punished, please do the same - send a complaint email to abuse@dreamhost.com asking them to cancel "Mikeyy"'s accounts. Let's get this fool kicked off the Internet, if only for a while.

If your acccount has been infected, this link will tell you what to do:

http://mashable.com/2009/04/11/stalkdaily-twitter/?disqus_reply=8093439#comment-8093287

UPDATE: This blog post seems to show that the actual domain where the malicious script was hosted is uuuq.com. A whois lookup of that domain name ~~indicates it is hosted by GoDaddy~~. [UPDATE: A comment and the page it says to look at indicates that the script was hosted at zymic.com]

I have used this page to submit an email to GoDaddy as well:

Dear Madam, or Sir,

I am writing to you about the Twitter worm active today, April 12 2009, that was apparently hosted at a domain name that GoDaddy hosts.

Details of the worm can be found here: http://mashable.com/2009/04/11/stalkdaily-twitter/

This blog post: http://dcortesi.com/2009/04/11/twitter-stalkdaily-worm-postmortem/

indicates that malicious script that was used to hack the Twitter website, affecting my user experience there, was hosted at uuuq.com. A whois lookup: http://reports.internic.net/cgi/whois?whois_nic=uuuq.com&type=domain

indicates that GoDaddy is the host of this domain.

I assume that hosting malicious scripts on your servers is a breach of your Terms of Service. I ask that you delete all accounts hosted by the owner of uuuq.com

Regards,

David Jackmanson

UPDATE: This post at the Mundoreves blog says the new attack on Twitter is by a script hosted at ireel.com. The Whois lookup for ireel.com indicates it is hosted by Ideal Media in Quebec, email address - yes, a HOTMAIL address, which makes the company sound pretty fly-by-night AT BEST.

So I've sent another email off:

Dear Madam, or Sir,

I am writing because of this blog post: http://www.mundoreves.com/display/HOME/2009/04/12/Examining+the+StalkDaily-Mikeyy+twitter+worm... , which indicates that malicious script has been hosted on your site that has been used to hack the Twitter.com site, which has affected the experience of many users, including myself.

I would appreciate it if you could check this, and if it is indeed the case, if you would stop anyone hosting this sort of malicious script on your servers.

Regards,

David Jackmanson

Screenshot 6 below shows the whois lookup that provided me with this information.

Click on the screenshots below to see full-sized versions of them.

Screenshot 1: Stalkdaily.com's "Mikeyy" admits he is behind the worm:

Screenshot 2: Twitter Search shows how "Mikeyy" has infested the Twitter timeline:

Screenshot 3: Whois lookup screenshot confirming that stalkdaily.com is hosted by Dreamhost:

Screenshot 4: Whois lookup screenshot confirming that uuuq.com - host of the malicious script - is hosted by GoDaddy.com

Screenshot 5: Evidence that "Mikeyy" LIED to members of his own stalkdaily.com site about his involvement in the Twitter hijacking:

Screenshot 6: Whois lookup for ireel.com

Are you working over Easter? #workingeaster

2009-04-09T12:30:00.000+10:00

So, are you working over (Catholic/Protestant) Easter in a country where, like here in Australia, almost everyone else goes on holiday for a four-day weekend? I am, for a couple of shifts, and I'll be using the #workingeaster hashtag on Twitter to connect with other people who are working. So if you're working at Easter and want to chat about what it's like to be on deck on a public holiday, leave a comment on Twitter using the #workingeaster hashtag or, if Twitter doesn't interest you, leave a comment here on this blog post.

(What the hell is a hashtag? Click here for more info).

If you're on Twitter, a service that lets you find out what people are doing, you might want to follow the Let's Take Over's Twitter account and you'll get updated every time there is a new story on the Let's Take Over. Or if you want more, follow my personal account (David Jackmanson) and find out what I'm up to.

If you're from the USA or somewhere where the city doesn't shut down this long weekend, here's how Good Friday's almost total shutdown in Australia caught American recording artist ?uestlove by surprise two years ago.

It's not that Australians are particularly religious compared to people in the USA, but Easter has long been a very popular holiday with both Christian believers AND those who hold to other creeds, or none, in Australia.

BTW ?uestlove gets it a bit wrong, he's on the Gold Coast, not in Brisbane, but he does say Brisbane properly (it's BRIZ-bun, not Briz-BANE, - Briz-BANE is how you say the name of Brisbane in California, near San Francisco).

Reports of #nocleanfeed #nocensorship forum hosted by @newmatilda

2009-03-26T03:59:00.000+10:00

Nic Suzor from Electronic Frontiers Australia speaks at "The Tangled Web", a forum on internet censorship organised by newmatilda.com. New Matilda's Twitter account is here, and their overview of the internet censorship debate in Australia is here.

On Tuesday March 24th 2009, newmatilda.com, a website with "Independent news, analysis and satire covering politics, consumerism, international affairs, and culture.", presented "The Tangled Web", a forum about Internet censorship.

Michael Meloni of somebodythinkofthechildren.com, a blog discussing censorship and moral panic, used CoverItLive to send out a live call of what was happening at the anti-censorship forum, which you can read if you click here.

Meloni was joined by media commentator Stigherrian and Mark Newton, an employee of iiNet who has been a big public critic of the Australian Government's plans to censor the Internet, who commented online. There were plenty of comments from people taking part online, and you can read it all if you click here.

Irene Graham, a meticulously detailed anti-censorship campaigner at libertus.net, and Senator Scott Ludlam, a member of the Australian Greens elected from Western Australia in 2007, who has questioned Senator Conroy about the Government's censorship plans:

Kieran Salsone, of the Websinthe blog and NoCharCom online comic, also did a live call of the foru, which you can read here for the next fifty days or so (the latest messages are at the top, so you are reading backwards). After that link stops working, you can still click here for screenshots of the coverage.

Peter Black, law lecturer at QUT and author at Freedom to Differ, speaks at "The Tangled Web", a forum about Internet Censorship organised by newmatilda.com, hosted by the Queensland University of Technology on Tuesday March 24 2009.

The forum was sound-recorded, and Peter Black said the recording should be online soon.

Rod McGuinness, Managing Editor of New Matilda magazine, which organised the forum on Internet censorship.

Human Rights Consultation, Brisbane - report

2009-03-24T14:45:00.000+10:00

Last night (Monday March 23rd, 2009), I went to the National Human Rights Consultation session in Brisbane. It was quite interesting, although it had the limitations of a discussion based on Government and law, and the consultation process is also limited by the terms of reference the Government gave it, which means they cannot recommend a Constitutionally entrenched bill of rights.

The four members of the Consultation panel are the Chair, Frank Brennan, Mary Kostakidis, Tammy Williams, and Mick Palmer. The consultation began with a speech by Tammy Williams who asked "What are our human rights - what exactly are our rights and liberties?". Williams pointed out that our human rights are protected by a variety of different laws, or in some cases, by nothing in the law at all. She threw a couple of situations out there that go beyond "traditional" conceptions of human rights, including asking if people with diabilities should have the right to attend mainstream schools, or if married couples have the right not to be separated when they enter nursing homes.

Then Mary Kostakidis started to facilitate a discussion at the various tables (there were about 30-odd tables at the event with about 12 seats each). The first at-the-tables discussion was based on the three key questions being asked by the Consultation:

* Which human rights and responsibilities should be protected and promoted?
* Are human rights sufficiently protected and promoted?
* How could Australia better protect and promote human rights?

At our table we introduced ourselves to each other and started to discuss these questions in a broad way. We had a human rights worker, one person with general interest in the field, one person (me) whose focus is more on what people need to do to stand up for their rights instead of relying on the law, one person who thought how we treat each other is important (and also access to secure, safe food), and one person who was a little skeptical of people's willingness to defend human rights.

After the table discussion, a microphone went around and people spoke from the floor. Comments from the floor included:

Most Australians don't have their rights violated, but we do often meet those whose rights are violated. One example is those members of the Bali Nine who are on death row in Indonesia - it's been suggested that the Australian Federal Police co-operated with Indonesian authorities, and thus exposed Australians to the death penalty.

Youth rights are often violated by the police. For example, a fundraiser for imprisoned Aboriginal man Lex Wotton last weekend was harassed by the police.

Some things people are worried about include ASIO's detention powers, Police use of Tasers and water flouridation.

Children being vulnerable after leaving domestic violence and taken into the care of potential abusers.
One person said he was "skeptical of the process" and said the "human rights industry" was determined to introduce a charter which would be interpreted by judges.

Kostakidis then moved the discussion towards the specific question of "what rights ought to be included in the list of our rights?", which attracted the following comments:

Rights of the disabled, especially those who can't articulate their own needs. Disabled people are often forced to live in nursing homes, or end up in prison.

Rights to shelter, a fair trial, health, freedom and the rights of the unborn child.

Rights of mentally ill people not to be shot by police. Right of physically disabled people to be treated equally in hospital.

Right of all women to choose whether to have an abortion or not, and to access fertility treatment.

Anti-torture to be enshrined in Australian law

Services are needed to teach immigrants with no experience of the rule of law, and no concept of it, what Australian society is like

We then moved onto another discussion at our tables, this time discussing each of the three questions (see above) in turn.

Question One: Which human rights and responsibilities should be protected and promoted?

Things that came up from our table included:

focussing on the rights of all people, not just citizens (two of us (including me) agreed that, ideally, we'd tear down all borders - not that that's likely in the near future).

We have a responsbility to defend our own rights - laws are useless without the will to stand up and use them.

We need to stand up for those rights in UN conventions that Australia has already agreed to.

Education and refugee rights

We have a responsibility to help to empower those living under oppressive regimes.

We have a responsibility to respect each other.

Question Two: Are human rights sufficiently protected and promoted?

This turned quickly into a discussion of when it is legitimate to suspend human rights, say in times of national emergency.

There are dangers in this - there were wildfires in Southern California a few years ago, and "Minutemen" (vigilante border patrollers) were stopping people of Hispanic appearance and detaining them if they had no papers. So many Hispanic people did not evacuate and died as a result, or were arrested as they sought help.

Active citizenship is what is important here - people need to decide what they would do if they had responsibility for solving a problem so they can decide what is and is not justified.

We need to be willing to take risks to defend our rights.

Question 3: How could Australia better protect and promote human rights?

Adopting a Human Rights Act

Should such an act cover merely political rights and liberties (eg right to vote, free speech), or also social and cultural rights (eg rights to housing, food and language) as well? Opinions differed at our table.

Government transparency and Freedom of Information Acts

Should rights be in the Constitution or not? (despite the Government not being willing to allow the Consultation to recommend that).

After the table discussions, Mick Palmer facilitated a discussion where people stood up and said what had come out of their table discussions. Comments on this included:

Procedural rights, community rights, the danger of suspension of the rule of law, more resources are required, an independent judiciary and an ability to get your rights back when they are violated are all important. (Palmer commented that often procedural rights are good, EG in the Cornelia Rau case, but they just get ignored).

We need the ability to appeal abuses of human rights.

Often procedural rights are NOT good enough, in the case of the disabled and mentally ill.

Protection of the safety of those who work with the mentally ill if they are potentially violent.

Human rights should never be suspended.

In the case of war, for example, freedoms must be suspended.

We need a responsibility for how our soldiers etc act when outside Australia.

Who polices the laws and defends human rights? Example was given of a Sikh student told not to come to a school unless he cut his hair (which is something forbidden by the Sikh religion).

One woman complained that while immigrants get thier homes "completely fitted out", Australians going to the countries where those immigrants come from would get nothing.

Judges should be the LAST line of defence against human rights abuses - human rights need to be so deeply ingrained in our culture and actions that rights abuses become rare.

Civic leave from work should exist so people can join in taking action on things like human rights.

There should be a free to air channel that shows G-rated programs until 10.30 at night.

Rights can only exist if ones duties are carried out, especially our duty towards children.

Home birth should be a right - there are planned new laws that will make home birth illegal by 2010 (Actually this is not true, a Maternity Services Review has issued a report whose recommendations, IF ADOPTED, would make home birth effectively illegal (by requiring midwives to have insurance which no insurance companies offer) - this is NOT the same as legislation being planned or introduced)

My thoughts on all this: I think the key is people being prepared to defend their own human rights, and the rights of others. I'm not so excited by the idea of a Human Rights Act - it can't hurt, but my ideal solution would be to entrench strong rights and freedoms in the constitution (eg the right to vote, the right to free speech, the right to freedom of and freedom from religion, and so on) and leave many other rights to the political process rather than producing a legal document. I think a manifesto of desired social and cultural rights, rather than a legal Act, is the right way to go.

Also, I thought the discussions at the tables were much more valuable than the individual people speaking up, as there was no way to get a real back-and-forth discussion going with 200 people there and only two hours time. It's a lot easier to see arguments and counter-arguments here, and to discuss them in the comments, then it was to discuss them last night - especially with so many people there to push specific agendas.

What do you think?

@kevinruddpm can't use apostrophes, tries to delete the evidence

2009-03-17T20:48:00.000+10:00

It seems our politicians on Twitter have a lot to learn. Just one day after Queensland Premier Anna Bligh got caught deleting a message insulting the Green Party,sent (she says) from her Twitter account by an over-zealous volunteer, the Prime Minister, Mr Kevin Rudd, has also been caught out not knowing how to use apostrophes correctly, and deleting the evidence when called on it.

This afternoon, the KevinRuddPM account posted a St Patrick's Day message:

Wishing everyone a happy St Patrick's Day - especially Australian's with Irish heritage!

The apostrophe in "Australian's" is incorrect. About twenty people noticed this inability to punctuate correctly, and a few hours later, the Prime Minister's account had a new St Patrick's Day message, using the correct punctuation.

What is mildly interesting is that whoever is operating the PM's account deleted the original, incorrect message and did not bother to acknowledge that a mistake had been made. If you examine the PM's Twitter acount here you will see only one message, but if you look at this Twitter Search result, you will see both messages - you can delete a message that you sent from your own account, but it will still show up if you search for it.

This is, of course, really not very important in itself. So the PM (or whoever is operating his Twitter account) made a punctuation mistake. So what?

What matters is that this shows how politicians like to operate. Make a mistake, hide the evidence, correct the mistake and pretend it never happened. This is because politicians are usually control freaks, thanks to the world they operate in where even small mistakes are jumped on by their enemies. Being a control freak is normal behaviour for a politician, and in fact it would be incompetent for a politician NOT to keep tight control over their environment. If you've ever listened to the Federal Parliament's Question Time on the radio or seen it on the TV, you know how this works.

However, politicians are now trying to use social networking services like Twitter and Facebook to get in touch with people, and the sort of behaviour that works with other politicians doesn't work at all in that sort of environment. People expect to be engaged with, they expect their questions to be answered, they don't expect people to use their Twitter or Facebook accounts just as a way to punch out media releases. But Australia's politicians have, so far, mostly done just that.

I'm not saying that politicians should personally be on their Twitter or Facebook accounts. We pay them to do a difficult and busy job, and I'm sure they have a lot more to do than to answer my concerns about, say, Translink and Brisbane's public transport. So I don't mind the fact that most politicians' social networking accounts will be operated by other people.

What I do mind is the complete lack of engagement. If social media is going to change politics, it's because it makes it really easy to discuss issues, and easy to get together and decide what to do. If politicians want to take advantage of that - if they really are interested in people's feedback and want people to start coming up with new ideas - then those politicians are going to have to change the way they act. Empty promises and bland assurances won't be enough to convince people who band together to find an answer to a problem.

Either politicians will start learning to use social networking on the Internet to engage (indirectly) with a lot more people than they ever have before, or people will use the Internet to make politicians more and more irrelevant.