Findcate

Armed with new and established Web sites, people are uncovering surprising details about colleagues, lovers and strangers that often don’t turn up in a simple Internet search. Though none of these sites can reveal anything that isn’t already available publicly, they can make it much easier to find. And most of them are free.

Some people have come across dirt on their loved ones without even looking for it. Doug Orlyk, a 42-year-old librarian in Bensenville, Ill., recently turned to ZabaSearch to find his new boyfriend’s address so that he could send him a card. Instead, he found out that the boyfriend had been lying about his age - he was 43 years old, not 35 as he had claimed to be on the dating site where Orlyk had met him. “I thought, ‘You’re a liar! You’re older than I am!’ ” Orlyk recalls. His new relationship ended soon thereafter.

Others rely on the Web to gather information on the job. Art Feagles, a technology specialist at the Cate School, a private high school in Carpinteria, Calif., runs the computer system for the alumni and development office. But his colleagues, who raise funds for the school, keep tapping him for another tech skill: researching potential donors online.

Last year, for example, Feagles wanted to learn more about a potential donor by using the person’s address. So he searched for it in Google Inc.’s Google Earth aerial-mapping program and saw that the address was for a golf-course condominium. From that, he gathered that this was probably a second home, and therefore the person must be rich - and a good prospect for a donation.

The Web sites, for their part, say they’re merely trying to provide services that people will find useful and entertaining. Ray Chen, a cofounder of Spokeo, says he and his partners “don’t want to stalk people.” Instead, he says, “we’re just trying to make something that’s fun to use.” Zaba CEO Nick Matzorkis says the dissemination of public information online is “a 21st-century reality with or without ZabaSearch.”

Larry Yu, a Google spokesman, says the use of Google Earth and Maps to glean personal information about others “is not the intent of the products.” He touts their other uses, such as helping users visualize driving directions.

Many online sleuths start by signing up for an account on social-networking sites like Facebook and News Corp.’s MySpace, where they can search for individuals by name. An acquaintance’s home address can be dug up using ZabaSearch or another public-records search engine; that can then be plugged into Google Maps, where the Street View feature might show an image of the address from the street, or Zillow, which can estimate the value of the home. Those trying to make a business contact might try Jigsaw, which invites users to provide phone numbers, e-mail addresses, job titles and other information from business cards they’ve collected.

The bad news, for those who find themselves targeted by snoops: There is no foolproof way to protect yourself from embarrassing personal-data leaks. But you can avoid many mishaps by going to the root of the leak - that is, by keeping individual pieces of personal data from being made public in the first place. If you don’t want others to see your Amazon wish list or the photos you’ve stored on Flickr, visit those sites’ privacy pages and adjust your settings accordingly.

Tags: aerial mapping, amazon, carpinteria, cate, cate school, cofounder, dating site, dirt, dissemination, golf course condominium, google, google earth, google inc, internet search, job, liar, lovers and strangers, mapping program, new boyfriend, pace, private high school, ray chen, target, technology specialist

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Mike Butler, Simon McGrath and 22 of their Cornwall teammates will try to break the world record for the longest continuous cricket match at Cornwall Park from 9am on Friday.
Drive for 55 will see them playing for 55 hours through to Sunday at 4pm.
And it%26rsquo;s all for a good cause, with proceeds raised going to the Starship Foundation.
Mike says the idea first popped into his head in the office one Friday afternoon thinking about his cricket match the next day.
%26quot;I googled the longest match and we talked about breaking it,%26quot; he says.
%26quot;After a while we thought it%26rsquo;s not such a silly idea after all.%26quot;
The group planned breaking the official Guinness world record of 36 hours, set by a group of Englishmen, by playing for 45 hours.
But three weeks ago they discovered an Australian group played for 50 hours and 15 minutes over Easter, which has not yet been officially recognised as a world record.
Determined not to be outdone by the Aussies, the Mt Eden resident says they decided to play on for a little bit longer.
%26quot;If it%26rsquo;s warm, sunny weather we%26rsquo;ll be happy, but if we have to bat in the rain, then we%26rsquo;ll bat in the rain.%26quot;
Full teams will face each other for the first 10 to 12 hours, then three or four players will rotate off once it gets dark.
Players can sleep while their side is batting, but will have to face away from temporary floodlights brought in for the overnight sessions.
%26quot;Our wives and partners are going to bring down food for us,%26quot; Simon says.
And choosing a charity was easy, with Simon and Mike%26rsquo;s children both needing care at Starship hospital soon after they were born.
%26quot;They saved my daughter%26rsquo;s life from birth so I thought we should give something back,%26quot; Simon says.
Starship Foundation community fundraising manager Sarah Bell says they are %26quot;delighted%26quot; to be the chosen charity.
Jordan Luck will perform at 4pm on the Sunday to celebrate completing the match.
Spectators can also enter a bowl-off competition to win tickets to Australia. Qualifying rounds for the bowl-off are on Saturday afternoon, with finals on Sunday.
To make a $3 donation, text cricket to 469.

Tags: australian group, englishmen, Food, google

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Hollywood is no country for old men, and although some still
think there will be blood with the actors, the writers’ strike
ended with atonement on the part of the studios. This year’s Oscar
telecast will be Tinseltown’s corroboree, the place where it will
celebrate its own uniquely corrupted Dreamtime.
The event will mark significant changes - and high drama - for
the industry. But the union angst didn’t stop the studios deluging
voting members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
in a most unseemly manner: mass mailing; expensive, promiscuously
Oscar-vote-targeted ads; handouts in the Los Angeles Times,
in Variety, Hollywood Reporter and many more.
The spruiker crassness reached a nadir with the Weinstein
Company’s truncated DVD offering of I’m Not There, featuring
40 minutes highlighting Cate Blanchett’s portrayal of Bob Dylan.
The gist? If you busy academy members and other voters don’t have
time to watch the whole 135-minute movie - then just watch this.
This Reader’s Digest version of movies for speed freaks and
ADHD sufferers is hopefully not a new trend: visualise the versions
for Lust, Caution or Sweeney Todd. It reflects
disrespect to the filmmakers and audiences. Rest assured that
Blanchett read the whole script, folks, so see the complete
film.
Normally, film companies try to maintain some superficial
decorum in influencing academy votes, although the ad blitz,
special screenings with filmmakers, DVD launch parties, promotions
and so on betray the studios’ frenzy. It’s a bit like the drug
companies in America: they harangue TV viewers to buy
prescription-only drugs such as Viagra but the drugs are illegal
unless prescribed by a doctor, and so the ads always say something
to the effect of: “tell your doctor what you are taking”.
Similarly, studios aren’t supposed to lobby or contact voters to
influence their vote. Instead, they spend huge amounts in
publications that anyone can buy but which are clearly aimed at the
academy voters.
Do these ads work? Judging by the millions spent, the answer is
obvious. Many critics join in the carnival. Prostituting their
profession, they go completely over the top with ridiculous
superlatives so they are quoted in ads, promoting their own name
and publication. Many media are beholden to advertisers, so genuine
criticism could become a fossil.
The academy itself, notwithstanding critiques of the Oscar
telecast, has remained classy, not a mean feat in Hollywood. It
regularly stages great exhibitions, dignified memorials to masters
such as Gregory Peck and Otto Preminger, archives film and
documents, honours the art and science of cinema, and is finally
building a cinema museum. It forbids gifts to academy voters.
The Oscars this year have a serious edge, a kind of historical
showbiz vortex, coming on the heels of a three-month strike by
writers against seven conglomerates, against the backdrop of the
presidential election. The best feature film nominations are a
mixed bag, but avoided the barrage of sanctimonious anti-Iraq war
movies that suddenly appeared when George Bush became a lame duck
president. Gutsy move, guys. Couldn’t these movies have appeared
years ago, if true to their intent? Some anti-war documentaries,
not selected by the total academy membership, have been
nominated.
Aside from this self-flagellating, well-meaning and almost
unwatchable anti-war genre, pro-life movies were obvious this year.
Juno is one hip incarnation and it scored. Young girls were
generally encouraged in these films to have the baby under any
circumstances, no matter how dire. So much for Hollywood
“liberalism”.
On the pop psychology front, none of the films nominated seem to
catch the Zeitgeist. Historically, sometimes movies have magically
reflected how most of us feel in some way. Daniel Day-Lewis’s
incarnation of a demonic John Huston in There Will Be Blood
doesn’t exactly catch the vibe of world issues at the moment - or
does it? The film’s heartfelt caricature of a murderous capitalist
harks back to 1930s artists such as George Grosz and John
Heartfield. Javier Bardem’s psychotic terminator with a funny retro
haircut (in No Country For Old Men) doesn’t reflect the
world economy either … well, maybe. Both actors will probably get
Oscars. What these films had in common was a “dark” side,
Hollywood-ese for “specialty” release. No happy ending, rather
formulaically, now means “art”.
The writers’ strike cost the local economy about $2 billion and
flagged the internet juggernaut, itself a key subject of the
strike. US television viewers, repulsed by asinine programming
during the strike, jumped to online viewing in December by a
whopping increase of 34 per cent. Only Disney and Fox seem on top
of the internet universe, although they pale in comparison to
Google’s YouTube, which found a third of the increased viewers.
Significantly, it was the bosses of the most net-savvy studios
(Robert Iger from Disney and Peter Chernin from Fox) who closed the
deal with the writers. Disney particularly is in front, having the
Apple genius and shareholder Steve Jobs on the board. Get ready for
an iOscar.
Hollywood, bipolar between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton
since the producer David Geffen promoted Obama in late 2006, will
be waiting for political jokes from the host, Jon Stewart, on Oscar
night. No doubt a subject could be Steven Spielberg protesting
against genocide in Darfur by resigning as an adviser to the
Beijing Olympics. “China disses Spielberg” shouted Variety.
Politics in Hollywood can be an ugly phenomenon. Next fracas is the
impending end of the Screen Actors Guild contract in June, with big
stars brazenly telling their union leaders what to do in ads. This
won’t go down well.
So despite the bonhomie of Oscar night, more scabs are about to
be peeled off Hollywood. Problems persist. The Tolkien estate just
sued New Line, a Time Warner company, for not paying one cent of
its share from the billion-dollar-earning Oscar winner Lord of
the Rings. William Faulkner observed: “Hollywood is a place
where a man can get stabbed in the back while climbing a
ladder.”
Meanwhile, venerable, naked Oscar, still holding that sword in
front of his privates, must be wondering if someone will ever buy
him some pants. With the millions spent on persuading academy
voters who to vote for, surely the studios next year could at least
also send out a gold G-string for him.
Philippe Mora is a Los Angeles-based film director.

Tags: barack obama, boss, cars, cate, cate blanchett, filmmakers, google, high drama, hollywood, javier bardem, job, los angeles times, rbi, spielberg, steven spielberg, target

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Hollywood is no country for old men, and although some still
think there will be blood with the actors, the writers’ strike
ended with atonement on the part of the studios. This year’s Oscar
telecast will be Tinseltown’s corroboree, the place where it will
celebrate its own uniquely corrupted Dreamtime.
The event will mark significant changes - and high drama - for
the industry. But the union angst didn’t stop the studios deluging
voting members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
in a most unseemly manner: mass mailing; expensive, promiscuously
Oscar-vote-targeted ads; handouts in the Los Angeles Times,
in Variety, Hollywood Reporter and many more.
The spruiker crassness reached a nadir with the Weinstein
Company’s truncated DVD offering of I’m Not There, featuring
40 minutes highlighting Cate Blanchett’s portrayal of Bob Dylan.
The gist? If you busy academy members and other voters don’t have
time to watch the whole 135-minute movie - then just watch this.
This Reader’s Digest version of movies for speed freaks and
ADHD sufferers is hopefully not a new trend: visualise the versions
for Lust, Caution or Sweeney Todd. It reflects
disrespect to the filmmakers and audiences. Rest assured that
Blanchett read the whole script, folks, so see the complete
film.
Normally, film companies try to maintain some superficial
decorum in influencing academy votes, although the ad blitz,
special screenings with filmmakers, DVD launch parties, promotions
and so on betray the studios’ frenzy. It’s a bit like the drug
companies in America: they harangue TV viewers to buy
prescription-only drugs such as Viagra but the drugs are illegal
unless prescribed by a doctor, and so the ads always say something
to the effect of: “tell your doctor what you are taking”.
Similarly, studios aren’t supposed to lobby or contact voters to
influence their vote. Instead, they spend huge amounts in
publications that anyone can buy but which are clearly aimed at the
academy voters.
Do these ads work? Judging by the millions spent, the answer is
obvious. Many critics join in the carnival. Prostituting their
profession, they go completely over the top with ridiculous
superlatives so they are quoted in ads, promoting their own name
and publication. Many media are beholden to advertisers, so genuine
criticism could become a fossil.
The academy itself, notwithstanding critiques of the Oscar
telecast, has remained classy, not a mean feat in Hollywood. It
regularly stages great exhibitions, dignified memorials to masters
such as Gregory Peck and Otto Preminger, archives film and
documents, honours the art and science of cinema, and is finally
building a cinema museum. It forbids gifts to academy voters.
The Oscars this year have a serious edge, a kind of historical
showbiz vortex, coming on the heels of a three-month strike by
writers against seven conglomerates, against the backdrop of the
presidential election. The best feature film nominations are a
mixed bag, but avoided the barrage of sanctimonious anti-Iraq war
movies that suddenly appeared when George Bush became a lame duck
president. Gutsy move, guys. Couldn’t these movies have appeared
years ago, if true to their intent? Some anti-war documentaries,
not selected by the total academy membership, have been
nominated.
Aside from this self-flagellating, well-meaning and almost
unwatchable anti-war genre, pro-life movies were obvious this year.
Juno is one hip incarnation and it scored. Young girls were
generally encouraged in these films to have the baby under any
circumstances, no matter how dire. So much for Hollywood
“liberalism”.
On the pop psychology front, none of the films nominated seem to
catch the Zeitgeist. Historically, sometimes movies have magically
reflected how most of us feel in some way. Daniel Day-Lewis’s
incarnation of a demonic John Huston in There Will Be Blood
doesn’t exactly catch the vibe of world issues at the moment - or
does it? The film’s heartfelt caricature of a murderous capitalist
harks back to 1930s artists such as George Grosz and John
Heartfield. Javier Bardem’s psychotic terminator with a funny retro
haircut (in No Country For Old Men) doesn’t reflect the
world economy either … well, maybe. Both actors will probably get
Oscars. What these films had in common was a “dark” side,
Hollywood-ese for “specialty” release. No happy ending, rather
formulaically, now means “art”.
The writers’ strike cost the local economy about $2 billion and
flagged the internet juggernaut, itself a key subject of the
strike. US television viewers, repulsed by asinine programming
during the strike, jumped to online viewing in December by a
whopping increase of 34 per cent. Only Disney and Fox seem on top
of the internet universe, although they pale in comparison to
Google’s YouTube, which found a third of the increased viewers.
Significantly, it was the bosses of the most net-savvy studios
(Robert Iger from Disney and Peter Chernin from Fox) who closed the
deal with the writers. Disney particularly is in front, having the
Apple genius and shareholder Steve Jobs on the board. Get ready for
an iOscar.
Hollywood, bipolar between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton
since the producer David Geffen promoted Obama in late 2006, will
be waiting for political jokes from the host, Jon Stewart, on Oscar
night. No doubt a subject could be Steven Spielberg protesting
against genocide in Darfur by resigning as an adviser to the
Beijing Olympics. “China disses Spielberg” shouted Variety.
Politics in Hollywood can be an ugly phenomenon. Next fracas is the
impending end of the Screen Actors Guild contract in June, with big
stars brazenly telling their union leaders what to do in ads. This
won’t go down well.
So despite the bonhomie of Oscar night, more scabs are about to
be peeled off Hollywood. Problems persist. The Tolkien estate just
sued New Line, a Time Warner company, for not paying one cent of
its share from the billion-dollar-earning Oscar winner Lord of
the Rings. William Faulkner observed: “Hollywood is a place
where a man can get stabbed in the back while climbing a
ladder.”
Meanwhile, venerable, naked Oscar, still holding that sword in
front of his privates, must be wondering if someone will ever buy
him some pants. With the millions spent on persuading academy
voters who to vote for, surely the studios next year could at least
also send out a gold G-string for him.
Philippe Mora is a Los Angeles-based film director.

Tags: barack obama, boss, cars, cate, cate blanchett, filmmakers, google, high drama, hollywood, javier bardem, job, los angeles times, rbi, spielberg, steven spielberg, target

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• The best in film this spring
• Stewart ready to put sting into Oscars
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A special forces 36 year old police woman who was guarding the house of the Prime Minister of St. Vincent and the Grenadines, has made allegations against him of sexual assault, saying this took place on January 3 and has filed a private complaint, press reports quote her lawyers as saying.Meanwhile the leader of the opposition New Democratic Party Arnhim Eustace has seized the opportunity to release a brief press statement which has been uploaded to Google’s YouTube video for the world to see, in which he spoke about crime and law and order, and stated that the Prime Minister should do the honorable thing and resign. He gave his reasons for calling for the resignation of the Prime Minister as the negative publicity that the allegations would bring world wide to the island, yet few would have heard of the allegations outside the small east Caribbean island if it was not for his YouTube video.A source has told Mathaba news that he could just as easily allege that Arnhim Eustace tried to sodomize him last year, and that he was too traumatized at the time to report it, and that on that basis alone irrespective of his claimed innocence or otherwise, he should also do the honorable thing and resign as opposition leader.The logic of the opposition party leader on St Vincent is totally flawed. On the basis of his logic, leaders around the world should resign every day as women make allegations of rape, on the basis of the allegation alone without any investigation or fair and transparent trial. It is plain clear and cheap opportunism for an opposition party to try and make capital out of allegations alone he said.Meanwhile the Prime Minister of SVG Ralph Gonsalves has said I categorically deny these allegations. They are false and malicious. I am wholly innocent. (Winamp Audio file of Press Conference here)Another source told Mathaba News that the island nation is so small and has such a tight community that there is really hardly a need for politicians and lawyers, and that these European institutions have not improved the quality of life of the African people who were forcibly brought there by the British imperialists.Lawyers and politicians make up such a small number in the community and really have little to do. Why do we need political parties and lawyers in suits when we can all sit under the tree and discuss and resolve our affair through mutual consultation, as that is exactly what most people on the islands do, the few politicians and lawyers excepted.

Tags: cate, europe, google

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The e-mail begins with an illuminating perspective of the number one billion.

“A billion seconds ago it was 1959.”

According to the Google calculator, one year equals 31,556,926 seconds, so a billion seconds was almost 32 years ago, or 1976.

“A billion minutes ago Jesus was alive.”

According to Google, one year equals 525,949 minutes, so a billion minutes would take us back 1,901 years into the mists of history, which would drop us into 106 A.D., back when Trajan conquered Dacia.

No, I don’t know what that means, but Jesus was tossing moneylenders from the temple about one billion and 72 million minutes ago. Small change, really.

“A billion hours ago our ancestors were living in the Stone Age.”

According to Google, one year equals about 8,766 hours, about 10,000 years before Jesus, so this figure is accurate.

“A billion dollars ago was only 8 hours and 20 minutes, at the rate our government is spending it.”

There’s no real way to ascertain the validity of that statement, but it sure sounds plausible. We’re dumping about a billion into Iraq every three or four days, according to the National Priorities Project.

The e-mail then makes an incredible leap of faith — Jesus was likely not a part of this series of calculations — by saying, “While this thought is still fresh in our brain, let’s take a look at New Orleans It’s amazing what you can learn with some simple division Louisiana Senator, Mary Landrieu (D), is presently asking the Congress for $250 BILLION to rebuild New Orleans.”

Punctuation aside, this statement is false.

According to the Washington Post, Senator Landrieu’s proposal, which was put together with Sen. David Ritter (R), asked for $250 billion for the Hurricane Katrina Disaster Relief and Economic Recovery Act, which would create the “Pelican Commission” (Protecting Essential Louisiana Infrastructure, Citizens and Nature) controlled by Louisiana residents.

That story ran on September 26, 2005, a month after Katrina.

In fact, according to Senator Landrieu’s Web site last week, “Louisiana may once again turn to Congress for hurricane recovery money, this time to pay for the state’s $1.5 billion share of boosting hurricane protection around New Orleans.”

Traditionally, the federal government pays 65 percent while state governments pick up 35 percent, the site said. The 2009 budget for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers includes $7.3 billion to repair, restore and bulk up hurricane protection in the New Orleans area.

The popular illusion that everything Katrina is all about New Orleans, coupled with the popular misconception that all New Orleans residents are poor and on the take, leads to stupendous statements such as the e-mail’s “if you are one of 484,674 residents of New Orleans (every man, woman, child), you each get $516,528.00.”

According to the census bureau, the population of New Orleans dropped from 496,938 to 223,388 after Katrina. It will balloon to 272,000 by late this year, according to the Rand Corporation.

Without New Orleans, farmers in the Midwest won’t be shipping out their grain to the world and Detroit won’t have the raw materials to build your American car.

That’s according to a New Orleans resident who pays attention to her city.

There’s money earmarked to help rebuild the infrastructure so that the rest of America can hit Mardi Gras and other “party events” for which New Orleans is famous, leaving their trash behind for the city to clean up.

According to the Clorox Company, more than 1.2 million Glad bags were donated to post-Katrina cleanup, in part so that local grassroots organization Katrina Krewe could remove 250,000 tons of debris so that Mardi Gras could continue its annual output of over 2,00 tons of tourista trash.

According to my calculator, 250,000 tons is 80 percent of a billion ounces, or about 200 million Quarter Pounders with cheese.

But Landrieu and Ritter and the rest were talking about rebuilding the Gulf Coast, not just New Orleans. According to the Post, the Landrieu bill included funds to study several key flood-protection projects, as well as a $14 billion ecosystem restoration for Louisiana’s vanishing coastal marshes, which help protect vulnerable communities against storm surges.

Other potential projects include a 50-year-old plan for a $750 million lock for the New Orleans Industrial Canal, $50 billion in open-ended grants for storm-ravaged communities and $13 billion for the Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development, along with mortgage assistance, health care, substance abuse treatment and other services for hurricane victims. It also includes payments to hospitals, ports, banks, shipbuilders, fishermen and schools, as well as $8 million for alligator farms, $35 million for seafood industry marketing, and $25 million for a sugar-cane research laboratory that had not been completed before Katrina.

There are billions of e-mail forwards out there that promote nonfactual information and we need to trash them all.

That’s according to me.

Tags: Food, google

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Being thrown out of Decimus Burton’s fabulously pompous
Athenaeum Club in Pall Mall is something every Australian should
experience once. Ours, sadly, wasn’t a complete throwing-out, a
bodily flight down the marble under the stern gilt gaze of the
warrior goddess, but a somewhat less satisfying ejectus
interruptus. And it wasn’t because of our Australianness.
Xenophobia, like fox-hunting, is no longer legal. It wasn’t
gender, either. The Athenaeum admits women these days, even as
members, standards having slipped. No, it was dress.
Google lied. Google advised no dress code. My partner,
prudently, had anyway pocketed a tie, and borrowed a jacket. But it
wasn’t enough. There were pants, and the pants, Sir, simply will
not do. They weren’t jeans. (I was wearing those. But women, our
host explained, are regarded as untameable). My partner’s pants
were of the expensive, recently fashionable sort that come looking
a little distressed, a little worse for wear. It is, you might
think, rather a British look. But for the Athenaeum the look -
indeed the entire last century - might as well not have
happened.
The doorman summoned his boss, who tut-tutted eloquently from
several metres’ distance. But no sooner was our absolute
unacceptability made absolutely plain than our host appeared,
descending the vast stair. With booming voice and presence to match
he whisked us back up to the rugger-sized drawing-room muttering,
rather too loudly, “Never mind ‘em, just the bloody servants”.
Athenaeum membership, like monarchy, is successional. Our host,
the revered former editor of the world’s oldest architectural
magazine, that radical establishment pillar The Architectural
Review, was “put up” for membership by his predecessor, J.M.
“we’re all modernists now” Richards. Richards was in turn put up by
Hubert de Cronin “H de C” Hastings, editor from 1927 to 1973, who
was hailed in 1959 by the former assistant editor John Betjeman as;
“the Great Man of the Time. You invented modern architecture. We
are all your creations.” One thing about empire, it’s jolly good
for the ego.
For us, though, it had been a day of clubs. Lunch at the
famously intellectual Groucho, in Soho; dinner at the Ath. Wildly
different in outlook and leaning yet both designed to engender that
nose-pressed-against-the-glass feeling with which all London
Australians (and many Brits) are familiar.
Australians relate to Britain like the bad child who
nevertheless cannot wait to impress. We affect to despise her, for
her grey climate and greyer food, and yet, even now, we send our
best and brightest to joust in that bejewelled arena. To win fair
grail, slay the controlling dragon. And slay we do. We win their
architecture prizes, turn their disastrous Millennium Dome into the
hugely successful O2 (or Oz?) arena, design their Olympic village,
dominate the tabloids. So it is, in its way, rather wonderful that
the British sense of inviolable superiority persists, despite such
intimations of takeover.
Most Brits still think of Australia, if at all, as some
far-flung kanga-infested blessedly droughty paradise. It’s a
brand-mistake we reinforce with, for example, the Australia Day
Monopoly pub crawl. Many Brits have cuddled a koala and know that,
beneath the fluff there’s surprisingly little meat. And that, when
the drugs fade and the stupor dissipates, those claws can be
surprisingly sharp. Surprisingly vituperative.
So they’re not surprised that Germaine Greer, from her ancient
mill-house two doors down from Cambridge’s shiny and
sinister-looking Genome Centre (also called the Sanger Institute,
in deference to this Great Australian Proximity), makes a point of
climbing rhythmically up the great British nostril. They take Barry
Humphries’s recent nomination of Prince Charles as “person most
admired” as simple evidence that the royal honours are coming round
again.
All this they tolerate, so peaceably that visitors to Canterbury
Cathedral, where Thomas Beckett was quadruply slaughtered, may be
plied with a special “Australian connection” map that renders
ecclesiastical complexities in plain English and points out, among
other things, a footprint, near the martyrdom door, carved by John
Blaxland, brother of the Blue Mountains explorer, Gregory.
But they must be nonplussed by subsequent generations. By the
fact that our Kylie now shares with the Queen (and, I suppose,
Beckett) the distinction of being four times waxed, only in this
case by Madame Tussaud - the previous Minogue bottom having melted,
we’re told, under undue schoolboy affection. Kylie who - notably
more fleshlike in wax than in life - is the first fragranced
waxwork, and with her own beguiling perfume. The Tower of London
guard is a Queenslander who talks AFL while checking bags for
bombs. And our Cate is on an awards shortlist for playing the queen
who stiffened England’s collars.
And in that beginning was the end, really, for Elizabeth begat
Empire, Empire begat Commonwealth, and Commonwealth begat a London
where Jamaicans laugh and talk on the Tube, where Neighbours
stars are household names and the Walkabout pub chain celebrate
Australia Day as if everyone knew it from Anzac.
The Brit lit crit Terry Eagleton once prophesied (after the
event, and after Yeats) “the centre cannot hold”. But would someone
please tell the doorman?

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MANY years ago, as branch manager of a large Australian bank,
part of my job was to vet home loan applications.
Such were the principles and strictly enforced guidelines of the
then “big four” banks, and the Reserve Bank’s oversight of their
lending activities, that a home loan application was not a fait
accompli. Issues such as ability to repay, equity in the proposed
purchase, career prospects and the quality and value of the
property were taken into account.
The system worked well for the banks and their customers, with
defaults on home loans almost unheard of and mortgages usually
repaid within 20 years.
So, bearing in mind the American fiasco, it was with some
professional interest that, under the guise of a 22-year-old wage
earner of indeterminate occupation, I embarked upon what I expected
to be mission impossible: scoring a home loan mortgage without
having the readies to pay a deposit, needing to borrow separately
to scrape up enough to pay stamp duty, legals and mortgage
insurance, and willing to contribute 35 per cent or more of my net
weekly wage to cover the repayments.
To sweeten the deal, I mentioned that my parents, pensioners,
owned their home, had some cash reserves and no borrowings, and
were happy to assist me by offering their guarantee, or putting
their own home up as additional security.
I contacted all the major banking institutions, and several
large regional building societies. All fell over themselves to sign
me up.
Most banks were prepared to lend 100 per cent of the purchase
price. Building societies were a little more constrained, offering
up to 97 per cent. My mention of the probability of Reserve Bank
interest increases, property value downturns, loss or reduction of
income, recession and illness, were all dismissed.
When I suggested that by borrowing 97 per cent of the price (let
alone 100 per cent), at first interest charge the loan amount would
exceed the value of the house, I was told that that was just
“arithmetic”.
Because of the degraded security quality of many Australian
lending institutions’ home loan portfolios, the situation in our
own “prime” home loan markets is remarkably consistent with the US
subprime loan market.
It’s time the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority took a
closer and more public look at our lending institutions, in
particular those smaller regional societies that cannot hedge their
home loan risks by offsetting them against other loan portfolios or
business units.
John Smeaton Newcastle
Fine Australians, and yet, many others go unsung
I agree with Lee Kernaghan (”All hail the country-singing angel
and the speed demon”, January 26-27). There is a list at least a
mile long of more deserving recipients of the title of Australian
of the Year.
Michael Throssell Narrabeen
It seems quite absurd that someone who sings an American style
of music and does his damndest to look like a Texan should somehow
be appointed Australian of the Year.
John White Dubbo
Why do we continue to give recognition to Australians of the
Year who already have it in abundance? Those who deserve it work
tirelessly with anonymity in areas of health, community, science,
research and military. Our history is littered with unsung heroes.
Do not hand me up high-profile entertainers and sports people and
tell me they are truly “Australian of the Year”.
Peter Barrow St Ives
If the middle-of-the road country singer Lee Kernaghan is
Australian of the Year, heaven help us if the Australian public
ever gets to vote for a head of state.
Peter Neufeld Mosman
If it is only that “[Casey] Stoner began racing motorbikes when
he was four years old, and last year won his first MotoGP world
title at the Japanese Grand Prix” that can be mentioned for his
receiving the Young Australian of the Year Award, I’m sorry but
that doesn’t cut it with me.
I don’t mean to belittle his achievements - there is no doubt
that what he has achieved at his age is extraordinary - but I don’t
see it as reason for such an award.
Let’s start putting things back into perspective for such
recognition - let’s make it about real contribution to the
community.
David Hevey Melbourne
Isn’t it just great that the Australian of the Year committee is
performing with the shallowness we have come to expect of it? This
year the members have excelled themselves with a country singer
most people have hardly heard of. If they were so desperate to find
somebody from the entertainment industry again, they might have
considered the best actor that this country has, Cate
Blanchett.
Robert Dunn Kewdale (WA)
I enjoyed (and slightly despaired at) the irony of the ABC’s 7pm
news report (January 25) on the four Australians of the Year. Not
one of them a woman, and the story was preceded by a report on how
women in Australia are still failing to break through the glass
ceiling.
Bronwyn Graham Gordon
Leave our hunted national symbol off the menu

As much as I usually admire James Woodford’s erudite environmental
deliberations, I believe he is tragically wrong in claiming that
eating kangaroo is somehow patriotic (”Worth two in the bush”,
January 26-27). On the contrary, our beautiful and beleaguered
national symbol has been exterminated, eradicated, persecuted,
culled, hunted and devoured for far too long.
While our nation rightly condemns Japan for killing whales,
millions of kangaroos are butchered every year, their joeys clubbed
to death and young at foot left to perish alone.
A growing commercial industry exists to carry out what is now
the largest slaughter of wildlife on earth. Only 10 per cent of a
kangaroo carcass is fit for human consumption, meaning that the
biggest specimens are targeted first and the gene pool is becoming
severely depleted. In fact, the average age of a red kangaroo is
now a pitiful two years, with an annual quota of over 20 per cent
of its estimated population.
If you proudly tucked into barbecued kangaroo on the nation’s
birthday, please spare a thought for these creatures whose
increasing presence on our menus is far from being either clean or
green. Almost half of Australia’s marsupials are extinct,
endangered or vulnerable, our land continues to be cleared and
degraded and kangaroos are effectively being mined for
unsustainable profit.
A more appropriate patriotic gesture might be for James to start
consuming some of the un-Australian feral pest species that cause
so much damage.
Malcolm Fisher Manly Vale
Lonely literary gong

David Marr (” %26#133; but one measly gong for an artist”, January
26-27) missed one lonely award for literature in Saturday’s honours
list. Marcel Weyland of Mosman was honoured with a medal “for
service to the Polish community in Australia and internationally
through the preservation and promotion of Polish cultural heritage,
particularly literature”.
A quick Google revealed Mr Weyland to be the internationally
acclaimed translator of that wonderful Polish epic poem Pan
Tadeusz, described by many as Poland’s most-read book.
Mr Weyland’s well-deserved recognition was a bright spot in an
otherwise bleak list for Australia’s creative community.
Agnes Mack Chatswood
Aged deserve better

As a senior citizen, I was concerned to read the federal Health
Minister, Nicola Roxon, stating benchmarks for the state health
systems if they are not to be taken over by the Commonwealth.
Certainly, she referred generally to reductions in preventable
admissions, but then went on to specify “cuts in hospital visits
for aged patients and others who can be cared for elsewhere”. If
you have any experience in hospital admission practice you know
that an admission does not occur unless the medical indications
justify it and it is nonsense to suggest otherwise.

To single out older members of the population for special
exclusion is nothing short of alarming. There is a problem with
patients, usually in the higher age group, who have been treated
medically and are ready for care in a nursing home or
rehabilitation centre - but a shortage of nursing home beds, in
particular, prevents this occurring. I certainly hope this is the
specific situation to which Ms Roxon endeavoured to refer,
otherwise she is getting off on the wrong foot.
Our hospitals and other infrastructure have been largely built
by the taxes and effort of older Australians and they do not
deserve to be put on the scrap heap.
Brian McGee Balgowlah
Enough of working families

Among the irritating catchphrases not listed in David Humphries’s
“Platitudes with attitude” (January 26-27) is the one from our
Prime Minister repeated ad nauseam by his ministers: “Australian
working families”.

Besides sounding trite, it is trite: it implies that if you are
not a member of a working family you can expect scant attention
from the Rudd Government.
And if you not Australian, either, I assume you have only heaven
to help you.
Michael Creswell Campsie
In danger of derision

On a weekend when I’m more proud to be Australian than any other
time in the year, I’m a little embarrassed.

I am living in Canada, where, on one of the most popular
breakfast shows on a national news network, they have read out on
more than one occasion the Australian Federal Government’s warning
about travelling to Canada. The show asked people in the streets
what they thought of the warning.
It is ridiculous. Canada is no less safe than Australia.
I don’t see any such warning from any other governments about
travel to Australia and it is the brunt of many jokes today on
Canadian television.
Aaron Harrison Toronto (Canada)
Falling ice, ravenous grizzly bears and seismic events have
nothing on the danger an Australian faces when not forking out a 15
per cent tip to a Canadian waitress. Beware!
Simon Parker Toronto (Canada)
Stallone’s monstrous delusion

Sylvester Stallone is deluding himself that injecting human growth
hormone for vanity’s sake is safe (”Stallone backs use of
hormones”, www.smh.com.au, January 27). It is quite apparent from
the accompanying photo that Stallone is giving himself acromegaly
(also known as giantism). The bony structure of his face has become
quite enlarged and deformed compared to older photos of him.
Acromegaly is caused by hypersecretion of human growth hormone. If
left untreated, it can lead to a number of other serious illnesses
such as heart disease and diabetes.

Maureen Chuck Cabarita
Commonwealth advantages

In response to Jude Quinn’s query (Letters, January 26) about what
we gain from membership of the Commonwealth, I would say quite a
lot, really. A prime example is that any subject of the Queen may
be employed in the British civil service. This has allowed
Australians to rise to quite high positions, including principal
private secretary to the Queen. Her Majesty’s Australian subjects
may also contend elections for the House of Commons and several
Australians are members of the House of Lords.

As for living in each other’s countries, Australians and Britons
enjoy equal rights regarding visas, etc.
Rob Turnbull Hunters Hill
Manly beats Bondi

I am disgusted that Bondi, with its grey concrete surrounds and
soulless Campbell Parade, was preferred over Manly for heritage
protection (”Extra layer of protection for a beach that’s under our
skin”, January 26-27). Manly has magnificent ocean beaches and
beaches facing the harbour, a unique combination in Sydney. With
country people on holiday and the ferries bringing daytrippers, it
has a happy holiday atmosphere that I have enjoyed for all my 70
years. The least the national heritage people can do is list Manly
too.
Andrew Macintosh Queenscliff
Something fishy about pet love
Ross Maiorana says he is attached to his pet goldfish (”Pet
project proves pair’s animal instinct is spot on”, smh.com.au,
January 27).
Clearly “attachment” is different from “love”. Fish have been
found to be intelligent - even altruistic - creatures that swim
huge distances in the wild.
To confine them to life imprisonment in a small bowl is
cruelty.
Jenny Moxham Monbulk (Vic)
Orbs spin a winner
The Golden Globes were a non-event, but the golden orbs are having
a huge year. I can’t walk outside these days without stumbling into
one of their masterpieces. Year of the rat? I think not - more like
year of the spider. Hang eight everyone.

Michael Deeth Como West
No rogue to ruin
The Societe Generale loses at least $8.2 billion, yet “France’s
second largest bank was able to absorb the loss and still turn in a
profit” (”$8.2b ‘genius of fraud’ vanishes”, January 26). I think I
must understand even less about the banking business than I
thought.

Antoinette Hirst Double Bay
If France’s rogue trader had gambled with the bank’s money and
won, would it still be fraud?
Anastasia Delaporta Dulwich Hill
Fruit for thought
And now for the bleeding obvious again. Sign in Woolworths
supermarket, fruit section, on the pineapple stand: “This fruit is
best eaten when peeled and sliced”. Who would want the rough end of
the pineapple anyway?

Don Davies Redlynch (Qld)
End to the chase?
Have I missed something or has the Chaser APEC prosecution quietly
gone away for fear of embarrassing the authorities?
Stephen Fox Arncliffe
A grand screamer
Congratulations to the young Russian tennis player Maria Sharapova
on her win in the Australian Open final over that nice young Serb
Ana Ivanovic. However, it just goes to show that a good loud scream
will generally beat a little squeak.
John Munro Toowoomba (Qld)
Joe Public is asked to remain silent at tennis matches while the
players grunt, groan and squeal. Why?
John Tuckfield Abbotsford
Printer problems
A friend recently tried to buy new ink cartridges for a
three-year-old colour printer. The cost was $96 for three colours
and double-size black.

A new printer, same brand, late model costs $59, including
three-quarters as much ink. He needs new ink three times a year and
so it is cheaper to buy a new printer each time and throw the old
one away. Something is wrong here.
Allan Thomas Lochinvar
Name of the game
According to the BBC news on Saturday, their representative on a
Greenpeace vessel chasing the Japanese whalers is Jonah Fisher.

Margaret Chaldecott Lindfield

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By Rich Tehrani

President and Editor-in-ChiefOriginally posted on Rich Tehrani VoIP BlogThe past 12 months were also marked by a lack of clear leadership at the Skype unit.Granted, Skype is still issuing regular product upgrades, and arguably

it is the world largest communications software company. It at the

top where a leadership vacuum exists. Why should this be? It makes

sense is for a strong evangelist to be at the helm of Skype promoting IP communications, butduring Whiteman tenure this hasn’t happened.

Whitman should, notwithstanding, be

given a tremendous amount of credit. She is intelligent, eloquent and

has done a great job with eBay and PayPal. Skype is another story.

Whitman is now in the process of voluntarily retiring, and this

presents a tremendous opportunity to her potential successor桱ohn

Donahue, who currently heads up the auction business. Donahue can now

start with a clean slate.

The two options for Donahue are to sell Skype to a company like Google or to put a strong leader in charge of the business.

Either way, the laundry list of ideas in this post,

reprinted here, still need to be brought to bear if eBay is really

serious about getting its underperforming Skype unit to generate higher

profits.

Enhance social network capabilities.

Skype currently is in a good position to expand into social networking

via Facebook like features. They have added some community services but

not enough to be taken seriously as a real social network. Some

analysts place Facebook value at $100 billion. This is obviously an area the company should be going after more seriously.

Show some ads.

Let see if I understand the situation. You have over 5 million users

on your service almost every moment of every day. You need to increase

revenue. Your answer? Show no ads. If I were eBay I would be flashing

product listings in front of Skype users as often as possible. If this

doesn make sense, why not show Google ads like everyone else in the

world? It is tough to see where this isn a $100 million/year revenue

opportunity ?this amount may seem high but think about how long people

use Skype each day and consider you can flash new ads in front of users

constantly. Moreover, probably $90 million would flow to the bottom

line. eBay P/E ratio is currently about 40 so this amount of earnings

could translate into about $3.6 billion in market capitalization. Not

showing ads is something I can conceivably understand.

Enter the enterprise VoIP market. Cbeyond has a market cap of over a billion dollars and provides hosted communications to just a few cities in the US. Zennstrom first told the world at INTERNET TELEPHONY Conference %26amp; EXPO that Skype was very popular in the business space. Why was this never monetized in a formal manner?

Provide paid recording capabilities. With

the regulatory environment forcing so many companies to record phone

calls and so many Skype users in the world, you have to offer a

recording service to help those companies who need to capture Skype IM

and voice calls within their organizations. My revenue estimate?

$25-$100 million/year.

Skype trunking.

This technology is one of the most intriguing around ?allowing

companies to communicate with branch offices, customers and home

workers at a low cost. I feel going forward every company should take

advantage ofSIP

trunking and Skype trunking. Skype knows this. So the question I feel

compelled to ask is why would they do not work more closely with

partners such as VoSKY and actually market Skype trunking products to customers in a more serious way. VoSKY

is doing a good job but why is there not a multimillion dollar Skype ad

budget behind VoSKY and others? Why leave the success of this massive

market in the hands of partners when you can ensure the rapid success

of this burgeoning new space yourself? The reason may be that Skype was

built as a viral platform and they except this to be the only way to

sell. Ditto for eBay. Guess what? Companies like Avaya, Cisco,Dialogic

and Quintum sell telecom equipment and/or gateways and they have to

market to customers. To be serious in the business space, Skype needs

to start a serious partner program where they fund the marketing of

companies which help their own paid services increase.

Go after the PBX vendors. If I am a PBX vendor I would be looking for Skype interoperability as a

differentiator. Still, I have yet to see an ad touting PBX vendor

Skype Interop. Why?

Charge for something beyond just connecting to the PSTN .

Charge for conferencing, enhanced video, the ability to get new

features first, for the ability to use the service without having to

see ads, etc.

Partner with media companies. Work with content providers and stream programming via the Skype client. Make money through subscriptions and ads.

Take on the world biggest auction houses with Skype video enabled live auctions. If eBay can pull off selling cars, it can pull this off as well.

Embrace Skype.

I have a weird question. Companies all over the world are integrating

their customer service departments with gateways allowing callers to

use Skype to call in. Isn it odd that PayPal doesn accept Skype

phone calls? If you want companies to integrate with Skype ?which will

obviously increase revenue ?doesn it make sense to lead by example?

Embrace enterprise video. Video

is enjoying resurgence and Skype has a well-known brand name and has a

pretty good video solution. What about offering a video plan for

businesses which will be cheaper than existing solutions on the market

but priced high enough to generate real revenue?

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Being thrown out of Decimus Burton’s fabulously pompous
Athenaeum Club in Pall Mall is something every Australian should
experience once. Ours, sadly, wasn’t a complete throwing-out, a
bodily flight down the marble under the stern gilt gaze of the
warrior goddess, but a somewhat less satisfying ejectus
interruptus. And it wasn’t because of our Australianness.
Xenophobia, like fox-hunting, is no longer legal. It wasn’t
gender, either. The Athenaeum admits women these days, even as
members, standards having slipped. No, it was dress.
Google lied. Google advised no dress code. My partner,
prudently, had anyway pocketed a tie, and borrowed a jacket. But it
wasn’t enough. There were pants, and the pants, Sir, simply will
not do. They weren’t jeans. (I was wearing those. But women, our
host explained, are regarded as untameable). My partner’s pants
were of the expensive, recently fashionable sort that come looking
a little distressed, a little worse for wear. It is, you might
think, rather a British look. But for the Athenaeum the look -
indeed the entire last century - might as well not have
happened.
The doorman summoned his boss, who tut-tutted eloquently from
several metres’ distance. But no sooner was our absolute
unacceptability made absolutely plain than our host appeared,
descending the vast stair. With booming voice and presence to match
he whisked us back up to the rugger-sized drawing-room muttering,
rather too loudly, “Never mind ‘em, just the bloody servants”.
Athenaeum membership, like monarchy, is successional. Our host,
the revered former editor of the world’s oldest architectural
magazine, that radical establishment pillar The Architectural
Review, was “put up” for membership by his predecessor, J.M.
“we’re all modernists now” Richards. Richards was in turn put up by
Hubert de Cronin “H de C” Hastings, editor from 1927 to 1973, who
was hailed in 1959 by the former assistant editor John Betjeman as;
“the Great Man of the Time. You invented modern architecture. We
are all your creations.” One thing about empire, it’s jolly good
for the ego.
For us, though, it had been a day of clubs. Lunch at the
famously intellectual Groucho, in Soho; dinner at the Ath. Wildly
different in outlook and leaning yet both designed to engender that
nose-pressed-against-the-glass feeling with which all London
Australians (and many Brits) are familiar.
Australians relate to Britain like the bad child who
nevertheless cannot wait to impress. We affect to despise her, for
her grey climate and greyer food, and yet, even now, we send our
best and brightest to joust in that bejewelled arena. To win fair
grail, slay the controlling dragon. And slay we do. We win their
architecture prizes, turn their disastrous Millennium Dome into the
hugely successful O2 (or Oz?) arena, design their Olympic village,
dominate the tabloids. So it is, in its way, rather wonderful that
the British sense of inviolable superiority persists, despite such
intimations of takeover.
Most Brits still think of Australia, if at all, as some
far-flung kanga-infested blessedly droughty paradise. It’s a
brand-mistake we reinforce with, for example, the Australia Day
Monopoly pub crawl. Many Brits have cuddled a koala and know that,
beneath the fluff there’s surprisingly little meat. And that, when
the drugs fade and the stupor dissipates, those claws can be
surprisingly sharp. Surprisingly vituperative.
So they’re not surprised that Germaine Greer, from her ancient
mill-house two doors down from Cambridge’s shiny and
sinister-looking Genome Centre (also called the Sanger Institute,
in deference to this Great Australian Proximity), makes a point of
climbing rhythmically up the great British nostril. They take Barry
Humphries’s recent nomination of Prince Charles as “person most
admired” as simple evidence that the royal honours are coming round
again.
All this they tolerate, so peaceably that visitors to Canterbury
Cathedral, where Thomas Beckett was quadruply slaughtered, may be
plied with a special “Australian connection” map that renders
ecclesiastical complexities in plain English and points out, among
other things, a footprint, near the martyrdom door, carved by John
Blaxland, brother of the Blue Mountains explorer, Gregory.
But they must be nonplussed by subsequent generations. By the
fact that our Kylie now shares with the Queen (and, I suppose,
Beckett) the distinction of being four times waxed, only in this
case by Madame Tussaud - the previous Minogue bottom having melted,
we’re told, under undue schoolboy affection. Kylie who - notably
more fleshlike in wax than in life - is the first fragranced
waxwork, and with her own beguiling perfume. The Tower of London
guard is a Queenslander who talks AFL while checking bags for
bombs. And our Cate is on an awards shortlist for playing the queen
who stiffened England’s collars.
And in that beginning was the end, really, for Elizabeth begat
Empire, Empire begat Commonwealth, and Commonwealth begat a London
where Jamaicans laugh and talk on the Tube, where Neighbours
stars are household names and the Walkabout pub chain celebrate
Australia Day as if everyone knew it from Anzac.
The Brit lit crit Terry Eagleton once prophesied (after the
event, and after Yeats) “the centre cannot hold”. But would someone
please tell the doorman?

Tags: australians, boss, brother, cate, Food, google, liar, mutt, shortlist

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