A Liverpool man has been wrongly accused by vigilantes of being one of the then-boys who brutally murdered toddler James Bulger in 1993, and is receiving death threats.

Does he blame the insane mob that’s harassing him despite being told by authorities that the man they think he is is in custody?

Nup.

He blames the man they’re assuming him to be. Why won’t the real Venables come forward so that the mob can direct their death threats properly? Even seeing the pitchforks coming for him hasn’t made Mr Calvert think twice about pitchfork justice. You’d think that being on the receiving end of the mob’s ire might have taught him something about the stupidity and injustice of the way it operates – but no, he really just wants to join it.

There’s a useful life lesson completely missed. Read more »

American rightwingers have long been hostile to the “we should help the poor” parts of the Gospels – this week they’ve taken that attack to extremes:

Yesterday, [Glenn] Beck told his radio listeners to “look for the words ’social justice’ or ‘economic justice’ on your church Web site. … If you find [them], run as fast as you can. … They are code words. Now, am I advising people to leave their church? Yes!”

That includes the Roman Catholic Church.

And more:

Glenn Beck continued his attack on “social justice” today, arguing that it entails “a perversion of the gospel” and is “not what Jesus would say”

I would love to see what’s in Glenn’s copy of, say, Mathew 25. Read more »

Andy Blume runs afoul of Sheriff’s Office incompetence, after they set a date for fines to be paid without the obscene add-on costs the various agencies add, and then utterly fail to adequately staff the line so people can have a reasonable chance to take part in the arrangement –

So, wanting to find out if I did actually have any unpaid fines outstanding, the nature of such and if I could take advantage of the waiver offer, I called the number.

Constantly. For two days straight.

Each time I was told by some pre-recorded [person] to [go away] as they were no longer accepting telephone calls regarding the matter. The only option available was to leave a message on their voicemail service and request a call back – however there was no actual guarantee that you’d receive a follow-up before the fee waiver period ended. If that wasn’t appropriate to your situation, the only other option was to [go away] and work out your options on your own. Read more »

Prisoners are as affected by government decisions as anyone else, and yet many of them are denied a vote. In fact it would have been all of them, if the previous government had had its way – but a successful High Court challenge restored the vote to those with fewer than three years to release, ie those who would be free people within the term of the next government.

But there’s no sensible reason for denying any of them suffrage, other than spite – the punishment of imprisonment is the loss of a person’s freedom, not the loss of their basic human rights – which include food, water, shelter, and a say in the people who will rule over them. If our aim is rehabilitation – which, if we’re interested in reducing crime, it bloody well should be – it’s entirely counter productive, in fact, to separate prisoners from all sense of responsibility towards or connection with the wider community. Read more »

Victorians and Tasmanians got a day off work today, the lazy buggers, for one of the nation’s most shamelessly partisan and unfair traditions: Labor Day. You’ll notice that we conservatives don’t have a Liberal Day, or a National Day, or a Conservative Day. How unfair is that?

Well, I propose that this shameless bias in our public institutions be remedied. When the Liberal Party next wins office (I’m told by various well-informed sources in the opinion pages of Melbourne’s tabloid of record that it’ll be this year, because 2007 was an accident and Kevin Rudds’ is definitely going to be a one-term government), we’re going to introduce Employers’ Day. A day to celebrate all the fine work employers’ groups have done in fighting against workers’ “rights” and in squeezing every ounce of productivity out of those parasitical leeches for the least possible money. Read more »

Apparently some people are so interested in the topic of polygamy that they want to fill every gay marriage thread with discussion of it. Despite this – and in obviously stark contrast to the issue of gay marriage, which has reached the legislation in parliament stage – I’m yet to see anyone put forward a specific proposal for polygamy that we can evaluate on its merits.

I personally have no strong view either way. If it could work without oppressing women or making a mess of consent – if there’s a solution to problems like how to manage adding or divorcing partners from some or all parts of the union when the different other participants don’t agree (and I haven’t seen one), and if there weren’t any other obvious problems of which I haven’t yet thought – then I probably wouldn’t oppose it. I’m open to persuasion, if a good case can be made. But I can’t support the vague notion in the absence of a workable proposal, obviously. Read more »

Whenever an American talks about their great project of spreading democracy around the world, remember that this is what they have in mind.

The decision by the US Democrats to simply put the healthcare bill to a majority vote has been greeted by republicans and their media allies as “parliamentary trickery”, and the President has been condemned for “jamming the bill down Americans’ throats”. None of that makes any sense – “reconciliation”, the measure by which the Senate can stop a minority of senators filibustering indefinitely to stop the majority of representatives passing legislation, is entirely democratic. The filibuster is a “parliamentary trick”, not the measure that overrides it and restores democracy. And the Republicans have never been afraid to use it before themselves. Read more »

Recent correspondence from the Commonwealth Bank:

Exciting changes are happening to your credit card in August 2010.

Dear Mr Sear,

Good news. Your credit card is being updated. From 26 August 2010 your card will be changed to our popular Low Fee credit card, which will be even better for your everyday use.

Translation: We’ll be charging you an annual fee on the card now.

Recent correspondence from nib:

Dear Mr Sear,

Your new premium.

At nib we regularly review our products to make sure they continue to provide the level of cover and benefits our customers need. This review also takes into account the pricing of each product to make usre they remain competitive and provide value for money.

Translation: We’re raising your premium by 10%.

They really are very good at implying the exact opposite of what they’re technically telling you, aren’t they?

UPDATE: Via Northern Exposure in the comments: Read more »

Retailer offends national patriotic sensibilities by applying to open on ANZAC day.

Everyone else leaps to use the incident to bignote themselves – politicians compete to condemn it the most, competing retailers say they’d never consider doing something like that (although if the retailer had gotten away with it without too much comment, you can bet they’d have all done the same), and the RSL gets to sound relevant for a few moments.

Retailer backs off.

It’s a slow news week. Read more »

Quick question: you know that phenomenon when you’re in a rush and everything around you decides to take longer than usual, when every object insists on falling over or refusing to work – when physics itself has turned against you? There should be a word for that. Any ideas? Read more »

Here’s a list of Australian senators who believe in discriminating against gay people: Read more »

Wondering what a torch-wielding mob looks like? Check out these facebook hate-pages dedicated to venting against the apparently intellectually disabled man accused of the murder of an eight-year old Queensland girl named Trinity Bates.

Read more »

Seriously, what does Ms Deveny expect people to do?

Why do (don’t go there) most children(don’t go there) still end up with (don’t go there, don’t go there, don’t go there!) their father’s surname?

Probably because no-one’s come up with a functional alternative.

Unless every child is to have a different family name (which kind of defeats the point of having a “family name” in the first place), then how do you resolve this? You’ve got to pick one of them, don’t you? Hyphenated names become ridiculously unwieldy after one generation. Using the mother’s name is just as problematic as using the father’s name – only with the added factor of causing confusion to the many, many entities in society that insist on traditional naming conventions. Read more »

At a time when it is becoming increasingly obvious that the copyright lobby that claims to serve creators actually serves no-one but its parasitical self – check out this story in The Australian today about how the Copyright Agency Limited gives itself more of what it takes than it gives to authors – there’s only one thing that can be said about any politician or government that signs us up to a corrupt corporate undemocratic anti-creativity treaty like ACTA – they represent corporate interests, not those of the public. Consider the details that were leaked – (they had to be leaked: we’re not entitled to know about this stuff until its too late, in the mindset of the people behind ACTA) today: Read more »

Film of London in 1903, featuring horse and cart traffic jams, via How To Be A Retronaut. (They’ve got pages of this awesome stuff, including a 1927 tour of London in colour.)

At 3:55, something spells doom for the scene.

I don’t usually do this sort of link post, but it’s Sunday, and HTBAR is worth adding to your RSS reader. (Another two consistently amazing photo sites worth checking out, if you haven’t seen them before, are English Russia and Dark Roasted Blend.) Read more »

If there’s anything more astounding than a candidate for high office blandly declaring that “the poor will always be with us” as an excuse for government not bothering to try to reduce homelessness, it’s people trying to defend it:

But I ask this question – to what end are we building more public housing?

Close reading of the report shows that only 1 in 8 of those classified as “homeless” are sleeping rough in parks and under bridges – most are either living in hostels, or renting where they do not have security of tenure.

And

But is it true that some homeless people are homeless by choice? A little lazy googling shows that some may be. Read more »

Isn’t Tony Abbott nice? I’d been hoping for a repeat of the 2007 election result (at least in terms of ALP vs Liberals), but was worried the conservatives might try a different argument this time around.

Turns out they won’t.

I wonder why Tony thinks they lost the last one.

Also – using the Bible to justify inaction on homelessness? Classy! (Literally.) Read more »

This blog has been going now for almost 6 years (including the blogspot iterations), and I’ve never once mentioned “Valentine’s Day”. Even disregarding the commercial orgy that it is for a moment, I’m a bit of a cynic about the fundamental basis of it – the idea of a specific day for celebrating “romance” as a concept, rather than the actual person you love. Wouldn’t her birthday be a better day for celebrating her as an individual? Do you love her, or do you love loving her? Read more »

$1.5 million for pirating a single videogame?

And that was an out of court settlement. God knows what his lawyers told him he was at risk of the court ordering.

How does that in any way fit with the criminal sentencing scale? Parliament understands that a crime against a corporation is not actually more serious than a crime against a human being, right?

(Also, loved the bizarre attempt by Nintendo to use this incident to try to justify regularly releasing products here late – or never releasing them at all. Which they’ve been doing for years.)

UPDATE: Kotaku thinks there’s something fishy about the matter. Read more »

I’m not sure I get the electoral calculus involved in this candid revelation:

While being grilled by a roomful of young Australians on ABC Television’s Q&A program last night Mr Rudd was asked if he would like to raise the legal drinking age to 21.

“Of course,” was Mr Rudd’s laughing reply.

Okay, there are more over 21 voters than under 21 voters, but the under 21s are voting for the first time. Kevin, do you really want to get them used to voting for your opponents? Read more »

Those readers who are somewhat interested in those modern interactive media the under forties are into – I believe they’re known as “videogames” – might find something of value in Restore, Restart, Quit, a podcast/blog I’m doing with a Sydney programmer named Rohan Harris. The most recent episode, with Ben Mansill of Byteside, PC PowerPlay and – in its early days – Hyper, is here. Read more »

What the Kookaburra vs Down Under case reveals about copyright in Australia:

1. Copyright terms are absurdly long;
2. Copyright law is used to stifle creativity against the public interest;
3. There’s presently insufficient protection for homages or references in music.

Regarding the first – this is a 2007 case about a 1981 song that referenced TWO BARS of a 1934 round. This is absurd. What possible commercial right should the publishers of a 1934 song have had in 2007? Why should Australian legislation, passed by Australian governments supposedly representing the public interest, grant a corporation a monopoly to control a popular folk song almost fifty years after it was written? Read more »

Finally, some good news in the war against oppressive copyright prosecution:

INTERNET service provider iiNet has won a major legal battle over whether it should be held responsible for its customers downloading content illegally.

The case, against the Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft, could have had major implications for the way internet providers police their users.

If AFACT had won, providers would likely have been forced to penalise or disconnect users who illegally downloaded copyrighted material such as movies and songs.

However Federal Court judge Justice Dennis Cowdroy today found iiNet was not responsible for the infringements of its users.

I know! Common sense in a major copyright case! I’m as surprised as you are. Read more »

The lawyers arguing in favour of “Proposition 8″, stripping gay couples of the right to marry in California, have been asked an unfairly tough question:

THE COURT: I’m asking you to tell me how it would harm opposite-sex marriages…
MR COOPER: Your Honor, my answer is: I don’t know.

Ouch. More embarrassing excerpts here.

You’d feel sorry for them, if what they were trying to do wasn’t so repulsively nasty.

ELSEWHERE: The military might go ahead and get rid of “don’t ask don’t tell” ahead of Congress. Yes, that’s the US military, less idiotically conservative than US politicians. Read more »

I have a mate, a progressive mate, who lives in South Australia. He’s been outraged by the Rann government’s efforts to gag political debate, change electoral advertising laws to make it harder for small parties, and – of course – the efforts of the state Attorney-General Michael Atkinson to block a sensible R18 rating for interactive media nationwide, no matter how many 15 year olds treated as adults are put at risk by his arrogant intransigence on the issue. Read more »

That’s weird. Even after it was revealed that the full body scanners don’t really work (depending on whether you think they’re there to pick up dangerous objects or to just give operators a good old perve), Australia now announces that we’re bringing the things here:

AUSTRALIAN airline passengers face tougher security screening – including possible full-body scans on US flights – in a $400 million-plus strategy to tackle terrorism…

The roll-out of full-body scanners would take place at a small number of international airports – most likely Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane – and be used for flights to the US.

Oh, “terrorism”. Is there nothing we cannot justify by mentioning you? Read more »

Kinglake on Tuesday, almost a year after the fires:

Read more »

Responding the news that the gay marriage ban costs Australia $700 million (a year, I guess), a twitter user asks:

Oh this is a tough one… Does the government hate gays more than they love money??

The answer, of course, is “yes”. Yes, the government “hates” gays more than they love money.

Or, more precisely – they love bigot votes more than they fear losing greedy votes, which they secure in other ways.

It’s a pity, really, because there are actually more non-bigot votes out there, if anyone other than the Greens would care to represent them. Read more »

What’s the point of voting for an alternative to the Republican Party if they’re just going to give the Republicans what they want anyway?

President Obama will call for a three-year freeze in spending on many domestic programs, and for increases no greater than inflation after that, an initiative intended to signal his seriousness about cutting the budget deficit, administration officials said Monday.

Oh no! Some independent voters in Massachusetts voted against a bad Democrat candidate! Quick, we must abandon all our ACTUAL voters and give in even further to our opponents!

Madness. It’s getting to the point, since the Democrats would rather pander to the Republicans than their own voters, where American liberals might as well vote for a third party. Do they really enjoy being taken for granted this much? Read more »

I’ve heard it said, unfairly, that political blogging is solely about making empty but vicious criticisms of the people who have to make hard decisions, offering nothing positive or constructive in return. I mean, it’s mostly about that, but not today.

Because I’ve got some solutions to the housing unaffordability crisis. Since letting the market completely off the leash (compounded by badly-targeted government handouts) has condemned most of the generations from here on in to permanent renter status, how about we make up for it by giving tenants some more protections?

I suggest:

• Giving renters more security – make it more difficult for landlords to kick tenants out when they feel like it;
• Giving renters more rights to make changes to their homes – fixtures, etc; and
• Capping rent increases at CPI.

I’d also advocate taxing landlords’ income – ie, capital gains – at the same rate as ordinary taxpayers. Half is not even close to fair. Read more »

A suit from the Retailers’ Association attempts to out-Aussie those “chucking a sickie” today:

The Retailers Association said those who falsely claimed illness were “un-Australian bums”…

“Those staff who throw a sickie to selfishly score themselves a four-day weekend have no concept of mateship and the Australian way of not leaving your mates to do your heavy lifting for you, while you slink off to the beach or the pub,” said Mr Driscoll in a statement.

“Many workplaces around Australia will experience some of their staff who have just disappeared, thrown rosters into chaos and at the end of it all left their workmates to have to work harder tending cash registers, filling the shelves or waiting on the tables.

“If they turn their backs on their mates they are bums.” Read more »

You heard that the US Supreme Court last week overturned limits on corporations using their own money to support or oppose candidates for public office?

By 5-4 vote, the court overturned federal laws, in effect for decades, that prevented corporations from using their profits to buy political campaign ads. The decision, which almost certainly will also allow labor unions to participate more freely in campaigns, threatens similar limits imposed by 24 states.

It leaves in place a ban prohibiting corporations and unions from directly contributing funds to candidates for any use.

Some of the present politicians made a bit of noise about countering the ruling, although with little hope:

President Barack Obama said that the decision gives ‘a green light to a new stampede of special interest money in our politics.’ The president pledged to work with Congress to ‘develop a forceful response’ to the court’s ruling. Read more »

Ah yes – younger Australians, already badly screwed over on housing, should now further contribute to the boomers’ hold on the nation’s wealth by funding their tax cuts.

I love it when older people complain about the young having it too easy. Read more »

A year is a long time in politics:

“What happened here in Massachusetts can happen all over America,” Senator Brown told a cheering crowd after his win. “I hope [Washington] is paying attention because tonight the independent voice of Massachusetts has spoken.”

“Independent”? Of What? In what conceivable way are the Republicans “independent”? Of Washington? Of corporate influence? Of having been in government when the financial crisis occurred?

Was that a “cheering” crowd, or were they laughing uproariously at his chutzpah? Read more »

If I remember my New Testament properly – and I’ve got inspirational gospel versus tattooed on the inside of my eyelids – I have no doubt whatsoever that Jesus would’ve been a big fan of putting bible references on guns and then going overseas and shooting unbelievers with them. What US military commanders refer to as “spiritually transformed firearms of Jesus Christ.”

And the LORD said unto them “PUT YOUR BLOODY HANDS UP! NOW! And they did comply.”

As Trijicon says - Read more »

So, the Democrats have lost their filibuster-proof “supermajority” in the US Senate.

Even accepting an absurd system where one single senator can thwart the will of the majority simply by waffling on indefinitely, it’s not really as devastating a defeat for progressives as it initially looks. First, the Democrats’ current healthcare proposals are a complete cop-out anyway, and in some ways even worse for the poor than the status quo, so big deal if they’re defeated.

Oh, come on! We were almost as Republican as them! Read more »