Simon Rumble’s blog

The really important thing here is that if a disgruntled employee with access to this data was able to very easily gather the whole database and leak it to Wikileaks, how many other sources are there leaking it less publicly?  There's upwards of three million people who have the appropriate security clearance. Do you think some of them might be financially distressed (given the recent GFC) and be open to a little cash incentive to leak it somewhere else?  Or have some other easy method to apply leverage (especially given "Don't ask. Don't tell.") So the question is probably less which intelligence agencies have been regularly receiving this data and more which ones haven't! Of course, their versions wouldn't have had the redactions of personal identifiers and the like that we see in the Wikileaks data.

In other words, I know exactly what you're trying to do, but you're doing it wrong so I won't do it.

The key ingredient to this recipe is time. It needs the full 10 hours in the slow cooker to soften all those nasty stringy bits of well-used muscle in the shoulder. This can be difficult to arrange if you're planning to eat it the same day, though if you have little kids it can be less difficult to arrange as you're up early.  Mine wasn't ready until 22:00 last night, so we didn't eat it until today.

Chilled, the pulled pork is a bit like lean rillettes. Shredded pork in jelly, juices and a little fat.  Nothing like as salty though.  I was an exchange student in Le Mans, which is famous for pork rillettes as well as a car race, so I have a bit of a soft spot for them.

This morning I had a bit of a treat breakfast.  Toast, a little pulled pork, eggs and some habanero sauce. Delicious!

Tonight we used it for dinner.  Burritos with some pulled pork and a heap of salad, all the greens from the garden. Again, divine.

There's still stacks left. At least enough for another burrito meal and a few smaller packs in the freezer to be used for pizza toppings.

I do love this dish!  Highly recommended.

Today we took Louis for his first every bike ride with our new Weeride bike seat.  He absolutely loved the experience!  Tomorrow we'll start taking him to daycare by bike.

Then, Sydney FC won out at Parramatta.  A nice feeling we haven't had much of this year.  Photo shows Holly, Louis, Matt, Jameson and Maz.

The anti-siphoning list is a populist federal government fudge that purportedly prevents important and iconic sporting events from disappearing onto pay TV platforms. Things like the Melbourne Cup, the NRL and AFL grand finals, the Olympics and Commonwealth Games. The concept, I suppose, might be a good one if you're a fan of those sports. Though ask a Melbourne Storm fan from Melbourne whether they get good coverage down there on free to air TV. After winning the NRL Grand Final, apparently the Melbourne broadcaster switched to the evening news rather than show the local NRL team receiving the trophy.

Of course what this list means is that pay TV operators (that is, Foxtel and Fox Sports) can't bid for these events. One less cashed up bidder means less money for the sporting codes selling the rights. By way of example, the football (round ball kind) A-League was snapped up quickly with a very generous at the time deal to only be shown on Fox Sports.

There's a fundamental problem with the basis of the anti-siphoning concept. It prevents the pay operators from bidding for the primary rights, but doesn't force the free to air players to actually use the rights, or to run the events uninterrupted. So you end up with Seven switching from the Australian Open (on the list) to Home & Away for ratings reasons.

Now I'm an A-League fan. I go to Sydney FC's home matches so I only want to watch the 16 away matches of the season. The cheapest Foxtel package that'll give me the A-League is $60/month on a 12 month contract, with $100 installation. $820 annually to watch 16 games. $51.25 per game.

If the aim of the anti-siphoning list is to ensure people aren't prevented from watching the sports they love, perhaps another approach is required. Foxtel insist you buy their "basic" package at $44 even if all you want is the sports channels ($16/month extra). Now once upon a time I suppose they had some fixed delivery costs in the cable or satellite delivery paths. With Internet delivery now an option, a better approach would be to require that there be an option to watch only the sports they want.  I'd be willing to pay $5-10 per game to watch the sport I love. Right now Fox Sports, Foxtel and the A-League make nothing from me for away matches.  Given they only charge $16/month for the sports channels, the A-League component of that would be even smaller, so the $5-10/game could be quite significant.

So how about this Conroy? Instead of an artificial fudge that actually costs the sporting codes money without delivering good sports viewing to fans, how about forcing the rights holders to offer unbundled access to the sports?

ObDisclosure: I work for Telstra, who no doubt would love to have the option of buying sporting rights on the anti-siphoning list. These views are my own, not those of my employer.