#HappyBirthday: Celebrating 10 years of the #hashtag

Ten years ago, the #hashtag was created almost by accident. Now it’s one of the most widely used and recognised symbols in the world.

Ten years on, with an average of 125 million hashtags shared every day on Twitter, it’s hard to imagine the internet ever existed without it.

Hashtags are proving a powerful way for social and political movements to start conversations.

One of the most defining examples of this is #BlackLivesMatter campaign, which began as a hashtag to draw attention police-related violence in the United States.

It’s also used in the online sphere of sports, politics, pop-culture, entertainment and satire.

To celebrate its birthday, here are some of the most memorable #hastags movements in Australia, and around the world.

In Australia

One of the biggest movements to start on Australian Twitter is #putoutyourbatsout, where cricket and non-cricket fans alike shared pictures of bats on their doorsteps to honour the death of Phillip Hughes.

Source: #HappyBirthday: Celebrating 10 years of the #hashtag | SBS News

Gary DeCarlo, Who Sang ‘Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye,’ Is Dead: VIDEO

Gary DeCarlo, who sang lead on the hit song “Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye,” which topped the charts in 1969 and has lived on ever since as an indelible sports stadium taunt, died on Wednesday in a hospice facility in Branford, Conn. He was 75.

His wife, Annette, said the cause was metastatic cancer.

Mr. DeCarlo wrote and recorded “Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye” with two friends and fellow musicians, Dale Frashuer and Paul Leka. The song was originally intended as the B-side of one of several songs Mr. DeCarlo had recorded with Mr. Leka.

It began as two verses that the friends had written years before, with the opening lines: “He’ll never love you / The way that I love you / ’Cause if he did, no no, he wouldn’t / Make you cry.”)

The song became an earworm thanks to the addition of a repeating playground chant, “Na na na na, na na na na, hey hey hey, goodbye.”

https://youtu.be/HQOFm1gvhn4

 

London: Australian man ran into inferno to rescue residents – VIDEO

Australian hero who lives near the London tower block inferno charges inside the building and uses an axe to rescue an elderly couple trapped on the second floor.
As the Grenfell Tower went up in flames an Australian man risked his life, running into the inferno with an axe in a desperate effort to rescue the hundreds trapped inside.

Scroll down for video

Jody Martin moved from Sydney to London a decade ago and was sitting at home in his apartment in the city’s west on Tuesday night when he noticed a glow outside.

Realising instantly that a building was seriously alight Mr Martin and his housemate ran towards the inferno, before bursting into the tower and using an axe they found to free an elderly couple trapped behind their apartment door.

Mr Martin told Channel Seven when he first ran into the burning high-rise the blaze had only just started, but quickly escalated.

‘I was just running around the building shouting at people, “get out of the building, get out of the building”,’ Mr Martin said.

‘Initially one of the fire officers said they might not be the best course of action you need to just calm down.

‘I said: “Mate, you need to come around and look at the other side”.’

Within just minutes the fire began to spread quickly, something construction experts have since said may have been due to the building’s cladding.

‘The whole side of the building from the second floor all the way to the top was ablaze and it was moving at a pace, it was moving quickly,’ Mr Martin said.

Source: London tower fire: Australian expat describes trying to help residents of burning apartment block – ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

Trump survived James Comey’s testimony, but the fallout could be fatal

The former FBI director threw out a trail of clues for the special counsel to follow in the Trump-Russia investigation, which looks set to shadow his presidency.

At 10.20pm, Kellyanne Conway wandered in from the landscaped gardens of the British ambassador’s residence, built in the 1920s and resembling an English country house in the heart of Washington. An Andy Warhol portrait of the Queen watched from above the ornate fireplace as results of the British election flashed up on a giant TV screen.

Conway, a senior adviser at the White House, could not quite escape questions about former FBI director James Comey’s testimony earlier in the day. Donald Trump had “never intended to tweet” during the session, she told the Guardian, with a dismissive air that implied he had much better things to do.

But the president, who broke his Twitter silence less than eight hours later, may be in a similar position to Theresa May. He survived for sure, but with a self-inflicted wound that could yet prove mortal. Comey threw out a trail of clues for special counsel Robert Mueller to follow in his investigation of Trump’s alleged collusion with Russia, which looks set to shadow his presidency for years.

“History will remember it as a significant inflection point,” said Norm Eisen, former ethics czar under Barack Obama. “We’ve had leaked and hearsay evidence before but now, for the first time, we had direct evidence of obstruction of justice. It was a giant step forward towards accountability for Trump, but there will be many more giant steps necessary.”

What Comey did not say may ultimately prove as telling as what he did during his blockbuster questioning by members of the Senate intelligence committee…

Source: Trump survived James Comey’s testimony, but the fallout could be fatal | US news | The Guardian

Notorious IS terrorist Neil Prakash extradited to Aust in months: PM

Australia’s most notorious Islamic State terrorist Neil Prakash will likely be extradited from Turkey within months, says Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull.

The 25-year-old Melbourne-born man, also known as Abu Khaled al-Cambodi, has been held in a Turkish maximum-security prison since his arrest last year.

“We should be getting him back within months, but it has obviously got to go through the Turkish processes,” Mr Turnbull told the Seven Network.

“We are satisfied that Neil Prakash, who has been one of the key financiers and organisers in ISIL (Islamic State) – this barbaric terrorist group that we are determined to destroy – will be brought back to Australia and he will face the courts.”

However, several government sources told AAP that Australia was still working with Turkish authorities, and no indications of a timeframe for the extradition had been given.

Prakash, who is of Fijian and Cambodian descent, left Australia for Syria via Malaysia in 2013.

He has featured in a number of IS propaganda videos in which he calls for attacks on Australia and the United States.

His Australian passport was cancelled in October 2014, and federal police issued a warrant for his arrest through Interpol in August 2015.

In November 2016 he was captured in Turkey – where he faces charges under domestic law – when he tried to cross from Syria using false documents.

Australia has had an extradition treaty with Turkey since 2003.

Source: Prakash extradited to Aust in months: PM | Perth Now

Federal Budget. Former PM John Howard says energy crisis a scandal

FORMER PM John Howard says Australia’s greatest immediate policy challenge was barely mentioned in the federal budget – the looming energy crisis.

Speaking at a post-budget business breakfast with former New Zealand PM John Key, Mr Howard described the risk of supply and price rises as scandalous given Australia natural endowments of energy sources.

The nation had 38 per cent of the world’s easily recoverable uranium reserves, hundreds of years of coal reserves, was a major natural gas producer and could also produce plenty of solar and wind power, he said.

“That we should be facing a potential energy crisis in the eastern states is a serious condemnation of the political process,” he said.

“That gas exploration has been hampered, narrowed, redirected and prohibited by some state governments is a policy scandal of the first order.”

He also claimed state governments had overzealously embraced renewable energy targets, leading to a massive increase in costs.

“When my government was defeated in 2007, the renewable energy target was two per cent and it should never have been increased?” he said.

Some major energy users have shut some operations as a result, such as Rio Tinto, while others are threatening to do so, such as Glencore coal boss Peter Freyberg in comments this week.

Mr Howard said Australia was extremely fortunate economically and was approaching a world record of consecutive quarters of growth, but was getting to the “brake linings” and falling behind competitors.

A Senate that was more diverse than in his time made the crucial economic reform needed more difficult to pass, he said.

He said he was “uneasy” about what he called a bank tax hike, that was part of this week’s budget.

Mr Key said Australia’s long-term economic good times made it harder for governments to convince voters that reform was needed, especially in industrial relations.

Australia’s labour participation rate was lower than New Zealand’s, but if it was the same the unemployment rate would be 12-13 per cent, he said.

Source: Federal Budget 2017: Former PM John Howard says looming energy crisis a scandal | Perth Now

Meryl Streep and Tom Hanks team up on screen in The Post