I've probably said enough about the banking regulation issue. But I thought I'd add, that I'm really starting to become a fan of John Hewson.

It's been the better part of a year since submissions closed on the Attorney-General's consultation for an R18+ classification for video games. And it's been over 6 months since the submissions report was published on the A-G's department website.

GetUp have a suggestion on their campaign ideas forum to support an R rating for games. But it needs ( Read more... )

Ha! Good to see Engrish goes both ways.

G20 hosts South Korea have dressed a doll made in the likeness of the Australian Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, in traditional Austrian garb. It is one of several dolls produced by the South Koreans in a tribute to world leaders attending the summit.

MapCrunch is an awesome and simple use of google street view. Select a country and it'll show you random pictures from google street view that are nothing like a travel guide or postcard might show you. It's an interesting way to get a preview of a country you're interested in visiting. And it's surprisingly addictive ( Read more... )

Glen Milne has written a very good piece on The Drum about why Hockey's 9 proposals are acutally pretty good and what this whole banking regulation issue is really about ( Read more... )

Pollytics has done an excellent assessment of the statistics in the report into the housing insulation schemeIt turns out that the number of house fires per 1000 installations actually dropped from 1.36 to 0.16, meaning the increased regulation of the industry associated with the program made getting insulation installed safer. The increase in the ( Read more... )

You may have heard of the case of Teagan Leach and her partner. They're being prosecuted for procuring drugs to obtain an abortion (not RU486, another drug), which is still an offence in the criminal code in Queensland.

Get Up have a petition to have abortion dealt with in the health code rather than the criminal code which you may be interested ( Read more... )

Those of you following the ongoing saga of the questionable media coverage of the election may have been aware of the blogger Grog. His comments on twitter and on his blog Grog's Gamut were a key part of the larger public outcry about journalists refusing to ask politicins questions about policy.

He was revealed by The Australian newspaper last ( Read more... )

Possum Comitatus has written a particularly good blog piece on what a cost benefit analysis of the NBN would actually consist of.

He also points out a fact which I hadn't previously known, the Post Master General built the original copper network with public funds.

You know what, I think the FDA should go ahead and let them demand labelling for the new geneticaly modified salmon. I'd be very happy to eat farmed frankenfish. I'd probably even seek it out as a product of choice.