This is probably the most significant issue for Australian democracy since the amendments to the ASIO Act by the Howard government: link.
More on it later.  If you already know about it, get a move on and write to your state’s senators.

A Canadian court has recently handed down what seems like an eminently sensible judgment concerning defamation on the Internet: story/judgment.  In essence, the decision means that (for Canadian purposes) linking to a defamatory web page does not itself amount to defamation.  The Supreme Court of British Columbia drew an analogy between hyperlinks and footnotes, which [...]

It’s hard not to enjoy it when a non-lawyer witness confounds a lawyer in court.
As such I really enjoyed this link sent to me by Tom (no website AFAIK) in which the hapless Mr Lovelace, barrister at law, attempts to cross-examine the crafty Arnold Chrysler, accused mass coat hanger thief (really), in the UK High [...]

More music in the usual place: link.

This is fantastic: ads on London buses advocating atheism.
I wonder how hard this would be to fund in Australia, and whether it would somehow offend our anti-discrimination/hate speech laws, which (like our constitution, according to the High Court) seem to protect every belief system except atheism.

I’ve written another album review over at Gigomaphone, this time for the new Dylan release, Tell Tale Signs: link.

This kind of thing makes grim but not at all surprising reading. Just as they did in the 1950s and 1960s, the powers that be are making it their business to infiltrate groups of citizens attempting to exercise their legitimate democratic rights. Not surprisingly, the targets seem to be progressive and human rights [...]

McCain debate simulator (somewhat amusing): link
Palin Whitehouse simulator (very amusing): link

A couple of sites I find provide really good US election coverage:

Electoral Vote – summarises the likely electoral college based on up to date polling in each state (remember that the US system is mostly a winner-takes-all state-based one) – this is far more useful than the national polls.  Also has a good summary every [...]

This article highlights something which seems pretty obvious to me: it is a bad idea to leave an economic system at the mercy of frequently irrational human perception and emotion, and the current crisis is more a product of fear and anxiety as it is an actual reflection of an objective problem in the real [...]

No matter how often I read this statistic, I still find it somewhat startling:
A vast majority of the nation, 73 percent of the country, disapproves of the job President George W. Bush is doing. No president has ever had a higher disapproval rating, not even President Richard Nixon at the height of Watergate.
In other words, [...]

I’ve written a little CD review of Heathen by David Bowie over at Karloskar’s blog, Gigomaphone: here.

I found this article by Francis Fukuyama to be a very worthwhile read on the subject of the current financial crisis and it’s implications for US politics at home and abroad.
It’s written with a clear-eyed understanding of modern US history, and in particular highlights the twin sources of damage to the American ‘brand’ abroad represented [...]

This is good – just to prove it is the greatest radio station ever, NPR is streaming the new Bob Dylan Bootleg Series album, Tell Tale Signs.
There’s plenty of interesting stuff there. Highlights for me so far (apart from just having more Dylan to listen to) are “Red River Shore” and “Marchin’ to the [...]

Well, clearly I got sick of actually writing anything here with any regularity. Apart from anything else, there are 50 trillion blogs out there, all of which are written by people who want people to read theirs rather than wanting to read other people’s writing (understandably, I suppose, we all just want to be [...]