Interestingly, it appears that a collection of facts is not copyrightable in Australia - specifically, a telephone directory:
http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/cases/cth/FCA/2010/44.html

There is a very simple way to make elections more accessible: make voting compulsory. As an Australian, I simply cannot fathom how the US seems to constantly struggle with issues such as electoral "accessibility". The advantages of compulsory voting are numerous:

... compelling voters to the polls for an election mitigates the impact that external factors may have on an individual's capacity to vote such as the weather, transport, or restrictive employers. If everybody must vote, then restrictions on voting are easily identified and steps are taken to remove them. It is a measure to prevent disenfranchisement of the socially disadvantaged. Countries with compulsory voting generally hold elections on a Saturday or Sunday as evidenced in nations such as Australia, to ensure that working people can fulfill their duty to cast their vote. Postal and pre-poll voting is provided to people who cannot vote on polling day, and mobile voting booths may also be taken to old age homes and hospitals to cater for immobilized citizens.

Fraud is easily identified when everyone has to cast a vote - you cannot tick off a name more than once.

The arguments against compulsory voting generally boil down to thinking that the government asking for one's opinion qualifies as totalitarianism. But there is a simple solution to this.

If voters do not want to support any given choice, they may cast spoilt votes or blank votes. According to compulsory voting supporters, this is preferred to not voting at all because it ensures there is no possibility that the person has been intimidated or prevented from voting should they wish.

The spin on the story in some areas of the media is also a nice illustration of the way cowardly people will back the police state by blaming the victim.

For example, see the Gizmodo article "US Detains and Deports Two Morons Over Dumb "Destroy America" Tweets":

I'm totally okay with refusing entry to the US based on idiotic Twitter parlance.

According to documents released under Freedom of Information, the Attorney-General wants a "solution" to "be educative and aim to change the social norms."

That's right. They want to force "education" onto the population to make them want to prop up the content industry's failing business models.

Of course, only industry groups were invited to this meeting. I have to say, Ludlam is the reason that I voted greens in the last election.

Awesome. :-D

Do the QT 4 dance!

This psychological phenomenon is well-known to be one of the most powerful drivers of human behaviour.

People will go to extremes and fight to preserve their sense of self, their ego. After all everyone believes that they are a good, rational person. Anything which contradicts that produces powerfully uncomfortable cognitive dissonance that drives people to rationalise their choices any way they can.

It's an effect which appears pretty much everywhere: http://youarenotsosmart.com/2010/05/19/fanboyism-and-brand-loyalty/

When it comes to failures in complex, potentially deadly systems like nuclear plants, "human error" isn't ever a factor. If the system relies on a human to act a certain way without a failsafe then it is just bad design, pure and simple. This book explains it well.

Zarniwoop pulled some notes out of a pocket.
"Now," he said, "you do rule the Universe, do you?"
"How can I tell?" said the man.
Zarniwoop ticked off a note on the paper.
"How long have you been doing this?"
"Ah," said the man, "this is a question about the past, is it?"
Zarniwoop looked at him in puzzlement. This wasn't exactly what he had been expecting.
"Yes," he said.
"How can I tell," said the man, "that the past isn't a fiction designed to account for the discrepancy between my immediate physical sensations and my state of mind?"

Exactly this. KDE 4 is a "next-gen" GUI done right, because thanks to the entire desktop comprising configurable widgets.

As well as the default Menu + Taskbar style (WinXP), you can have Dock + Menubar style (OS X) or Pinned Icons style (Win 7, Unity) or any combination of these.

Where's the data? Has no-one migrated past Indonesia?

In Firefox:

• use the requestpolicy addon; whitelist fbcdn.net on facebook.com only. facebook.com is blacklisted for other domains automatically.
• don't accept third-party cookies
• set cookies and cache to clear when closing the browser (whitelist a couple of sites like slashdot)

The end. No tracking, "evercookies" etc. Even blocks google tracking via google-analytics.