US threaten to take their toys and go home: “The United States has stepped up its pressure on the Federal Opposition, raising the possibility the US might limit access to vital intelligence if a Labor government distanced itself from Washington’s foreign policy.” (Age)

Eight Melbourne filmmakers have devised their own versions of Neighbours (the remix). “The short films all present visions of contemporary Australian suburban life at odds with the innocuous lives of their TV blueprint.” (Age)

Ahh, England, England. So unused to celebrating sporting victories they have to have health and safety lessons.
“”In a situation when you can reasonably anticipate a goal, prepare your body by getting up off the sofa carefully so that you are already standing and then you can jump up and down, instead of springing off the sofa,” she warned.”

“The father of the modern computer is being honoured, 50 years after he died in tragic circumstances.
Alan Turing was one of the pioneers of computer science, and his work helped make the modern PC a reality.
…
It was his idea of creating a machine to turn thought processes into binary numbers which was one of the key turning points in the history of the computer.” (BBC)
Imagine what he could have done if he hadn’t been so desperate killed himself because of the prejudice he faced as a gay man.

“Amid a heated national debate on gay rights to marry and adopt children overseas, Mr Anderson said gays had to accept they could not have it all.
“I do think it’s a choice and . . . that’s a choice people have an absolute entitlement to make, but . . . if I choose a particular lifestyle, certain other things are not open to me,” he said.” (Age) Thank you, Deputy Prime Minister, but it’s not a choice and even if it was, it shouldn’t affect my rights.

Cute lesbo code of conduct.

Mainstream newspaper in reasonable discussion of bisexual women and lesbians shocker:
“The author of a recent thesis exploring bisexuality, 32-year-old McLean interviewed 60 Australians (men and women) who identified themselves as bisexual. Bisexuality she defines as “a potential to be in a relationship with either a man or a woman”. But for many Australians, it is dismissed as “just a phase”.
People who think of themselves as bisexual are often told that they “should make up their minds’,” McLean says. The effect of that thinking is a community that is more closeted than the homosexual population.
“There is a perception that you should be one or the other,” says McLean. “One of the things that concerns me is that it’s presented as a temporary phase, just a flirtation. The media hardly ever deal with it in a serious light. It can make bisexual people have low self-esteem about themselves.”
…
Society’s general acceptance of homosexuality has lessened the drama of coming out, she says, but some older women, in particular, wrestle for years in silence. “I get the occasional call from women in their 60s and even 70s,” Steller says. “It just becomes overwhelming for them and they get miserable and depressed.”
…
While the rise of “pink TV” … has helped introduce mainstream society to the world of gay men, it has done little to contradict the idea that a lesbian experience for a woman who used to be (apparently) straight is anything but a fling. “Women-to-women sex seems to be treated more regularly as a dalliance,” says Steller. “It’s acceptable because, after the woman kisses her friend, she is still straight. That impacts on how women feel about coming out, I think.”” Age

“The Menzies Centre for Australian Studies – based at London’s King’s College – is now offering undergraduate and postgraduate courses in Australian film and art as well as history, politics, and literature.” (BBC)
“He said students who had visited Australia were able to look beyond the stereotypes and see the similarities with the UK as it headed towards multiculturalism.” What a shame the writer of that article wasn’t able to look beyond the stereotypes. Heading towards multiculturalism? I’d have said Australia was more multicultural than Britain, but maybe I’m biased.
Some Australian vernacular for them: pull your head in. As said by Senator Bob Brown this week: “”President Bush should pull his head in. This is Australia. It’s not Florida or Alaska or Texas”.”
Perhaps he could tell Daryl Williams to do the same. He had a fit at the long-running children’s tv show Playschool which dared to show a kid with lesbian mums.
“”My mums are taking me and my friend Meryn to an amusement park,” the girl told viewers of Play School, over images of her two mothers standing together and smiling.”
“One person not smiling was Communications Minister Daryl Williams, who said it was inappropriate for a pre-school show to feature a lesbian couple.” (BBC)

You might be surprised to learn that I’ve been kept up late every night this week by a man named Bill. Bill Byson, that is. A Short History of Nearly Everything is just too good.

How Google really works.