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:

Fuck.  I am not really angry so much as just really, really irritated at how inconvenient this is.
It took me a whole day to do [...]

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 a person’s mode of transportation, but overlook the fact that in fact the SA laws are [...]

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 useful note on recent UK developments in the Max Mosley case and some speculation [...]

Cost of producing Acme Consumer Widget™ in two countries:

Item
Country A
Country B

Raw materials
$5
$5

Labour costs in compliance with local
minimum wage and employment laws
$30
$2

Cost of compliance with OH&S requirements
$5
$0

Cost of compliance with environmental laws
$3
$0

Total
$43
$7

So why do we persist in calling trade agreements with countries that lack basic labour and environmental standards “free” trade agreements?
Prediction 1: in 20 years [...]

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) to the terms before they are permitted to do so (called a “shrink-wrap” or “click-wrap” [...]

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 of your rights.  I say “purported” because whether some of the stuff in these agreements would stand [...]

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 to the national human rights consultative panel.
I find it very disturbing to read words put forward by [...]

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 this – two judges who have been giving offenders unwarranted sentences of detention in exchange [...]

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 as we speak.
And it’s the best form of discrimination too – the kind by private citizens and [...]

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

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 see on the net.

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 to have had some sort of cathartic experience about the role government should play in [...]

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 members in three countries of crimes including genocide, people smuggling and slavery.
Justice North is on the progressive end [...]

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 coordinated campaign was agreed to in some Bond villain-esque meeting room), the film studios have decided to have [...]