Possibly one of the most horrific stories I’ve heard about the actions of an Australian media outlet.

Gay marriage is the topic of the day for USA election chatter.

An eye-witness account of American romance tourists to the Ukraine.

Liverpudlians demanded refunds after going to see a Golden Globe and BAFTA nominated movie that they didn’t know was the silent kind.

Some artists made a salty sculpture in the Murray-Darling Basin.

A short film on the history of gay rights.

I found one of the geekiest/coolest little web apps ever.

Co-founder of Twitter and founder of Blogger Evan Williams‘ closing statement of his TED Talk in February 2009.

I think I’ll paraphrase that for my motto as a social media consultant:

“Follow the hunch. Never assume.”

That should be the basis of all social media plans.

—

Image credit: Lady Mixy licenced under Creative Commons Attribution

China has come down hard on its non-government TV network with censorship.

Lisa Dempster rode her bike amazing distances.

A bomb went off in a market in Pakistan and killed about 35 people.

Mashable put together a retrospective of the year that was through tweets. I can forgive the emotionally indulgent music because so many of the chosen tweets are pretty funny.

“Why do they want the girls to get all princesses and the boys to get all superheroes?“

Is a relationship between a foodie and a non-foodie doomed?

A theatre show starring robots is coming to Brisbane this week.

Voting started to choose who gets to run for President of the USA.

The Pope said that gay marriage threatens the “family cell”. As a friend said: “Being a celibate bachelor in charge of covering up child abuse scandals must give him a real insight into the family cell.”

For the first time in the history of people, no one has come down with polio in India for a whole year.

Is the internet really empowering citizens?

The Iraqi Prime Minister encouraged people to be calm in the wake of the American army leaving.

There are similarities between Bradley Manning‘s case and the guy who gave some Pentagon papers about the Vietnam War to the New York Times.

Poppy growing is still a good business in Afghanistan.

Behind the scenes of New Year’s Eve in Times Square, New York City.

Rupert Murdoch joined Twitter.

Someone put together a Storify story of the journalists arrested because of their involvement in the Occupy movement.

India’s economy is struggling and affecting the country’s ability to build important infrastructure.

The Taliban has made a deal with neighbouring country Qatar to establish a “liaison office” (is that like a not-quite-embassy?) there.

A current NASA expedition did an upgrade of their software while in space.

An overview of the Obama administration’s plans for reforming Wall Street.

China’s one child policy might be on its way out.

—

Image credit: Newspaper production office by IMLSDCC under a Creative Commons Attribution licence

The Bible. It’s pretty gross. Like, seriously.

Taking it from the top, Adam and Eve got tricked over some silly technicality and got thrown out of paradise. Then Adam blamed Eve for the whole thing leading men to blame women for everything men have done wrong ever since.

So then Adam and Eve popped out a couple of kids and when they were grown up a bit, God played them off against each other so manipulatively that one brother got twisted up so badly he killed the other.

And that’s just the bit right after “In the beginning…”. The truly disgusting stuff comes a bit later. I’m going to throw a new one up here every so often. Let me know if you think I’m overlooking any.

Everyone knows it’s a new year. I’ve got better things to talk about. Like the Bible and how self-expression is a basic human need on a par with food and my theory of how people consistently move from a spiritual experience or two to dogma and the dream of gluten free pastry and invisible misogyny and reproductive rights and public transport and health and what is success and body image and how we’re all spectacularly ordinary no matter how special we are.

They’re some of the things that I hope to blog about this year. Have I missed anything?

Happy New Year. I hope you kick its arse.

—

Image credit: Firework by Tonamel under a Creative Commons Attribution licence

Australia’s income tax-free threshold will more than triple next financial year.

The US Government is supporting renewable energy.

At least ten people were drugged at a Christmas market in Berlin.

Do our social media profiles live forever?

A record sale was made New York real estate: $89 million for an apartment.

In developed countries, people get married less often.

A scientific journal has been asked not to publish its findings on a flu study because they could be used in terrorism.

Time Magazine Person of the Year is the protestor.

The defense for Bradley Manning who is in jail for leaking US Army info to WikiLeaks says Obama has to testify.

Tech entrepreneurs think the US’s Stop Online Piracy Act is more harmful than helpful.

The owner of a famous English-language bookshop in Paris, Shakespeare and Co. passed away.

The asteroid-naming people named one after Christopher Hitchens.

An employee stole $16 million from Queensland Health.

The CIA’s torture is even worse than we thought before.

Tony Abbott reminded Liberal Party members they’re not allowed to disagree with him about gay marriage. Party members weren’t impressed.

Charlie Sheen tweeted his personal mobile number accidentally (he meant to send it privately to Justin Bieber).

There were some burglaries in New York City.

The Disney Princess toy line generates about $4 billion in annual retail sales. They’re starting a new TV series aimed at two- to seven-year-olds.

Americans are upset about the design of a pair of towers in North Korea that kind of look like the exploding World Trade Center towers.

Official Australian nutrition guidelines are being updated.

John Howard launched a book for kids that teaches them how to be climate change deniers.

There was a shooting at Virginia Tech, a US university.

—

Image credit: Chris Gladis

Dymocks launched a new self-publishing service.

Author Jack Heath read books by women writers for a whole year to find out if he was sexist.

Facebook made some design changes and people are being creative with them.

There’s increasingly strong evidence that quantum physics fuels one of the most basic processes of our world: photosynthesis.

Brain Pickings assembled some examples of social media-style communication from the olden days.

Bahrain’s machinations with the USA government.

A court in Oregon, USA ruled that a blogger isn’t a journalist.

Serco, the company that runs Australia’s immigration detention centres, issued a report warning of a culture of self-harm among inmates.

The US army talked about bestiality.

Another person got arrested in the UK about the phone hacking thing.

Alec Baldwin got thrown off a plane for refusing to stop playing a game on his iPhone while the plane was delayed on the ground for an hour. He went nuts on Twitter and then his fellow fans united behind his cause.

—

Image credit: Newspaper production room by IMLS DCC under a Creative Commons Attribution licence.

Fiat settled a copyright claim with graffiti artists whose work was featured in an advertisement without permission or payment.

A disabled pig gets around by using only its front legs.

Future Fund Chair David Murray had some interesting things to say on Lateline. Like he doesn’t believe in climate change because if he did it would be too scary.

Samsung beat Apple in court and is now allowed to sell its tablet in Australia.

Neuroscientists are reconstructing internal brain imagery on video.

The ABC said that same-sex marriage is a worthy cause.

Facebook finally makes users’ privacy changes opt-in.

Apple’s redneckiness came out again with Siri knowing how to find a brothel but not a women’s sexual health clinic.

Things are looking up in Burma.

Apparently there is a limit to what advertisers will put up with from popular radio announcers.

A professor of law, politics and culture draws similarities between the little wars that happened in the lead-up to World War I and the USA’s little wars in the last ten to 15 years.

There might be a Flight of the Conchords movie on its way.

Christian groups lobbied pro-gay marriage Labor MPs before the vote the other day.

The ten best TV ads of this year according to AdWeek.

A guy is tweeting World War II over the next six years. So far, interesting nuggets include “The joke in Britain is that they’re fighting the “Bore War” (play on Boer War); the French call it drôle de guerre (joke of a war)” and “Roosevelt: “This requires action”. President has authorised Sachs to head an Army/Navy committee enquiring into ‘uranium bomb’ science.” Follow here.

The guy who branded the Occupy movement.

Pakistan has a massive list of words deemed to be offensive that cause text messages to be blocked. Words like K Mart.

—

Image credit: Reading the paper by MShades under a Creative Commons Attribution licence