“Free speech is dead in Australia.”

That quote is from the press release put out by Dr Philip Nitschke and Dr Fiona Stewart regarding the banning of their book, “The Peaceful Pill Handbook”, by the Australian Office of Film and Literature Classification. The release also states:

“Ten years ago the Australian government took away the world’s first Voluntary Euthanasia law. Last year they banned Australians from using the telephone, fax, email and Internet to seek information about end of life issues. Now they have taken to banning and burning books.”

Peaceful Pill Handbook

And today police arrested and charged with murder a 74-year-old and a 58-year-old in Sydney relating to the death of a 71-year-old man (the husband of the 58 year old) who died from a drug overdose. They couple were refused bail.

(via Club Troppo)

When I start my political party (The Terra Party), one of the platforms will be free speech. It drives me insane that a country like Australia just sits by while our Government (that I voted for, several times) takes away one of the most basic of human rights. Can I even get arrested for just mentioning the book? Who knows?

I’m going to create a technorati tag for this issue and see how many people we get to throw in their support. Just write a blog post about “The Peaceful Pill Handbook” and tag it:

Technorati Tags:

Optus: Too Little, Too Late

I got a cold call from an Optus account rep today wanting to know why I canceled my service with them late last year. I told her it was a combination of them not having the wifi/3G phone I wanted and their poor customer service. She told me they now have a wifi/3G phone and that to ensure better future customer service, they would appoint an account representative to look after my needs. She tried to assumptively close (“So which day would be better for you next week for a visit, Wednesday or Thursday?”) a meeting with me to “discuss my needs” but I told her it was too late. I’m already with Three and I’m locked into a two-year contract.

“No worries” she said, “we’ll buy you out of the contract.”

But I again told her “no thanks”.

If someone from Optus had been keeping an eye on blogs late last year they might have picked up my post on my disappointment with Optus and perhaps then they could have kept me as a customer. But they didn’t and they didn’t.

The AFL Show returns to TPN

Even though I know less than zero about this thing they call “Aussie Rules”, I know it’s somehow important to my fellow countrymen. And that’s why I’m pleased to announce that, after a one year absence, the AFL Show returns to The Podcast Network. New hosts, Jeff and Paul, kicked off their custodianship of the show by talking about the current pre-season matches. This is the AFL show where everyone gets to play. Check it out here.

GDAY WORLD VIDCAST #09 – Machinima 101 with Paul Marino and Tom Reynolds

ThomasR alerted me last week to a machinima festival taking place in Melbourne, so on Saturday I got a leave pass from the family and went to check it out. It was really amazing, lots of great content getting produced out there using gaming engines as a shortcut to producing on-screen characters instead of 3D rendering engines. The event had people such as Gus Sorola (Red Vs. Blue), Eddo Stern (Dark Game), Peter Rasmussen (Stolen Life) and Rod Maher (FRAPS) on stage. After Saturday’s event, I asked Tom to sit down with NY-based machinima guru Paul Marino (Director of the Machinima Film Festival and Executive Director of the Academy of Machinima Arts and Sciences) to give an overview of what machinima is all about, how it gets made, the legal issues and where it is going in the future.

DIGG THIS STORY.