As far as I can tell from the news reports, Julia Gillard wasn’t subjected to any actual violence today (unless you count being dragged to the car by her coppers), but we’ve never seen a Prime Minister being dragged by security like that before. It is reasonable to infer that there was a serious risk [...]
Continue Reading...Posts in ‘Ethics’
The boundaries of legitimate protest
Thursday, January 26th, 2012Freedom of speech, freedom of expression and the Bolt decision
Friday, September 30th, 2011Those in doubt that the Andrew Bolt case is about free speech need only think about the contortions of logic necessary to dismissing the proposition that it is about free speech. On his blog, my friend Mark Bahnisch says that “free speech is not at issue here” before observing that “[f]ree speech, as the judgment [...]
Continue Reading...A producer’s view of animal rights
Monday, June 20th, 2011G’day Australia, Let me introduce myself. I am a primary producer. For my entire life I have been involved in primary production. I would like to think that this qualifies me as a professional in my trade. So what does my trade involve? Well firstly, I produce livestock. This makes me a whole host [...]
Continue Reading...Human Rights Awards, Chris Sidoti, Pauline Hanson and On Line Opinion
Sunday, December 12th, 2010Congratulations to Therese Rein, winner of the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission’s 2010 Human Rights Award, and all the other winners. It was particularly interesting to see the Internet get a look in with GetUp winning the Community (Organisation) Award. Other winners included Nina Funnell, an occasional contributor to On Line Opinion. You can [...]
Continue Reading...Is JK Rowling a witch?
Thursday, April 17th, 2008Is JK Rowling a witch? It would appear to be a reasonable question given her performance in prosecuting a case against Steven Vander Ark for daring to have compiled The Harry Potter Lexicon. The judge is urging both sides to settle, drawing on well-known legal precedents from Dicken’s Bleak House. I hope they don’t and [...]
Continue Reading...Quick! Kill the Moggie! Save the Planet!
Thursday, April 10th, 2008Visiting friends from Wellington informed me last weekend that they won’t be having a pet when they move to their ‘intentional community’ near Nelson. (That’s an evolved form of the kibbutz, think Nimbin with broadband. ) They brought to my attention that cats have a large carbon footprint:0.6 apparently, not that I really grasp what [...]
Continue Reading...A.N.U. – Australia’s Nastiest University?
Thursday, March 6th, 2008Almost by accident, I discovered I had been underpaid as a tutor last semester in the business faculty. When I heard about an overseas tutor with a PhD complaining about this and being told ‘it is not our policy to pay at the PhD level’, I immediately dug up my HR log in and checked. [...]
Continue Reading...Junkies are the scum of the earth (3)
Wednesday, February 6th, 2008No point in talking about my son any more. Why depress everyone, including myself? Better to boast of solutions to the tedious society vs the individual vs resource distribution conundrum. In relation to drug policy at least. Again I find my suggestions are viable, and being implemented in the enlightened backwoods of Scandinavia. On the [...]
Continue Reading...In Praise of Older Goods
Friday, January 18th, 2008…or the African Freecycle Boogie. I guess it is rewarding to live long enough to see my youthful concerns become mainstream alarms. Or at least fashionable. And that is what is now happening with recycled goods. Second hand goods have appealed to me since my childhood. At about age 7, with my equally naughty friend [...]
Continue Reading...Torture Blofeld
Friday, May 20th, 2005There has been a furore over a paper (yet to be published) by two Australian academics claiming that torture should be legal in some circumstances. Most Aussie cinema-goers would agree, so long as the torturer was James Bond, it was Blofeld and his cat that were rapping along with electrodes attached to their sensitive sides, [...]
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