politician tells truth

Shock, horror.

Kudos to Kelvin Thompson, federal Labor MP, for having the courage to stand up to the “eternal growth” fools who currently dictate economic and development policies in the western world and point out that excessive population…

fnord

Anyone who gets this without googling wins significant respect. Or at least less disrespect.

no surprises

Australia continues its proud tradition of protecting the practice and expression of (Christian) religious beliefs, but failing to do the same in respect of atheism: article.  Sigh. There are buses rolling around Adelaide with Christian messages on them…

anonymity implies criminal intent, kkk sympathies: idiots

This is an interesting little example of the current attitude to anonymity in some sections of the community: a type of jacket with a hood and integrated face-mask has apparently become popular amongst “young people” in Britain (more).…

abnormal is the new normal

This is an excellent piece by Barry Jones in The Australian in which he highlights the extraordinarily dangerous attitude currently being promoted as the “new normal” by politicians and their lackeys in the western world, in which objectivity, rationality and…

spin of the week

The Australian runs a ridiculous front page story which describes a poll showing an electoral disaster for the Government as “HOWARD CHECKS RUDD’S MARCH!!!!1!!!11!!” (NB: there may have been fewer ‘!!1!’s).

Independent (and very excellent) political analysis

Australia: subject to the laws of the United States

You may have come across this story over the last few months – one Mr Hew Griffiths, an Australian software pirate – was extradited to the United States and prosecuted for offences under US copyright law. He subsequently

what are you, gay?

I’m sure you’re familiar with the old “homophobes are really closet gays” line of reasoning.  Interestingly, this research seems to confirm that theory. From the abstract:

The authors investigated the role of homosexual arousal in exclusively heterosexual men

…

al gore: rationalist politician?

Whether you’re left or right in a conventional sense, it’s worth paying attention to what Al Gore has been saying lately about the state of American – and by extension, Australian – politics. His new book, The Assault On Reason,…

purity control

You’ve no doubt seen the proposed question for the Australian cultural and ideological purity control test over the weekend: link here in case you haven’t.

Some of the questions are, as John Quiggan puts it, nothing…

an atheist’s point of view

This first blog entry by Atheist’s Wager contains a very interesting take on religion.

we remember the light on the hill

An Australian singer once sang this song:

So you cut all the tall trees down, you poisoned the sky and the sea
You’ve taken what’s good from the ground
But you’ve left precious little for me

…

great dominions, they just want you to leave

I’ve always found it interesting that the United States plays baseball and gridiron whereas most of the rest of the world plays cricket and soccer. I had assumed (typical anti-Americanism, tut tut) that this was a reflection of some sort…

world’s #1 terrorist won’t fly

This guy was prevented from flying to London because he was wearing a t-shirt featuring the words “World’s #1 Terrorist” and a picture of George W Bush. Our good friends at Qantas refused to let him fly on the basis…