The launch of the Apple iPhone in Australia is due on July 11th, and Pope Benedict XVI is due to arrive in Sydney on July 13th for World Youth Day 2008. Both events are causing quite a stir, and not all for the good.

iPhone

The iPhone launch has once again seen the Australian telcos whipped into a gouging frenzy, with Optus releasing pricing details of their 3G iPhone plans, and Vodafone and Telstra sure to follow suit shortly.

If the Optus pricing is anything to go by, and the other two follow suit, I will be withdrawing my expression of interest for an iPhone and reverting to my trusty Samsung on a pay-as-you-go account. Optus is advertising 1GB per month for $100 on their Turbo Cap pre-paid plan. Granted, the plan comes with a huge amount (by my monthly call count) of included calls, but that isn't why most people will be buying the iPhone. 1GB of internet access will be used up very quickly. A simple example is visiting the Sydney Morning Herald homepage. Today's measurement of that page weighed in at 920Kb, and the page auto-refreshes every 5 minutes. If you were to visit the page twice a day, which is not unreasonable, and sit on the home page for an average of 7 minutes each visit, you would use up 3.6MB of your allowance. One months worth would see 100MB / 10% of your allowance gone. And that's just looking at the news! Never mind your mapping, Twittering, Facebooking, and emailing needs. Come on Aussie telcos'! If you want to be a leader in the growing online mobile space you're going to have to be a lot more generous with your data plans. Making a quick buck now is not in yours, or the national interest.

The Pope

I am not a religous man. I am, by definition, an Athiest. I have no belief in God, or any other of the much lauded deities. I do not though have any strong feelings about others having belief in those things. Whatever floats our boat.

I do find the whole religion thing very hypocritcial though, and none more so than the Catholic faith. Throughout history the Catholics, and indeed many other religions, have used their 'faith' as an all encompassing reason for attrocities that would, under normal circumstances, be denounced by average men.

But I digress! The Pope visiting Sydney for World Youth Day has caused no end of problems for the citizens of this fair city. From the taking over of the Randwick Racecourse, to untold strain put on the public transport systems, to the special powers being granted to police to arrest anyone causing, or looking like they are going to cause, annoyance to attendees of the functions.

And to top it all off, there is a huge scandal hanging over Cardinal George Pell, Catholic Archbishop of Sydney, and his handling of accusations of sexual assualt by a Catholic Priest.

I have nothing against people celebrating their beliefs, but when the act of performing those celebrations affects the way I, and many hundreds of thousands of other Sydneysiders, go about our daily activites, I have to question the legitimacy of the celebrations.

Am I being harsh? I don't think so. In both cases, the iPhone and the World Youth Day events, somebody is standing to make a lot of money, and your average citizen is having their liberites restricted so that that money can be made. For shame!

ALP leader Kevin Rudd has launched a new site for his 2007 electoral campaign with the slogan Kevin07. It's a highly stylized site that looks like it has come straight out of any of the many political satire movies, lots of prime colours, big and flashy, marketing driven – and with very little substance.

As the politicos jump on the opportunity to use the internet to reach the widest possible audience, they miss the point and use their sites as direct extensions of their standard media campaigns. The opportunity for public interaction is missed, and in todays social web, that's a big no-no.

But the online political arena is not the sole domain of the political parties and their members. There is no requirement to have (hundreds of) thousands of dollars of marketing capital to run an online campaign. Many minor groups and individuals are using the internet, and particularly blogs, to voice their opinions about issues they feel strongly about. There are large groups, such as GetUp that take on the government directly, and much smaller groups/individuals, such as Alex Hawke, that campaign more about issues that affect them directly.

The Alex Hawke site is a great example of the power of the internet being harnessed by a motivated individual to campaign against a politician they have issues with. The site does not use cheap tricks, skulduggery or misinformation to attack it's subject. Rather it employs the ethical and unwavering use of truth and publicly available information to inform the reader. The use of a blog as the publishing platform allows direct interaction from visitors to the site with it's author, and other visitors, to discuss the subject matter.

Through the honest and open use of the medium, one man can raise the awareness of an issue, create a ripple that grows into a swell of opinion. It is this change that politicians and political parties must face as they battle to win the votes of the electorate.

For those that are not aware of the proceedings, Dr Haneef is an Indian doctor working in Australia, who was arrested as a suspected terrorist following the recent bomb attacks in the UK. Dr Haneef is the cousin of one of the men involved in the UK bombings, and this seems to be the only plausible reason for his arrest. Other 'evidence' of his involvement has been proven to be circumstantial, unsubstantiated, or just plain wrong. That didn't stop the Australian authorities from holding him for over three weeks without charge under new Australian Anti-Terrorism Laws.

Dr Haneef has finally been released, with all charges against him dropped, yet Mr Andrews has canceled his work visa, stating "undisclosed information" as the reason.

Dr Haneef made short time in arranging flights back to India to visit with his wife and new born daughter, and to no doubt escape the mass media attention and probable further persecution by the authorities. And this is where I got really pissed off, with Mr Andrews' comment that the speed with which Dr Haneef flew out of Australia only "raised his suspicions"

Shame on you, Kevin Andrews. You have become a puppet of the very threats you are 'trying' to defend us against. You have removed liberty from an innocent man, and continue to besmirch his name. You have abused your position of authority and should, for the sake of Australians faith in our government, step down immediately.

Hiding behind the threat of terrorism as justification for illegal acts is as cowardly as the acts of terrorism themselves.