Stringer

this blog is moving

2009-04-25T13:55:00.003+10:00

yes, dear stringies, finally blogger.com has done my head in.

stringer, the blog, is moving to wordpress, as of now. you can find it here.

i also wanted somewhere where i could combine my personal website and its many pages with a blog, and wordpress has the gadgetry to allow me to do that.

this blog will stay here for as long as blogger.com cares to leave it here while i neglect it. it has served me well, and the new blog is also called stringer, so there is no legacy lost. lol.

so, please adjust your blogrolls and bookmarks to reflect that stringer is now at http://swannellc.wordpress.com/

hoorah! see you over there.

dawn service

2009-04-24T19:53:00.002+10:00

right, decision made. was trying to figure out which anzac day dawn service to go to. took a nap this morning about 11am. woke up at 6.31pm. guess that means i'm going down to currumbin, because that needs a really early start, like 2.45am, to get a good photo-op possie.

blue blankie, remember when i called you from the beach last year? *grins* ... best brace yourself for another chat while i meander back to my car, no doubt parked miles away once again.

will probably twitter from elephant rock. catch me @cate3221.

i love me anzac day.

i defy you not to at least smile

2009-04-24T19:46:00.000+10:00

do yourselves a favour ...

2009-04-24T11:32:00.002+10:00

if you're a star trek fan ... go to this website and upload a photo of yourselves and have a damn good giggle.

trek yourself.

awesome funny.

and yes, that is me as a blokey starship captain. i don't know whether to be scared, or strangely attracted to myself. what's with that?

KARK 4 on-air proposal

2009-04-24T10:17:00.000+10:00

great name for a tv station, by the way. lol.

salvage of flight 1549

2009-04-24T09:23:00.004+10:00

awesome set of photos from the camera of stephen mallon showing the salvage of flight 1549 from the hudson river.

i get such a sense of the cold water from these pics, makes me want to go slip on a full-length wetsuit and a balaclava for good measure ... lol.

via ms snarker

2009-04-23T20:50:00.001+10:00

hot aussie anna torv in fringe. just watch, k?

a little piece of genius from cadburys

2009-04-23T20:09:00.001+10:00

you wouldn't think chocolate would need advertising, would you? all the more credit for producing a bit of genius. now i have to go and find me some chocolate. it worked that well.

maddow moment

2009-04-23T19:37:00.003+10:00

if rachel maddow's disambiguation intro wasn't enough to convince wavering viewers of her smarts, then i give up. seriously. the woman has a brain the size of jupiter, let alone some run of the mill planet. awesome.

still wasn't my favourite moment of last night's show, though. that would have been the belly laugh that erupted from maddow on kent jones' 'there's no o in team' line at the end of the show.

there is something just so sexy about a woman losing herself in laughter. it's that whole unrestrained joy thing.

prrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

news corp earnings drop 45%

2009-04-23T16:50:00.001+10:00

crikey.com.au is reporting this:

Rupert Murdoch's News Corp looks set to join the club of underperforming media giants. The company is due to report third quarter results on May 6 and could produce a 45% slump in net earnings, according to research from media analysts at UBS in New York.

UBS said this would come on a 14% fall in revenues, which if it happens, would be the most worrying development, indicating that News's sector and geographic diversity is now working against it.

If News was to report a result around this level, then it would be in the same ballpark as NBC, which revealed a 45% drop in third quarter earnings on a 2% rise in revenues. News would be better than The New York Times Co and Media General, both of which have reported quarterly losses (MediaGeneral has 19 local TV stations as well as a clutch of city and local papers) and Gannett, America's biggest newspaper group reported a 60% decline.

Media analysts at UBS in New York say News Corp's facing another rough quarter and management will have to "address earnings guidance" which sees a 30% drop in earnings for the June year.

They also warned that news could be in for a tougher time for much longer, especially as its newspapers and TV businesses faces continuing weakness.

*sigh*. and so it goes. read the whole thing here.

check out this piece of californian homophobia

2009-04-23T16:37:00.002+10:00

it's a receipt for petrol from The Depot Gas Station at Rim Forest, California. amazing the level of hatred the 'phobes can work themselves up to. just what the hell they're afraid of, is beyond me.

unbelievable.

daily buddha

2009-04-23T15:38:00.002+10:00

Your work is to discover your work and then with all your heart to give yourself to it.

leavin' 'em laffin'

2009-04-23T00:12:00.001+10:00

three top-class lolcats:

see more Lolcats and funny pictures

see more Lolcats and funny pictures

see more Lolcats and funny pictures

in reply to TexMexSol

2009-04-23T00:08:00.000+10:00

... who said:

have / am???

in response to my comment about me and the long-distance relationship i may have been or am in now.

i have been. and i am. same relationship. just a little blip in the middle. lol.

*happy*

nepal becoming haven for persecuted lesbians

2009-04-22T19:42:00.001+10:00

interesting. i would never have guessed that there would be anywhere safe for gays and lesbians in that region of the world. paint me re-educated.

Badri estimates there are now about 1,200 lesbians who have come out of the closet while Nepal’s sexual minorities, including homosexuals and transgenders, would number over 200,000.

To work for the legal and other rights of the growing lesbian community, the once conservative kingdom of Nepal now has four lesbian support groups: Saino Nepal in Chitwan, Sangini Nepal in Birgunj town, Nawalo Srijana in Nepalgunj and Sahara Samaj in Itahari.

A fifth “Kathmandu Sashakti Samuha” would open this summer in the capital.

“It would have opened earlier but now we are busy working on the new constitution,” Badri explains.

Nepal’s former guerrilla party, the Maoists, won an election last year that mandated them to draft a new pro-people constitution by next year. The government is seeking suggestions from all communities to make the new statute democratic and inclusive and the sexual minorities, who had been ignored by a succession of earlier governments, hope to have their voice heard in the constitution for the first time.

Two years ago, Nepal’s army sacked two women recruits for being lesbians.

In an indication of the changing times, now one of them has taken the powerful army to court, fighting a dogged battle to get reinstated.

read the whole thing here.

iraqi gays suffer horrendous abuse

2009-04-22T19:08:00.001+10:00

the bbc is hosting this video.

my garden has a new inhabitant, apparently

2009-04-22T18:14:00.004+10:00

we had quite the conversation. he/she was all 'mraaaaeeeeoooooww' and i was all 'i know, i know'. i recognise this one as one of the regulars in the complex. just never seen him/her on my land before. i have no objections as long as no little massacred offerings are left on my welcome mat.

as part of my continuous mission to show tv reporters making geese of themselves ...

2009-04-22T18:08:00.000+10:00

... i bring you this.

EMBED-Canadian Sports Reporter Blooper - Watch more free videos

live, but forgetting he is live. beeeeewwwwdiful. via boingboing.

xena film will never happen: rob tapert

2009-04-22T16:43:00.003+10:00

... at least not with lucy lawless and renee o'connor as the stars. deep, deep suckage.

“It’s something that just won’t happen,” Tapert told TheTorchOnline.com in an exclusive interview. “I don’t think it’s going to happen for Lucy and Renee. In twenty years or ten years, in some amount of years, like McGyver, like Charlie’s Angels, it [could] happen like that [with other actresses].”

Rumors of a feature film adaptation of the series, which ran in syndication from 1995 to 2001, have circulated for years, and all the principles had indicated in interviews that they’d be eager to participate.

“I thought for a heartbeat it would [get made],” Tapert said, “but at the end of the day, the rules of motion picture marketing, where they have to commit $25 million to open a movie, in this environment, the momentum you need to get a movie made isn’t there to get a Xena movie made.”

doesn't that just bite the big one ... read the whole thing here.

why are advertisers deserting print media?

2009-04-22T16:28:00.002+10:00

it's reported today that the new york times - arguably the most prestigious newspaper in the world - lost USD$78 million last quarter alone. most of it ad revenue circling the drain and then diving deep.

here's where this whole print media downturn thing baffles me. i have never in my life clicked on an advertisement on a webpage. never.

and what's more i never will.

i don't even click on google's sponsored links.

why do advertisers think the web is a better forum than print outlets for their selling?

a web ad is so easy to avoid. pop-up ads? had 'em blocked ever since web browsers offered pop-up blockers. we all know clicking on online ads is an invitation to endless spam, the dangers and annoyances of click-tracking software, the dangers and annoyances of privacy violations. why would anyone do it?

plus, web ads take effort. you have to actually click on them to get the full benefit.

newspaper ads are just there, all the consumer has to do is flick an eye over them. radio ads? just listen. tv ads? just watch.

web ads? ugh. effort. not gonna bother.

is the print media advertising revenue plummet even related to the perceived advantages of web advertising? or do advertisers just think papers don't have the 'reach' any more?

in which case newspapers had better learn to extend their reach, one way or another.

and yet still my head can't get around the waste of bandwidth that is an online ad.

just. don't. get. it.

a device to help long-distance relationships

2009-04-22T13:56:00.002+10:00

wow. i'm ... intrigued.

While lying on their beds miles away from each other, the couples wear touch-activated rings visible to a camera mounted above them.

A computer vision system tracks the movement of the ring as one of the device's users passes it across their own body, or bed.

At the same time these strokes are transmitted to and projected in beams of light on the body of their partner. The lines change colour if they cross.

if you've ever been in a long-term, long-distance relationship - and i have/am - then this has all kinds of possibilities.

read the full story at the BBC.

tweeting by brain alone

2009-04-22T13:23:00.002+10:00

how seriously cool is this?

In early April, Adam Wilson posted a status update on the social networking Web site Twitter -- just by thinking about it.

Just 23 characters long, his message, "using EEG to send tweet," demonstrates a natural, manageable way in which "locked-in" patients can couple brain-computer interface technologies with modern communication tools. A University of Wisconsin-Madison biomedical engineering doctoral student, Wilson is among a growing group of researchers worldwide who aim to perfect a communication system for users whose bodies do not work, but whose brains function normally. Among those are people who have amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), brain-stem stroke or high spinal cord injury.

the day's coming when we all can communicate without doing anything manual to get it done.

sometimes i think i was meant to have been born in an age where we're all just brains in a bottle, creating our realities virtually. feels real, looks real, acts real, reacts real. but we're all just bobbing about in formaldehyde. LOL.

my next car (i should be so lucky)

2009-04-22T13:09:00.003+10:00

the third generation toyota prius ... still butt-ugly, but it has a certain charm. heavy in the arse, just like me.

30 years ago today ...

2009-04-21T15:02:00.006+10:00

... a bus full of my Brisbane Girls' Grammar School classmates and a teacher and his wife, went over the edge of a cliff ... near christmas creek (? i may be remembering that wrong) ... two girls were killed and so were the teacher and his wife. quite a few injured.

it's funny how some dates just stick in your mind, eh?

i think perhaps it was the columbine high school 10th anniversary that triggered this remembrance in me, this time around. although it's fair to say that not too many april 21s go past without me remembering.

i remember getting a phone call from a classmate, telling me about the accident, and naming the dead, and walking out to tell my parents and just falling in a heap on the floor, crying.

there had been talk of me going on the trip the week before, but it had all been a bit last minute, and i'd opted out for lack of forethought. good thing.

i was 14, in year 10. i didn't know the two dead girls very well at all. our year was kind of split geographically in the school, and they were in the other group that we never really saw much of. oddly.

but the injured were sprinkled through our year and the ones above us.

there was a lot of pschological trauma. a lot of counselling. a lot of god-finding.

a very weird week of assemblies and hymn singing and hugging and conversations with the school counsellor and blah, blah, blah.

lots of good came out of it, although it sounds strange to say it. the school became much tighter, a lot of respect grew for judith hancock, the headmistress who started the same year i did, in 1977, and the school acquired an outdoor activities facility in the name of the dead teacher.

30 years ago. wow. where the fuck did that go?

methinks me and this cat are related

2009-04-20T20:54:00.001+10:00

see more Lolcats and funny pictures

10 things newspapers gave away that they shouldn't have

2009-04-20T17:34:00.002+10:00

a diabolically ugly webpage with a really interesting article on it. don't be put off by the layout.

I’ve been pretending in my head that I’m a newspaper exec. When I do that I keep beating myself around the face. Why? Because the newspaper industry keeps giving the geeks free meals. Let’s study the free meals:

Free meal #1. Giving away classified advertising to Craig’s List.
Free meal #2. Giving away photography to Flickr (look at the photos from the Chinese Earthquake, why didn’t this happen on a newspaper branded site?).
Free meal #3. Giving away front page news to blogs like Huffington Post.
Free meal #4. Giving away “small” community news like births, deaths, birthdays, etc to Facebook.
Free meal #5. Giving away real-time news to Twitter.
Free meal #6. Giving away news distribution to Google News and Amazon Kindle, among others. With new sites like Kosmix coming on strong (hundreds of percent of growth month over month).
Free meal #7. Giving away restaurant reviews to Yelp.
Free meal #8. Giving away traffic information to Google Maps.
Free meal #9. Giving away celebrity news to Facebook and Twitter. (Why is Oprah on both of those, and why didn’t the newspaper industry lock up Oprah and keep her on a newspaper brand?)
Free meal #10. Giving away local news to Topix (at least that was funded by a newspaper brand).
Free meal #11. Giving away business news to Yahoo Finance and Google Finance (and something new that will get announced tomorrow).
Free meal #12. Giving away news ranking to Memeorandum.
Free meal #13. Giving away astrology to Astrology.com.
Free meal #14. Giving away comics to Comics.com.

it then goes on to talk about the meals newspapers still have that they shouldn't give away for nothing. good stuff.

read the whole thing here.

the kokoda track is still killing people

2009-04-20T17:20:00.002+10:00

i'm sure i'm not alone in having walking the kokoda trail on my list of things to do before i die. one thing's for sure, i'm less and less confident i'll ever be fit enough to even start.

A Victorian woman has died during a family pilgrimage along the Kokoda Trail ahead of Anzac Day.

Samantha Killen, 36, of Hamilton in the state's south-west, was just one day into the arduous trek in Papua New Guinea with her father, brother and a friend when she collapsed on Friday morning.

It is believed she was suffering dehydration, but the cause of death remained unclear yesterday.

read the whole thing at the sydney morning herald.

a couple of colleagues have walked the track and i know it was a life-changing, emotional thing for them. i'd love to do it just to get some kind of inkling of what our troops went through in WWII.

if you want to know more about the kokoda track campaign and it's place in australian history, take a look at the wiki page.

oddest news of the day

2009-04-20T16:56:00.001+10:00

14 polo ponies died just before a match in florida. i smell a mass nobbling. or really rancid hay.

Two horses initially collapsed, and as vets and team officials scrambled to revive them, five others became dizzy, said Tim O'Connor, spokesman for the polo club.

"A total of seven died on our property," O'Connor told CNN. Seven other horses died en route to a Wellington horse farm and a veterinary hospital.

The cause of the deaths has not been determined, and necropsies and blood tests were underway, he said.

read the whole thing at cnn.

birdbath milestone

2009-04-20T16:35:00.001+10:00

the first living thing i've ever seen actually using the birdbath i put up, oh, bloody months ago. lol.

it's a magpie, by the way. or not. i'm an idiot about these kinds of things. correct me if i'm wrong, aussie birdlovers.

daily buddha

2009-04-20T16:11:00.000+10:00

Whatever words we utter should be chosen with care for people will hear them and be influenced by them for good or ill.

the education and re-education of journalists

2009-04-20T01:48:00.002+10:00

here's a fascinating piece on the education of young journalists, and the re-education of the 'old farts' teaching them, from the new york times.

“New media” doesn’t mean transplanting old media to a new medium; it requires a new vocabulary, a new relationship with the audience — a massive social network that now talks back — and, sometimes, a new set of expectations about objectivity and timeliness.

At stake is a generation of reporters, and the continued role of journalists as the eyes, ears and questioners for the public.

The changes are forcing colleges and universities to rethink what a journalism education should look like. The perennial debate about journalism programs — theoretical teaching versus professional skill building — has been displaced by more urgent questions: How can you help students find sustainable business models, while introducing the formerly verboten subject of the business side? What are the implications for the craft of journalism in the shift to digital? And how do you position students for an uncertain future in the media?

read the whole thing here.

the song a day guy

2009-04-20T01:04:00.003+10:00

if y'all caught maddow the other night you would have seen a dude called johnathan mann. he writes a song a day and posts it and its video on his website, rockcookiebottom.com.

he's awesome. there's songs about styrofoam cups, battlestar galactica and politics.

go check him out. dude's going to be famous one day.

and just to prove he's a genius, here's today's offering, a song who's lyrics are taken verbatim from the torture memoranda released by the obama administration last week.

weird

2009-04-19T21:43:00.002+10:00

it's hard to complain about four weeks' vacation, and i'm not, believe me, i need it. even say it's hard not to have the feeling that my timing couldn't suck any harder if i'd planned it that way.

in a few days the interviews will start. hopefully mine will be done soon. i don't want to spend my vacation sitting around waiting for the news.

trooped off tonight wondering how many of the people around me would be around when i get back.

if i get back.

ugh.

today's maddow moment

2009-04-19T00:52:00.002+10:00

because too much maddow is never enough. yes, she is indeed blowing bubbles.

saturday in the newsroom

2009-04-18T22:35:00.003+10:00

*crickets*

susan boyle ... cry me a river

2009-04-18T11:09:00.000+10:00

a recording she did for a 1999 charity cd. gorgeous.

and, just because it's good to leave 'em laughing ...

2009-04-18T04:21:00.000+10:00

see more Lolcats and funny pictures

maddow v affleck ...

2009-04-18T03:40:00.006+10:00

how utterly refreshing to see two young, scary-smart, sexy people having a complex, philosophical discussion on esoteric matters and have it still be fantastic television. jesus. now flip over to fox and see how low things can go.

on second thoughts, don't flip over. don't waste your time.

watch ben affleck and rachel maddow, two potential future leaders of the US, go at it, brain-to-brain.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

brand new harry potter and the half-blood prince trailer

2009-04-18T01:47:00.001+10:00

phhhwwwwwwwwwwooooooooooooooaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrr.

so hanging out for this one.

loving this site

2009-04-18T01:21:00.000+10:00

for the journalists among us.

stuff journalists like.

fear of being ‘outed’ deterring lesbian domestic abuse victims from seeking help

2009-04-18T01:14:00.002+10:00

good piece from lesbilicious.

Dr Barnes’ study found that while women in both lesbian and heterosexual relationships report similar forms of emotional, physical, financial and sexual abuse, some women in same-sex relationships are also at risk of homophobic abuse.

Homophobic abuse involves the abuser threatening to ‘out’ the victim against her wishes, or reinforces the victim’s fears of homophobic responses in order to deter her from seeking help.

Of the 40 women interviewed who had received verbal and physical abuse from their same-sex partners, five had either been threatened with having their sexuality revealed to their family and colleagues by the abusive partner, or had this threat had been carried out.

Seven of the women had felt so trapped that they had felt suicidal during the abusive relationship. Three had actually attempted suicide.

“One of the key differences with same-sex abuse is the secrecy which surrounds many same-sex relationships,” said Dr Barnes.

“A few of my participants had had relationships lasting years which their family or colleagues knew nothing about or which only a few close friends were aware of. This particularly applied to women who were in their first same-sex relationship.

“The fear of losing key relationships with family or friends, or of encountering homophobia at work should one’s sexuality be revealed, can deter some victims from speaking out about the abuse.

“An abusive partner’s awareness of these fears can lead them to exploit the victim’s vulnerabilities in order to keep them in the relationship and under their control.”

you can read the whole thing here.

my latest column ... 'virtual virtuosity'

2009-04-18T00:47:00.003+10:00

this appeared in today's gold coast bulletin and, of course, is online, where you can go and leave comments if you like.

IF you've ever doubted the power of the Interwebs, this was the week to change your mind.

It's been action-packed here in Cyberland where 11am's news is 12pm's fish and chip wrapper. Or something. You know what I mean.

It started here on our own website -- goldcoast.com.au -- the Monday before last.

The previous day our big story had been the Johnston family who had had a lucky escape from a landslide up on Springbrook Road. You can read the story here and you can see the gallery of photographs here.

We measure a story's success on the website by the number of page impressions it receives -- the number of times it gets clicked on, in other words.

The landslide story had done pretty well, but by late afternoon on Monday things had settled. And then, suddenly, not so much.

Between about 6.30pm and midnight, the landslide gallery received about 124,000 hits.

Why? Well, the Germans, naturally, bless their Teutonic little hearts. Some German website had found the gallery, linked to it, and -- wooshka -- our own little Interweb phenom.

Next on the list of viral virtuosity was a lady called Susan Boyle.

You may recall, last year, a Welsh mobile phone salesman by the name of Paul Potts won a talent competition called Britain's Got Talent with the voice of an angel. Susan Boyle is this year's Paul Potts.

She's 47, never been kissed, and, let's face it, is no oil painting. (Pot, meet kettle, which is why I can say it.)

Take a look at the clip of her singing I dreamed A dream on YouTube (here). You can almost hear Simon Cowell's whiplash.

So far, this version of the clip (and there are many versions) has received ~~6.8~~19.2 million hits.

Why? Apart from the joy of watching pompous Simon eating his words, there is something in us that loves to see people defying expectations, and Ms Boyle certainly did that.

The sad thing is that if she had been 20 years younger, and met today's definition of attractive that still thinks Jessica Simpson is fat, she would have been on the UK's equivalent of Australian Idol and a superstar by now.

It's short odds that the next time she appears on the show, she'll be sporting freshly tweezed brows, a sleek new 'do and she won't be anywhere near as interesting. C'est la celebrity.

But the phenomenon of the week has been #amazonfail.

(For those of you not au fait with the Twitterverse, posts on Twitter are searchable via keywords, called 'hashtags' which are distinguishable by placing a hash mark in front of them.)

Last Sunday, an author and publisher called Mark Probst noticed that his novel, The Filly, was no longer showing up on Amazon.com.

An inquiry to Amazon provoked an email telling Mr Probst that his book, a romance featuring gay characters, had been classed as 'adult' and removed from the ratings system so that the search pages would be more 'family friendly'.

Alarm bells began ringing and it soon became clear that Mr Probst was not alone. Gay and lesbian-themed books -- close to 6000 titles, including non-fiction, histories, biographies, and health books -- had disappeared from the Amazon catalogue, costing authors and publishers thousands in potential sales.

Within hours the gay and lesbian online community, and quite a few straight allies, had created a storm of protest, via the hashtag #amazonfail.

By Sunday night in the US, Amazon had released a clumsy press release claiming that a 'ham-fisted' cataloguing error had led to the de-ranking of the books, and by the time the business world was back from its Easter break, the books were back on the site.

Whether it was homophobia or the dumbest coding error in publishing history, is almost irrelevant. What marked this as a cyber milestone was the speed and ferocity of the online response and the subsequent backpedalling of one of the largest dotcoms in the world.

Awesome.

And finally, if you've ever fancied going into space but can't see yourself getting through the astronaut training, here's the next best thing.

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory is offering you the chance to go to Mars ... sort of. Register at their website (it's free) and your name will be included on a microchip on the Mars Science Laboratory rover heading to Mars in 2011.

Very cool.

a bit of perspective on #amazonfail

2009-04-16T02:04:00.002+10:00

as ever, clay shirky has put together a clean, logical, beautifully expressed point of view on the whole #amazonfail phenomenon of the last weekend. here's an extract.

If we wanted to deny Amazon all benefit of the doubt, and to construct the maximum case against them, it would go something like this: it was stupid to have a categorization system that would allow LGBT-themed books to be de-ranked en masse; it was stupid to have a technological system that would allow that to happen easily and globally; it was stupid to remove sales rank from sexually explicit works, rather than adding “Safe Search” options; it was stupid to speak in PR-ese to the public about something that really matters; it was stupid to take as long as they did to dribble an explanation out.

Stupid stupid stupid stupid, yes, all true. If it had been a critique of those stupidities that circulated over the weekend, without the intentional mass de-listing, it would have kicked off a long, thoughtful conversation about metadata, system design, and public relations. Those are good conversations to have, we need to have them, but they are not conversations that would enrage thousands of people in the space of a few hours and kick off calls for boycotts and worse.

Intention is what we were reacting to, and the perception of intention matters, a lot. If you hit me with your car and kill me, the effect on you could be anything from grief counseling to being convicted of murder, and that range of outcomes would rest on a judgment about your intentions, even given the same actual event.

So it is here. Whatever stupidities Amazon is guilty of, none of them are hanging offenses. The problems they have with labeling and handling contested categories is a problem with all categorization systems since the world began. Metadata is worldview; sorting is a political act. Amazon would love to avoid those problems if they could – who needs the tsouris? — but they can’t. No one gets cataloging “right” in any perfect sense, and no algorithm returns the “correct” results. We know that, because we see it every day, in every large-scale system we use. No set of labels or algorithms solves anything once and for all; any working system for showing data to the user is a bag of optimizations and tradeoffs that are a lot worse than some Platonic ideal, but a lot better than nothing.

We know all that, but we’re no longer willing to cut Amazon any slack, because we don’t trust them, and we don’t trust them because we feel like they did something bad, even though we now know, intellectually, that they didn’t actually do the bad thing we’ve come to hate them for. They didn’t intend to silence gay-themed work, and they didn’t provide the means for groups of anti-gay bigots to do so either. Even if the employee currently blamed for the change in the database turned out to be a virulent homophobe, the problem is in not having checks and balances for making changes to the database, not widespread bias.

We’re used to the future turning out differently than we expected; it happens all the time. When the past turns out differently, though, it can get really upsetting, and because people don’t like that kind of upset, we’re at risk of believing false things rather than revising our sense of what actually happened.

We shouldn’t let that happen here; conservation of outrage is the wrong answer. We can apologize to Amazon while not losing sight of the fact that homophobic bias is wrong and we have to fight it everywhere it exists. What we can’t do, can’t afford to do if we want to think of ourselves as people who care about injustice, is to fight it in places it doesn’t exist.

read the whole thing, because it really is a fantastic bit of writing.

my take on the whole thing is this ... for me the homophobia lay in amazon's response to the outcry … the PR-ese and the dismissal - this has, after all, been going on since february. it took a large and outraged voice to get things done. otherwise the mistake may never have been brought to their, or our, attention. it is disappointing that it was the threat to their public image and not the mistake itself that forced their hand. but no, in the end i don’t think they were intentionally homophobic.

just totally incompetent.

solar sailing and solipsism

2009-04-15T22:18:00.002+10:00

sometimes, i just flat-out adore the atlantic. check this out:

Should we feel encouraged by our new awareness? Perhaps diminished? Suffice it to say humanity hasn’t given it a thought. Most of us, instead of looking outward, have spent the past 17 years sewing ourselves into an earthbound straitjacket of cell-phoned, instant-messaged, Internetted connectedness that has made the species more solipsistic than ever. Forget jihad and global warming; we may just talk ourselves to death. One almost wonders whether all our endless communication about nothing, this clinging together, isn’t some fearful, subconscious response to our new knowledge that other civilizations have got to be out there, perhaps some that can run celestial rings around us. Are we afraid of what we newly know? Is that why we give it no serious reflection?

beautiful. read the whole thing here.

and so it begins

2009-04-15T20:44:00.005+10:00

well, the day we all knew was coming, finally came.

today the senior management of the gold coast bulletin announced that over the next few weeks, 23 people from our newsroom will be made redundant - 20 journos, 3 clerical/admin staff.

we all have until monday to fill in a 'personal information questionnaire' - basically a job application form - and then over the following couple of weeks, we'll all be interviewed and then the decisions will be made.

good people are going to lose their jobs. natural attrition isn't going to get this done. like everyone else in the place i've made a list in my head of people who 'deserve' to go - and i use that term because i can't think of a better one right now - and can only come up with 8 ... maybe 10.

that means a lot of good, talented, useful people are going to be out of a job.

there were tears today - mainly from fear, rather than certainty.

we have a big group of very good young journos in our newsroom. all have good careers in their futures. i hope they lift their heads for a moment, just to look around and take in the decades of experience and knowledge sitting around them.

they may not know everybody's names - god knows subeditors can be a curmudgeonly lot who rarely introduce themselves to anyone who's never written a headline ... lol - and it may be easy to dismiss the older generations of journos in today's digital newsroom as being yesterday's men.

but they'd be wrong to dismiss them.

those subs may not know the ins and outs of SEO or how to suck every click out of yarn, but they know how to find a story, how to write a story and how to make a story the best it can be.

pick their brains, youngsters, because you don't know how lucky you are to be in a newsroom where that kind of experience is readily available.

i hope the young ones also realise how lives will change in the next few weeks. superannuation accounts that have slid backwards in the last two years, are suddenly going to be emptied. mortgages still have to be paid, kids still have to be fed, medications still have to be bought.

this is a very weird time in the newspaper industry.

when the printing press was invented in 1440 by mr gutenberg, a publishing industry didn't just spring up overnight, wooshka-style. humans didn't stop reading scrolls one day and then pick up a copy of some mass-produced novel the next. there were decades of transition.

we're going through that again now, admittedly in a much more compressed, and speedy way. the media pundits can pontificate all they like about business models and online subscriptions and free newspapers and the death of journalism and blah blah blah.

the fact is nobody knows how this is going to turn out. but it is going to turn out. good journalism won't die. people just need to work out how to pay good journalists.

everything else is gravy, and it will come along.

right now, though? right now we have to fill in the forms, go through the process, pray it's not us, appreciate and show gratitude to the ones that get that tap on the shoulder, and above all, we have to get better.

young or experienced, journalism has to improve. and it has to improve the world around it. do that, and we'll survive.

oh. my. god.

2009-04-14T22:11:00.005+10:00

that, my friends, is a deep-fried cadbury creme egg. and i am not ashamed to say that i am jonesing for it, big time.

found at the lovely and fabulously named this is why you're fat.

can't go wrong with a LOLcat

2009-04-14T21:55:00.002+10:00

see more Lolcats and funny pictures

see more Lolcats and funny pictures

see more Lolcats and funny pictures

cnn catches up with #amazonfail

2009-04-14T21:28:00.003+10:00

ahhh the wonders of the internet. cnn.com catches up the weekend's biggest online drama, amazon.com's censoring and burial of GLBT books.

The issue quickly became a hot topic over the weekend among Twitter users. In conversations under the hash tag "#amazonfail," people tagged hundreds of titles affected by the apparent glitch. Others simply mocked the e-tailer. Share your views here

"Looks like Amazon did a government style u-turn. Of course it was an error, yes," was the sardonic response from Jonnyp. Houseinrlyeh, meanwhile, said "apologies work best when they contain an actual apology and not just an explanation."

Nara Filippon was one of the many outraged Facebook users to make their feelings known on various discussion boards. After describing herself as a loyal customer she said: "Unfortunately your new policy to ban LGBT books has disappointed me and I won't be buying anything else from your Web site from now onwards."

Wendy Sumner Winter, who described herself as a straight college professor, said: "I am sickened to see that the powers-that-be have de-ranked some of my favorite authors and their books, including James Baldwin (are you serious!?), Mark Doty and Paul Lisicky."

The move means the unranked titles will no longer appear in the site's most prominent areas -- most likely affecting sales of the product.

Amazon has yet to respond to calls from CNN.

read the whole thing here.

high speed sex expensive in norway

2009-04-14T21:23:00.002+10:00

and who hasn't tried this once in a while. love it.

A man faces a hefty fine and a driving ban after being caught having sex with his girlfriend while speeding on a motorway in Norway, police have said.

Officers initially trailed the couple's car after noticing it was swerving from side to side and travelling at 33km/h (20mph) over the road's speed limit.

But they soon realised the erratic driving was due to the woman "sitting on the man's lap", a spokesman said.

... The 28-year-old man's punishment will be decided within the next week, but police said he was likely to face a fine of several thousand Norwegian kroner and a lengthy driving ban.

and here's the killer last line:

Despite her prominent role in the incident, the 21-year-old woman was permitted by police to drive her lover home.

that's comedy gold, right there. read the full story from the bbc.

online shopping with coles ... finally on the gold coast

2009-04-14T19:56:00.003+10:00

better late than never. finally online shopping and delivery with coles supermarkets has come to the gold coast. hoo-bloody-ray.

jesus i may never leave the house again. lol.

coles online.

my books

2009-04-14T17:57:00.002+10:00

yes, i have written two novels. both lesbian romances. the first is called Heart's Passage, and it's sequel is called No Ocean Deep.

given the recent brouhaha about amazon de-ranking and effectively burying every gay and lesbian-themed book on the planet, let alone the erotica, i will not recommend them to anyone.

the best place to find my books for purchase is at starcrossed productions. they have a great range of lesbian fiction, their prices are very reasonable, and they ship anywhere in the world for a fair price.

i am writing a third book. it's called a long time coming and it is, sadly, more than living up to its title. it is my problem child. lol. but finish it i will.

following me on twitter

2009-04-14T17:54:00.003+10:00

you can find me on twitter by searching for cate3221. if you've never tweeted before, come on in and dip your toe in the water. i think it's the single quickest way to find out what's going on.

don't follow the idiots, just follow the ones you're interested in. like meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.

hello, my name is cate swannell and i am stringer

2009-04-14T17:37:00.002+10:00

hi all. I made a decision today to 'out' this blog. there are a few reasons. the first is that i am doing a lot tweeting as myself, and really enjoying it. i would like to be able to connect both my twitter account and my blog. that's not possible as long as this blog is anonymous.

so. i have deleted, as much as possible, any posts that might have referred to my workplace or my colleagues. given that my work situation has changed recently and i'm now working with three of the smartest, nicest, compatible people you'd ever want to meet, i don't anticipate that i will need to vent. and if i do, i'll find somewhere else to do it. lol

so. here i am. cate swannell. journalist, online and off. writer, online and off. lesbian, all the time. food addict, pretty much all the time. blogger, tweeter, all-round freak.

welcome to my world. feel free to say g'day.

could news ltd take its newspapers free?

2009-04-14T17:14:00.001+10:00

terrifically interesting speculative piece from the mumbrella. s'making a lot of sense to me.

The audiences on offer to advertisers would dwarf anything that Fairfax’s titles - assuming they remain paid - could offer, potentially pushing them into an ad revenue death spiral. And for Rupert Murdoch, publishing strategy is often simply about hurting your opponents more than you hurt yourself.

Clearly there are obstacles. How would they distribute? Do they pay newsagents to do it for you even without a cover price revenue? Do they need them? If not, are they willing to sound the death knell for the Australian newsagency industry? Intriguingly, I gather that most of News Ltd’s contracts with newsagents are due to expire or be renewed in the next couple of months - so it’s an opportune time for a renegotiation of terms.

And there are unknowns. How would Fairfax respond? If Kerry Stokes had acquired Fairfax by then, what would adding The West into the mix do to the model? Would it unbalance the cosy WA arranagement of News Ltd Sunday Times and Stokes’ The West on weekdays, with neither one pushing too far onto the other’s turf? Does an Asia Pacific edition of the Wall Street Journal enter the mix?

read the whole thing here.

blue blankie!!

2009-04-14T15:03:00.000+10:00

read your emails, cherub!!!

okay, so i may have developed a disturbing and expensive new obsession

2009-04-13T21:20:00.003+10:00

nike air force ones

ct poster chucks

choc chucks ... lol.

susan boyle is 2009's paul potts

2009-04-13T20:51:00.002+10:00

people, i'm begging you. go take a look at this YouTube file. every example of it has the embedding disabled as far as i can see, so you're gonna have to go find it, but you won't regret the effort.

as you can see, susan boyle, an unemployed 47-year-old who admits she's never been kissed, is no oil pointing, but wait till you hear her sing.

and the looks on the judges' faces - all of whom were expecting something awful ... priceless.

go, listen. enjoy. have a little sniffle.

can i just say ...

2009-04-13T20:47:00.001+10:00

... and i hope the folks who run blogger.com are listening in ... blogger.com has driven me totally insane the last week or so. spinning its goddamn wheels all the time, slow uploads, crap error messages.

truth be told i havent blogged so much lately because work seems like one long blog (lol) but it's been aggravated by being unable to blog quickly and efficiently when i have wanted to.

crap.

maddow, cox ... 'teabagging' perfection

2009-04-10T22:02:00.000+10:00

frackin' hilarious. and clever. and did i mention, hilarious.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

new kix

2009-04-10T00:09:00.003+10:00

for reasons best known only to the inner workings of my mysterious mind, i suddenly seem to have become a fan of sneakers. not just any sneakers. converse all-stars. suddenly, i cannot get enough of them. why is this so? who knows. could be a maddow thing. could be i'm just searching for meaning in this weird old world.

anyway. case in point. three new pairs of connies.

$60 a pair, except the blacks, which were $90. but that's what happens when you purchase formalwear. :D

funny, but wince

2009-04-07T18:50:00.001+10:00

our advertising department got the hard word yesterday. changes (ie, redundancies) coming. scary stuff.

film: crank

2009-04-07T18:37:00.001+10:00

any flick where the lead man's name is 'chev chelios' is all right by me. lol. this is a lot of fun, with a bit of a twist at the end. there's nothing too deep about it, believe me, just full on action and gangster silliness. it's also before jason statham got super-cut. but all in all, a big ball of fun disguised as a flick.

i can never resist video of news anchors losing it

2009-04-07T13:11:00.001+10:00

... plus this has the added bonus of watching a fashion model make a complete goose of herself ... twice. you can't ask for more than that, people.

daily buddha

2009-04-06T22:03:00.000+10:00

A generous heart, kind speech, and a life of service and compassion are the things which renew humanity.

l-word co-creators talk

2009-04-06T15:52:00.002+10:00

nice interview with the two women who co-created the l-word with ilene chaiken but dropped out early in the first season. they didn't think much of the ending either.

AE: Speaking of storytelling, let’s talk about Dana’s death. Michele, you’re healthy now, but you were diagnosed with breast cancer during development. How did you feel about Dana's death?

MA: I thought it was total bullsh-t that she died. I liked her story until that point. …We were all aware of my issue and talking about it in development. It was on the table — not in the script, but on the table personally — and it was pretty distracting for me as far as what was important in my life. … Once you get in that world, it’s very scary, because there’s no doctor who can tell you, “Okay, here’s exactly what you have to do.” You have a million different choices and you have to go to different oncologists. … It’s insane, the complexity of treatment.

KG: It would have been a great thing to explore in the show. It was a missed opportunity.

MA: Anyone who’s experienced it knows the truth of it — you always want to see someone survive. … I think the threat of death would have been enough of an element of drama. … Viewers could have been taken on an inspirational journey where Dana battles cancer and wins. It was a rotten portrayal and it didn’t play out.

you can read the full thing at afterellen.com

bwaaaaaaaaaaahahaha

2009-04-06T11:31:00.001+10:00

see more Lolcats and funny pictures

mow the lawn, ladies

2009-04-06T11:26:00.001+10:00

bwaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahahahahahaha.

priceless. speechless kinda priceless.

business card catapult

2009-04-06T11:12:00.002+10:00

only an engineer would come up with this. found at boing boing.

world's most perfect tv ad

2009-04-06T10:57:00.001+10:00

just make sure the boss isn't standing behind you when you watch this.

Fleg Master Tlpizza
by men24greece

what are they selling? um, washing machines, apparently. go figure.

this actually made me sniffle

2009-04-03T20:56:00.002+10:00

... but not cos it's sad. far from it. brilliant.

i've figured it out. it's the look of absolute delight on the faces of the specators as they realise what's happening and how big it's getting. especially when the person standing next to them suddenly turns out to be one of dancers.

love it.

daily buddha

2009-04-03T20:20:00.001+10:00

Just as treasures are uncovered from the earth, so virtue appears from good deeds, and wisdom appears from a pure and peaceful mind.

all-female spartacus

2009-04-03T08:57:00.002+10:00

sparked by the news that lucy lawless will play the owner of gladiator school in a new version of spartacus, afterellen.com came up with a killer cast for a speculative all-female remake of that classic film. apart from lawless as spartacus, they also nominated judi dench (gracchus), renee o'connor, natch (varinia), maddow! (caesar), and a whole host of other lovelies. go. take a look. drool. and wish it could be so.

princes charles raises tibet issue with chinese

2009-04-03T08:06:00.001+10:00

bless his silly little eccentric heart.

BRITAIN'S Prince Charles has raised the issue of Tibet during talks with Chinese President Hu Jintao in London, a spokesman at his Clarence House office said.

It was the heir-to-the-throne's first ever private meeting with a Chinese leader in Britain, and the spokesman described it as good although he refused to give details of what they discussed.

"The prince and the president discussed a full range of issues of mutual concern, including climate change, the reconstruction of areas damaged by last year's earthquake (in China) and the situation in Tibet," he said.

The Chinese leader, who is in London for the G20 summit, told the prince through an interpreter: "Your Royal Highness ... places high importance on China-UK relations and you actively promoted practical co-operation between our two countries.

"We commend your efforts and thank you for that."

Prince Charles is a long-time supporter of the Dalai Lama, the spiritual leader of Tibet who recently accused China of having transformed the Himalayana region into a "hell on earth" in a wave of repressive campaigns since a failed uprising on March 10, 1959.

from news.com.au

wanda sykes to get her own talk show

2009-04-02T21:31:00.003+10:00

cool beans. though of course, here in oz, we will be deprived as usual. youtube is going to cop a beating.

FOX has announced that fabulous funny lesbian Wanda Sykes will get her own Saturday night talk show starting next fall.

... The hour-long show likely will air in the 11 p.m. slot, replacing MadTV, and will have a format more like HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher than a typical talk show, featuring "biting commentary on topical issues and heated panel discussions with recurring personalities. The series’ unique format will highlight Sykes’ outspoken comedic perspective on current events and will also allow her to leave the studio to shoot segments in the field."

... Sykes will be the first black late-night host since Whoopi Goldberg’s short-lived show and the first lesbian late-night host since, well, ever.

read the whole thing at afterellen.com

the single scariest thing i have ever seen on the intertubes

2009-04-02T21:17:00.001+10:00

ho. lee. shit.

loving this website

2009-04-02T20:57:00.001+10:00

it's called one more lesbian and it's a great place to see lesbians on television and in the movies. clips by the dozen. go visit.

here it is, home and away's big moment

2009-04-02T20:53:00.001+10:00

jesus. all this fuss over this? please. go to 5:20 if you don't care about the plot. lol.

seriously, how could anyone object to it?

what the hell am i going to write my column on tomorrow?

2009-04-01T19:04:00.001+10:00

geez i hate it when i am without an idea in my head ... especially when i have other things i have to do tomorrow. fark. suggestions anyone? anyone? beuller?

lesbian bed death ... three opinions

2009-04-01T16:37:00.003+10:00

ah, yes, that old chestnut. this, from carnal nation.

You say: “I don’t think my partner is [that interested.]” But do you really know? You must make sure. Sounds like you’re overdue for a conversation.

yeh, there's a conversation to look forward to. read the whole thing here.

daily buddha

2009-04-01T16:04:00.001+10:00

It is a man's own mind, not his enemy or foe, that lures him to evil ways.

maddow looks a little tired tonight

2009-03-31T18:36:00.004+10:00

get some rest, rachel. it's your birthday on April 1. ya wanna be fresh for that.

UPDATE: ah, she's in san francisco. no wonder she's tired. too much lesbian partying, m'sure. tomorrow san jose, apparently. what's with that.

low-burning aggro

2009-03-31T16:44:00.000+10:00

back from gym only to discover computer went to power-down while i was out, cancelling the download of the maddow ep, so now i have to start again ... two hours to go.

also made the mistake of getting on the scales at the gym - well, i figured i needed to know a baseline number for reference.

am now longing for the days of golden staph, gallstones and pancreatitis, when a girl could really lose weight in a hurry.

*le sigh*

going to work-out angry

2009-03-31T14:26:00.000+10:00

... while my Telstra-challenged iTunes takes 3 hours to download the latest 43-minute episode of the rachel maddow show. grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

for fuck's sake, telstra

2009-03-31T13:41:00.002+10:00

how is it that i can be living in the sixth largest city in the country, and yet ADSL 2 is not available to me?

WTF is up with that, telstra?? WTF is up with that K-Rudd??

god i feel so technologically retarded, by forces outside my control.

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh.

a little chuckle

2009-03-31T13:38:00.001+10:00

see more Lolcats and funny pictures

see more Lolcats and funny pictures

worst commercial ever

2009-03-31T12:28:00.000+10:00

... and yet ...

daily buddha

2009-03-31T12:09:00.002+10:00

In the sky, there is no distinction of east and west; people create distinctions out of their own minds and then believe them to be true.

ah, god bless the onion and its hoo-ha euphemisms

2009-03-31T03:17:00.003+10:00

hilarious, as ever.

Renowned Hoo-Ha Doctor Wins Nobel Prize For Medical Advancements Down There:

... "We should be encouraging an open dialogue with our young women, one that isn't constrained by some outdated facade of 1950s morality," Lazoff said to a crowd of people looking down at their shoes. "I cannot say this clearly enough: Ladies, please, make an appointment to get your annual [looksie-doo], especially if you are [seeing a fella] or have experienced pain or sensitivity in your ['Hello, my baby! Hello, my darling! Hello, my ragtime gal!']."

Added Lazoff, "It is time for this country to begin having a frank discussion about the [sound of loud, extended train whistle]."

read the whole hilarity at the onion.

dear god ... padme lakshmi makes love to a burger

2009-03-31T02:12:00.002+10:00

yes, i know i'm late to the party. that's life. enjoy.

*fanning myself*

and haven't we all been there

2009-03-31T00:48:00.002+10:00

from postsecret, natch.

another article on lamar van dyke

2009-03-30T23:59:00.002+10:00

who seems to be in the news a lot. well, not the news. the news commentary more like.

But what intrigued me about Van Dyke was her take on the current political queer movement.

Van Dyke is a woman who can go out for a night on the town and have it end up as a major civil rights case. (Look up “Brunswick Four” — Van Dyke used to be known as Heather Elizabeth.)

After reading The New Yorker’s article, I had the feeling she would laugh at the actions of the new leaders of the movement. But she didn’t.

“It’s exciting that people are kind of waking up,” Van Dyke said of the movement motivated by the passage of Proposition 8 in California. “The movement is different. The issues are very different.”

She’s right: Her movement advocated separatism, shedding of patriarchal models of living. Today’s movement is about unity.

“It’s kind of like it’s gone full circle,” she said. “Now everybody is fighting to fit in to be the same as everybody else. We were fighting to get out of that structure and think for ourselves and set up our relationships however we wanted. ... Now I think the effort is ‘we’re just like you, except that we’re queer. But really, we’re just like you. We want to get married and have babies. We’re just like you.’ ”

read the full story from the olympian.

naomi robson back on tv

2009-03-30T23:45:00.003+10:00

it's a sad, sad day, stringies. this neurone-less wonder shouldn't have to be suffered by anyone. as one commenter on this story said: "Good point Mike, its got me rooted too. But hear her talk ... it's like being clipped on the undersides with a cold spoon. "

LOL. ah the aussie sense of humour.

WATCH out, missing-in-action TV personality Naomi Robson will make a triumphant return to our screens this year as the host of a hot new project on Channel Seven.

According to informed Seven Network sources, Robson is being considered as the host of a weekly lifestyle program that will be produced out of Melbourne and shown in non-prime time, reports The Daily Telegraph.

It's not quite the talk-show vehicle the former Today Tonight host had in mind, but she told Hush she would be interested in "taking a look" at it.

Robson did want to become the Oprah Winfrey of Australian television. She was rumoured to have made a pilot, but the concept fell flat before she could get it on a television schedule.

She is now without a contract at any network, but is clearly still held in high regard by Seven.

that would be the same Seven who don't have the bollocks to show a lesbian kiss on home and away. PUSSIES.

read the full story from news.com.au

commonwealth bank approves mortgage application after customer's twitter rant

2009-03-30T23:37:00.002+10:00

excellent. now i just need to have a word to westpac about the fucking interest rate on their visa cards. BASTARDS!

A TWO-line Twitter post pushed my mortgage application from the Commonwealth Bank's "to do" list to an urgent priority.

The post said simply: "CBA f#$&ked up our loan approval so we're still waiting to exchange contracts".

One hour and 17 minutes after it went live I was contacted by someone offering help to solve my problem. That person was the head of Commonwealth Bank's customer service team.

He told me the message made him "feel like crap" and the bank was only just beginning to understand how crucial social media sites were in maintaining the corporate giant's image. By 3pm the next day, my loan was formally approved.

I had turned to Twitter in frustration after more than a month of delays.

The vendor had verbally accepted our offer on his property, the inspections were complete, the Commonwealth Bank had given conditional approval but our formal approval was stuck in a backlog along with thousands of others.

read the full story from news.com.au

bet she wasn't expecting that

2009-03-29T00:19:00.002+10:00

*wince*

State police say a turkey vulture injured a passenger when it crashed through a minivan's windshield Friday.

The bird crashed into a red Dodge Caravan at about 8:15 a.m. on Interstate 80 in Parsippany. It whopped 32-year-old Vanessa Hurtado in the face, causing minor cuts. Shards of glass got caught in her eye.

The turkey vulture landed in the middle seat behind the driver, 35-year-old Jorge Hurtado, who wasn't hurt. He told police that the bird was alive for a brief time following the crash; the responding officer pronounced the animal dead at the scene.

Eagle Towing (no pun intended) towed the vehicle away. Vanessa Hurtado first asked that the vulture be removed from the car, lest it marinate in the heat.

ah, humour in the face of adversity. you can't beat that. read the whole thing at nbc new york.

russia to build 6 new nukie subs

2009-03-29T00:15:00.001+10:00

m'just sayin'

Russia will build at least six nuclear-powered submarines with long-range cruise missiles for its navy, a source in the Russian Defense Ministry told the Itar-Tass news agency.

The missiles can potentially carry low-capacity tactical warheads, the news agency reported Friday.

"These supersonic, highly maneuvering missiles are designed for strikes on aircraft carriers of the enemy if the latter poses a direct threat to Russia's security," the unnamed source told Itar-Tass. "The missiles can be launched at the most important coastal facilities."

The source added, "Despite the construction of a new nuclear submarine with new missiles, Russia intends to observe firmly international arms control agreements on equal terms with other countries."

The Severodvinsk-class submarines are being built at the Sevmash shipyard, the center of Russian nuclear submarine production, according to Global Security's Web site.

The new subs will be put into service for the Russian navy in 2011, the source told Itar-Tass.

Russia will finance the construction of the new submarine with long-range cruise missiles, First Deputy Chief of the Navy's General Staff, Vice-Admiral Oleg Burtsev told Itar-Tass.

y'all can say they're not a threat anymore, all you like. i say they've got a dream.

from cnn.

channel 7 crumbles to the wowsers over home and away lesbian kiss

2009-03-29T00:08:00.002+10:00

total, complete, pussy asshats.

CHANNEL 7 has censored a lesbian kissing scene in its popular family soapie Home and Away after a viewer backlash.

Since the lesbian story line began two weeks ago, 100,000 viewers have turned off and complaints have been flooding in. The now-muted kiss will air on Tuesday night.

The decision was taken to play down the scene after complaints from conservative lobby groups in media reports were followed by complaints from viewers, The Australian reports.

"They (Home and Away) continue to market to kids and they continue to develop quite sexualised plot lines," Pro-Family Perspectives director Angela Conway said earlier this month.

"The plot lines that young kids and teenagers should be presented with should be about really authentic relationships that are not just sexualised."

read the whole pile of bullshit from news.com.au

9 things the internet has ruined

2009-03-28T11:18:00.002+10:00

from omglists.com

7. cats: There was once a time when cats had a peaceful life of eating, sleeping, and ignoring us. Then one day, images of our furry friends with funny captions appeared on the image boards of 4Chan -- the most famous caption being "I CAN HAZ CHEEZBURGER?" Ever since the meme hit the mainstream, there is no rest for our cats. We've turned in to the cat paparazzi and have snapped pics of our kitties popping out of ceilings, laundry baskets, and everything in between.

read the whole thing here. yes, journalism gets a mention. doesn't it always?

i like barney frank

2009-03-28T00:47:00.002+10:00

for the aussies, barney frank is one of the most powerful congressmen in the us, because he's chairman of the house financial services committee. and, he's openly gay. this week he called one of the supreme court judges a homophobe and got slammed for it.
he's written an extremely erudite reply on the huffington post.

My view that Justice Scalia is prejudiced against gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people is based, not on his position on marriage, but entirely on the angry minority opinions he wrote in two Supreme Court cases in which the majority held that gay and lesbian people had certain rights against discrimination regarding private consensual sex and political activity. In those two virulent dissents, Justice Scalia denounced the court majorities not simply for finding that it was unconstitutional to discriminate based on sexual orientation in cases involving political rights and the right to private consensual sex, but he also made it clear that in his view sex discrimination is not only permitted by the Constitution but is very much in society's interest because homosexuality deserves to be treated with not only disapproval, but legal disability.

read the whole thing here.

court will uphold prop 8: civil rights attorney

2009-03-28T00:31:00.001+10:00

encouraging. not.

A veteran civil rights attorney who’s closely involved with the case told Dallas Voice this week she thinks there’s a 98 percent chance the California Supreme Court will uphold Proposition 8, the state’s voter-approved ban on same-sex marriage

“We’re going to lose,” said Kate Kendell, executive director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights, one of the organizations that filed the lawsuit challenging Prop 8.

“I think it was very clear from the oral arguments that the court intends to uphold Prop 8,” Kendell added. “I’ve never seen a court so unequivocally telegraph their thinking.”

full story from the dallas voice.

new hampshire house approves gay marriage

2009-03-28T00:28:00.003+10:00

now all they have to do is get it past the 'phobe governor ... *eye roll*

After two days of debating, the New Hampshire House voted for gay marriage 186 to 179 after first voting against it, 183 to 182.

The first vote against equal marriage was so close that a representative asked for it to be reconsidered. After a few minutes of intense personal lobbying on the floor, it passed.

Bills can only be reconsidered once, so the new vote is final.

The debate was ferocious, with one representative telling the anti-marriage contingent that it was against his religion to NOT solemnize gay marriage. “The state of New Hampshire should not have the right to impose your [anti-gay] religious beliefs on my family and my church,” he said.

The representative said that he has a cousin who is a lesbian and a choir director at a church.

Other pro-equal marriage representatives made arguments that “separate is never equal,” and that gay marriage would entice the best workers and businesses to come to the state.

Anti-gay representatives made the argument, unsupported by research, that gay people are pedophiles and gay parents are harmful to children and that gay marriage would open the door to polygamy. One anti-equal marriage representative acknowledged that, “We all knew how we were going to vote when we walked in here today.”

The bill next advances to the state Senate. Gov. John Lynch, a Democrat, is opposed to gay marriage, though he has not indicated whether he would veto the bill.

New Hampshire approved civil unions two years ago and were signed into law by Lynch; they went into effect last year.

from 365gay.com

Stringer

this blog is moving

dawn service

i defy you not to at least smile

do yourselves a favour ...

KARK 4 on-air proposal

salvage of flight 1549

via ms snarker

a little piece of genius from cadburys

maddow moment

news corp earnings drop 45%

check out this piece of californian homophobia

daily buddha

leavin' 'em laffin'

in reply to TexMexSol

nepal becoming haven for persecuted lesbians

iraqi gays suffer horrendous abuse

my garden has a new inhabitant, apparently

as part of my continuous mission to show tv reporters making geese of themselves ...

xena film will never happen: rob tapert

why are advertisers deserting print media?

a device to help long-distance relationships

tweeting by brain alone

my next car (i should be so lucky)

30 years ago today ...

methinks me and this cat are related

10 things newspapers gave away that they shouldn't have

the kokoda track is still killing people

oddest news of the day

birdbath milestone

daily buddha

the education and re-education of journalists

the song a day guy

weird

today's maddow moment

saturday in the newsroom

susan boyle ... cry me a river

and, just because it's good to leave 'em laughing ...

maddow v affleck ...

brand new harry potter and the half-blood prince trailer

loving this site

fear of being ‘outed’ deterring lesbian domestic abuse victims from seeking help

my latest column ... 'virtual virtuosity'

a bit of perspective on #amazonfail

solar sailing and solipsism

and so it begins

oh. my. god.

can't go wrong with a LOLcat

cnn catches up with #amazonfail

high speed sex expensive in norway

online shopping with coles ... finally on the gold coast

my books

following me on twitter

hello, my name is cate swannell and i am stringer

could news ltd take its newspapers free?

blue blankie!!

okay, so i may have developed a disturbing and expensive new obsession

susan boyle is 2009's paul potts

can i just say ...

maddow, cox ... 'teabagging' perfection

new kix

funny, but *wince*

film: crank

i can never resist video of news anchors losing it

daily buddha

l-word co-creators talk

bwaaaaaaaaaaahahaha

mow the lawn, ladies

business card catapult

world's most perfect tv ad

this actually made me sniffle

daily buddha

all-female spartacus

princes charles raises tibet issue with chinese

wanda sykes to get her own talk show

the single scariest thing i have ever seen on the intertubes

loving this website

here it is, home and away's big moment

what the hell am i going to write my column on tomorrow?

lesbian bed death ... three opinions

funny, but wince