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).
Admittedly looking quite intimidating (see link), the jacket does not in fact come with a mind control device […]
Archive for the 'conformity' Category
abnormal is the new normal
19Sep07This 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 informed debate are completely subsumed by “faith”, expedience and knee-jerk reactivity:
We live in an era […]
spin of the week
19Jul07The 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 site criticises blatant pro-Government bias in The Australian.
The Australian contacts the author and advises that the newspaper is going […]
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 pleaded guilty in a court in Virginia.
Some insightful commentary is here, on LawFont:
But we should be […]
what are you, gay?
09Jul07I’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 who admitted negative affect toward homosexual individuals. Participants consisted of a group of homophobic men and a group […]
al gore: rationalist politician?
23May07Whether 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, is no doubt partisan in many ways, but it also focuses on some extremely […]
purity control
21May07You’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 but “Carmen Sandiego” questions like “Australia’s national flower is…”. It’s very hard to see what they have to do […]
an atheist’s point of view
17Apr07This first blog entry by Atheist’s Wager contains a very interesting take on religion.
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
You remember the flood and the fall, we remember the light on the hill
There should be enough for us all, but the dollar […]
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 of pig-headed independent streak in the rebellious colony - that the Americans had rejected […]
world’s #1 terrorist won’t fly
23Jan07This 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 that:
Whether made verbally or on a T-shirt, comments with the potential to offend other customers […]
