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Straight from the Tony Abbott’s website, a transcript of a door stop on 08/09/11 .

—

QUESTION:

Craig Thomson’s wife is heavily pregnant. Will you offer him a pair so that he can be at the birth of his child?

TONY ABBOTT:

Look, we’ve made it crystal clear that only in the most extraordinary circumstances will pairs be offered for the carbon tax vote. This is by far the most important vote that the Australian parliament will take in the current term of parliament and the first duty of members of parliament is to be in the parliament when critical votes are taken.

—

It was a question that deserved  a simple Yes answer.  What Abbott delivered was political speak to cover an act that is the lowest of the lows. He of course went on to claim he was taken out of context.  Sorry Mr Abbott, but where is the out of context in the above transcript.

Abbott claims to be a man that upholds family values.  Not allowing a father to attend the birth of their child, shows while he may have family values, they are more say 1050CE values, not 2011CE values.

The issue of who is involved is redundant.  The fact that Thompson’s wife is pregnant, shows that what, if anything that, happened in the past is just that for them. Further it is was and still is a private matter between them, not for I or anyone else to pass judgement on.

Labor granted Abbott a pair so he could attend anti-carbon tax rallies, showing that they can play by the rules. Yet, this form of petty politics is the norm for Mr No.

He said what he said.  If he had meant yes, he would have said it. He is able to say  “no” often enough.  But then given the Turnbull and Crean had a written document for a pairing arrangement for a funeral, this really doesn’t come as any surprise, written or verbal his words can’t be trusted.

This man is going for the top job of the country, he should be setting an example.  Showing us in part what kind of leader he would be.  Here we have a leader that shows that Work/Life Balance is not important.  I’d like to see a list of what other business in Australia could bar someone from being at this special moment.

Any business that attempted this would be dragged through the media as an outrage.  This story as it unfolds is front page on Fairfax and ABC, below the fold on News LTD and no where to be seen on the front page of the Australian. I looked across the Australian and could not see any mention on the home page, nor the national section or even the politics sections as well about this statement. It is almost as of they have an agenda. Once again, the media builds its own case as to why we need an enquiry into media.

Labor will have run the numbers before introducing the legislation.  And like the vote of no confidence that stopped Turnbull visiting the funeral of a close friend, Abbott will lose the vote on the Carbon Tax.  So a man may well miss the birth of his child, just to fit the petty mind of Abbott.

– Update –

When asked directly on Twitter would Barry O’Farrell give a pair to a father to be.. his answer was “Yes”.  Abbott’s answer still remains “Taken out of context”.

– Update 2 –

First thing this morning:

Pyne: “If they are foolish enough to schedule the vote at a time when Mr Thomson can’t be there, then that will be on their head.”  So the Government should stop functioning for a whole month until an event that can occur within a 2 week period either side of a due date occurs? Further it isn’t just one bill, it is 23 of them that make up the Carbon Tax.

“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. No request has come in,” Mr Abbott told Channel 9.

“Obviously the birth of a child is a very important event, but so is the carbon tax.” ( what like attending a protest or sleeping through the vote on the GFC! )

Abbott has backed down.  Thompson will be offered a pair if the baby arrives during the Carbon Tax debate.  The fact that his first/gut instinct was to block shows his character, even Barry O’Farrell could say yes when asked outright.  Abbott was asked outright and couldn’t.

And in his own words later in the day…

“Finally, on the matter of Mr Craig Thomson, I just want to say that where he is concerned the most important thing is that he should give a complete explanation to the parliament about the misuse of the union credit card. Then the Prime Minister should give a complete explanation to the parliament of what she knew about the Labor Party’s loan or gift to Mr Thomson and what she thinks about the misuse of union credit cards, but if Mr Thomson wants brief absence from the parliament for the birth of his child obviously the Coalition will provide that.”

So where as yesterday it was a whole par about importance of the vote, today to get rid of the issue half a sentence.

( If text is too hard to comprehend, I recommend First Dog on the Moons Cartoon today which explains everything. )

Tags: Annoyances by Wolf
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Well all of you should know that IANAL, but hey if Scott Morrison who also is not a lawyer can comment on what the High Court says, why can’t I? Or to quote from Julia Gillard “can I just say”..

When the High Court handed down its decision re the so called Malaysian Solution in a 6-1 judgement today Australia had a chance of moving forward again.

I won’t go into why calling anything a “solution” to a problem that doesn’t actually exist is fundamentally wrong, I’ll look with just this issue and its outcomes.

Firstly, as I have previously pointed out, Labor lost to the left in the last election.  Off shore processing isn’t going to get the votes it needs to win again. The fact that they right royally screwed up is going to lose them more, especially after today. A day when Labor could have gained ground with Abbott’s not so tacit support for Howard’s comments on work place reform.  That little thing called work choices.

Whilst Malaysia is definitely out, Manus Island looks like it is, and Nauru (possibly) needs to be tested in court, one thing is clear, offshore processing is on shaky legs.  The only reason that Nauru could now possibly survive this judgement is that only recently have they now signed the UNHCR agreement.

Of course Morrison et.al forget and certainly don’t remind people, that this decision had it been made when the Pacific Solution first came in, would have seen it cancelled.

The reasoning for this is quite simple.  The High Court ruled on Section 198A of the Migration Act.  That little bit of the Migration Act was brought in by Howard.  As it turns out,  the High Court decided who comes to this country and how they do. So while yes this is a massive failure for Labor, it is an even more massive failure for the Liberal Party.

The only possible justification would have been that Australia ran all the details of the facility on Nauru.

Even after all this we still have the questions that neither side of politics has been able to answer, that of why?

• Why do we need to process offshore if we run everything?
• Why do we need to waste so much money processing offshore if we run it all anyway?
• Why do we damage so many people, just to allow them to come to Australia anyway?

If when 10 years ago, Beazley had taken a stand when the Tampa arrived and said no, we will process onshore, perhaps Labor would be in a better position. At least they would have a moral high-ground from which to argue.

Given the similarities between the parties on this and other issues, no wonder we ended up with a hung parliament.

Process people onshore. Sure give them health checks and security checks first.  Then release them into community supported housing.  It will not only save a lot of money in the short term, but even more long term when you take into account ongoing mental health issues. This won’t win people over from the right.  But even opening Nauru ( if even possible ) at this point wont anyway.  But it will win people over from the left.

Despite so much legislation passing under this government and the ground work for the future being laid out with pricing carbon and the NBN, even this week the passing of the plain packaging for smokes legislation, they just screw up.  The biggest screw ups always seem to be when they try and out do the right. As the saying for goes, never argue with a fool in public people can’t tell the difference. When the left are heralding the High Courts judgement Labor should look not to Alan Jones, Scott Morrison and Tony Abbott but to its real heart land.

And for those that think that the last Pacific Solution fixed the problem, I’ll leave you with this graph.

Funny how during the 80’s when there was no Pacific Solution there was no boat people problem.

– Update –

Julia Gillard pres conf 1/10/11: “There are questions over the future of offshore processing arrangements that must be considered”

Labor has nothing to lose at this point. When Gillard said “The court’s ruling represented a missed opportunity”, she shows she is still missing the point.  It isn’t a missed opportunity.  It is one that can fix the issue and cut off the divisive statements from the Liberals.

Further Julia Gillards seemingly narky attack on only one of the Judges over the judgement makes no sense.  It was a 6-1 Judgement.  Picking on Justice French makes her look petty.

And from the ABC: The United Nations refugee agency says it will not be involved if the Federal Government restarts offshore processing in Papua New Guinea or Nauru.

The Pacific, or Indian Ocean Solutions are all but dead in the water.  Morrison and Abbott must be fuming at Labor for the fact that no longer can Australia process offshore because it fits an agenda that never made any sense.

Can we now stop talking about off-shore processing and start working out how to do it on the mainland.

Tags: Annoyances by Wolf
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Now, I know I am not an ad executive type.  My clothes aren’t classy enough, and I don’t drive a Porsche.  Yet as a member of the great unwashed I still have a few ideas about how an ad should work.

Firstly that ad should sell something, say a product or a service, then it should make me want to get that service as soon as possible.  Certainly before I change my mind.

Why yes, I’d love an ice-cream.  And what I can use EFTPOS for it. Why all of a sudden EFTPOS felt the need for expensive TV ads and this huge placement in Flinders St Station I will never know.  Perhaps NFC is coming soon, who knows, but I digress from my need for an ice-cream.

Low and behold, just below that giant ice-cream, the one that I can purchase on EFTPOS is an ice-cream shop.

Perfect….. well it would be….

See that little yellow sign.  Small problem with that sign… yes, they don’t have EFTPOS.

Seriously who placed those ads in that location.  Why didn’t they either A: not put the ice-cream banner next to the ice-cream shop, or B: give the shop EFTPOS for the duration of the campaign.

Even better, they could have let two other shops, the two out of five there that actually have EFTPOS have a limit below $5 per transaction.  Why, because then I could have brought the cup of coffee that is in one of the other banners that is less than $5.  The one the ad says I can buy on EFTPOS, the one I can’t.

But then, what do I know.

P.S Dear staff at Flinders St Station, why do you get so upset with people taking photos all the time.

Tags: Annoyances, HTC - Incredible S, Photos by Wolf
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When Abbott broke the written agreement in regard to pairing for the state memorial of Margaret Olley he did so purely to be malicious and push his own agenda. Proving in one move that his written word, like spoken word isn’t to be trusted either.

When the next day Pyne and others came to his defence, hypocrisy was the word of the day.  The excuse that was delivered was that the government is not functioning due to the Thomson crisis and that a vote needed to be taken.   Yes, of course, this is the minority government that still has managed to achieve more than Howard did in his first term.  Sorry, keep forgetting the Libs won’t allow facts like this to get in the way.

Labor don’t want to spend time on this.  Why would they? It is damaging to them, so the statement about spending time on it is completely disingenuous. The people that have been talking about this are the Libs.  A sniff of a stolen victory, for something that happened before the member was even in parliament. We wont mention “Children Overboard” which turned out to be a lie, or say, tax payers monies used on a phone card under Howard will we.

Abbott was never go to win the vote he put up.  He doesn’t have the numbers.  Trying to bribe Wilkie with a billion dollar hospital showed what he was willing to do to get power.  Wilkie didn’t go for it then, why would he know.  Oakeshott and Windsor believe in the NBN, it was the thing that got them over the line, why would they change their minds.

The result of this was that Abbott went back on his written word, stating that the situation had changed.  Not unlike for Gillard when she entered a minority government, when the situation changed. It seems reasonable for Abbott to change his mind, why can’t Gillard.

Abbott is playing grubby politics for the aim of getting power. Yet for all his grandstanding, the latest Newspoll has him at  Approval 36 (-3) Disapproval 55 (+3). Gillards numbers are about the same.  Massive disapproval of both leaders shows that people are over it.

Even if the Libs do succeed in getting rid of Thomson ( doubtful in the next 12months ), the situation for Abbott would be no different.  Why, because unless a full election is called, it will still be a hung parliament.  So, a 75/75 parliament means nothing has changed, so we end up with an election. In that case the Greens will still hold the balance of power in the Senate. Abbott wouldn’t be able to pass much of the legislation he would want to regardless. Although, to me it seems most of the policies seem to be No, we will roll back, No, No, and No.

Turnbull and Crean missed out on going to the funeral of a close friend for no reason, because despite the grandstanding nothing did or was ever going to come of it.   This behaviour will come back to bite Abbott.  Maybe not before he gets into power though.

– Update –

Another day, and more grub.  This time a combination of News Ltd, the Telegraph, Abbott and very very lazy journalists.

When Jay Rosen said on Lateline on Thursday night “A much heavier emphasis on fact-checking – calling out lies and distortions – would be a good start “, little did he or anyone else know what the Telegraph were sending to the press.

A front page article, one that Abbott, jumped on the next morning that Julia Gillard’s chief of staff called the industrial registrar in 2009 to ask if he was investigating the besieged Labor MP.  Abbott predictably took the line that she knew before hand.  The kicker was that lazy News Ltd didn’t even bother to check Hansard, it didn’t fit their or Abbott’s agenda.  A search of Hansard proved that all the contacts were made POST the story being on the front page of the SMH, not before.

Will News Ltd run a front page correction saying, we were wrong, we were lazy.  Of course they wont. Will Abbott admit that his party knew this story was a beat up and they knew over a year ago that this wasn’t the case.  Of course they won’t, and people wonder why Labor and the Greens wants to launch an enquiry in to media power.

When Albanese said “Tony Abbott has not accepted the result of the last election when he lost and what we’re seeing is the longest dummy spit in Australian “, not only was he correct about Abbott, but also News Ltd, Alan Jones et.al.

This is a dummy spit that knows no bounds.  One that News Ltd continues via its papers continues, facts be damned.

–

Of course the Libs have all their policies fully costed and ready to go at the next election.  They keep telling us that all the time. Just that small matter of a $70billion black hole to fix first.

Tags: Annoyances by Wolf
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The argument by those opposed to gay marriage all end up using the same line of reasoning.

Marriage is between and man and a women something thing GOD told us.

I have not seen one argument by those that oppose gay marriage that doesn’t end up with God, the bible or tradition.  The problem therefore isn’t gay marriage, but all us atheists, Muslims, Buddhists, Pastafarians etc.  See we don’t believe in either the same God or even a God.

Turns out it used to be if you wanted to get married you didn’t need a priest or a church. That didn’t come to Europe until 1563, also at which time the Catholic church added the man/women bit. Even the Romans and Chinese were comfortable with a bit of the gay marriage as well.

Australia is despite what a number of people would like to believe a multicultural society. That for those who did pay attention in school means we have lots of cultures.  Whilst being gay isn’t a cultural choice, (despite what some Christian hate mongers would have you believe) it can be argued it is a culture never the less.

Of course if only a woman and a man get married that will never end in divorce an abusive relationship, no children, or heaven forbid one of the couple working out “actually I’d rather bat for the other team”. When gay marriage is legal some of these things will happen to them as well.

The list of bad things that will happen if gay marriage comes into Australia is below.

1. Some Fabulous Darling weddings will happen
2. Lots of magazines will have photos of designer suits
3. A Lot of tacky weddings will happen
4. People will spend too long at the alter etc doing really bad kisses with too much tongue.

Ok, fine, these things happen with straight people all the time.

So we end up at the fall back, “Let them have Civil Ceremonies”, we want the word marriage.

I am an atheist.  I didn’t marry for god, under god, certainly my wife did not promise to love honour and obey (although I am in trouble I don’t).  Yet it seems o.k if I marry.

Aren’t I and all those that do not believe in the Christian God diluting the word Marriage.

Wikipedia sums it up nicely “Marriage is a social union or legal contract between people that creates kinship”  So creating Civil unions fits this bill, so call them marriage.  Yet by not calling them “Marriage” you are implying that the Civil Union isn’t as good.

Once again, what to do with all those damned straight atheists.  You know the ones that get married all the time.

Those that are upset need to realise that all that needs to happen is that the govt ensures that “gender” is not in the definition of the term, ( it didn’t use to say gender, until Howard put it in to the 2004 the Marriage Act 1961 (Cth) ).

That is it.  That is all that will happen.

Gays will keep being gay (some may change their mind), straights will keep being straight (some may change their mind) and the world will keep turning.

Finally, people need to stop and remember; enabling Gay Marriage will NOT in any way make it compulsory for straight people.  If you are straight, you will be able to remain that way and not have to marry a gay person.

Tags: Annoyances by Wolf
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The Parliamentary Library has released an analysis of the 2010 Commonwealth Election
(http://aph.gov.au/library/pubs/rp/2011-12/12rp02.pdf )

Lower House.

The take out from this… given the the Coalition are still unaware they LOST the last election…

The left won.

The ALP did of course have a giant swing against them. -5.4% is a huge swing away.  Yet those on the right, with there constant “calls for a new election” need to look at the numbers.  That swing wasn’t to the right, only 1.5% of the swing was the to the Coalition.  The vast majority of it was to the left.. 3.9% to the Greens.

Upper House.

Here the situation was even worse for the Libs and better for the Greens.

Perhaps the push for things like the NBN, a price on Carbon even treating refugees fairly should be taken into consideration looking at these numbers.

Abbott might want to remember that in 2010 we voted more left than right!

Gillard should also have a look at these figures as well.  Rushing to the right to cut of the Libs is not a winning strategy.

Much like under Howard and subsequently Abbott the Libs shifted to the hard right undermining the support base of the “One Nation” party.  (Think ‘ We will decide who comes to this country’), Labor  needs to cut of the drain.  They will never be able to claim enough votes from the right to make up the numbers they have lost to the Left. A better strategy would be aiming to get that 4%+ of left leaning voters that went Green.

But then as they say the only poll that counts is the one on election day.

Tags: Annoyances by Wolf
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“This is a draconian new police force chasing an invisible, odourless, weightless, tasteless substance” well, so said Tony Abbott on the Today show (29/7/11) . Now, of course we know this was an off the cuff comment, so can’t be trusted. Then so was his comment that off the cuff comments can’t be trusted, so really who knows.

This comment though shows not only a lack of understanding of the basic laws of the chemistry and even biology but a complete disrespect for science. One could make comments about his belief in “things that are invisible, odourless, weightless” like say God, but I won’t.….

It has been clearly detailed how he flip flops from I believe to I don’t depending on the audience he is talking to.  This throw away line however shows that he doesn’t believe in climate change in the slightest.  If Tony did believe in climate change even slightly he would not have said this comment because it is so fundamentally flawed.

If “invisible, odourless, weightless, tasteless substance[s]” are ok, that means that radiation is just fine in Tony’s book, even natural gas is o.k  ( the smell in natural gas is added so people can tell it is leaking ). Tony obviously has trouble believing that these substances can have any effect, because he can’t see them.

A few simple tests would help.  Say put a tonne of C02 in a container and drop it on his toe. But how much is a tonne of CO2?.  It is 505 m³ at room temperature (gas), or 0.625 m³ as a solid. Perhaps Tony failed the what is heavier a tonne of feathers or a tonne of bricks question at school.

I’m sure that Malcolm Turnbull did a facepalm when he heard what Tony had said.  Turnbull’s ability to speak to this subject in a clear and concise way without ever dumbing down the science is a credit to him.  Tony on the other hand is on the race to the bottom. The problem for the Labor party is that they don’t have Turnbull, or even his equal in this debate. Despite policies such as the price on carbon and the NBN, they are in an uphill battle with “but CO2 is invisible” and even on the NBN, “But devices are wireless”

Tony’s comment about the “Carbon Cops” is also wrong.  If the government did nothing to ensure that people weren’t being ripped off by dodgy business the Libs would be claiming “Pink Batts” all over again. You know that program, the one that reduced house fires. This from an opposition that is worried about the “jobs”.  Yet are on the record for saying the will sack 12,000+ Public Servants when they get into power.

The old adage of don’t argue with an idiot, no one can tell the difference have never been truer.

Labor shouldn’t have gone with the “but Tony is negative and has no policy” line.  They should have dragged him to the front of the class and put a dunce hat on him.  Or, more PC these days.. chipped in and got him a tutor so he can brush up on his chemistry.

I’d always hoped that the next potential PM of Australia would actually be smart enough for the job. Tony with this comment shows he isn’t.

Tags: Annoyances by Wolf
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The biggest grip I have is that all those that are opposed to the carbon tax are self interested groups. The groups that the Libs are playing a stuck record for. “Big Fat Tax”, “Toxic Tax” etc.

Yes, in the future Coal will go the way of the dinosaur… ironic really. And yes during that transition there will be some pain. Do I feel for those that may lose their jobs, yes I do. But then do we shed a tear for those that worked in the Asbestos mines, the mine that for what at one time was seen as a great product until we work out it was killing people. Of course we don’t. We shed a tear for those that are still paying the price of working with the material. Sure it is not as easy to launch a class action against carbon, but that day still may come.

Australia has a chance to push into green tech. Then by exporting that tech and not just our expensive dirt we could even make a lot of money. Creating new jobs and new opportunities that can value add, delivering benefits not just for a few, but for all of us.

If people could stop thinking about just themselves and start thinking about future generations we could get somewhere. If the rise of the interest group and lobby group that is focused only on a small set of people that will gain from something, things could improve for all of us. What if politicians didn’t drive a wedge “a few are going to be worse off”, yes a few will be, but how many of them can afford a $10 a week increase in something, 99.99% of them I’d say.

Lets pause and reflect on the Telegraph operators, Switchboard operators, Cotton pickers, textile makers, the poor paddle boat operator or the coal foot men on a steam train. Perhaps a moment of reflection for, candle makers, wagon makers and also the related industries like wagon wheel repair men and horse shoe folk. Newspaper print setters ( and possible even Newspaper barons ), the poor Milkman, the Iceman, but lucky for him the Dunny man. A pause for the Flint knapper, the whaler. Or even a pause for all those that have lost jobs in the coal industry from automation, machinery and cost cutting.

Tags: Annoyances by Wolf
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So, once again I can get my rant on….

Today the Herald Sun picked up the perennial favourite of all newspapers and politicians (well politicians around election time), law and order and public transport.

After an exhaustive FOI request, headline numbers and the shocking statistics of assaults at train stations has come out.

Now, firstly, I must say, for anyone that has been attacked in this way for you I am sure it was a horrific crime and certainly I don’t mean to denigrate what you have experienced.  I am just trying to put it into perspective for the rest of us.

So we will start with the headline.

“Suburban assaults are on track with Flinders St station”

WTF does this even mean.  I think they are trying to have a clever play on words, but it got lost in sub-editing land, and we thought it was bad for The Age…

But moving on as it were… to the first in bold par.

FLINDERS St may be the most dangerous station in Melbourne, but a suburban transport hub isn’t far behind.

OMG you are saying, but that is the busiest station in Melbourne, chances are if you live in Melbourne you’ll get off there at some point.  Better watch your back when you get of the train….

There were more assaults (31) at Flinders St than any other station last year, but close behind the city’s busiest station was Dandenong (28).

OMG again… 31 assaults at Flinders St.  But wait there is something that is missing from the rest of articles text that is only in the image header.  “Stations with most assaults last year”

Now I am sure that the Herald Sun is familiar with the laws around accessibility as well, so I wouldn’t need to tell them that having a vital part of the story only has a graphic which only has a alt tag that says alt=”rail assault” would be a really bad thing.  Also any one that looked at the story say on a mobile phone with out images would get a very very different story.

The Herald Sun obviously forget to put in an FOI request for the number of people that visit these stations each year.  Instead of wasting money on an FOI request a quick Google search tells me that..  and wait for it…

“Over 100,000 people use Flinders Street Station each day.”

So, we are looking at a total of 31 Assaults each YEAR, yes year, not day, week, or month.. but year.  Now compare that to the 36,500,000 people that pass through Flinders St Station per year you will see the scale of the problem. You will notice that that number is MORE than the total population of Australia.  Yes, those 31 assaults are moving into the realms of complete improbability.

That is to say that the chances of assault at Flinders St station are beyond insignificant are in the .000000 kind of range. Or for the mathematically lazy, 1:1 177 419.  The chance of lightning strike is 1:1,603,250, dying from a venomous bite/bee sting 1:1,159,364.  Even more scary, the chance of dying from falling out out of your bed or chair — 1 in 513,142.  So you are 2 times more likely to die from getting out of bed that get assaulted at Flinders St Station. (*These stats from here )

You can run an Improbability Drive on these kind of odds.

Perhaps if the Herald Sun stopped and thought before creating a fear campaign we would realise just how safe and wonderful our country really is.

– Update–

Turns out the Herald Sun did an article on the dangers of falling out of bed.( 28/6/11 )

More than 1600 were admitted to hospital in the year to June 2010 after tumbling out of bed, Monash University Accident Research Centre data shows.

Falls accounted for 43,772 hospital admissions, with people more likely to hurt themselves falling out of bed or slipping off chairs than falling from ladders or trees.

While more than three-quarters of patients went home within a week, nearly 900 died in hospital.

When will the Victorian Government put armed guards at our bedsides to stop this outrage of death and serious injury!

Tags: Annoyances by Wolf
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As Posted on the ABC Tech Site: June 22, 2011

They say a day is a long time on the internet.  Watch a meme unfold and you’ll see what I mean. Image taking your blog, website and business offline for 9 days.  Not just 9 days where you know what is happening, but 9 days where there is scant information and most of the information that comes isn’t from the source.

I am talking about what happened to not just my domain, but 4800 others that have gone and a huge number that disappeared for quite some time.  I was until recently a very happy customer of Distribute IT.  Up until the start of this year anyway.  Sure there had been the odd outage here and there, but nothing too long and too extreme.  In the last few months things had gone seemingly downhill.  A visit to Whirlpool will show the increasing dissatisfaction that people had been experiencing.

Yet all of this was nothing compared to what happened at 5:50pm on Saturday June 11. Whilst the clients of Distribute knew something was up within seconds of this outage quickly updating Whirlpools thread from the previous weekends outage, it wasn’t until Sunday, 12 June 2011 2:35:12 AM that Distribute were to say anything.

“Engineers are at DC working on restoring services asap. Very deliberate, coordinated & malicious attack on DIT network the cause. No ETA yet “ Via their Twitter account.

It felt early on that Distribute had taken the “Sony” approach to corporate communications telling as little as possible and certainly not highlighting what possibly could have gone wrong.

So I lost my email, my little personal blog and really not a great deal.  On Whirlpool I would watch as people told stories of massive advertising campaigns locked in for the long weekend which were vaporised by this outage. I watched as people talked about the fact all Distributes phones were IP based and where taken out as well.  I swore and cursed that I’d lost my personal email, grateful I wasn’t running a business off my website.

After a number of emails and 9 days my worst fears were confirmed, it was all gone.  Everything that I had on that website was lost.  Every email from what will be nearly 2 weeks gone into the ether.

Sure, everyone says, have a backup.  Guess what, I do.  But a backup wouldn’t have helped those businesses that had advertising tied to their website over the long weekend.  A backup wouldn’t ensure that you could find a new host over a long weekend in Australia, and a backup wouldn’t ensure that your settings were in place.

Finally now that Distribute have finally said that the data is gone and that mine and 4800 other websites are gone, I am putting into play my backup plans.

Still I wait 2 days or so for my domain to move to a new host, upload all the FTP content, setup a new version of WordPress, upload my old blog XML document, put in a couple of posts manually that weren’t in my last backup.  I’ll then have to find all the email lists that I have dropped off and resign to them.  Hope like hell I didn’t receive a really important email on an email account I have had for 12 years now.

Yes I have a backup, and yes I have a plan in play to get things backup by weeks end.  But there are a lot of business that may not have, and a lot of business that wouldn’t think to watch Twitter for the only updates for days.

Early on, people said they would leave Distribute not for the “hack” which may well have been out of their control, but simply for their lack of communication.  I was at that point last week.  Ready to leave, just hoping I’d get something back.  Instead the money I paid them two months ago to renew my site has gone much like my site and email… into the ether.

Having backups helps, it will help me, but think about your hosting what would you do on a long weekend with an advertising campaign hooked into a website that just got deleted.

- Update: 26/6/2011

Finally back up and online.  Turns out a few things took a lot longer than I thought.  I had all but 20 posts, but those missing 20, of which I had the content were a pain.  Having them as emails, meant I had to strip HTML, fix errors in the HTML etc.  Surprisingly tedious as task as well.  I did get the domain back by Thursday, but was another 24 hours for the name servers to catch up as well, so really have only had email for the last day or so.

That means two weeks downtime in total.  Yikes….  Well I have automated some more of the backups, but it was all the little tweaks to WordPress that I am still sorting out, but all seems good now.

Those last twenty posts are also broken to Google.  All the Post ID’s were out on the new posts.  Bugger, so inbound links on those 20 posts ( inc a couple of most my popular posts ) are going to be confusing to some folk.  So a few annoyances, but as I said in the orignal post, mine is just a little blog.  If this was a companies website I’d be in deep poo as it were .

So I’m off to make a backup now I have put it all back together…. have you backed up?

Tags: Annoyances by Wolf
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