abnormal is the new normal

This 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…

demanding equality in pre-crime

Britain’s Lord Justice Sedley has caused quite a fuss by suggesting that all Britons (and any visitors to the Isles) should be added to the British criminal DNA database (alternative article).

Unsurprisingly the suggestion has caused…

police state: sneak preview

Crikey yesterday described the APEC security arrangements thus:

For the cops, APEC is a vision of the world as it should be. Expanded powers, new equipment, media support, and maybe a chance to try out new toys like the water

…

trade your vote in for a new one

This is an interesting development in the US – an appellate court has ruled that it is legal to ‘swap’ votes, and also to facilitate the swapping of votes.

The idea emerged in the 2000 presidential election campaign – supporters…

use telstra and no-one gets hurt

This has to be a new low in corporate spin, even for Telstra.  Apparently if genuine competition is allowed in the Australian broadband market, we will be more vulnerable to terrorist attacks.

Conveniently this directly links Telstra’s near-monopoly position…

a big week for the separation of powers

This week is turning into a big week for the notion of the separation of powers in Australia.  As you (should) know, the separation of power between the judiciary and the parliament/executive is one of the devices included in…

australia: leading the world in spying on its citizens

This article in The Age is superficially positive – the new British PM is having trouble getting extended detention powers in anti-terrorist legislation implemented in Britain due to rational parliamentary opposition.  The reason is a report from the Joint Committee…

just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you

If you are the somewhat paranoid type, at least when it comes to governments, why not scare the hell out of yourself and read this little piece by Paul Craig Roberts (Assistant Secretary of the…

who are the ones that we kept in charge? killers, thieves and lawyers

This interesting rant on The Road to Surfdom kindly makes the point that not all lawyers are evil – just the ones who consistently seek to undermine the legal process for political gains. Others, such as Dr Haneef’s lawyer Stephen…

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

islamofascists want to blow up your cat

…at least that seems to be the case according to “Let’s Get Ready Sydney“, a disturbingly Cold War-esque (and red, really, really red) website about planning for an ‘emergency’ that might cause you to leave your home in…

Australia: subject to the laws of the United States

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

fence posts

More than six out of ten people regularly commit criminal acts (in Britain, at least). Democratic governments seem to regard legislation criminalising particular forms of behaviour as the default, and indeed only, way of dealing with most…

what are you, gay?

I’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

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an enemy of the open society

This article from The Australian, entitled “Silencing Our Basic Freedom”, is compulsory reading for anyone who cares about the future of democracy in Australia. This blog is frequently critical of that particular newspaper, but on this issue it is fighting…