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SMH: Bikie killed in Sydney Airport brawl

The man was beaten to death INSIDE the Qantas Domestic Terminal.

Where in the world was security? I know, it was too busy looking for forbidden fruit (like Apples from Victoria) in the baggage collection area, or making sure the pram going through X-ray wasn’t carrying a bomb.

It is incomprehensible that a person could be beaten to death inside Australia’s busiest airport. This is an EPIC FAIL of security beyond anything seen in this country. WTF doesn’t even begin to describe it.

SMH again

he 29-year-old was knocked to the ground during the brawl – involving at least 10 men – and bashed repeatedly in the head with a metal bollard.

The attack took place in terminal three, one of the most secure and monitored public spaces in Australia.

Obviously not that secure.

Sir Humphrey Appleby would be proud:

Last night I said that Telstra hadn’t shut down Leslie’s Twitter account. This was based on the advice of my colleagues. It’s factually correct, though it’s also true that Leslie’s senior managers independently told him last night to stop.

So it’s factually correct that Telstra did not ask that the Fake Stephen Conroy Twitter account be shut down, but it’s also true that they did ask the account to be shut down.

Now we’re talking gibberish 😉

Margaret Simons wrote about the now infamous Freeview spoof in Crikey Tuesday. She left something out. This was my response to Crikey, although it wasn’t published.

Margaret Simons’ otherwise excellent coverage of the Freeview spoof video saga was somewhat sullied by a last line that reads “At the time of publishing, you can view the spoof video here, but we anticipate it will get taken down again, so quick sticks!”

What Simons failed to note, either in the article or in drawing that conclusion, is that the video (as a parody) is protected speech both in Australia and the United States. It isn’t clear from the article whether the take down notice received by YouTube was made under US law (where the video would be hosted) or under Australian law, but the result is still the same in both jurisdictions: a parody of this
nature is clearly legal.

In Australia, The COPYRIGHT ACT 1968 – SECT 41A clearly defines fair dealing (our weaker version of fair use) in this context: “A fair dealing with a literary, dramatic, musical or artistic work, or with an adaptation of a literary, dramatic or musical work, does not constitute an infringement of the copyright in the work if it is for the purpose of parody or satire.” The University of Melbourne notes that this includes “Audio-visual works (cinematographic films, sound recordings & broadcasts).”

In the United States, the Copyright Act of 1976, 17 U.S.C. ?Ç¬ß 107 includes the line “the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright.”

If the law firm backing Freeview made the claim under the US DMCA, they could be found liable for making a false claim. A standard claim must include the words “I swear, under penalty of perjury, that the information in the notification is accurate.” If the lawyers had spent 5 seconds on Google they would have discovered that the video was not an infringement of copyright under existing and tested law.

Latest job figures out today show more bad news for the Australian economy. Notable though was how they were reported.

News.com.au grouped newspaper ads (5-6% of the total) with online, and didn’t offer split figures:

The ANZ survey found total job advertisements slipped 10.4 per cent in February, the largest recorded monthly fall since the series began in 1999…..

In the year to February the number of job advertisements in newspapers and on the internet has backpedalled nearly 40 per cent. This was also the worst outcome in the history of the survey.

Fairfax grouped as well, initially at least

Jobs advertised online and in newspapers fell 10.4% in February alone, the most in any month since the survey began, to an average of 161,583 a week,

but then went for the split with newspapers first

Online ads drop too

Newspaper ads alone collapsed 25.2% in February, ANZ said, taking them 55.4% lower than a year ago.

”But newspaper advertising is down 27% over the summer and 44% since the collapse of Lehman Brothers,” ANZ’s Mr Hogan said in a statement, referring to the collapse of the US investment bank in September.

Jobs posted online dropped 9.4% in February, or 38.6% lower than a year ago.

The slump is ”the largest monthly decline since the combined internet and newspaper series commenced in 1999,”. ”The annual rate of decline, at 40%, is also the worst outcome on this record.”

Interestingly, neither offered a raw number split, only percentage declines. Finally they’re doing it right, well nearly, but close enough for my liking. The drop in newspaper ads probably deserved a separate mention due to the size of the drop, although primacy in order reported is arguable.

As is not unusual when backed by a media that likes nothing more than pitting company owners against a presumed proletariat, the Pacific Brands lynching continues.

For those outside of Australia, Pacific Brands announced recently it was shutting down its Australian manufacturing plants. The company owns brands such as Bonds, Hard-Yakka and more. It was then disclosed that (ZOMG) the CEO had a pay rise last year along with the board. The Federal Government, along with the media and unions are jumping up and down about how disgraceful the pay is given they are putting of approx. 1800 people.

Here’s the thing. It’s beyond bloody remarkable that the manufacturing was still done in Australia in the first place.

If anything, the board of the company should be praised for keeping the local jobs going for so long when nearly all of their competition shut up shop and moved their plants to China years ago.

The economic reality is that the textile manufacturing in Australia is cost-prohibitive compared to China. We can argue whether that’s fair or not, but the reality is that most of the garments we buy now share one thing in common: they’ll have Made in China stamped on the tag, because it’s multiple times cheaper to make them there instead of here.

If anything, it could be argued that the company was acting irresponsibly in not taking the business off shore years ago.

I feel badly for anyone who has lost their job, but this tall poppy lynching is a crock, and it does nothing to save jobs.

God help us if this is going to be the carry-on when every big company puts of staff in the coming year as Australia finally falls into a recession. I suppose on the bright side, the Australian media will have something to easily write about, given any serious reporting is quickly becoming untenable as they shed staff as well.