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There's noises emanating from elements of the Federal Liberal party back bench about blocking unsavoury content from the Internet.

This is not new, of course, they've already tried it before. Memory serves me that a regulatory framework was devised as an attempt to buy Brian Harradine's vote on some issue or other. This temporarily certailed a lot of local adult content, but the site owners simply moved to servers off shore and out of reach of the Australian authorities.

So now the censorship proponents want to block the content before it reaches us.

I have mixed feelings on this issue. As a parent, I don't want my kids accessing this sort of material and we have a strict regime of control over the home PCs to prevent this. As an adult, I don't want to be told what I can and can't watch. As an engineer, I don't want regulatory measures effecting the performance of the Internet, especially measures that I suspect will not be effective.

The details of how the proponents of censorship propose to block the content are sketchy. I assume it will use some sort of blacklist at the ISP level. How they expect to keep track of the shifting sands of the millions of questionable sites is beyond me. They could use keywords, I suppose, but that would eliminate half the Blogosphere let alone your average porn site.

The may propose the Chinese method and funnel all external traffic through a handful of gateways. Expect 'broadband' to be not so 'broad' if they take that path.

In my experience, blocking sites comes with unintended consequences. An innocent site with a link to a blocked one may make the innocent site unreachable.

Another danger is that once a regulatory framework is in place, it doesn't take much to control other information. Just look at the way the Chinese authorities filter content to their population.

Control will never stop the nasties, it will just push them underground. Suspect sites will not be on DNS, and encryption will make the traffic difficult for the authorities to monitor.

Hopefully, Helen Coonan will resist the zealots and not introduce measures that are ineffective and will cripple the net.

Freedom of information has advantages that far outweigh the disadvantages. It's up to individuals to control what they and their dependents access.

Apologies for the lack of posts over the last 10 days or so. Work commitments and some personal events prevented me from getting in front of the keyboard.

Your correspondent recently crossed the line that marks (to some) the beginning of senility. Yes, the big five oh! Can't say I've notice much difference from when I was 49, but some will claim it confirms my dinosaur status.

I wonder how many other ploggers (political bloggers) out there who've reached a similar age? I think Rowen may have. On the dark side there's Slatts, but there wouldn't be many others.

Dinosaurs we may be, but 'silly old buggers' we aren't. Well, maybe Slatts is close! ;)

Having read the link provided by Rowen which details the top 10 weblog design mistakes, it seems that TPAF is a disaster, and it's no wonder that it wallows in obscurity!

Shamelessly plagiarising Anonymous Lefty's treatment of the subject, here's a rundown of how bad things can get ..

1. No Author Bio: Well, it's been something I've been meaning to do for ages, now done. I haven't given all my details, preferring a degree of anonymity; see point nine for the main reason.
2. No Author Photo: Sort of fixed. See previous point.
3. Nondescript Posting Titles: I don't do too badly here.
4. Links That Don't Say Where They Go: Just click on them and find out!
5. Classic Hits are Buried: And will stay that way.
6. Calendar is the Only Navigation: The Pigs doesn't even have a calendar ...
7. Irregular Publishing Frequency: Guilty as charged, my lord! Seems to me that there are only three professions that allow regular blogging; being a student, an academic or a journalist. All the other poor sods have to blog in between work and family commitments.
8. Mixing Topics: The topics of this blog are the things that interest me. Surely everyone's interested in politics and AFL footy??
9. Forgetting That You Write For Your Future Boss: Actually, the greater worry is my present one. See point one.
10. Not Owning a Domain Name: No problem there, it's all mine.

Score of three out of ten. Similar to my year six divinity exam.

Just before leaving work, I had a quick flick round the net, as you do; landed at Flute's, to see he's be "hit by a 'meme'." Huh? Meme?

Oh, ok. It's a chain letter of sorts, answer the questions, then pass them on to another lot of victims. What's this? My site's on the list?

Bugger!

Flutey, how could you? It's about music!

Time to tell you all a dirty little secret .... I'm not into music that much. Not these days, anyway. Was big into live music during my youth, but now I rarely buy a CD, and don't download at all. Too many other things going on in my life to partake in the latter, and I hope by ignoring free music on the web it will delay my daughters' interest in the subject. It's worked so far, and just as well. Our home computers are the one's Noah used, slow and small hard drives. Certainly couldn't accommodate the 1.3 GByte that Rowen boasts.

So, here goes:

1. Total volume of music on my pc: None

2. Songs playing right now: None. Kids in bed and I'm enjoying the quiet.

3. Last album purchased: ABBA Gold. (Yes, really!) Was inspired by the ABBA TV special(s), and realised the error of my yoof when I bagged the group. Buying the CD was penance.

4. Seven songs I've listened to a lot lately, from several genres: Another secret here, I mostly listen to the albums I have when I travel for work. Reasons? Well, the distances are longish, the hire cars my employer supplies have CD players and I'm usually by myself so can have it loud.

To answer this I'll pick some tracks off some of my favourite disks:

a. Ironic by Alanis Morrissette
b. Would I Lie to You by The Eurythmics
c. Beds are Burning by Midnight Oil
d. Wish You Were Here by Pink Floyd
e. Rocky Mountain Way by Joe Walsh
f. EMI by The Sex Pistols
g. The Name of the Game by ABBA

And that's it! Don't judge me too harshly, young people of the web generation. I am in my 50th year.

Now to finger five other victims. Come on down .....

Tim Lambert
Ken Parish You'll have to come out of retirement ...
Chris Sheil Ditto
The Lad Representation from the other side of the sphere ...
Graham

One year ago today the Pigs was born. From an idiosyncratic, haphazard, and inconsistent publication it has ... well, remained much the same.

Thanks to co-contributor Mark who has added another dimension to and generally raised the standard of the site.

Thanks to those who've contributed comments over the year, particularly the small band of regulars whose presence, more than anything else, has kept me at the keyboard. Whether it's to agree, dissent or point out errors, your contributions are appreciated. Feedback is what can make blogging an enjoyable and rewarding experience.

And to end my snarky theme tonight, Tim Blair, that most rabid of RWDB bloggers, (one I link but rarely read) paid out a $250 prize to Antony Lowenstein, who's serious and definitely leftish blog scored more hits than Blair's friend Shelley Horton's 'gossip and pap' blog.

Congratulations to Antony. If he hasn't already decided, may I suggest he 'disperses' the money to a suitably ideologically incorrect (in Blair's eyes) cause.

Update: Tim Lambert has been graphing these political scores for a while, I now find out. The one I wrote about below is aimed at Australian bloggers, rather than the global population. Results are here. You'll agree that they show a much more even spread of political views.

...

Ken Parish at Troppo is bored with the constant right / left wing 'labelling contest' that regularly occurs in the blogging world. He has suggested that bloggers take the 'political compass' test to find out where they stand in the political spectrum.

To facilitate the comparison of individuals in the Aus Blogger political spectrum, Tim Lambert has set up a system to graph the results of anyone who cares to take the test to show where they stand relative to each other.

The Pigs lie at ....

Economic Left/Right: -4.25
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -4.26

Overall, Tim Lambert's Aus Blogger spectrum looks like this: (Click to enlarge) ....

Notice how most bloggers (including yours truly) are grouped in the lower left hand corner? What a touchy / feely bunch we appear to be!

Anyone with any experience of the political blogging world knows that the divide is much more balanced than the graph indicates. What's happened to the RWDBs; the Bunyips, Currency Lads, Evil Pundits, and Tim Blairs of the blogging world?

They're not usually shy about showing where they stand. Hopefully, word gets to them so they can participate and let the rest of us know just how right wing they really are.

I've just been cleaning up the roll. It was long overdue. A few defunct links are gone, a few I browse regularly are added.

If anyone would like their link on my page, now's the time. Mail me.

Following in the footsteps of Chris Shiel, the Currency Lad has signed off from the blogging world so he can concentrate on writing a book.

I agree in essence with Rob Corr's opinion that "CL is the best writer of all the Australian RWDB bloggers." However, CL's blog was not a typical RWDB. (See here for an example of one.) CL was rare in the right wing blogging fraternity because his blog made a forceful and articulate (albeit, IMHO, sometimes misguided) contribution to the political debate, unlike most other RWDBs that simply consist of character assassination and rank snarkiness.

I wish him well on his writing project and hope that he makes a quick return to the Blogosphere.