It’s a moment we will remember, you can try and brush it aside. However those who fought and died in Selma or the preachers and activists who fought to be recognised as Americans and for their children to go to the same schools as white children - to those people and their ancestors, and all African Americans this is a time where as Whoopi Goldberg said “A day where I felt like I could put my suitcase down”. A day when the “American” in “African American” really means something.

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Not to forget the fight of Martin Luther King Jr. was not that long ago historically speaking. To move so far in what arguable is a short period of time is astounding. In Australia we only JUST apologised to The Stolen Generation, I await the day Australia can elect an Aboriginal for Prime Minister. I unfortunately think that is a long way off, we have not even addressed the inhumane ways we treat them still to this day. American has grown up - I hope we can too.

America has been known as the shining beacon of freedom, in the last 8 years that has been tarnished but as proven by yesterdays result - not extinguished. The proof that America has not given up it’s ideals, its hope and it’s humanity is proven by its will to move on and write a new page for America and the rest of the free world.

No matter your political affiliation you must realise this is something that had to happen, it had to be achieved - not just the racial aspect but the change of leadership. The change to a new leader who can instill spirit and resolve in America and the World. A leader who can make Americans so energised to break voting records and to elect someone who 50 years ago could not go to the same drinking fountain as a white man.

As a President, we will have to wait to see how good of a job he will do, and judge him just like we would any President of any race, sex or party affiliation. That fair judgment is something we owe to African Americans, to do what Dr. King and others fought for, to be judged on the content of their character and not by the colour of their skin.

McCain still could pull out an upset on a last-minute wave of voter hesitation about Obama, much like Hillary Rodham Clinton came back in New Hampshire after the polls counted her out, but political professionals are putting their bets on McCain going back to Phoenix, not rising like one.

Former Secretary of State Colin Powell’s broadside on Sunday was only the first of the recent GOP defections. The latest arrived Friday from former Republican Gov. William Weld of Massachusetts, who had endorsed former Gov. Mitt Romney over McCain in the GOP primary. Now Weld endorses Obama, calling the Democrat “a once-in-a-lifetime candidate who will transform our politics and restore America’s standing in the world.”

On Thursday, former Republican Gov. Arne Carlson of Minnesota endorsed Obama and ripped McCain in an essay for the Minneapolis Star Tribune. Carlson said he saw in the Democrat “a remarkably disciplined and focused leader who has the potential to become a truly great president.”

Obama leads McCain by 51 percent to 42 percent in the rolling three-day tracking poll, which has a margin of error of 2.9 points. (Reuters/C-SPAN/Zogby)

Source: SF Gate

Shadow Minister Senator Nick Minchin, said today he was troubled about newspaper reports that Senator Conroy’s office has been sending emails and making telephone calls to try to silence industry figures who have expressed reservations about the Government’s ‘Clean Feed’ filter proposal.

“It’s extraordinary that Minister Conroy’s office has moved from not only wanting to censor the Internet to actually attempting to silence those who don’t agree with him.

“Minister Conroy’s office doesn’t seem to realise that the broader Australian public are not bound by archaic ALP regulations that forbid any view other than that determined by the Labor caucus.

“Picking on the views of individuals when they have concerns about what you propose is not a smart tactic. This latest episode demonstrates the ugly reality of Rudd Labor when someone disagrees”.

Senator Minchin said the Coalition had already indicated its concern that the Government’s internet filter proposal would see responsibility shifted to Internet Service Providers.

“While we fully support guarding our children from being exposed to inappropriate internet content, parental supervision and guidance supported by readily-available content filters tailored to the needs of particular user settings is a more realistic approach.

‘Labor’s ill-conceived proposal does nothing to address areas of the online world where the most predatory risks can be found and we are monitoring the progress of the live pilot trial of its Clean Feed internet filtering concept with great interest.

“I can understand why Australians are concerned about the effect of the Government’s Internet censorship proposal on system performance and the manner in which a blanket arbitrary determination about web content is to be imposed by the Government.

“Targeting critics is just more evidence of Labor’s heavy-handedness”, Senator Minchin concluded.

Source: Liberal Party Press Release

You can contact the Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy and voice your opinion…

Senator Stephen Conroy
Ministerial office
Level 4, 4 Treasury Place
Melbourne Vic 3002

Tel: 03 9650 1188
Fax: 03 9650 3251

Australians will be unable to opt-out of the government’s pending Internet content filtering scheme, and will instead be placed on a watered-down blacklist, experts say.

Under the government’s $125.8 million Plan for Cyber-Safety, users can switch between two blacklists which block content inappropriate for children, and a separate list which blocks illegal material.

Pundits say consumers have been lulled into believing the opt-out proviso would remove content filtering altogether.

The government will iron-out policy and implementation of the Internet content filtering software following an upcoming trial of the technology, according to the Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy.

A spokesman for Communications Minister Stephen Conroy said the filters will be mandatory for all Australians.

“Labor’s plan for cyber-safety will require ISPs to offer a clean feed Internet service to all homes, schools and public Internet points accessible by children,” Marshall said.

“The upcoming field pilot of ISP filtering technology will look at various aspects of filtering, including effectiveness, ease of circumvention, the impact on internet access speeds and cost.”

Internet Service Providers (ISPs) contacted by Computerworld say blanket content filtering will cripple Internet speeds because the technology is not up to scratch.

Online libertarians claim the blacklists could be expanded to censor material such as euthanasia, drugs and protest.

Internode network engineer Mark Newton said many users falsely believe the opt-out proviso will remove content filtering.

“Users can opt-out of the ‘additional material’ blacklist (referred to in a department press release, which is a list of things unsuitable for children, but there is no opt-out for ‘illegal content’”, Newton said.

“That is the way the testing was formulated, the way the upcoming live trials will run, and the way the policy is framed; to believe otherwise is to believe that a government department would go to the lengths of declaring that some kind of Internet content is illegal, then allow an opt-out.

“Illegal is illegal and if there is infrastructure in place to block it, then it will be required to be blocked — end of story.”

Newton said advisers to Minister Conroy have told ISPs that Internet content filtering will be mandatory for all users.

The government reported it does not expected to prescribe which filtering technologies ISPs can use, and will only set blacklists of filtered content, supplied by the Australia Communications and Media Authority (ACMA).

EFA chair Dale Clapperton said in a previous article that Internet content filtering could lead to censorship of drugs, political dissident and other legal freedoms.

“Once the public has allowed the system to be established, it is much easier to block other material,” Clapperton said.

According to preliminary trials, the best Internet content filters would incorrectly block about 10,000 Web pages from one million.

Source Material: Computerworld

We are watching a candidate for Vice-President cram for her ongoing exam in elementary domestic and foreign policy. This is funny as a Tina Fey routine on “Saturday Night Live,” but as a vision of the political future it’s deeply unsettling. Palin has no business being the backup to a President of any age, much less to one who is seventy-two and in imperfect health. In choosing her, McCain committed an act of breathtaking heedlessness and irresponsibility.

At a moment of economic calamity, international perplexity, political failure, and battered morale, America needs both uplift and realism, both change and steadiness… It needs a leader temperamentally, intellectually, and emotionally attuned to the complexities of our troubled globe. That leader’s name is Barack Obama.

Read the full editorial here.