3 posts tagged “politics”
Try watching these videos and not having a different point of view on the war in Iraq.
Internet video is like these are really changing things for our 'intake of media' patterns. Something like this would never have been on the air in Australia.
So it seems that our Australian government is trying to rush some pretty damn imposing copyright legislation through.
Take a listen to:
http://www.ip.qut.edu.au/materials/20061122-BrianFitzgerald_PeterCoroneos-64.mp3
to quote the SMH:
Under these proposed new laws it will be illegal - for instance - to lend a video copy of a TV show you have made to your family or friends if you have already watched that copy.
And those same proposed laws will required you to delete that program once you've watched it once.
I personally love:
Can I give a recording I have made to a friend
No. A recording is for the personal use of the person who made it. You can invite a friend over to watch or listen to your recording but you can't lend or give it to a friend to take home with them.
It really seems like the government heard that something needed to be done, but then went to the content companies for advice on solutions. Or just for money. Whats really disturbing is the way this legislation is rushing through. The Australian part of the blogosphere does not have the influence that the American portion does, and if the traditional media companies (which have the potential to control our media uptake a lot more with these laws) decided not to report about it, and I've heard very little about it in the mainline press, how are non tech savy Australians surposed to understand how this will affect them. They wont know anything has changed until a few years from now when they'll find that they're kids dvd of the latest pixar film will only play in the first dvd player it was used on, or that the show they recorded in the lounge room will cost them exrea to be able to play it back in the bedroom.
If you can, make a stink about this. Write to a member of parliment, or better yet call them. Try and get the attention of media houses with more open thinking, like the abc, and get them to report on it.
Thikn its not a big deal? The collective at Digg seems to think that singing out loud may be illeagle under the new laws. Google is worried too.
So it looks like things are changing over the water.
The Democrats have firmly taken the house, but the Senate is becoming a holly-wood style, down to the line, battle.
according to:
http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/11/08/election.senate/index.html
The estimate is that the Virginia race is going to determine it all.
But not only are the democrats stepping up to control congress for the first time in ( i want to say... ) 15 years it seems the swing has claimed its first scalp and Donnie is stepping down:
http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/11/08/rumsfeld/index.html
Check out the video of Bush announcing it. He looks kinda hurt, or like someone saying they're sorry badly.
What follows in a totally uninformed rant:
Donnie is clearly been booted as a way of showing that the Bush administration is listening to the people, and frankly they needed to do something. If nothing else has, this election has got to show Bush that the 'stay the course' mentality isn't going down well.
I'm hoping for a democratic win in Virginia because, as far as i can tell, that will open the way for Congress to impeach Bush. Weather or not he should be, the argument should be played out in full, rather than just speculated about.
I think this snippet from thinkprogress.org sums up the previous congress quite well:
There were just 12 hours of hearings on Abu Ghraib. (There were more than 100 hours of hearings on alleged misuse of the Clinton Christmas card list.)
(from:http://thinkprogress.org/2006/11/06/109-congress/)
EDIT: Looks like other more informed people agree:
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-ELN-Election-World-View.html
