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…

why you shouldn’t use google chrome

You may have heard of Google Chrome, Google’s attempt to take on Internet Explorer and Firefox by releasing a stand alone web browser (no doubt part of Google’s secret plan to gradually take over the world).  As with…

the tort of invasion of privacy

There is a lot of discussion at the moment about the question of whether Australia is moving towards a tort of ‘invasion of privacy’ as a result of the publication of compromising pictures supposedly of Pauline Hanson. There is a…

harry nicolaides to be pardoned

An update on Harry Nicolaides – he’s set to receive a royal pardon.  Which is great for Harry, but just goes to show that the current Thai legal regime is one in which arbitrary decisions of…

religious fundamentalists reach new low with bushfire comments

I really wanted to believe that this was fake when it was first emailed to me – but no, there it is on the Catch the Fire Ministries website: Pastor Danny Nalliah, leader of that esteemed fundamentalist Christian…

more lese majeste – associate professor giles ji ungpakorn

Further to the post about Harry Nicolaides, I thought I would add a link to the case of Associate Professor Giles Ji Ungpakorn, a Thai academic who is seemingly about to be charged under the same antiquated and…

the strange case of harry nicolaides

This is disgraceful: a Melbourne man, Harry Nicolaides, has been jailed in Thailand for three years for insulting the Thai royal family in a novel he has apparently written.  The conviction is a result of Thailand’s anachronistic…

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…

internet censorship – national protests

Further to the previous post, there are national protests on 13 December 2008 in relation to Labor’s mandatory Internet filtering scheme. Details here. Attend, if you don’t want the federal government to decide what you can and cannot…

internet filter – positive noises from… the Liberal Party?

No doubt stung by the fact that no-one in the electorate actually pays them any attention at all (or maybe just because they don’t have to pal up to right wingnuts like Steve Fielding any more), the Liberal Party appear…

no clean feed

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…

on-line defamation decision, eh

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…

there’s probably no god

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…

an idea about police spying

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…

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