Ben's more serious take of the week just gone
Anti-terrorism Laws
I dunno, but Howard's use of the fact that we have an imminent terrorist threat that warranted the bill being rushed through Parliament was just a bit... fake? Apparently our politicians are too fake to know fakeness. Stupid stupid people. Legislation is now passed, and who should be the ones running scared? Us. But if we do get arrested coz they think we're terrorists, we can have the order judicially reviewed. *I might be arrested now as a terrorist with the blog as evidence, so if I disappear you know why.

IR Reform Ads
I've had it with these ads. They're not only in english, but in chinese... which means... more money needed to be spent translating, etc. The High Court found for the ads to be incidental to the Commonwealth's power- I wonder which? Not another power trip by the government, no?

Hole in Sydney
A hole in Sydney. That's got to be the most hilarious thing to happen to Sydney in ages. And what did a uni student say about it? Her books are inside and she wants to climb back in and get it. Oh, and yeah, she'd be screwed without it. The poor final year law student. Asian? I'm not surprised. I'd be loving the fact that I can fill in a form of special consideration and having the most original excuse...

Bird Flu Spreading with the Birds
Looks like now is not the time to head over to Asia or Europe... which is, uh, half the world. Can't the Chinese just say- "we're screwed?". When the bird flu gets to Africa, it may be the beginning of the end.

Blairing the Bush
Haven't we all had enough of Bush and Blair? We may not have to see them for much longer. Blair's Labor government is in revolt over domestic issues, and that may spell the death knell for him at the next election. Across the Atlantic, Bush continues to be plagued by deaths in Iraq and an ever-declining popularity figure. If only that was happening here...

Weird way to not be late at your wedding
A councillor in England tested a new emergency response system that makes all traffic lights go green herself when she used it to get through the congested streets of York. The intention was that this was used for emergency vehicles. The other councillors watched in the control room her smooth ride and applauded. Everyone else wasn't applauding at this abuse in power...

Google taking over the world
I dunno, we were thinking that Microsoft was powerful... but Google is surely not losing out. They have just released Google Print, which leads you to a database where you can sift through pages of the books they have scanned online. They are at court at the moment due to alleged copyright infringements. This comes on the back of the impending Google Travel (online flight check and accomodation finder), Google Earth, Gmail, etc.

Procrastination
Oh, and some UTS pride. Our ice-Chancellor sent round emails saying we are now ranked 83rd in a study of best universities in the world... which is 'a credit to us'. Wonderful.

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For a more dumbed down version, you know where to find it.