For any spam campaign to be successful, two things needs to happen. First of all, there needs to be a market able to receive and more importantly a vehicle to distribute the message.

Free email service providers are a godsend to spammers. They are free, for the most part anonymous and unfortunately the biggest barriers set up to prevent potential spam is CAPTCHA (which is incredibly easy to circumvent!).

It’s time these email giants (such as Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo etc) started to step up to the plate and start fighting back at spammers.

In many parts of the world stable government is but a dream – multiple minority parties when banding together hold the balance of power and 1 disagreement can lead to a costly dissolution of parliament and re-election.

Whatever your political views are, there is no denying the labor government is a legitimate one that has every right to put forward the bills it sees required to govern the country.

In the last election the majority of us cast our vote and selected our representatives, it ended in a hung parliament and through tough negotiations labor was granted the right to form government.

Our resolution and stable minority government is the envy of the world, lets give them a fair chance to “have a go” and if we aren’t happy with that they are doing, we’ll just vote them out in a few years.

Petrol companies are consistently being criticized for raising their prices from Thursday through Sunday and around holiday periods.

I’m not entirely sure why they get all the bad press – almost all businesses that have peaks and troughs do the same thing; think airlines, events, cinemas, functions, live shows, etc.

In fact doing so is good business practice, not doing so is what we call “leaving cash on the table”.

You can always fill up on Tuesdays!

I’ve always been a huge fan of free speech – I believe it has the potential to change the world and mostly for the better.

But it cannot and should not be used as a defence for hatred, bigotry or just plain stupidity.

If in your public life you intentionally, viciously or mockingly target a minority – expect them to fight back.

Don’t then attempt to use “free speech” as a defence – it erodes the institution of free speech.

Quite frequently we read in the media about a Muslim terrorist blowing something up, or a right wing christian lunatic wanting to enforce their interpretation of the bible on an unwilling society. Perhaps the greedy Jews stealing land that doesn’t belong to them or the catholic priest who touches children where he shouldn’t.

The issue with these stereotypes is that even if a very, very small bunch of people identify as being in one of these religious groups then society as a whole tends to label them all the same way. (With no thanks to the media).

Most people from religious backgrounds I speak to are sick and tired of being labelled something they are not because a few loud mouths set the scene for everyone.

Well, it’s time to fight back. Next time Wendy Francis calls up talk back radio to say that “all Christians are against homosexuality” and you as a christian don’t agree, call up that station and tell the world she doesn’t speak on behalf of you or the next time an unknown Imam writes into the paper to call for Sharia Law to be brought to Australia and as a Muslim you disagree, write into that same paper and let them know.

It’s your stereotype and it’s your responsibility to keep it clean.

It seems our media (and public) thrive every time a “nation-polarising-issue” is on the agenda. If it’s not live exports it’s refugees, if not it’s foreign aid, if not it’s religion, if not it’s the economy, if not it’s immigration….

Lets face it, the media loves to hype up a story and the public can’t get enough of it.

Dramatic phrases such as “our very way of life is threatened” and “this carbon tax will ruin the Australian economy” have been thrown around left right and centre, lets try and examine a few of those:

“Hard working Australians will be hit hard”

Well no, not really. The majority of Australians in households earning under $150,000 will be either fully compensated or over compensated – those over that bracket will be out of pocket by about $10 a week – thats less than the price of a packet of chewing gum per day (or 0.0035% of their income if they just reach the $150,000 threshold.)

“Australian Tourism will be devestated”

Qantas has said the average flight will rise by about $3.50 (compare this to the $7 they charge on board for water) Does this really need a retort?

“Jobs will move offshore”

First of all, jobs have been moving off shore well and truly before the carbon tax – secondly, the highest exposed industries (mining, electricity generation etc) CAN’T be moved off shore. Think for a moment about the logistics of that.

“Foreign investments will dry up”.

Aside from the huge takeover bid offered for Macarthur Coal, which was released only a few days ago the Chinese government has labelled Australia “if not the most, one of the most attractive destinations” for investment.

Feel free to post any other media / Tony Abbot hyperbole you find in the comments section!

We’ve basically won the battle for the gay & lesbian marriage in Australia. Millions of people, from all walks of life, from religious leaders, to politicians, to regular citizens, to celebrities have all spoken out in support of marriage equality. Every poll I have read on the subject clearly shows an overwhelming majority of people are strongly in favour of removing marriage discrimination in Australia. Woe be to any politician who attempts to prevent any future lifting of the ban.

The battle for marriage equality has been going on for long since I was even born, but has only recently started seeing success. I believe a major part of this victory has been that more and more people have had the courage to openly accept and embrace their sexuality – telling family members and friends the truth. As a result, virtually everyone knows at least one gay or lesbian person and has had the opportunity to see that  gay & lesbian people are exactly like the rest of society.

With the battle almost won, it might be tempting to consider stepping down – but for the battle for equality is far from over.

Marriage equality wouldn’t be a reality if people who weren’t gay hadn’t got involved in the movement.

Let’s not forget that in Australia, refugees are treated like criminals, women aren’t always paid as much as men, animals have very few rights, the homeless are often forgotten and racism is common place.

The battle from equality is far from over, but we will get there.

Over the past decade, social media has exploded in popularity. It’s reach has permeated and taken over almost every aspect of our lives. As a result of this, some of us have had to learn the hard way that everything we put online, stays online and for those of us that haven’t learned this first hand, we’ve seen others that have.

So what does this mean for the world of social media? Well, people become less social of course.

It is possible to fiercely guard yourself – to lock your Facebook, hide your Tweets and be careful where you comment – but is this really what social media is about?

Employees have been fired for making inappropriate remarks, cheating spouses have been caught, politicians have been exposed and businesses have had their reputations shattered.

I remember my first foray into I guess what you could call social media – it was on a site called LiveJournal. For those of you you weren’t online in the nineties it’s was more of a one way communication. You could read my live journal and I could read yours. As so few people I knew were online, I felt completely free to write everything and anything I wanted – sharing my deepest desires, fears and aspirations with anyone who cared to read (which I’m assuming was very few).

When Myspace hit, it hit very hard. Within a few weeks of me registering, I transferred virtually every offline connection online. This circle however, didn’t include employers, customers, educators and family members so I still felt quite liberated and free.

Facebook was then the next to take over and for the most part it remained just as social – then businesses started to get online, my customers started adding me, people I met at networking groups became Facebook friends and then before I knew it, everything I typed up there was available not only to possible customers but, but business associates, the general public and most shockingly, my mother.

As much as I’m against any type of censorship – there are appropriate times to talk about inappropriate things and Social Media has unfortunately lost it place as being one of them – which is a shame, but there isn’t much we can do about it.

My main position is the only person whose opinion actually counts is the person who is wearing the clothes. The human body is a miraculous machine, far more complex than we ourselves can create (yet) and there is no reason not to embrace all it’s glory – if people are proud of their body and what they’ve achieved (and providing they adhere by local laws, which is another topic entirely) I see nothing wrong in letting people wear clothes they feel comfortable in.

There is arguments that it’s typically those with self esteem issues who feel the need to wear skimpy clothes in an order to prove themselves. Sure, I can see there may potentially on occasion be a connection, however if we shame people to cover up, their self esteem issues still aren’t be being dealt with.

Society needs to let those who wants to embrace their bodies, their individuality and their confidence do so without shaming, blaming or shunning them.

A hugely important topic in the gay community is safe sex, it’s seldom covered in schools and a rather taboo subject around the dinner table.

As a result, the Queensland Association of Healthy Communities launched a rather small scale advertisement on bus stops around the Brisbane area recently titled “Rip & Roll” and implemented by Adshell – featuring two fully clothed gay males in a loving embrace promoting safe sex.

It was a deep, meaningful and important campaign – the only draw back was it’s exposure to such a small audience (Brisbane local).

And Wendy, here’s where your thanks comes in! Your homophobic, bigoted campaigning which resulted in the ad being pulled down for a brief time has resulted in a HUGE backlash against you and the organisation you represent (Australian Christian Lobby). An overwhelming number of people (we’re talking in the hundreds of thousands here) from around the world have spoken out in support the campaign.

As a result, this poster which initially would have only been viewed by a small number of people in Brisbane has now been viewed by MILLIONS around the world.

So once again Wendy Francis, thank-you.