ATTORNEY-GENERAL Michael Atkinson has made a “humiliating” backdown and announced he will retrospectively repeal his law censoring internet comment on the state election.

After a furious reaction on AdelaideNow to The Advertiser’s exclusive report on the new laws, Mr Atkinson at 10pm released this statement: “From the feedback we’ve received through AdelaideNow, the blogging generation believes that the law supported by all MPs and all political parties is unduly restrictive. I have listened.

“I will immediately after the election move to repeal the law retrospectively.”

Mr Atkinson said the law would not be enforced for comments posted on AdelaideNow during the upcoming election campaign, even though it was technically applicable.

“It may be humiliating for me, but that’s politics in a democracy and I’ll take my lumps,” he continued in the statement.

“This way, no one need fear now that they are being censored on the net or in blogs, whether they blog under their own name or anonymously. The law will be repealed retrospectively.

“I call upon all the other political parties who supported this review to also review their position.”

The rest of the article is here.

Last night I was looking for some specific photos on my external hard drive and then went looking through all my other photos too. Here are just a few which reflect our awesome Creator.

Douglas and Jessica about five years ago.

An Easter Sunday morning in Murray Bridge, if you click on these ones you can see the mist on the river better.

Adelaide Railway Station

We used to go on school excursions to various Adelaide events and places – Come Out and the museum.

Parents would drive us to Bridgewater then we’d catch a train to Adelaide. This is where my love for trains began. Getting there was half the fun. The three tunnels were highlights of the trip. I loved the gorgeous scenery too.

This quote from Wikipedia gives you a bit of an idea of the track.

The Bridgewater line had a fairly steep grade for most of the journey, sometimes resulting in derailments due to the tight bends. Services from Adelaide to Bridgewater usually took an average of one hour (stopping all stations), and about 50 minutes (express).

Bridgewater railway line is a very good Wikipedia page detailing the line and all the stations along it.

I found it really hard to find photos for this post. I couldn’t find any photos of Echunga Primary School back in my days, the school logo of a cow, Adelaide Railway Station in the 1970s etc. I’ll have to scan some more of my old photos.

http://www.adelaidenow.com.au Full article here.

SOUTH Australian laws censoring anonymous political comment on the internet have sparked national and international outrage, with readers comparing the “draconian laws” to those in Nazi Germany and China.

More than 600 people have posted comments on the AdelaideNow website – most vehemently against the Rann Government’s legislation which will force internet bloggers and anyone publishing a comment on next month’s state election to supply their real name and postcode.

A poll reveals more than 90 percent of readers are against the laws, which carry a maximum fine of $5,000 for media organisations who do not hand over such information to the Electoral Commissioner.

I really don’t see this having much effect. A lot of blogs aren’t hosted in South Australia, for example Blogger/Google is an American company. For those who host their own blogs I doubt that there’s anything to worry about there either. Is the government going to employ someone to search the net for election comments without a full name and postcode? What a waste of time!!!

To me this is another example of government not understanding how the Internet works. As I’ve taught my students – no one owns the Internet, it isn’t governed by any one government, there are no universal laws for the Internet, people can host their websites in countries which don’t have laws regarding the Internet.

So I say, ‘Don’t worry, be happy’.

Here’s another song for you to download or listen to online. I have many favourite songs and hymns and this is one of them. Hope you like it!

Be Thou My Vision