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…

accused mass coat hanger thief

It’s hard not to enjoy it when a non-lawyer witness confounds a lawyer in court.

As such I really enjoyed this link sent to me by Tom (no website AFAIK) in which the hapless Mr Lovelace, barrister at…

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…

what do you mean ‘the bank is out of money’?

This article highlights something which seems pretty obvious to me: it is a bad idea to leave an economic system at the mercy of frequently irrational human perception and emotion, and the current crisis is more a product…

fukuyama on the decline of the American brand

I found this article by Francis Fukuyama to be a very worthwhile read on the subject of the current financial crisis and it’s implications for US politics at home and abroad.

It’s written with a clear-eyed understanding of modern…

another brick in the wall

This has to be less than ideal as a precedent for civil liberties in schools.  Another sign of a fundamental shift in our attitude to the presumption of innocence in the 21st Century, perhaps?

U.S. Supreme Court Judge: ‘absurd’ not to punch suspects in the face, stick things under fingernails

In a recent interview, everyone’s favourite extreme right wing U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia remarked that he found it ‘absurd’ to think that authorities couldn’t torture an individual who had information about an imminent terrorist attack (

red mass: the court goes to church

The Sydney Morning Herald and Catholic News tell us that judges and other members of the legal community in New South Wales recently participated in ‘Red Mass’, a European tradition in which members of the legal profession seek…

refuse to tell your employer about your sex life, lose your job

This is an extraordinary decision by the Industrial Relations Commission.  Telstra has had its right to sack an employee upheld, where the basis of the sacking was that she had sex with another employee (or employees, it seems) outside of…

Serious Crime (Control) Bill 2007 (SA) – a bill controlling what, exactly?

I just became aware of this piece of legislation, recently introduced into the South Australian Parliament: the Serious Crime (Control) Bill 2007 (SA). You can see the bill here in Rich Text Format or here in…

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).…

religion is in the inverse of…

The always interesting Possum Comitatus has some analysis of voting trends and social factors at the last federal election. Tucked away in there are some very interesting graphs about religion and its correlation to several other variables (about…

verballing 101

The South Australian Government has gone ahead with legislation to ban David Hicks from selling his story.  He’s still allowed to tell his story, but he’s not allowed to sell it.  Lucky him.  Presumably he’ll be able to…

kidnapping, bounty hunting completely fine by U.S.

Confirming that the United States still regards the phrase “war on terror” to mean “license for continuing and willful insanity”, a lawyer representing the U.S. in a high profile case in England has indicated that the U.S. view is that…