on finding one’s car has been broken into and one’s car stereo taken

A stream of consciousness meditation on crime from the perspective of a semi-libertarian bleeding heart cynic whose 1990 Mistubishi Galant was found violated and stripped of its CD player this morning:

1. Fuck.  I am not really angry so much

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south australia continues to push the presumption of guilt

Following on from the recent bikie-gang violence at Sydney airport, there has been a chorus of praise for South Australia’s abhorrent anti-association laws (summarised here at Larvatus Prodeo, who rightly point out the idiocy of presuming guilt based on…

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…

TANSTAAFL

Cost of producing Acme Consumer Widget™ in two countries:

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cat-tempted interference with contractual relations

You may have come across software “End User Licence Agreements” before in the course of installing Adobe Acrobat, Windows or other software.  These are documents which typically require a person wishing to use software to click “I Agree” (or similar)…

manage your digital rights

I came across this very informative summary of the current (purported) rights that various on-line communities claim over the content you, the user, uploads.  For example, Facebook’s terms of service are completely horrendous, whereas Flickr is relatively respectful…

telstra, defender of the universe

I… don’t know what the hell is going on.  Telstra, harbinger of telecommunications doom, monopolistic behemoth extraordinaire, profit driven dinosaur which ambles across the land devouring its small, innovative mammalian competitors, has made a radically pro-human rights submission…

privatising the justice system

An example of why prisons (and police, and prosecutors) are best kept in public hands: making findings of guilt and consequential imprisonment profitable creates an incentive to put people in prison who don’t deserve to be there, which leads to…

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…

getup save the net campaign

iinet case update

This is quite a good summary of some of the legal issues in the iinet case.

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…

crazy cult update

A couple of ex-Exclusive Brethren members are asking Justice North in the Federal Court in Victoria (VID904/2008) to order that the AFP investigate the cult: link.

Former Brethren members Lydia Desai and Priscilla D’Souza have accused Exclusive Brethren

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iiNet film piracy case

You might remember this from a few days ago – a federal minister reading directly from the film and music industry script about the evils of piracy.

Now, in what seems not to be a coincidence (perhaps a…