Free Republic

Australian Prime Minister has just officially announced Australia will go to the polls on 2nd July 2016 in a double dissolution election. This has been known for a while, but now it's official - he's visited Governor General and asked for Parliament to be dissolved and the writs will be issued. A Double Dissolution election is an unusual one.

Australian police raided the Sydney home and office on Wednesday of a man named by Wired magazine as the probable creator of bitcoin and holder of hundreds of millions of dollars worth of the cryptocurrency, Reuters witnesses said. More than a dozen federal police officers entered a house registered on the electoral roll to Craig Steven Wright, whom Wired outed as the likely real identity of Satoshi Nakamoto, the pseudonymous figure that first released bitcoin's code in 2009. Locksmiths broke open the door of the property, in a suburb on Sydney's north shore. When asked what they were doing, one...

One of our favorite japes is about the group of scientists who figure out the secret to life — a way to make a human being from nothing but dirt. When they’ve worked it all out, they are so excited they go directly to God to announce their discovery that He is no longer necessary. He appears a bit surprised, but they offer to demonstrate. He nods. One of the scientists bends down and scoops up a fistful of dirt. “Oh, no,” God exclaims. “You’ve got to make your own dirt.” This is how we feel about bitcoins. The idea...

(Reuters) - A Japanese American man thought to be the reclusive multi-millionaire father of Bitcoin emerged from a modest Southern California home and denied involvement with the digital currency before leading reporters on a freeway car chase to the local headquarters of the Associated Press. Satoshi Nakamoto, a name known to legions of bitcoin traders, practitioners and boosters around the world, appeared to lose his anonymity on Thursday after Newsweek published a story that said he lived in Temple City, California, just east of Los Angeles.

Bitcoin founder Satoshi Nakamoto might have been discovered, despite his best efforts to maintain anonymity over the last several years. Newsweek reported Thursday that it spent considerable time tracking down the father of Bitcoin, only to discover that he might be living in Temple City, Calif. It took a winding road to reach a 64-year-old man named Satoshi Nakamoto who not only had no desire to speak with Newsweek, but called the police on its reporter. When the police arrived, Nakamoto -- who Newsweek had been contacting and trying to track down for weeks -- finally had something to say....

The same bug that has plagued several of the biggest players in the Bitcoin economy may have just bitten the Silk Road. On Thursday, one of the recently-reincarnated drug-selling black market site’s administrators posted a long announcement to the Silk Road 2.0 forums admitting that the site had been hacked by one of its sellers, and its reserve of Bitcoins belonging to both the users and the site itself stolen. The admin, who goes by the name “Defcon,” blamed the same “transaction malleability” bug in the Bitcoin protocol that led to several of the cryptocurrency’s exchanges halting withdrawals in the...

New reports by Wired and Gizmodo may have identified the pseudonymous creator of bitcoin, Satoshi Nakamoto, as Australian entrepreneur Craig S Wright. WIRED cites "an anonymous source close to Wright" who provided a cache of emails, transcripts and other documents that point to Wright's role in the creation of bitcoin. Gizmodo cited a cache of documents sourced from someone claiming to have hacked Wright’s business email account, as well as efforts to interview individuals close to him. The news outlets further claimed that Dave Kleiman, a computer forensics expert who died in April 2013, played a significant role in the...

Days after he published a lengthy blog post in which he claimed to be "Satoshi Nakamoto," the alias used to create the bitcoin cryptocurrency, Australian Craig Wright has erased the post and replaced it with one that says he doesn't "have the courage" to prove his claim. Here's what seems to be the central paragraph in the new post: "When the rumors began, my qualifications and character were attacked. When those allegations were proven false, new allegations have already begun. I know now that I am not strong enough for this." The mysterious short posting, which replaces one in which...

WHEN RUMORS SURFACED early last month that Australian cryptographer Craig Wright would attempt to prove that he created Bitcoin, Gavin Andresen remained skeptical. As the chief scientist of the Bitcoin Foundation, his opinion counts: Andresen is among the earliest programmers for the cryptocurrency, and likely the one who has corresponded more than anyone with Satoshi Nakamoto, Bitcoin’s pseudonymous, long-lost inventor. Today, Andresen fully believes that Wright is Nakamoto. Now he’ll have to convince the rest of the world, because he’s among the only people to have seen what he claims is the best evidence in Wright’s favor. In an interview...

AS Australia marks 20 years since the Port Arthur massacre, guns still pose a massive threat to our nation. There are more firearms in the country than ever before, more are imported, and owners are amassing larger arsenals in their homes. Gun policy expert Philip Alpers, Adjunct Associate Professor at Sydney School of Public Health, warned this morning that boasts Australia has “solved the gun problem” are premature. When John Howard introduced the National Firearms Act in 1996 after Martin Bryant’s devastating mass shooting, he swore we wouldn’t “go the American way”, and many believe he has been vindicated. “People...

By the end of last year the French were convinced they had made a breakthrough in the race to win Australia’s $50 billion submarine contract. Over a series of meetings in Paris, L’Orient, Cherbourg and Adelaide, engineers from the French naval shipbuilder DCNS shared with Australian naval officers secret data on their submarine’s acoustic signature. The French Barracuda submarine, with its pump jet propulsion system, matches other conventional submarines’ noise emissions at very low cruising speeds under 5 knots. But the data showed that when the Barracuda accelerated, as any submarine must do when pursuing an enemy or evading an...

Australia could become the first foreign nation to buy the radar-guided Raytheon AIM-120D air-to-air missile under a $1.1 billion foreign military sales package approved by the US government this week. AIM-120D is the latest variant of Raytheon’s popular AMRAAM series, developed for the US Air Force and Navy. The networked, beyond-visual-range missile introduces satellite-aided navigation, a two-way datalink and new guidance software that “improves kinematic performance and weapon effectiveness”. It has greater range than the legacy variants and is optimised for high-angle off-boresight shots. Canberra has requested 450 missiles – as well as instrumented test vehicles and spare guidance sections...

Australia has awarded the A$50 billion ($40 billion) contract to build the country's new fleet of submarines to French naval contractor DCNS, sources said on Tuesday, dealing a major blow to Japan's nascent defence export industry. Australia's Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull will officially announce on Tuesday the winner of the contract to build the country's 12 new submarines, but two sources familiar with the process told Reuters that France has secured the contract ahead of Japanese and German bidders. Another source at the French naval contractor said he was "quietly confident" of success ahead of the announcement by Turnbull. Australia...

A 16-year-old boy will appear in a Sydney court later today charged with planning a terrorist attack at a Sydney Anzac Day event. Counter terrorism police arrested the teenager in his home in Auburn, in Sydney’s west, yesterday afternoon. NSW Police Commissioner Andrew Scipione said the age of the suspect was concerning. “Now, the age of the individual is of significant concern. Sixteen years of age. A boy,” NSW Police Commissioner Andrew Scipione told reporters this morning. Mr Scipione said the boy had been charged with one count of acts in preparation or planning a terrorist act. The offence carries...

The Government has announced the tenderers and build locations for three shipbuilding programs, namely OPVs (Sea 1180), the Pacific Patrol Boat replacements (Sea 3036) and the future frigates (Sea 5000). Twelve Offshore Patrol Vessels (OPVs) will be built initially in Adelaide until first steel is cut for the future frigates, also pre-determined for that city. Up to 21 Pacific Patrol Boats will be built by Austal in Henderson, WA. ''''As part of the Competitive Evaluation Process (CEP) three designers [for the OPV]have been shortlisted; Damen of the Netherlands, Fassmer of Germany, and Lürssen of Germany to refine their designs. This...

THE relatives of slain British soldiers have accused the Department of Veterans' Affairs of banning them from attending centenary commemorations for a catastrophic WWI battle that killed thousands of Australian soldiers. The Battle of Fromelles is among Australia's bloodiest military encounters and the brutal loss has long been blamed on a disastrous incompetence of British military strategy. A special service to mark the battle's 100th anniversary is to take place on July 19 this year at the Pheasant Wood military cemetery in Fromelles, northern France. The slaughter is viewed by historians as the darkest 24 hours in the Australia's history...

According to two research scientists the mystery of vanished ships and airplanes in the region dubbed "The Bermuda Triangle" has been solved. Step aside outer space aliens, time anomalies, submerged giant Atlantean pyramids and bizarre meteorological phenomena ... the "Triangle" simply suffers from an acute case of gas. Natural gas—the kind that heats ovens and boils water—specifically methane, is the culprit behind the mysterious disappearances and loss of water and air craft. The evidence for this astounding new insight into a mystery that's bedeviled the world is laid out in a research paper published in the American Journal of Physics....

A trial of ‘grooming traps’ is aiming to eradicate one of the biggest threats to Australian wildlife – feral felines. Robotic killers that detect feral cats, spray their fur with poison and rely on them to essentially lick themselves to death have been deployed in the Australian desert for the first time. Australian night parrot legend lives on but bird remains as elusive as ever Read more Feral cats are one of the biggest threats to many of Australia’s endangered species, killing millions of animals every day throughout the country – and controlling them has proved difficult. It took John...

The call for action from scientists in the UK, US, Europe and Australia reflects a growing consensus among experts that frequent cannabis use can increase the risk of psychosis...In the UK, cannabis is the most popular illegal drug, and according to Public Health England data, more young people enter treatment centres for help with cannabis than any other drug, alcohol included.

I AM looking for unity, I AM looking for my love working in you in such a way that you see your brother and sisters’ needs above your own.Let there be great charity among you, yes, but this love comes from me through you and as you see others as part of your body without paper or pen. It is then they become part of you and you come to abide in Me. There is no room for arrogance and vanity, just my love and the fruit thereof,For it is only in oneness you then have gained the access “as...