Journalists’ private records targeted in police probe

The Queensland Police Union says personal information of journalists has allegedly been examined as part of an internal investigation into officers with close links to journalists.

General secretary Mick Barnes says members have told the Union that Ethical Standards investigators are targeting officers who talk or socialise with the media.

Mr Barnes says he has received advice that private telephone records and the bank statements of police officers and journalists have been examined.

Dear Queensland Police, if you want to get a handle on this free press thing, THIS is how you do it:

Owner of Russian opposition website killed

NAZRAN, Russia (Reuters) – An opposition Internet news site owner in Russia’s troubled Ingushetia region was fatally shot on Sunday soon after being detained by police, and his colleagues called for a rally to protest his death.

Magomed Yevloyev is one of the most high-profile journalists to be killed in Russia since investigative reporter Anna Politkovskaya was shot dead near her Moscow apartment in 2006, provoking condemnation of Russia’s record on media freedom.

Yevloyev, owner of the www.Ingushetiya.ru website, was a vocal critic of the region’s Kremlin-backed administration, accused by opponents of crushing dissent and free speech.

A lawyer for the website — which survived repeated official attempts to close it down — said police met Yevloyev at the steps of the aircraft after he flew in to Ingushetia’s airport, put him in a Volga saloon car and drove him away.

“As they drove he was shot in the temple… They threw him out of the car near the hospital,” lawyer Kaloi Akhilgov told Reuters by telephone.

“He was discovered there and they quickly put him on the operating table, which is where he died.”

Your bad publicity and leak problems will stop in nothing flat!

-weez

LaBruzzo’s Plan Would Pay Poor Women To Be Sterilized

State Representative Says Plan Would Fight Poverty

NEW ORLEANS — A suburban New Orleans legislator is revisiting the controversial idea of paying poor women to undergo sterilization.

State Rep. John LaBruzzo told New Orleans Citybusiness, in an article published this week, that the program he is thinking about would be voluntary. It would pay poor women $1,000 to have their fallopian tubes tied.

“I’ve got a stack of e-mails for and against,” LaBruzzo said. “Two-to-one in favor of something being done.”

LaBruzzo, a Metairie Republican, said the plan could slow the growth of welfare rolls.

“It could be tubal ligation, IUD,” LaBruzzo said. “It would be more coast-effective than having three to four kids. It would be more cost-effective for them.”

Labruzzo said he’s not sure exactly how much the state spends on welfare each year. He requested that information from Baton Rouge, but he said he’s sure the dollar amount is rising.

The poor are so evil they must be stopped from procreating!

Wow.

Obviously wiping out the poor is a superior solution to ascertaining and correcting the causes of poverty.

-weez

The King George plan: Privatise the profit, socialise the debt.

image: TAB, The Calgary Post

If you or I flushed our money down the toilet, would the King be so generous?

Let ’em sink!

-weez

Palin defends McCain’s economic ‘verbiage’

Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin says John McCain had been unfairly criticised for his “verbiage” on the state of the US economy.

Asked by Fox television about criticism over McCain’s comment that the fundamentals of the US economy were “strong” despite a deepening financial crisis, Ms Palin said; “It was an unfair attack on the verbiage that Senator McCain chose to use…”

In an interview to be aired later today, she said the White House hopeful “means our workforce. He means the ingenuity of the American people.”

While praising the skills of US workers, the Alaska Governor said “the economy is a mess.”

The Macquarie Dictionary defines “verbiage” as “abundance of useless words, as in writing or speech; wordiness.”

But the US-based Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines it as “a profusion of words usually of little or obscure content” or “manner of expressing oneself in words: diction”.

If McCain is elected, when you consider his age and health, there’s about a 50% chance that his sub-Arctic anti-choice dolt is going to be President before 2012.

Obama is furiously trying to appear to be less than what he is, lest he be accused of elitism; mind you, how a biracial guy raised by a single mum gets to be an elitist is well beyond my ken. On the other hand, McCain and Palin constantly overreach, trying to make themselves out to be more than they are.

The lipstick gags have been worn out. Here’s a new one:

What’s the difference between Palin and trailer trash?

The trailer!

-weez

Xenophon to oppose Medicare bill

Independent senator Nick Xenophon says he will not support the federal government’s proposed increase to the Medicare surcharge levy income threshold.

[…]

The government expects 600,000 people to drop out of private health insurance if the bill goes through, he said.

Wouldn’t someone please remind me exactly why a country with a national healthcare system even HAS private health care and insurance available? Doesn’t one undermine the other?

If 600,000 people drop out of private health cover, perhaps the government will find some motivation to properly fund the public health system.

-weez

Dole bludgers need prod: Nats senator

A Nationals senator nicknamed “Wacca” has used his first speech to tell dole bludgers that they should be poked with a cattle prod to get them off their butts and into the workforce.

The mere suggestion of violence against benefit recipients adds to the climate of hatred of the poor.

I’ll agree to cattle prodding dole recipients if we can Taser stupid politicians until they have some commonsense.

-weez

Iemma rolled amid Labor turmoil

Morris Iemma has been forced to resign as New South Wales Premier after sacking his colourful Treasurer Michael Costa.

News that Mr Iemma was gone came in the wake of a press conference by Mr Costa, who said he did not consider that he had been sacked until the decision was ratified by a Caucus meeting.

Mr Iemma left a meeting of his Right faction without speaking to reporters, but is believed to have lost the support of the faction.

Voter after voter TOLD Iemma and his mob that we don’t want our power privatised, among many other things… yet they didn’t listen. I presume they’re listening now.

Who’s the dickheads now, Mike & Morrie?

I can’t tell you how pleased I am that John McC-word has picked this right-wing nutjob for his veep. Shows us how ready he is to cave in to the extreme xtian right, which while it may be a significant portion of the GOP base, is a minority in the greater US voting population.

Palin is hypocrisy on two legs. Palin is pro-life, of course except for bears & moose, which she bravely chases down with a helicopter and semi-automatic weapons.  She does not support a woman’s right to choose a pregnancy termination even in cases of rape or incest. Palin advocates removing proper sex education from schools, removing birth control devices from schools (ie condoms), and worst, teaching teens that ONLY abstinence from sex is the way to go- a theory which quite obviously hasn’t worked on her own daughter. Most concerningly, Palin has supported an Alaskan secessionist party, yet wants to be seated as the alternative President of the Union, which if she is elected, would be sworn to protect. If her secessionist mates somehow present a real challenge to the Union, what will Palin do?

I hope McCain didn’t stay up too late postulating that Palin would attract votes from women who had voted for H Clinton in the primaries. Not a single one of those would give their vote to an anti-choice administration, which the McCain-Palin ticket most unmistakably will produce.

Mind you, this in no way means that I approve of the choice of Joe Biden as Obama’s running mate. Biden is a Senator for the state of Delaware, home to the most pro-banker financial laws in the US. There’s a reason why your credit card company is incorporated in Delaware and it’s not the weather. Biden also voted in favor of the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq.

I have previously put a prediction of an Obama landslide at 80% in favour. Post the selection of Palin as the GOP veep, I’ll call that a little closer to 90%, despite Obama selecting Biden. I simply think Biden hurts Obama less than Palin hurts McCain.

-weez

Google backs down over browser amid privacy concerns

Mex Cooper
September 4, 2008

Google has made an embarrassing backdown after it was revealed the company would have rights to any information entered into websites by people using its new internet browser.

A day after the Google Chrome browser was released, a controversial clause in its “End User License Agreement” (EULA) has been removed following concerns it breached people’s privacy and copyright.

Users who downloaded the free browser yesterday were asked to agree to a clause that gave Google a “perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free, and non-exclusive licence to reproduce, adapt, modify, translate, publish, publicly, perform, publicly display and distribute” any information they typed into a website.

Part of the same clause allowed Google to share the information with “other companies, organisations or individuals with whom Google has relationships”.

Who needs spyware when you’ve got Google?

Get Firefox.

-weez