AUSSIES SAY, "NO WAY"

I came across this in my wanderings today. Seems the Aussies don't always say "she'll be right , mate". I have no idea who "Anonymous Coward" is. The header tells you about an American group that seems to be fighting the Real ID card. <----I believe that might be Dubya's reply. Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 26, @04:45PM The proposed Australian "Access Card", a universal ID that would be required for any Australian wishing to use Medicare, Centrelink, the Child Support Agency, or Veterans' Affairs, has been scrapped by the incoming Rudd Labor Government. The card would have contained an RFID tag with the person's name, date of birth, gender, address, signature, card number, card expiration date, and Medicare number, but there were also provisions to add more personal data later on. It seems that Rudd Labor is not eager to copy the American REAL ID Act.http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20071224-australias-controversial-national-id-program-hits-the-dumpster.html . That's not enough. We all know about the crapola that the music industry is foisting on Americans. Although we don't download music from the internet, many people do. Especially if they have teenagers in the house. If you do download and/or have others who do, you might find this informative: http://www.cdt.org/copyright/warninglist/ . As you know, New Mexico has its share of real life cowboys. I overheard two of them talking about a situation. The conversation went like this: Two cowboys are talking about their favorite sex position. One says, "I think I enjoy the rodeo position the best." "I haven't ever heard of that one", says the other cowboy, "What is it?" "Well, its where you get your girlfriend down on all fours, you mount her from behind, you reach around and cup each one of her breasts in your hands, and then you whisper in her ear, 'Boy, these feel just like your sister's' ... and then you try to hold on for 8 seconds." . I'm sorry. That just slipped in. . Whether you're a newly minted blogger or a relative old-timer, you've been seeing more and more stories pop up every day about bloggers getting in trouble for what they post. Here's a link that might help protect you: http://w2.eff.org/bloggers/lg/ . And it seems to be happening in Japan now. Censorship is rearing its super ugly head: Japanese Government to Regulate Online Communication Posted by Soulskill on Friday December 28, @03:42AMfrom the best-of-luck-with-that dept. Chris Salzberg writes "The Japanese government made major moves this month toward legislating extensive regulation over online communication. In a series of little-publicized meetings, two distinct government ministries pushed ahead with regulation in three major areas of online communication: web content, mobile phone access, and file sharing. Content regulation will cover anything on the web, including personal blogs and web pages. Upcoming mandatory filtering of mobile phone access is targeted at users under age 18, and will cover chat rooms, forums, bulletin boards and social networking services. File sharing legislation will initially target illegal downloads, but, according to critics, may ultimately broaden to include streaming media from sites such as YouTube." Although I can understand why they want to censor some web things, I don't think they fully understand what they are creating. When any government wants to control what people see, read and think, (especially in a prosperous state) vthere can only be discontent and eventually violence. "Little publicized meetings" can lead to things no one wants to see. I wish Japanese bloggers and media luck in fighting this idiocy. Here's a more detailed story about it: http://gyaku.jp/en/index.php?cmd=contentview&pid=000320 . Now, have fun. Eat too much. Drink a little too much. Don't get caught by the blue noses.