News - General Issues http://www.ebroadcast.com.au/eblah/ http://www.eblah.com en eDay http://www.ebroadcast.com.au/eblah/m-1223116471/ http://www.ebroadcast.com.au/eblah/m-1223116471/#num1

eDay sees NZers clear out 90 tonnes of electronic waste
October 4, 2008, 6:37 pm
http://nz.news.yahoo.com/a/-/mp/5058282/eday-sees-nzers-clear-90-tonnes-electronic-waste/

New Zealanders cleared their homes of almost 900 tonnes of old computer equipment and mobile phones today, in the second national eDay.

More than 15,000 carloads of electronic waste (e-waste) was dropped off at 32 centres around the country today -- a big increase on the 415 tonnes collected at the first national eDay last year where 12 centres took part.

The event, organised by the Computer Access New Zealand Trust (CANZ), saw more than 77,000 computer items including monitors, central processing units (CPUs), and printers, weighing a total of 873 tonnes, diverted from landfills.

A further 90 tonnes of e-waste is expected to be collected at the Hamilton event tomorrow.

"The response around the country was fantastic. The total collected today filled close to 100 containers," said National eDay Coordinator Laurence Zwimpfer.

E-waste and its toxic materials, including lead and mercury from old computers, was globally the fastest growing type of waste, and much of it ended up in landfills, he said.

A recent survey conducted by CANZ for the Ministry for the Environment estimated over 16 million electronic devices (computers and TVs) were being used in New Zealand , with nearly one million being added each year, over half of which are computers.

Equipment collected today was sorted at each drop-off site before being transported to Auckland where monitors will be tested for possible re-use and other equipment will be sent to South Korea for recycling.]]> Sat, 4 Oct 2008 20:34:31 Tasman End of the world? http://www.ebroadcast.com.au/eblah/m-1221026457/ http://www.ebroadcast.com.au/eblah/m-1221026457/#num1 End of the world parties for Large Hadron Collider launch


September 10, 2008 12:00pm
Article from: NEWS.com.au



    * World's biggest particle accelerator switched on tonight
    * Critics say it may cause the end of the world
    * So people are holding parties to go out in style

WHAT do you wear to a party celebrating the end of the world?

Lachlan Hibbert-Wells knows the answer – he's hosting an "end of the world" party tonight to celebrate the activation of the world's biggest particle accelerator.

The Large Hadron Collider, which will be switched on at about 6.30pm (AEST) today, is set to be one of the largest physics experiments in history but has been dubbed a "doomsday device" by critics.

"There's been suggestions of coming dressed in black to match the black hole that will be formed," Mr Hibbert-Wells told NEWS.com.au.

"I know some people are talking about making shirts with clever phrases on them, like 'Does my butt look big in the Higgs-Boson field?', or 'Hey baby, mind if I collapse my atoms into yours?'"

Mr Hibbert-Wells, a 23-year-old writer and self-confessed geek from Sydney, said his father had dubbed him the "Doomsday Corey", in reference to Corey Worthington's infamous MySpace party.

"I made a Facebook event and suggested that people invite friends, who can invite friends," Mr Hibbert-Wells said.

"I have no idea how many people are going to turn up tonight... I'm suspecting maybe in the hundreds. We're hoping for a quiet affair."

When the Large Hadron Collider is activated it will shoot a particle beam around a 27km circular tunnel in the first of a series of experiments scientists are hoping will recreate the aftermath of the Big Bang.

The European science organisation CERN hopes these experiments will uncover the theoretical Higgs-Boson particle and some more information on the nature of matter.

A small minority of scientists and science fiction writers have characterised the Collider as a "doomsday device", with theories that the collision of particles will create a black hole that could eventually swallow the world.

However numerous studies have verified the experiments will be safe, and tonight's experiment does not involve particle collisions.

Mr Hibbert-Wells, who organised the doomsday party with his friends David and Lucinda, said he didn't actually expect the world to end when the LHC beam is switched this evening.

"Tonight's just the turning on of the machine, the first (particle) collisions shouldn't happen for six to eight weeks," he said.

Once CERN has set a date for those collisions, Mr Hibbert-Wells said he might host another party.

"(Tonight's party) was sort of seen as a test event," he said.

But if the world were to end tonight, what would his final words be?

"My final words – because my girlfriend will be there tonight – would be to tell her I love her."

]]> Wed, 10 Sep 2008 16:00:57 kiwi Drivers using Mobile Phones http://www.ebroadcast.com.au/eblah/m-1220502334/ http://www.ebroadcast.com.au/eblah/m-1220502334/#num1

Quoted Text

1199 drivers nabbed on phone
Article from: AAP http://www.news.com.au/perthnow/story/0,21598,24292644-5005361,00.html

    

September 04, 2008 11:20am

ALMOST 1200 New South Wales motorists, in one day, have been caught using handheld mobile phones while driving, sparking a terse public warning from police.

A total of 1199 motorists were caught across NSW yesterday using handheld mobiles as part of Operation Compliance.

Chief Superintendent John Hartley says it appears drivers are not getting the message.

"These figures are simply not good enough," he said.

"(They) indicate that motorists are not taking the message that driving whilst on the phone is dangerous and could cost lives."

Chief Supt Hartley issued a stern warning to motorists who continued to use handheld phones while behind the wheel.

"I want to remind all motorists that if they commit an offence whilst driving, they will be caught and fined," he said.

"If you want to talk on your phone when behind the wheel, use a hands free mobile phone or pull over and turn your ignition off."

The offence draws a $243 fine - or $324 in a school zone - and three licence demerit points.
]]> Thu, 4 Sep 2008 14:25:34 Tasman Whats your weekly spend? http://www.ebroadcast.com.au/eblah/m-1219656287/ http://www.ebroadcast.com.au/eblah/m-1219656287/#num1
Heres an article that may be of interest...

Quoted Text
Article from: The Sunday Telegraph
http://www.news.com.au/business/money/printstory/0,25585,24236101-5017313,00.html

Boomers the nation's biggest spenders
August 24, 2008 10:00pm

Baby boomers spend more than any other generation

Gen Y more likely to shop at designer boutiques

BABY boomers own the most expensive homes and spend more money than any other generation.

But Generation Y -- the poorest -- is most likely to shop at exclusive designer clothing stores.

The influences, tastes and shopping habits of different generations are revealed in a report, The Way We Are.

Thousands of Australians were interviewed over four years for the analysis by retail consultancy Directional Insights.

It found the way we shop reflected how hard or well we had it in the past.

The survey found typical baby boomers (aged 40 to 59 when interviewed) and Gen Ys (aged 15 to 24 when interviewed) were egocentric, optimistic and opinionated. Both had lived through relative economic prosperity, with Gen Y experiencing no downturns until now and baby boomers enjoying the post World War II boom.

Baby boomers also brought the sexual revolution and were most likely to have dysfunctional relationships or be divorced.

Baby boomers shopped fast and spent more than any other generation.

Some social demographers said their frenzied shopping was a search for self-fulfilment.

"Baby boomers are not saving up for their kids' inheritance -- they love the good things in life and shopping could be seen as a means of establishing their self-identity," Monash University retail expert Prof Harmen Oppewal said.

Baby boomer Pam Campbell agreed shopping was a way of life, but said saving for family holidays was more important.

The survey found Gen Ys preferred to spend their money trying to look good and were struggling to break into the property market.

Generation X (25-39) on the other hand work the hardest and despite having the highest income, they still don't spend as much as Baby Boomers and Y-ers.
]]> Mon, 25 Aug 2008 19:24:47 Tasman Festivals news http://www.ebroadcast.com.au/eblah/m-1217670197/ http://www.ebroadcast.com.au/eblah/m-1217670197/#num1

You would need a heart of stone not to smile at the sight of tens of thousands of gay men screaming at middle-aged ladies singing Eurovision ditties, says James Savage.

Anyone who has spent the last week in Stockholm would have a tough time escaping Europride. The two-week gay party has led to a whole television channel turning itself over to repeats of Queer as Folk, to public buses flying rainbow flags and to endless articles in the media on gay rights. For the moment, you can be gay and almost feel like you're in the majority.

One other thing that's inescapable during Pride week is schlager.These days, it might be hard to discern a single Eurovision genre, but in Pride Park on Thursday they were keeping the myth alive. If it had been in the Eurovision Song Contest (or a Swedish heat), it was in.

What makes this such a winning concept at Pride is that a large core of Swedish gay men have a knowledge of Eurovision history that can best be compared with many straight men's knowledge of football. When the delightful Mark Levengood announced that the next act had come second in the 1991 Eurovision Song Contest, the whole audience seemed to shreik in recognition (for anyone not up to speed on Eurovision history, it was French singer Amina).

One consequence of this crazy level of adoration was that the singers repaid it, without exception, with gutsy performances. A sixty-something duo singing a catchy (if dated) ditty called 'C'est la Vie' proved that gay men and middle aged women often have peculiarly similar taste in music.

Charlotte Perrelli, the singer who took Sweden to an ignominious eighteenth place in Eurovision, found an audience quite ready to let bygones be bygones. They lapped up her 'Hero', but reserved their strongest applause for 'Take me to your Heaven,' which won her Eurovision in 1999.

When Perrelli repeatedly told them 'Ni är helt fantastiska' ('You're completely wonderful'), she must have known she was addressing an audience who will still be cheering her on thirty years from now. Likewise, a succession of one-hit wonders and middle-aged schlager singers can still come to Stockholm Pride to don their spandex and feel the love.

The Big Foreign Act of the night was the exception that proved the rule. Dana International, the Israeli transsexual singer who won the contest in 1998, sent the audience delirious with her hit Diva. But even Dana couldn't steal the show from Sweden's own Lena Philipsson, who reminded everyone why she's a first-class entertainer. The combination of a solid voice, great legs and a willingness to act smutty for her audience meant that there was only one name the audience was chanting when it was time for an encore.

Gay Pride may ostensibly be about politics - and if you happen to be gay or transsexual and living in Uganda, for instance, the struggle is far from won. But don't for a minute be fooled that half a million people took part in last year's Stockholm Pride to be lectured to about human rights or to express a sense of victimhood. They were there to party, and in the case of Thursday night's festivities, to indulge their love of schlager. And it would be hard to find a more good-natured, exuberant, carefree and downright fun night out anywhere in Sweden.

Happy Pride!

James Savage (james.savage@thelocal.se/08 656 651
]]> Sat, 2 Aug 2008 19:43:17 kiwi Underage models http://www.ebroadcast.com.au/eblah/m-1207960972/ http://www.ebroadcast.com.au/eblah/m-1207960972/#num1
It leaves me to wonder, that if underage models like kids on all that shopping store junk mail (like Target, Kmart and so on) should ban images of kids in wearing underwear on catalogues. I know this might sound crazy, but it seems in a way, it is child pornographic !!  

What do you think? ]]> Sat, 12 Apr 2008 10:42:52 babes_mate Pregnant man?! http://www.ebroadcast.com.au/eblah/m-1207297904/ http://www.ebroadcast.com.au/eblah/m-1207297904/#num1 http://news.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=442141

Pregnant man tells Oprah: It's a miracle
Friday Apr 4 09:37 AEDT

A transgender man who is six months pregnant said in an interview aired by Oprah Winfrey that he always wanted to have a child and considers it a miracle.

"It's not a male or female desire to have a child. It's a human desire," a thinly bearded Thomas Beatie said.

"I have a very stable male identity," he added, saying that pregnancy neither defines him nor makes him feel feminine.

Beatie, 34, who lives in Oregon, was born a woman but decided to become a man 10 years ago. He began taking testosterone treatments and had breast surgery to remove glands and flatten his chest.

"I opted not to do anything with my reproductive organs because I wanted to have a child one day," he told the talk show host.

Beatie's wife Nancy said she inseminated him with a syringe using sperm purchased from a bank.

Now, he said, his size 32 jeans are getting a bit tight and his shirts are a bit stretched.

Nancy, to whom he has been married for five years and who has two grown daughters by a previous marriage, also appeared on the show, saying the couple's roles will not change once the baby is born.

"He's going to be the father and I'm going to be the mother," she said. Their marriage is legal and he is recognized under state law as a man.

The couple was shown on video provided by People magazine, which collaborated with Winfrey on the show, showing the room that will be the baby's nursery. Beatie said the little girl was going to be "daddy's little princess."

The couple was also filmed in their hometown of Bend, Oregon, where he underwent an ultrasound showing the baby in his womb.

"I can't believe it. I can't believe she's inside me," Beatie said while watching the ultrasound image. "We see her as our little miracle."

His obstetrician, Dr. Kimberly James, who practices in the Oregon town, told Winfrey, "This is a normal pregnancy."

She said Beatie stopped taking testosterone two years ago and his levels of the hormone are normal.

"This baby is totally healthy," she said. "This is what I consider a normal pregnancy."

The couple said they had been turned down by a number of other doctors before James agreed to take him as a patient.

The couple said an earlier attempt at pregnancy failed when he developed a tubal pregnancy, resulting in surgery that removed his Fallopian tubes.

The couple said they decided to go public with the pregnancy because they wanted to control the way the news got out.

"We're just going to have the baby now," Nancy said. "If we have to, we'll go hide."

The couple runs a small business in Bend and has some savings, she said. In addition, Beatie is working on a book about his childhood, his mother's suicide and his life growing in Hawaii where, as a girl, he was a teen beauty pageant contestant and earned a martial arts black belt.

Winfrey called the development "a new definition of what diversity means for everybody."



http://news.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=442210

The "world's first pregnant man" and his wife say they may have to go into hiding to avoid a violent conservative reaction to their baby.

Transgender man Thomas Beatie and his wife Nancy appeared on the Oprah Winfrey Show and discussed the pregnancy at length, including the method of conception.

Mr Beatie, 34, was born a woman but switched sexes 10 years go by taking testosterone and undergoing surgery to remove his breasts.

He was legally recognised as a man in his home state of Oregon, although he still has female organs.

"I opted not do anything with my reproductive organs because I wanted to have a child," Mr Beatie told Winfrey.

When asked by the talk show host how they planned to deal with media "hound-dogs outside your door step", Mrs Beatie said they would go into hiding if necessary.

"We just want to have the baby now and we've let people know our story our way … we're not going to obviously be able to keep our business running but it's something that we knew would possibly happen."

Nancy Beatie said she had inseminated her husband, who is now six months pregnant, at home by using a veterinary syringe with donor sperm.

Amber, Mrs Nancy’s adult daughter from a previous marriage, said she was scared about the couple going public with their news.

"It's a little scary, we're scared for them," she said.

"I don't know that the world is all that prepared but we're just regular born people and a regular family."

Mrs Beatie insisted that the couple's roles would not change after birth and that she would be the mother and Mr Beatie would be the father to the child.

"When I look at him he gets bigger everyday, it doesn't change how I feel about him being my husband."

"It's so wonderful, I bet a lot of women would like to have their husband's pregnant," she said.

Mr Beatie said he thought "different was normal", when Winfrey asked if the pair thought the world was ready for a man to have a baby.

"Love makes a family, that's all that matters," he said to applause.

The couple's obstetrician Dr Kimberly James, who accepted them after they were turned down by other doctors, said the pregnancy was normal and that Mr Beatie stopped taking testosterone two years ago

Opinions? I for one find the whole thing very misleading, how can this person be classified a man without a Y chromosone? They are just a female person dressed as a man! World's first pregnant man my a**!]]> Fri, 4 Apr 2008 18:31:44 Simpson Schoolies http://www.ebroadcast.com.au/eblah/m-1202770980/ http://www.ebroadcast.com.au/eblah/m-1202770980/#num1 do u think that schoolies should be banned?
why/Why not?]]> Tue, 12 Feb 2008 10:03:00 My Chem Fan Anti-Gay protest at the death of Heath Ledger http://www.ebroadcast.com.au/eblah/m-1201214626/ http://www.ebroadcast.com.au/eblah/m-1201214626/#num1 http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/01/25/2146246.htm

That would have to be the worst insult to the family of the Ledgers and fans alike. Gee, idiots like that, and not to forget Germaine Greer's bad crocodile comment at Steve Irwin, need to get a real life.

Those death comments make me sick in the stomach.  

]]> Fri, 25 Jan 2008 09:43:46 babes_mate This makes me angry http://www.ebroadcast.com.au/eblah/m-1199760712/ http://www.ebroadcast.com.au/eblah/m-1199760712/#num1
From correspondents in Ottawa
January 08, 2008 01:25pm
Article from: Agence France-PresseFont size: + -
Send this article: Print Email
A CASE involving Canadian teenagers who allegedly killed a pet cat by microwaving it during a burglary last month has provoked outrage among internet users, leading authorities to block some websites.

Police shut down local websites over the weekend which breached a Canadian law banning the identification of young people charged with a crime, or that promoted vigilante justice, Inspector Lee Foreman said.

"I think people like that should be shot,'' said one message posted on the social networking website Facebook.

"I would say these monsters should be tortured.''

Another message board named the boys and said they should be shot or "get their faces smashed in".

Others demanded tougher laws to curtail animal abuse.

Four boys, aged 13 to 15, from Camrose, Alberta, about 90km southeast of Edmonton, have been charged over the cat's death and are to appear in court in February.

According to a neighbour quoted by the Edmonton Journal, the suspects vandalised the home, stole several items and scrawled in felt pen on kitchen cabinets: "Nice cat, look in the microwave.''

The cat's owners were away on holiday at the time. A friend who was looking after the house in their absence found the feline's remains, police said.


http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,23022644-23109,00.html]]> Tue, 8 Jan 2008 13:51:52 Bluezphere