Brandis "Own Goal" Record Finally Beaten

The federal government "has gone a bridge too far" with its sedition laws and is more interested in protecting itself than the Australian people, opposition leader Kim Beazley says.

With the Senate due to pass new counter terrorism legislation today, Mr Beazley said the Labor Party supported tough laws to help the struggle.

But he also said the government had gone too far with its sedition provisions within the legislation.

"We think the government has gone a bridge too far with its sedition laws," he told the Nine Network.

"It's now wandering around protecting itself, not the Australian people with sedition laws.

"We don't think you need to jail cartoonists, we do think we need to jail terrorists."
(The Age, Monday, November 6 2005)

Even the government agrees that its sedition laws are badly worded and has already promised to review them early next year.

But they are still demanding that the Seanate vote on them this week.

That is just as ridiculous as it sounds. Pass laws that everyone agrees are inadequate, then review them, then come back to Parliament to make changes.

...

Labour will vote to delete the sedition provisions from the anti-terrorism Bill and then subject them to a general review.
(Nicola Roxon, shadow Attorney-General in The Hun, Monday, November 6 2005)

Despite these lofty assurances, the ALP in the Senate voted with the government on Tuesday night. The Anti-Terrorism Bill 2005 was passed 53 to 7 after the government gagged debate. The sedition provisions in the Bill were passed unamended. So, having decided that it was more important to be seen to be tough on terrorism than tough on democratic freedoms, the Federal ALP handed the Government the power to declare it an unlawful association.

Here's how section 30 of the Commonwealth Crimes Act reads after the changes made in the Anti-Terrorism Act 2005:

- SECT 30A
Unlawful associations
(1) The following are hereby declared to be unlawful associations, namely:

(a) any body of persons, incorporated or unincorporated, which by its constitution or propaganda or otherwise advocates or encourages:
(i) the overthrow of the Constitution of the Commonwealth by revolution or sabotage;
(ii) the overthrow by force or violence of the established government of the Commonwealth or of a State or of any other civilized country or of organized government; or
(iii) the destruction or injury of property of the Commonwealth or of property used in trade or commerce with other countries or among the States;
or which is, or purports to be, affiliated with any organization which advocates or encourages any of the doctrines or practices specified in this paragraph;
(b) any body of persons, incorporated or unincorporated, which by its constitution or propaganda or otherwise advocates or encourages the doing of any act having or purporting to have as an object the carrying out of a seditious intention (see subsection (3)).

(1A) Without limiting the effect of the provisions of subsection (1), any body of persons, incorporated or unincorporated, which is, in pursuance of section 30AA, declared by the Federal Court of Australia to be an unlawful association, shall be deemed to be an unlawful association for the purposes of this Act.
(2) Any branch or committee of an unlawful association, and any institution or school conducted by or under the authority or apparent authority of an unlawful association, shall, for all the purposes of this Act, be deemed to be an unlawful association.

(3) In this section: seditious intention means an intention to effect any of the following purposes:

(a) to bring the Sovereign into hatred or contempt;
(b) to urge disaffection against the following:
(i) the Constitution;
(ii) the Government of the Commonwealth;
(iii) either House of the Parliament;
(c) to urge another person to attempt, otherwise than by lawful means, to procure a change to any matter established by law in the Commonwealth;
(d) to promote feelings of ill-will or hostility between different groups so as to threaten the peace, order and good government of the Commonwealth.
[emphasis added]

The new sedition laws (or if you prefer the same old sedition laws modernised) are to be reviewed by the Law Reform Commission next year. Kim Beazley had better hope that this results in at least those sections in bold being removed from the Crime Act: otherwise, the ALP might find itself at risk of being unable to campaign in the next election. After all, what is the business of an Opposition at election time, but to urge disaffection against the Government of the Commonwealth? And how does it do this? By running fundraisers to pay for advertising that urges disaffection against the Government of the Commonwealth, having its members letterbox and doorknock in their neighbourhoods urging disaffection against the Government of the Commonwealth and so on - all of them acts having or purporting to have as an object the carrying out of a seditious intention.

So Senator George Brandis can finally hand on his unwanted laurel for scoring "the greatest own goal in Australian politics" to a worthy successor - the very party that awarded him the accolade.

King John The Blind of Bohemia (1296 – 1346)

A Great Dickhead of History

Back in the 1960s, when values were real values, teachers were real teachers and school principals were all called headmasters and kept a Education Department approved strap in the office for special occasions (and made damn sure that word got around that it was there, too) there probably wasn't a school library anywhere that didn't have a copy of Paul Brickhill's Reach for the Sky, the story of Douglas Bader and how he became an ce fighter pilot, despite the loss of both legs. Compared to John of Bohemia, Bader had it easy.

Born a mere Count of Luxembourg on August 10, 1296, John became King of Bohemia on his marriage to Elizabeth of Bohemia in 1310. Between 1312 and 1322 he knocked her up a total of seven times, begetting 4 daughters and 3 sons. After her death in 1330 Beatrix of Bourbon and had one son by her, which balanced up the family quite nicely.

But getting his end away wasn't John's only major passion in life. His major hobby was going the biff:

He loved fighting for its own sake, not caring whether the conflict was important. He missed hardly a quarrel in Europe and entered tournaments in between, allegedly receiving in one of them the wound that blinded him. Hissubjects on the other hand said the cause was Divine punishment - not because he dug up the old synagogue of Prague, which he did, but because, on finding money beneath the pavement, he was moved by greed and the advice of German knights to dig up the tomb of St Adalbert in the Prague cathedral and was stricken blind by the desecrated saint.
(Tuchman, A Distant Mirror)

Regardless of the opinion of his subjects, John was widely regarded by his peers - the peers - as one of Europe's most chivalrous knights. The last quarrel he decided to involve himself in was the Edward III's second campaign against France, which culminated in the Battle of Crecy on August 26, 1346. John fought on the French side:

The valiant king of Bohemia called Charles of Luxembourg, son to the noble emperor Henry of Luxembourg, for all that he was nigh blind, when he understood the order of the battle, he said to them about him: 'Where is the lord Charles my son?' His men said: 'Sir, we cannot tell; we think he be fighting.' Then he said: 'Sirs, ye are my men, my companions and friends in this journey: I require you bring me so far forward, that I may strike one stroke with my sword.' They said they would do his commandment, and to the intent that they should not lose him in the press, they tied all their reins of their bridles each to other and set the king before to accomplish his desire, and so they went on their enemies. The lord Charles of Bohemia his son, who wrote himself king of Almaine and bare the arms, he came in good order to the battle; but when he saw that the matter went awry on their party, he departed, I cannot tell you which way. The king his father was so far forward that he strake a stroke with his sword, yea and more than four, and fought valiantly and so did his company; and they adventured themselves so forward, that they were there all slain, and the next day they were found in the place about the king, and all their horses tied each to other.
(Froissart, Chronicles)

We can only speculate as to what his son Charles had to say when "he saw that the matter went awry" and departed the field. As for John, Froissart makes it clear that he died bravely, valiantly hewing at the foe with the mighty thews of his sword arm, his ears filled with the clangour of battle, the screams of the enemy and the voices of his friends spurring him on with a special war-cry "I'm on your side you stupid blind prick!"

The Unluckiest Bastard in the World

On New Year's Eve 2003, Macedonian authorities took Khaled Masri off a bus at the Macedonian border. Masri said he was travelling to Macedonia to blow of steam after a row with his wife. He was taken to a motel in Skopje, the Macedonian capital, where he was held by Macedonian police for 23 days.

On the 23rd day he was taken to the airport, handcuffed and blindfolded. There he was handed over to the CIA. His clothes were cut off, he was (probably) given an enema, drugged and flown to Afghanistan. He found himself in an Afghan prison:

The first night he said he was kicked and beaten and warned by an interrogator: "You are here in a country where no one knows about you, in a country where there is no law. If you die, we will bury you, and no one will know."

By May, the CIA learned that Masri was not a terrorist; he was just some bloke whose name was a lot like a terrorist's:

... the question was: Now what? Some officials wanted to go directly to the German government; others did not. Someone suggested a reverse rendition: Return Masri to Macedonia and release him. "There wouldn't be a trace. No airplane tickets. Nothing. No one would believe him," one former official said. "There would be a bump in the press, but then it would be over."

...

Several intelligence and diplomatic officials said Macedonia did not want the CIA to bring Masri back inside the country, so the agency arranged for him to be flown to Albania. Masri said he was taken to a narrow country road at dusk. When they let him off, "They asked me not to look back when I started walking," Masri said. "I was afraid they would shoot me in the back."
(Dana Priest in the Washington Post)

I'm trying to look on the bright side of life at the moment, so I've decided not to be shocked, stunned and appalled. The way I see it, Costa Gavras could get a cracker of a political thriller out of this little saga.

Postscript - here's another choice bit from the report:

Members of the Rendition Group follow a simple but standard procedure: Dressed head to toe in black, including masks, they blindfold and cut the clothes off their new captives, then administer an enema and sleeping drugs. They outfit detainees in a diaper and jumpsuit for what can be a day-long trip. Their destinations: either a detention facility operated by cooperative countries in the Middle East and Central Asia, including Afghanistan, or one of the CIA's own covert prisons -- referred to in classified documents as "black sites," which at various times have been operated in eight countries, including several in Eastern Europe.

In the months after the Sept. 11 attacks, the CTC was the place to be for CIA officers wanting in on the fight. The staff ballooned from 300 to 1,200 nearly overnight.

"It was the Camelot of counterterrorism," a former counterterrorism official said. "We didn't have to mess with others -- and it was fun."

I think the best way to cope with revelations like this is to sing a happy little song.

They get round in the dead of night
They'll come for you if you don't do everything right
You're gonna be the sorry one
'Cause spies just wanna have fun
Oh spies just wanna have

That's all they really want
Some fun
You'd best look out for number one
'Cause spies - they want to have fun
Yeah spies just want to have fun

(With no apologies to Cyndi Lauper - after all, she's never bloody apologised to me)

Pot Blogging

I've just thrown out my largest stockpot. It just had to go, no two ways about it.

This afternoon I braved the rain and took a walk down to the local supermarket, where I picked up a leek, some celery, button mushrooms in a punnet, a chicken breast fillet on special, arborio rice and (much as I hate to admit it) one of those cartons of ready made chicken stock. Oh and some hydroponically grown Italian parsley - because it was there. All up, it came to a little under $16.00.

Once home, I took the old enamelled stock pot, poured a generous slug of olive oil into it and started work on a mise-en-place. I trimmed the ratty bits off the leek, sliced it in half lengthwise and washed it under the tap. Some quick chop, chop, chop with my kitchen knife and then on to the celery. That done I stripped the skin and fatty bits off the chicken breasts and finished up by measuring two cups of rice into a bowl. I took the jars of minced garlic and chopped chilli out of the fridge. Now I was ready to start cooking.

The stock pot went onto the heat and, after a couple of minutes, the chopped leek went into the oil. Followed, a little later by a generous teaspoon of minced garlic, a level teaspoon of chilli and the bowl of rice. I stirred it around until the rice was translucent and then set it aside, on an idle burner. The chicken should have gone in before this, but I forgot.

With the pot sitting off the heat, I measured out a cup of the chicken stock and poured it in with the rice. This is when I realised I'd forgotten to sear the chicken. Oops. But it wasn't a big deal; chicken's a white meat anyway, so cooking it by poaching it in something resembling its own stock is acceptable. You don't lose anything by it. So in went another cup of stock, and two cups of that Queen Adelaide reisling that's been sitting around the house for the past month or so. Then some chopped hydroponic parsley, and all the mushrooms - I stripped the plastic off the punnet, thought about what would happen to the any mushrooms I put aside in the fridge for a later that would never come and thought, to hell with it. In went the lot. I put the pot back on the heat, turned the electric element down to its lowest setting and went off to check e-mails and stuff.

About half an hour later I came back to the kitchen to check what was going on in the pot. When I lifted the lid, something was wrong. The contents were definitely a bit whiffy. Not pleasantly whiffy, smelling of wine, leek, garlic and chilli but with a nasty bacterial smell. After a little thought, I transferred the whole lot to a smaller stainless steel pot (which was barely big enough to hold everything) and took the old stockpot out to the bin.

I've just paid it another visit and that whiff is still there. It's not so strong now but it's still noticeable. Which means I've just spent sixteen dollars (plus electricity costs and preparation time) on cooking up a batch of potentially toxic risotto. So much for cookery as occupational therapy.

Gummo and Him

The other one, the anonymous one, is the one things should happen to. He likes genuinely useless things, miniature scores, the taste of cardamom and the music of Krystof Penderecki; a dilettante's tastes he is quite complacent about inflicting on me. The only genuinely useless thing he ever owned was a 1/4 inch female BSP to 1/4 inch male BSP hose fitting adaptor. He's never found anything since that matches its almost Platonically ideal uselessness - objects that are designed for a non-existent purpose are hard to come by. He's probably lost the bloody thing anyway. It never occurred to him to use it as a paperweight.

He resents any accusation that using me as his on-line mouthpiece is gutless or spineless - a refusal to take responsibility for his own words. What about Grumpy of Vermont, Appalled of Box Hill and Disgusted of Balwyn in The Hun, he'll ask. Or all the other pseudonymous bloggers and commenters. He'll tell you he has a lot of very good reasons for staying in the background while I flap my little wooden jaw from the dubious comfort of his lap. What reasons, you ask. Private ones, of course.

Oddly, those precious "private reasons" don't stop him from using this blog to bitch about his messed up personal life. Not so oddly, they don't stop him from introducing himself as "Gummo Trotsky" at blog meets when his own name draws a complete blank, leaving me to carry his weight in the conversation. When we go home, he bitches about how I take all the funny lines, as if somehow they were his to begin with.

Still he has his uses. For one thing, he was the one who finally ferreted out the book with that Borges essay I wanted. Now, if he can just do the same with the little essay on Don Quixote ...

(And now, back to the vapours)

Shy Girls

(A work in progress)

Oh I've got a lovely bunch of coconuts,
See them all a standing in a row,
That's what she sang as I passed by her stall
It was only a penny a throw.

Her eyes were like sapphires,
her hair was spun gold, her lips were a fine cherry red,
I gave her a penny, she gave me a ball,
And laid her hand on my head. (Dumb!!!)
And a soft warning voice spoke up in my head: (much better!)

Oh, don't mess with the shy girls,
at the old county fair,
They'll She'll lead you to ruin and sin.
Their Her heart is as dark black as the roots of their her hair,
Her liver's are all pickled in gin.

This post was spawned by reading Boynton. Sort of. A sleepless night listening to the siberian hamster (or bare-tailed possum) in the attic made a significant contribution too. Originally I imagined it as a Kenny Rogers style whining baritone C & W number but now I'm thinking wurlitzer organ to open with a segue into a gruff Geordie accented vocal with Fender Stratocaster accompaniment.

That's it for this week. Time for a big attack of the vapours.

The Enchanted Toasting Fork - Episode 5

Petro stepped down from the tram and crossed to the pavement. He was just a couple of doors away from The Lucky-Happy Mini-Convenience-Mart - Discount Smokes, Dry Cleaning, Broadband Internet, Cheap Phonecards, Shoe Repairs Mondays to Fridays only. It was probably a better place to do his web search for housebreaking tips than his own computer at home. It would be faster and there would be no embarassing audit trail on his own PC or his ISP's server. He ducked in through the door, between the flags advertising cheapest ISD rates to places like El Dorado, Shangri-La, Brigadoon, Tir-Na-Nog and Y'ha-nthlei.

"Pack of Emphysema Gold," he said to the sallow proprietor, whose face had the low-browed batrachian look of a recent immigrant from Y'ha-nthlei, "and I'd like to get on the net for about an hour or so." The proprietor gave Petro his cigarettes, accepted payment and waved his hand at the back of the store, where there was a line of carrels against one wall, each with a PC in it. The rearmost carrel was already taken by a three-toed sloth. The sloth had a lonely air of sadness and frustration about it. It also seemed to be having a few difficulties with the mouse and keyboard.

There were only three carrels, so Petro took the one closest to the front of the shop, leaving one free between himself and the sloth. He brought up Google and typed in "Housebreaking OR Burglary". A little over a quarter of a second later, he was looking at results one to ten of about 5,220,000. He amended his search to "Housebreaking | Burglary -dog -puppy -cat". That knocked out about a million results. It occurred to him that this might take a little time. He was still refining and narrowing down his search when the sloth left. A few minutes later, its place was taken by a young mother with a sound-proofed baby stroller.

The reserve battery light on the dashboard started blinking. Ruby swore under her breath. Despite her mood the curse came out with a hint of the vibrancy and excitement that she could never quite shake off so she added a pox on fairy godmothers and their idiot blessings to the abuse she had tossed at her car. She scanned the road ahead for a Teslaco station. With luck, she'd find one before the battery warning light lit continuously and the annoying beeping started.

The Teslaco station, when she came to it, was on the other side of the road - of course. She threw a desperate U-turn into the station forecourt. Like all Teslaco stations it was brightly lit, even in the middle of a sunny afternoon. Under the Teslaco logo - a Jovian hand with a lightning stroke middle finger extended upwards - the prices blazed out in neon glory. Leaded 99.9c/amp Unleaded 89.9c/amp. Standard Teslaco weekend prices.

Inside the station, Titus looked up from the copy of The Goth he had "borrowed" from the newspaper rack. He watched Ruby's old Holden Hippo stop at service point 3. The Hippo might look good with respray and a new set of wheels. Not much you could do for the driver, he decided, when he saw her get out of the car. So much for the idea of closing up for an hour and nicking out the back with a bottle of baby oil and a pack of condoms from the counter display. Maybe next weekend would bring a change of luck. He went back to the paper:

Japanese Inventor Claims Positive Entropy Breakthrough

For centuries, great thinkers have dreamed of creating a machine that uses more energy than it produces. Now 70 year old Tonito Kimosabe claims to have achieved this dream with an engine that runs at only 90% efficiency. If Kimosabe's claims are true, this will mean a major upheaval in contemporary magic. According to mainstream magical opinion, the second law of manadynamics makes engines with less than 100% efficiency impossible ...

Outside, Ruby popped the lid of the battery compartment and unhooked the jumper leads from the service point. The ammeter reset itself to zero. She used the keypad beside the ammeter to preset it for $20.00 of curent - that ought to be enough to get her home. She slipped her hands into the one-size-fits-all-males rubber gauntlets over the spring clips and attached them to the electrodes; the ammeter soared as charge drained off the batteries. The Teslaco stations lights seemed to burn a little brighter. Once her twenty dollars was used up, she went inside to pay.

Titus glanced at Ruby as she came through the sliding glass door - she wasn't actually that bad looking close up. Those piercings looked weird though. She came straight to the counter, holding a twenty dollar note in her hand. "Number three," she said in a voice that touched Titus with a delicate thrill of hinted possibilities.

Titus took the twenty dollar note.

"You sure that's going to hold you?" he asked, "Those old Hippos can put away a lot of charge."

"I'm not going that far." Ruby answered, untouched by his solicitous attempt to wring another few dollars out of her. "I'll drain her right off tomorrow."

"Your business I guess," There was a hint of resentment in Titus' response. "That all?"

Ruby eyed the counter display of baby oil, goatweed pills and condoms. "That's all, thanks."

She walked back to her car and drove away. She's going to get herself into trouble one day, coming on like that Titus thought, dishing out insults with that come and get me tone. He turned to the opinion pages:

Flummery: Here are the Facts

When a respected mage like Tom Flummery buys into brownie hysteria, you know that you're in trouble. In his latest book on global electrification and "peak electricity" Flummery makes it clear that he's abandoned sense and reason in favour of brownie mysticism. Here are some of the myths Flummery purveys in this disgraceful book ...

The rest of Ruby's drive home went without incident. She parked the car and went inside then along the hallway to the back of the house where french windows opened onto a shaded courtyard. There were no messages on her answering machine. She took a folded paper note out o fher pocket and opened it up. As she read it, her hand touched the telephone handset.

Across town, Petro eyed his telephone apprehensively.

Life Surpasses Art Once More

ASIO has censored the report of the parliamentary committee that oversees the operations of Australia's intelligence agencies.

The Parliamentary Joint Committee on ASIO, ASIS and DSD, which is dominated by Government MPs, has objected to the removal of a sentence by the domestic security agency, saying the "unjustified" deletion violated its statutory duty to report on the agency's activities.

(Brendan Nicholson in The Age)

If you see nothing wrong with ASIO editing the report of a Parliamentary committee, please leave the debate on the future of Australian democracy. Don't come back until you have caught up on some basic concepts.

Plugged

Visiting Site Meter this morning to check for weird and wonderful search requests, I discovered that Ken Parish, at Troppo Armadillo, has written a serial plug for several of my posts. Apparently I've been blogging up a storm. Just the thing to cheer you up when you're between meds. Trouble is, of course, that when people say good things about your writing it makes you feel obliged to continue so I guess the "Gummo Trotsky is overwhelmed with ennui" announcement might have to be postponed, while I polish up some those "posts in progress" I've got sitting around the place. Like "Great Dickheads of History" which got hung up rather a lot because I couldn't find any dickheads to match, let alone surpass, King John the Blind of Bohemia, whose demise at the Battle of Crécy is recorded in Froissart's Chronicles. But, if anyone has any nominations, feel free to drop me an e-mail or something. Oh, and let's try to avoid the obvious candidates.

Elsewhere, Dave Tiley knows an eejit when he reads one. Here's an exquisite example of the eejit's writing:

We shake hands and I get another surprise. Vonnegut is an average-sized man but he has massive hands. They hang from the sleeves of his ragged coat like the entrails of a freshly slaughtered animal. The veins that crisscross the backs of these monsters are as thick as knitting needles.

The Enchanted Toasting Fork - Episode 4
The Story So Far

Things to Come

Subject - Crab Nebula Transmission Decryption

Alonzo,

Fed that data stream you picked up on the 4.2 cm band into Panjandrum as you asked. It's taken the best part of 72 hours for Panjandrum to crack the protocol but we're pretty confident that we've got it. We're still working through the data but here's what we've got so far:

Greetings from Krzmal

Greetings! We know that this message may impact you with startlement as we not known or met to you but we have belief that you will oblige us with your assistance. We are Krzmal from Zangara Hegemony of Planetary Bodies. Due to recent political upheavals in Zangara Hegemony of Planetary Bodies must take up exile in more favourable part of galaxy. We humbly seek your assistance in relocating our most valuable possession.

We have [untranslatable] in [untranslatable]. We are willing to offer [untranslatable] of this [untranslatable] for your assistance in shifting our [untranslatable] into more secure [untranslatable]. Please we need your assistance to protect what is rightfully ours from seizure by the illegitimate regime that is plundering our once great hegemony. For more information contact us at [untranslatable].

---

She takes it in the [untranslatable]

See it all at [untranslatable]

---

You may want to rethink Monday's press conference; I don't think the world is quite ready for this.

Alan.

Subject - Re: Crab Nebula Transmission Decryption

Alan,

Were there any graphics with that "She takes it in the [untranslatable]" section of the message? If we hack those, they might make a good visual for the press conference.

Alonzo.

(A tug of the forelock to to Nabakov, who lent me the book from which I purloined this idea.)

Some Boy ...

Kevin Andrews isn't impressed by today's protests against the government's proposed reintroduction of the Masters and Servants Act (NSW - 18 something or other):

Kevin Andrews said 95 per cent of workers had stayed on the job. "It's always predictable that people are out on the streets," he said.

Mr Andrews dismissed the union movement's campaign against the legislation as 'hysterical.

Further on, Andrews remarks:

It is totally over the top, equating IR changes with terrorism, saying that this is going to lead eventually to riots in the streets of Australia like we have seen in Paris, to be saying women and children will be killed.

That really set the tenor of the entire approach, the entire campaign that the unions have been running.

Andrews also objects to comparisons between the proposed changes and fascism, as made by NSW Industrial Relations Minister John Della Bosca at the Senate enquiry into the IR Bill. But I have no idea where Andrews is getting this stuff about terrorism and riots in the streets from.

Frankly, I'm disappointed to learn that someone out there has likened the Government's IR reforms to terrorism. That won't do at all; it's obviously incumbent on whoever's been spreading these hysterical rumours to come clean and admit their error. It's the sort of thing that brings discredit on the whole Left. And while we're at it, maybe the nameless person who made off with my copy of The Communist Manifesto in 1976 might care to lob it back to me in the post. I don't really care who you are; as long as I get it back by the end of the week, there'll be no need to take the matter any further.

World Wide Aneurism

There's an article in the Next supplement of today's Age, syndicated from Wired, where Kevin Kelly gets into a bit of gee-whiz technobabble forecasting:

The web continues to evolve from an entity ruled by mass media and mass audiences to one ruled by messy media and messy participation. How far can this frenzy of creativity go? Encouraged by web-enabled sales, 175,000 books were published and more than 30,000 music albums were released in the US last year. At the same time 14 million blogs were launched worldwide.

All these numbers are escalating. A simple extrapolation suggests that in the near future everyone alive will (on average) [sic] write a song, author a book, make a video, craft a weblog, and code a program. [And now for the money quote] This idea is less outrageous than the notion 150 years ago that some day everyone would write a letter or take a photograph...

Apparently, by 2015, the Internet as we know it will be gone, replaced by a world-spanning super intelligent networked Machine. I can hardly wait. I'm really looking forward to the day that I try to start my dial-up connection and the PPP-client returns an error message saying "Failed to conect to internet with error 181: Piss off I'm busy."

(According to UNESCO, there were 862 million illiterate people in the world population in 2000 CE. While it's quite possible that some, if not all, of these people have at least taken a photograph, most likely at the behest of a group of First World tourists, none of them would have written any letters.)

How the Irish Tried to Buy Law from Edward I

(and not William the Bastard)

Months ago, I found this story in The Making of Europe; Conquest, Colonisation and Cultural Change 950 - 1350 by Robert Bartlett, a book I found in my local library. I made a mental note of it, in case privatised justice systems ever became a hot topic of debate in the blogosphere. But time passes and libertarianism, and the various absurd proposals that it sometimes produces fell off the agenda and I was left with a really great topic for a post and no excuse to publish it. Sod that. I'm going to tell the story anyway.

Before we get into the nitty-gritty of the story, it's probably worth looking at how the rule of law was disseminated during the Middle Ages. Basically it worked like this. A young nobleman would borrow enough money from some Jew (who was probably prohibited by law from making a living any other way) to equip himself with armour, sword and a warhorse. Then he would "take the cross" and set out for the Holy Land, looking to win honour, renown, land and loot, perhaps slaughtering a few Jews (to whom he wasn't indebted) and other sundry infidels along the way to practice his swing. When he got to the Holy Land, and got into his first proper battle, the Saracens would shoot his destrier out from under him, well before he had a chance to get in on the pillaging, leaving him up to his ears in debt.

On his return home, our nobleman would be faced with the problem of discharging his debt. One solution, first employed en masse in England in 1290 - also under Edward I as it happens - was to kill the Jew creditor and burn down his house along with all record of the debt. Another was to sell something of value - other than land - to get some ready money. Such as a charter of law, which could be bestowed on a city, town or individual within your fief.

After their subjugation by the English in 1170, the Irish found themselves subject to English rule but not English law. The Irish weren't above English law; they were beneath it. The situation is described in the Remonstrance of 1317 or 1318, a long whiny letter the Irish princes sent to the Pope to explain why they had sided with Robert the Bruce and his rellies against Edward II. Among their complaints was that while an Englishman could sue any Irishman, only Irish prelates were able to sue back and that the law allowed the English to kill the Irish with impunity. Well, more or less: although no criminal penalty applied to killing an Irishman, his lord was entitled to sue the killer for compensation. The going rate of compensation for a dead Irishman eventually settled at 70 shillings. That doesn't sound like a lot, until you consider that it was enough to buy 140 pounds of iron - almost enough to kit out 3 men at arms, once the armourers have finished with it. So killing someone else's Irish was actually a rather expensive proposition.

The situation was obviously unsatisfactory from an Irish point of view; by the fourteenth century even the English (or perhaps we should say some of them) had come to share their view. As Bartlett notes (p 219):

Attempts were also made to extend English Law to the Irish. The initiative sometimes came from the Irish themselves who sought to negotiate the purchase of English rights, either individually or collectively, as in the late 1270s [1277-80], when 'all the Irish' offered the king 10,000 marks 'in order to have the common law which the English have and use in Ireland and to be treated as such Englishmen are treated. Nothing came of these general attempts to enfranchise the Irish ... Until Tudor times Irishmen could only enjoy the rights and protections of English law by individual grant.

Isn't history wonderful? It seems there's no political proposal so daft that it hasn't been tried and found wanting somewhere or other in times past.

Nature Note

I've just been out in the back yard, looking for flies. Not blowies, you understand; they're an ordinary pest that you kill on sight as soon as you see them in the house. Actually, you try to chase them into a confined space - like the laundry or the aluminium frame of the kitchen window - before you hit them with a good dose of Mortein (when you're on a good thing, stick to it), Pea-Beu (when you find a better thing, switch to it, particularly if the endorsement money's better) or Black and Gold Insect Spray (when you find a cheaper thing, to hell with celebrity endorsements).

The flies I've been looking for are about blowie size, but remakably bee like - they've evolved protective mimicry. I've notied them around the place at this time of year in the past but it's only today that it occurred to me that they might actually be interesting (in an ugly, disgusting way). It all hinges on whether the brutes evolved to mimic native bees, or European honey bees.

The latter possibility is quite exciting because the European honey bee didn't arrive on this continent until after white settlement. Which means that maybe, just maybe, here in the inner northern suburbs of Melbourne (and maybe elsewhere), there's a new species of fly that's evolved in the past 200 years. Either that or the intelligent designer (or one of the intelligent designers), looked in some time and saw the opportunity to tweak the fly design a little.

That's all highly speculative of course; it's much more likely that these uglies have been around for a long time and it's only recently that I've started to notice them. Incidentally, if you want to see them in your own back yard, plant lots of dandelions. They go for those in a big way.

Frequently Asked Questions

(From www.ctu.gov, the official website of the Counter Terrorism Unit)

I am planning a major terrorist attack on the US. What are my chances of success?

Your plan should take no more than 22 hours to execute. You should make it as complex as possible, and include a lot of diversions, such as smaller terrorist attacks on the US population. In the long run, you will be captured or shot, but you can have an exciting and entertaining time giving our not quite competent agents the run around on your last day of life(or freedom).

I have been asked to participate in a major terrorist attack on the US. I am worried that if captured I may be tortured by CTU agents. How likely is this?

If you are a committed terrrorist or a paid professional mercenary, you have little to worry about; our agents are aware that using torture on you, particularly during an emergency where every second counts, is probably futile. You are more likely to be offered complete immunity from prosecution for all past misdeeds in return for your co-operation. CTU agents mainly use torture on relatives of government officials, other CTU agents, and their girlfriends' ex-husbands.

Remember: CTU will do everything to make your visit to the US an exciting and entertaining experience.

The Nations that Eat Most

Among modern nations the greatest eaters are the English, Germans, French, and the Americans - the ruling people of our civilisation. The diet of the Spaniards and the Italians is notably less substantial than that of the English and Germans, just as their brains are less active and original.

The Americans are, on the average, the greatest eaters in the world. Said Carlyle to Emerson: "The best thing I know of that country is, that in it a man can have meat for his labour."

From Everybody's Pocket Cyclopædia OF THINGS WORTH KNOWING; THINGS DIFFICULT TO REMEMBER; and TABLES OF REFERENCE BY DON LEMON (Madgwick, Houlston & Co, London).

Offensive to Buddhists

After reading Paul Gray in The Oz yesterday, I've decided to have a crack at writing a piece that is guaranteed to be inoffensive to the faith of John Howard's mainstream Australians and equally inoffensive to the non-mainstream minority religions that have everybody in a lather over national security - like those baby-killing Seventh Day Adventists. Just to see if it can be done. Here we go:

Wan-to went to his master one day and asked "Master, how can I achieve enlightenment."

The master stroked his beard while he thought. "You must go up to the mountain and meditate upon this question: how many monks does it take to change a light bulb? When you have the answer come back and tell me, and I will tell you if you have achieved enlightnement."

Wan-to went up to the mountain to meditate on the question. He sat for a long time in the lotus position thinking deeply on how many monks it takes to change a light bulb. So great was his concentration that a pair of swallows built their nest of mud in his left armpit.

Time passed; the swallows raised their chicks and flew away. Wan-to returned to the monastery to see his master.

"Have you the answer to my question?" asked the master.

"Two thousand and one." replied Wan-to. "One to hold the bulb and two thousand to turn the monastery around."

"Foolish monk." said the master and struck Wan-to on the forehead with a bamboo stave. "Return to the mountain and meditate on the question again."

Wan-to returned to the mountain; the swallows returned and build a new nest under his left armpit. Wan-to felt sorrow that the work they had put into building the old nest had been wasted.

Time passed; the swallows raised another brood of chicks and flew away. Once again Wan-to returned to the monastery.

"And what is your answer this time, Wan-to?" asked the master.

"One." replied Wan-to "One to change the bulb, one not to think of the white horse and one to make the sound of one hand clapping."

"Foolish monk." said the master, "That is three monks."

Before the master could take up his bamboo stave, Wanto seized it and struck the master on the forehead.

"Foolish master." said Wan-to. "Go up to the mountain and meditate on this question: why is the Buddha like a bicycle clip?"

Through the many years of his life, Wan-to was known as a monk of great wisdom and enlightenment.

Then/Now

There has always been hostility from some on the left of politics towards America. These are people who believe capitalism is evil and that the US is the place where the evil of capitalism and exploitation is most at home. During the Cold War, Marxists and socialists of various types were ideologically or emotionally drawn to the communist side. Their side lost. This gave them even stronger reason to dislike America.

... if the world is to have a hegemon, the modern US is the kind of hegemon we would like to have: democratic, respectful of human rights, with strong and genuine belief in individual liberty.

Federal Treasurer Peter Costello, 22 August 2005.

Treasurer Peter Costello has warned the public service - and the government's backbench - against focusing on their own patch at the expense of the national interest.

Using an address to the Australian Public Service, Mr Costello said he feared for what he termed the Balkanisation of both government departments and politicians.

He said there was evidence in some areas of politicians not considering the wider ramifications of their decisions.

"(They decide) I'm going to do what my region wants me to do, or my state wants me to do," he said.

"I'll just do whatever is in their interest, notwithstanding that it may not be in the interests of the nation as a whole.

"I think policy works best when we have a conception of national interest."

Mr Costello said the budget problems of the United States was in part due to the decision by American lawmakers to attach particular regional projects to major pieces of legislation.

"I would want to resist that, at all costs here in Australia," he said.

Sydney Morning Herald, 2 November 2005.

Only 2 Damn Episodes To Go

It's funny - this morning Jack and Audrey were planning their future together. Since then he's been responsible for the death of her husband and now he'll have to torture her brother.

Tony, musing on life's ironies to Michelle.

Through a Bulb, Dimly

... During a Senate estimates committee examination of ABC funding, [Senator] Santoro slammed the public broadcaster not only for bias in its news and current affairs coverage but also for persistent hostility towards Australians who practise the traditional faith of the West, Christianity.

"Broadcasters continually make derogatory comments about Jesus, the Pope and Christianity in general in a way [that] I believe breaches the ABC's own editorial policies and shows demonstrable bias," he said.

...

Egregious examples of the anti-Christian bias of the ABC derive not only from the broadcaster's news and current affairs department but with greater impact from lifestyle programs such as comedy show The Glass House. The Glass House has given repeated offence to Christians with humour directed at the Pope and Mother Teresa.

It is today an open question as to which is more harmful to Australian intellectual culture: bias in the ABC's news and current affairs coverage or bias in its lifestyle programming. My view is that the latter matters more. As far as imbalance in current affairs is concerned, as exemplified by last week's Lateline coverage, it at least can be argued that few Australians will bother watching. Lateline is essentially of interest to those engaged full time in the business of politics: a small, if strategically important, segment of the population.

By contrast, non-news and current affairs programs, such as comedy and television drama, have the potential to reach and influence a far greater number of adult Australians. If bias exists here - in the form of agendas openly hostile to the values of significant sections of the population - then Australia has a real problem with its national broadcaster. This, I believe, is the existing situation.

Paul Gray, a Hun columnist, taking a shot at the big-time in The Oz (soon to be declared a great Australian cultural icon).

Dummy Spit of the Week

Senator SANTORO—I would appreciate it if you could, from this point onwards, just give actual answers to the questions. I put you and the ABC on notice: I am not going to desist from the way that I go about questioning the ABC. All you are doing is aggravating me and other senators. We will just keep on coming. If I have to go to the government and ask for a special inquiry into bias at the ABC, I will do that. I am not at all impressed by Mr Balding’s absence. I understand his attendance had been previously notified to the committee, and it was withdrawn late last Friday afternoon. You can all sit there and look as sanctimonious, as serious or—like a couple of the officers behind you—as lacking in seriousness as you want to, but I am telling you that I am not at all impressed by the absence of Mr Balding. I have 2½ thousand pages of transcripts, because every time I ask a question he says that he has to check the record, and when he does check the record I get nonsense for an answer in the vast majority of cases.

Some of us actually take our jobs very seriously. There are about 28 people in Australia monitoring what the ABC does. I receive between 15 and 20 tapes a week, and out of that we get transcripts. We are absolutely, deadly serious, some senators—I would suggest most senators—in that we want to go about making the ABC accountable. A simple statement of ‘The ABC is the most accountable media organisation,’ does not wash with me, because we as a parliament have given you about $1.2 billion of public funds. The lack of accountability as a result of Mr Balding’s absence from here today is certainly not appreciated by me.

Santo the Magnificent in the Senate Estimates Committee Hearing into the ABC, 31 October 2005.

The Enchanted Toasting Fork

(Episode 3)
The story so far: Episode 1, Episode 2

Petro half woke to a pleasant drowsiness, scented with jasmine and sandalwood with an undertone of candlewax. Someone had been burning aromatherapy candles last night. So last night had been real; he hadn't gone home alone. He hadn't even gone home; if he had he would be waking to the entirely different aromas of a bachelor's bedroom. Should he open his eyes, or was it better to feign sleep a little longer so that he could gloat over his good fortune?

There was time enough for both, he felt, so he put off opening his eyes while he relived some of last night's most vibrant and exciting moments. He noticed another scent, for a moment overwhelming the jasmine, sandlewood and candlewax. He must remember to give his moustache a good wash before he went out today. He twitched, to ease the feeling of skin stretched a little too tight; it didn't help. At last, he opened his eyes and turned his head to the side.

"About time." Petro thrilled inwardly to the sound of that vibrant voice. "I was beginning to think I should redo the garden with thorn bushes." Ruby, that was her name, Petro remembered. She was still wearing some of her jewellery from yesterday; a small ruby stud on the right side of her nose and another above her left eye. For the first time, Petro noticed that neither of the stones appeared to have a mount; they were cunningly wrought pieces of jewellery indeed.

"Mornin'," he muttered, sliding towards her; they kissed. He stroked her face - a finger brushed across the stone above her eye. "Ow!" she protested, "don't touch that."

"Sorry," he said. "Didn't mean to. It looks pretty; a ruby is it?"

"Garnet." she answered tersely. "The other one's a carnelian. Look, can we get on with this? I've got a wedding to do this afternoon."

"Well ... yeah, right." Petro was a little taken aback by her sudden loss of vibrancy, but he recovered quickly and got on with it. Later, they took a shower together, or rather Petro washed Ruby's hair and back while she stood under the spray of hot water. Occasionally he nudged her to remind her that he was still potent if she was at all interested. He noticed that she also has a few garnet - or carnelian - studs on her buttocks. So many piercings. Weird. Had he given her his phone number yet? If he had, could he afford to have it changed?

At last Ruby yielded her place under the shower head to him; there was just enough time, before the cold water set in in earnest, for him to at least give his face a scrub. When he got out of the shower she had already dried herself and was on her way out the door. "Coffee?" she asked, throwing the question back over her shoulder at him.

"Please." he answered. He dried himself as well as he could with the vibrantly pink but damp towel, then locked the bathroom door. After a minute or so, he was able to use the toilet. He flushed it and left the bathroom.

In the bedroom, as he was dressing, his thoughts turned to the toasting fork. Given the way things had turned out, it struck him that he really ought to get it back, before it caused too much trouble for Claudio and Cossima. But how to do it? The first step, he decided, would be to see if he could find any web-pages on Housebreaking.

Version 0.w.2.718281828459040 - The Flame War

...

I've about had it with this whole universe project. Look at where we're at guys - version 0.w.2.718281828459040 and we're still nowhere near a stable release. It MIGHT HELP if some of you PUTZES would actually follow some of the AGREED SPECS. Like:

Way back at release 0.w.2.71828182800042 we AGREED that hair was more efficient than feathers. But some of you guys wanted creatures that could fly - you insisted we needed feathers so you could have your birds. Hell, we already had the flight thing licked with the insects, but no, that wasn't good enough for you. At release 0.w.2.71828182800151 we cracked flying hairy things with bats. That should have been it for the friggin' birds, IMHO, but no, birds were cute, they had to stay in. What do you guys really want - a universe that's full of cute stuff or one that friggin' WORKS????

Posted by Tetragrammaton

Here we go again. POT/KETTLE/BLACK, Tet! When are you vertebrate guys going to get around to implementing the new eye design we prototyped in the cephalopods? And whose brilliant idea was it to combine intelligence with an opposable thumb? If you're so sick of this project why don't you just F**K OFF!!!! Go screw someone else's pooch.

Posted by Shiva

Please, can we discuss this without getting into that whole "intelligence is fine for cetaceans but bad for apes" debate again? That topic is SOOOO last eternity.

Posted by Yahweh

Hey Tet, is this Yahweh real, or is another one of your sock puppets? Or is it the other way round? Either way, you guys are pathetic. You want intelligent apes - fine, create an experimental branch and work on them there until you iron the bugs out or maybe finally get the idea that the damn things just don't work. Like in release 0.w.2.71828182700013 when you were expecting the little buggers to worship you andinstead they came up with that crazy "Evolution" theory. Still ROFLMAO over that one. And what about that idea of intelligent females who were naturally submissive to the males? Looked really good until they came up with that "feminism" thing.

Your biggest problem is that you think you're the only one on this project with any good ideas. If maybe you'd had the humility to recognise some of the rest of us are capable of good work, this project wouldn't be so F**KED UP. Like maybe if you'd built those praying mantis behaviours I sent you into your beloved Hom sap you'd be able to get the thing to work, mister F**CKING PERFECT.

Posted by Asmodeus

Female androphagy RAWKS!

Posted by Beelzebub

...

21st Century Schizoid Man

On the front page of today's Age, Tom Allard reminds us that Phil Ruddock's "competent authorities" are anything but:

... As family members cowered and complained, an ASIO "technical team" began to film the premises and take photographs.

According to an account of the incident by the then Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security, Bill Blick, the senior ASIO officer then realised he had made a "serious" error.

He had the wrong address on the search-and-seizure warrant. That should have been patently obvious because ASIO and police had earlier gone to the actual address on the warrant — Mr Daye's father's grocery shop — about 100 metres down the road.

On the opinion pages, Tony Parkinson is having a bit of trouble working out where he stands:

Whatever the challenges of fighting terrorism, the Howard Government would have done better to let the sedition laws lie fallow in Australia, as they have done since the 1940s. For it seems a very old-fashioned, ill-suited legal remedy with which to address security threats to a 21st century democracy.

...

Dangerously, for the Federal Government, the debate over sedition laws is becoming a distraction from the need for practical, effective measures aimed at preventing a terrorist attack on home soil. Frankly, there is more than enough medievalism going around at the moment without an Australian Government introducing its own blast from the past.

...

Some [Muslim militants] happen to live in Western societies. In their determination to protect Islamic doctrine from criticism (or scrutiny) they do not defer to courts or parliaments. They don't seek the acquiescence of Jon Stanhope. They take up a gun, a knife, or a cudgel, and kill those they see as infidels. Simple as that.
...

Open societies are resilient. They accommodate divergent voices — even strident voices. But a line must be drawn when voices advocate killing or maiming other Australians to advance a religious or political cause. For this reason, the bill to be introduced into Federal Parliament next week — or something like it — is a necessary safeguard ...

Actually, there is one point Tony's pretty clear on - he doesn't like John Pilger:

To prosecute and jail Pilger for sedition, whatever his opinions, would be a travesty: a cruel and unwarranted punishment. If nothing else, spare a thought for the other inmates.

Laugh, Damn It - or You're Next

Each year since 2003, I've intended to put up a celebratory, commemoratory or commiseratory post on the general theme of what's changed in the blogosphere since I started. I think, of the three alternatives listed, a commiseratory post would probably be the most appropriate, in view of our complementary misfortunes; I'm stuck with the pernicious, and ultimately narcissistic, habit of blogging, you're stuck with the equally pernicious habit of reading this guff.

There's been a lot of bloggage over the past few days on the derision bloggers have been getting from a couple of op-ed dunces; among other things this has led to some debate over at John Quiggin's blog on the nature of humour. I've so far resisted the temptation to get too involved in it. Although I'm sometimes accused of being a droll writer, I have little confidence that I could tell anyone how to be funny or defend a claim that I'm much funnier than anyone else. Humourists (especially the self-styled ones) don't seem too good at defining what they do. For example, here's an incomplete James Thurber quote on the difference between the humourist, the wit and the satirist:

The wit makes fun of other persons; the satirist makes fun of the world; the humorist makes fun of himself ...

That statement is somewhere between half-right and completely wrong. It certainly doesn't apply very well to Thurber's own writing; he's often very witty and not necessarily through poking fun at other people. When you complete the quotation, it starts to sound more plausible, but it might still be a little inflated:

... but in so doing, he identifies himself with people--that is, people everywhere, not for the purpose of taking them apart, but simply revealing their true nature.

Why present the incomplete quotation? Because that's the form in which I first found it on one of those quotes from famous people sites. Which shows a second problem that occurs when humourists get into defining their craft; they get misunderstood and misquoted.

When I started this blog, it was with two motivations. One was the belief that my daft ideas were just as worthy of space on the Internet as all of the other daft ideas I was reading at other people's blogs. The other was to demonstrate that there was at least one lefty in the world with a sense of humour and, what's more, on a good day I could be a damn sight funnier than either Tim Blair or Professor Bunyip. Over time, the writing changed; the humour became a means, rather than an end. Mixed in with the pointed topical humour, I started doing other stuff. Some of that other stuff was to do with exorcising personal demons, like thoughts of brain devouring scrambled eggs and the grey plasticine assassin who stalked my dreams one memorable night or, as in this case, a nasty memory that just keeps coming back, no matter how hard you try to shut it out.

Remember Biafra? I do, for two reasons. It was the first African famine to rate on prime-time TV for one. And the other is that it somehow spawned the worst joke I've ever heard in my life. Some of you may wish to skip the next few italicised paragraphs: there's some pretty offensive stuff in there.

Lunchtime at Greenfields High, in the asphalt section of the schoolyard where the third formers hung out. Slim, the accredited class clown, came up to me and said, "Hey Gummo, you heard the one about the Australian, the Biafran and the Jew?"

"No." I answered; he took that as an invitation to tell the joke.

"Well there's this Australian, this Biafran and this Jew, see, and they're travelling on a train together. This blow-fly comes in through the window and buzzes around the Australian and he waves it away." Here he matched gesture to speech, miming the action of waving away a fly. "It buzzes the Jew, and he waves it away too. Then it flies over to the Biafran and he does this:"

Slim grabbed an imaginary fly out the air, put his hands to his mouth and made gobbling noises.

"Well, the Australian was put off and he looked out the window; so did the Jew. A bit later a moth fies in the window. The Australian waves it away andit flies over to the Jew. The Jew grabs it," Slim grabbed the imaginary moth out of the air, "turns to the Biafran and says 'Oy maate? You vant to buy a moth?"

There was a pause, while I remembered that when the accredited class clown tells you a joke, you're supposed to laugh. But I wasn't quick enough, or hearty enough. He looked at me with a scornful expression and said "What's the matter, Trotsky? Aincha gotta sensayuma?"

It would be pleasing to editorialise this incident as an expression of precocious good taste or political correctness. Any claim I might make to the former would be somewhat compromised by my compendious knowledge of franger jokes and my dubious reputation, among my peers, for having the dirtiest mind in the school. The simple fact is that I didn't laugh because I didn't find Slim's joke particularly funny. Jew jokes didn't bother me that much at that time of my life. Possibly it was tossing in the Biafran that took it out of the realm of genuine humour and into the realm of things you'd damn well better laugh at if you know what's good for you.

Scoop, Exclusive & All That Jazz

This week's Sunday Age reported that:

Police and ASIO could move before Christmas to impose restrictions on terrorist suspects, with the Howard Government urging authorities to take "the first available opportunity" to use the new anti-terror powers.

Attorney-General Philip Ruddock [who, let us not forget, owns an Amnesty International Badge] last night told The Sunday Age it was "quite possible" the new control orders would be used as soon as the legislation was passed in December.

Like Michelle Grattan and a few others, I've been wondering what all the rush is for. I spoke to a mate about it, and he got onto someone who knew someone and so on, right up to the someone who had access to the back of a photocopier in Parliament House. I'd say more, but us citizen journalists have to protect our sources, just like the professionals do.

The upshot of it is that I've actually seen a copy of the revised anti-Terrorism Bill which will actually be going to parliament. There are some interesting revisions beyond the removal of the "shoot to kill" power which got all the State Premiers in a flap. For example:

seditious intention means an intention to effect any of the following purposes:
(a) to bring the Sovereign into hatred or contempt;
(b) to urge disaffection against the following:
(i) the Constitution;
(ii) the Government of the Commonwealth;
(iii) either House of the Parliament;
(c) to urge another person to attempt, otherwise than by lawful means, to procure a change to any matter established by law in the Commonwealth;
(d) to promote feelings of ill-will or hostility between different groups so as to threaten the peace, order and good government of the Commonwealth.
(e) to bring a great Australian cultural icon into hatred or contempt.

There's some other sections specifying what a great Australian cultural icon is: basically it's any person or thing that has been declared a great Australian cultural icon by the government of the day. The Bill, if passsed, will give the government the power to declare anyone or anything a great Australian cultural icon by regulation, signed by the Governor in Council and published in the Commonwealth Gazette. There's also a schedule giving an extensive list of the great Australian cultural icons that will be regulated for immediately the bill is passed. They include Aeroplane Jelly, Anzac Biscuits, Arnott's Tim Tams, Sir Donald Bradman, Burkean Conservatism, Ita Buttrose, the Easter Bunny, Four 'n' Twenty Pies, Delta Goodrem, a Hard-Earned Thirst, The Hills Hoist, the Liberal Tradition of John Stuart Mill, Sir R G Menzies, Ramsay Street, Santa Claus, Simpson, Simpson's Donkey, Summer Bay, the Tooth Fairy, Vegemite and, of course, the Victa Motor Mower.

So there it is: if the Government gets the bill through in its revised form, that will put paid to politically correct, Santa-deficient Christmases once and for all.

Insignificant Blackbird

I picked up a new bit of jargon at the pub trivia quiz last night: Base Rate Fallacy. I was wittering on about statistical significance testing and Rob, one of my team-mates remarked "You know it's all based on a fallacy don't you?" Actually, I didn't. I took a bit of convincing too; it wasn't until about 4 o'clock this morning, when I was thinking it through (as a distraction from the raucous "I suppose a root would be out of the question" noises coming from the blackbird that's adopted the gable above my bedroom window as its favourite perch) that I decided there really was something in Rob's remark and the cryptic notes he made on a piece of scrap paper to illustrate the fallacy.

As I understand it, the argument goes something like this. When scientists (psychometricians, for example) employ null hypothesis testing, or significance testing (or whatever they choose to call it), they're employing the following pattern of logical inference:

If H₁ (the experimental hypothesis) is true then the test statistic will have an improbable value.
The test statistic does not have an improbable value.
Therefore H₁ is improbable. [And we write off the experimental results as random variation]

Apparently, this is called Bayesian Modus Tollens, and there's a bit of controversy within statistical circles over whether or not it's valid. It certainly looks dodgy to me but that may be because of the way I've expressed it, translating Rob's formal notation into something a little short of plain English. What got me convinced that there is a fallacy here (while I was trying to ignore that randy blackbird), was working out the pattern of logical inference that's involved in accepting experimental results as significant (as in worth publishing and maybe throwing your hat into the ring for a Nobel prize while you're at it):

If H₁ (the experimental hypothesis) is true then the test statistic will have an improbable value.
The test statistic does have an improbable value.
Therefore H₁ is probable.

Straight up, this is a fallacy; it's not any sort of logical inference at all. A fact that's easily demonstrated with the help of the classic Socrates example:

If Socrates is a man then Socrates is mortal.
Socrates is mortal.
Therefore Socrates is a man.

There's more on the subject here (extensive bibliography), here and here (PDF - a philosopher sinks the slipper into Michael Behe). Here's a juicy bit from the last, to whet your appetite:

In addition to rejecting evolutionary explanations, Behe advances the positive thesis that the biochemical systems he describes in loving detail were designed by an intelligent agent (p. 204). However, for these details to favor intelligent design over mindless evolution, we must know how probable those details are under each hypothesis. This is the point of the Law of Likelihood. Behe asserts that these details are very improbable according to evolutionary theory, but how probable are they according to the hypothesis of intelligent design? It is here that we encounter a great silence. Behe and other ID theorists spend a great deal of time criticizing evolutionary theory, but they don t take even the first steps towards formulating an alternative theory of their own that confers probabilities on what we observe. If an intelligent designer built the vertebrate eye ,or the bacterial flagellum, or the biochemical cascade that causes blood to clot, what is the probability that these devices would have the features we observe? The answer is simple - we do not know. We lack knowledge of what this putative designer's intentions would be if he set his mind to constructing structures that perform these functions.

The sad fact about ID theory is that there is no such theory. Behe argues that evolutionary theory entails that adaptive complexity is very improbable, Johnson rails against the dogmatism of scientists who rule out a priori the possibility of supernatural explanation, and Dembski tries to construct an epistemology in which it is possible to gain evidence for the hypothesis of design without ever having to know what, if anything, that hypothesis predicts. A lot goes wrong in each of these efforts, but notice what is not even on the list.

As Advertised

Episode Two of The Enchanted Toasting Fork is now available at CattyRox. Episode Three will appear here next week.

Slightly Overdue

Somewhere in the fug of depression that's hung over the recent past, the third bloggiversary of Tug Boat Potemkin slipped by unremarked. Three years of doing this stuff and what do I have to show for it? Apart from a few new friends and acquaintances to alienate, nothing really. Apart from the frustration that goes with picking up a truly inspiring idea and discovering there's actually sod all you can do with it:

The Kembliad

ARGUMENT: Somewhat orotundly, the poet invokes the muse to sing the praises of a famous Australian city. She ignores him.

Sing, O Muse, the splendours of Port Kembla,
Grimy jewel of the Illawarra!

Send in the Florists

The best line from last night's 24:

"When I shot that guy, I thought I was going to go all foetal position but I didn't feel anything. I hope I'm not some kind of psychopath."

[Chloe, sharing a moment of self revelation with Edgar]

With all the bizarre twists each episode serves up, it's impossible to predict where the plot goes from here. However, now that Audrey has declared undying hatred for Jack, I wouldn't be surprised if next week we see Jack trying desperately to get to Marwan before the nukular weapon goes off, with Audrey in hot pursuit, hell bent on revenging her dead ex-husband and a crack Interflora special delivery team in hot pursuit of Audrey, hell bent on giving her the two dozen long-stemmed red roses that Jack has ordered as a peace offering. At gunpoint if necessary.

Local News

Under the screamer "Streets of shame", This Monday's Moreland Leader reports:

Muslim women are being made the target of religious and racial abuse on Moreland Streets.

Graffiti including "Kill Muslims" has been painted across a Coburg building and women wearing headscarfs have been subjected to threats and verbal abuse.

Local Muslims have told the Moreland Leader that over the past month:

• A man in his 30s yelled "F**k off terrorist" and swerved his car at a Muslim woman as she crossed the road with her baby;
• A Muslim woman and her three children had a milkshake thrown at them as they walked along Sydney Rd;
• There were various instances of Muslim girls being spat at or having obscenities screamed at them from passing cars.
  

Inside, on page 4, the paper reports:

Ms Fartun Farah [of the United Somali Women's Organisation] said women were being targeted because they are easily identified as Muslims by their hijab garb, while Muslim men integrated with western dress.

There you go then; problem solved. If these women stopped parading around the streets in archaic garments that mark them out as the oppressed victims of a patriarchal religion, they'd spare themselves a lot of aggravation. If the blokes can learn to fit in, why can't the women? When you look at the broader context, that 30 year old bloke in the car was doing the woman a favour.

Then and Then and Then Some

The Liberal Party is a broad church. You sometimes have to get the builders in to put in the extra pew on both sides of the aisle to make sure that everybody is accommodated. But it is a broad church and we should never as members of the Liberal Party of Australia lose sight of the fact that we are the trustees of two great political traditions. We are, of course, the custodian of the classical liberal tradition within our society, Australian Liberals should revere the contribution of John Stuart Mill to political thought. We are also the custodians of the conservative tradition in our community. And if you look at the history of the Liberal Party it is at its best when it balances and blends those two traditions. Mill and Burke are interwoven into the history and the practice and the experience of our political party.

John Howard, "Address at the Launch of the Publication 'The Conservative'", Parliament House Canberra, 8 September 2005.

No argument, we may suppose, can now be needed, against permitting a legislature or an executive, not identified in interest with the people, to prescribe opinions to them, and determine what doctrines or what arguments they shall be allowed to hear. This aspect of the question, besides, has been so often and so triumphantly enforced by preceding writers, that it needs not be specially insisted on in this place. Though the law of England, on the subject of the press, is as servile to this day as it was in the time of the Tudors, there is little danger of its being actually put in force against political discussion, except during some temporary panic, when fear of insurrection drives ministers and judges from their propriety; and, speaking generally, it is not, in constitutional countries, to be apprehended, that the government, whether completely responsible to the people or not, will often attempt to control the expression of opinion, except when in doing so it makes itself the organ of the general intolerance of the public.

John Stuart Mill, On Liberty , 1869.

The true danger is when liberty is nibbled away, for expedients, and by parts.

Edmund Burke, no idea where, no idea when.

The Obligatory Tuesday 24 Post

Last night's comedy highlights:

The American President agonising (after the event) over whether Jack Bauer should be given the go ahead to torture an American citizen. Torturing a foreign national is one thing but an American citizen...

All that agonising over whether the Prez is up to the job, leading to his realisation, halfway through the episode that he isn't up to the job of Fuhrer of the Free World. But he's stuck with it, because three presidents in as many hours would be too much for public confidence to take.

Chloe, CTU's most brilliant analyst (the one with all the tact and charm of a roadkill porcupine) blows away a terrorist with an assault rifle.

Did I miss any?

Meanwhile, in the real world, the US Senate recently voted 99-9 "to force the Pentagon to set strict standards for the interrogation of prisoners and to prohibit their 'cruel, inhumane or degrading' treatment". They'll be sorry one day when a terrorist mastermind hacks into every nuclear reactor in the US, causing at least one major meltdown and follows that up by stealing a "nukular" weapon to blow up Iowa. Iowa?

The Enchanted Toasting Fork

Once upon a time, in a land far enough from our own, rather ordinary, land to satisfy the demands of narrative convention, two people fell in love. Whether they were of royal descent I do not know; all I can be sure of is that neither was a practising royal which was just as well for them because they were both divorcees. Remarriage is a complicated enough business for commoners, what with the blending of families and child custody visits. Imagine what it would be like if, on top of that, you ended up with two unfortunate enchanted princesses in your family, each needing a kiss from her very own handsome prince to lift the enchantment. It often happened, in such families, that one day, while one of the princesses was off on a visit with the non-custodial parent, a handsome prince would happen along, set on the usual business of finding a princess with whom he could fall in love and marry. And, since handsome princes aren't too particular when it comes to falling in love with enchanted princesses, so long as they can get the whole absurd business of lifting the enchantment over with as quickly as possible, the absent princess would often return to discover that her step-sister was already married off. Naturally she would then turn to wickedness and start looking for ways to get back at her step-sister and, most likely, settle on the traditional resort of placing an enchantment on her first step-niece at her christening.

As commoners, Claudio the Counting House Clerk and his bride-to-be, Cossima, were spared these complications; all they had to contend with in arranging their new marriage was the ordinary problems of commoners who remarry, such as somehow finding room in their humble cottage for all the children, maintaining friendly relations with Claudio's bride-that-was and Cossima's groom-that-was, and so on. While not as rich as royalty, they did well enough; Claudio's job, stacking the coins in the king's counting house into neat piles of tens, hundreds and thousands so that the king could count his money without straining his limited mathematical knowledge., paid well enough to support them both. They had every reason to expect that their future together would be a happy one and very few, most of which they understandably overlooked, for believing things might turn out otherwise. So, after a decorous interval of being in love (sometimes, alas, a little indecorously), they set a date to be married and sent out invitations to the wedding.

When royalty send out invitations to important social events – especially christenings of princes – they're very careful to invite everyone who might feel slighted at not receiving an invitation and so royal weddings and christenings are often very dreary, stilted affairs with a large crowd of wicked witches and step-sisters, ill-tempered fairies and the like, looking for an excuse to get offended and lay a curse on the hapless infanta. Generally, commoners have a much easier time of it; they invite as many of their friends as they can afford to and hope that no-one gets too drunk at the reception. This is how Claudio and Cossima went about arranging their own wedding.

Among their friends they had two named Petro, one of whom who considered himself a wizard. He wasn't really much of a wizard; although he had been trained in wizardry in his youth and granted a license to practice wizardry he had never held down a wizarding job. He had never got the least trace of toad bile or salamander phlegm or any of the other arcane materials that wizards use to effect their enchantments under his fingernails. Not once. For a year or so after he graduated from the wizard's academy, he had tried to get a wizard's job, sending off numerous letters of application to various royal courts where he thought there might be a wicked step-sister or step-mother somewhere in the family tree. Most royal families keep a wizard or two around the palace. Officially they're there to protect the family from various forms of vile enchantment, of course, but in practice the world of wizardry is a little murkier and the practice of it isn't quite even up to peccable standards they teach in Wizarding Ethics 101 or the much more peccable standards taught in Wizarding Ethics 103, the short course for students who don't intend to major in ethics.

When Petro the wizard manque discovered that, although invited to the wedding, he was not getting one of those invitations for “So-and-so and a friend”, he became a little peeved. He was himself divorced, like Claudio and Cossima, and after a fashion in love. Or at least he thought himself in love, which often amounts to much the same thing for a lot of people. One day, while reading Wizarding Today or The New Wizard he had found an article reporting on recent research at the cutting edge of modern wizardry which showed that a wedding reception was possibly the best occasion for an amorous swain to press his suit. He had been looking forward, with some eagerness, to the opportunity to put in a couple of hours of emotional ironing. He was very cross when he learnt that this wasn't going to happen.

So, for the first time since he had left the wizard's academy all those years ago he turned his hands to a little practical wizardry. It wasn't strictly in accord with the standards he had learn in Wizarding Ethics 103; the only thing he chose to remember from this part of his education in wizardry was the tenet that wizards must practice their craft without fear or favour, and so he put out of his mind petty quibbles about the obligations of friendship. This is the way people think when their minds turn to wickedness.

With the help of his old text books, like Badman and Fisher's The Material Basis of Malediction (Third Edition), Podgorbley's Handbook of Wizardry Practice and so on, he selected a range of appropriately vile materials. His next step was to obtain a toasting fork – a traditional wedding gift in that part of the world, although one generally considered more appropriate for newly-weds. Divorcees remarrying could generally be relied upon to have a goodly stock of toasting forks from their first weddings. That he should overlook this shows how little he knew of life and other people; although he believed that he knew the ways of the world pretty well the main thing that set Petro apart from other people was that he was differently delusional.

Once he had his toasting fork, he set about collecting the unpleasant body fluids of various amphibians, reptiles and rodents he would require for the spell and a few herbs and roots, such as wormwood and asafoetida, brimstone. A few nights before the wedding he was ready to cast the spell. He mixed the asafoetida, wormwood and brimstone with ground charcoal and placed them in a brazier. Once the brazier was lit he hung the toasting fork over the brazier and drop by drop, dribble by dribble, poured the mix of vile essences over the toasting fork as he recited his spell:


In sunny day or darkest night,
Await the touch of firelight,
Draw the warmth from heart to hand,
Down thy shaft and then do send
It into whatever on thy prongs be spiked ...

He wasn't much of a poet either but the general intention of the spell was fairly clear; each time the toasting fork was used, it would draw a little of the loving warmth of whoever held it and put it somewhere else: in whatever happened to be stuck on the fork at the time. Over time, the hearts of Claudio and Cossima and their mixed families would grow cold towards each other. Or so he expected.

Once the spell was cast, he opened the windows of his work room and went outside into the fresh air, coughing and sneezing. It was then that he remembered his Wizardry Practice instructor's advice to always have a decoction of horehound handy when casting any vile enchantment. Once he was recovered, he returned to the work room and put the toasting fork in a cardboard box, covered with in paper printed with a pattern of rosebuds and wrapped it in brass paper. To finish, he wrapped a chrome ribbon around the middle of the package and, under that, he tucked a card on which he had written “To Claudio and Cossima on their wedding day, with fond wishes for their future together, Petro.” And so, it was done.

[This story will continue at CattyRox next week. Then back here. And so on.]

More Bad Characters

What do David Djalic, Gavin George and Stefan Nystrom all have in common? Each of them has failed the character test specified in Section 501 of the Migration Act, that's what. Officially, they're none of them the sort of people we want in Australia. So what if they arrived here as minors? They went to the bad as adults and, according to DIMIA, Phil Ruddock (in the cases of Djalic and George) and Amanda Vanstone (in the Nystrom case) that ought to be good enough reason to want shot of them. Naturally, Djalic, George and Nystrom disagreed, hence the various Federal Court judgements linked to above.

Alright, so I haven't exactly researched this topic in depth yet; all I've done is crank up a quick Austlii search for cases involving s501 of the Migration Act and gone through the judgements looking for commonalities with the Nystrom case. All I can say at this stage is that the cases of Djalic and George were a little too easy to find.

To finish, here's a curious case involving the question of whether the Minister for Deportation of Undesirables has the power to revoke a visa cancellation under s501:

2 The only question argued on appeal was whether or not the appellant (the "Minister") had power to revoke the decision to cancel the respondent’s visa pursuant to s 501(2) Migration Act 1958 (Cth) (the "Act"). There is no express power so to do. Therefore the only source of such power can be s 33(1) of the Acts Interpretation Act 1901 (Cth) (the "AIA"). The pervasive effect of that provision upon the legislative grant of administrative powers should not be underestimated ...

7 ... The existence of an unlimited power to revisit a decision to cancel a visa would not sit comfortably with the stringent provisions regulating the grant of visas imposed by Division 3 of Part II. After all, the effect of such a decision may be, in effect, to grant a new visa. Similarly, if a decision to refrain from cancelling a visa could be revisited, the visa-holder would, notwithstanding such favourable determination, remain at risk of future cancellation upon the same factual basis as grounded the original decision. That would be an unsatisfactory basis for continued residence in this country. Neither outcome is consistent with the strict regulatory regime established by the Act. If it were possible to limit the time within which, or the circumstances in which, a decision might be revisited, the position might be otherwise. However, as far as I can see, there is no way of doing so.
[Dowsett J]

By far the larger number of persons of German descent living in Australia were loyal to the flag under which they lived, and where this was clearly the case, the disposition of the military authorities and their useful police allies was not to molest them. Immediately after the outbreak of war there was a rush of applications for naturalisation, which was granted generally without any searching inquiry into the bona fides and loyalty of the applicant and without the military authorities being consulted. Later in the war careful enquiries were made as to all persons likely to be disaffected, and all persons born in enemy countries were required to report themselves and be registered. It may confidently be said that no persons of this class who acted and spoke with discretion suffered annoyance by official direction, however much they may have been vexed by their neighbours or eyed askance by former friends. But some Germans were boastful and aggressive. They loudly proclaimed that victory for the Central Powers was inevitable, and made no secret of their disposition. In Sydney, for instance, it was reported that many members of German firms, wool-buyers, island traders, and shippers. showed that they could not be trusted. The military authorities were not inclined to take any risks with such persons. Again, in Melbourne, after the German Club in Alfred Place, Collins-street, was closed, some of its former members who had been in the habit of meeting there nightly to gossip over beer and tobacco, continued their convivial fraternising at a cafe kept by one of their compatriots. They were to be seen emerging therefrom in the early hours of the morning. Perhaps they had not been plotting treason, or even discussing politics ; they were capable of wrangling about the categorical imperative of Kant, or the construction of a Beethoven symphony. Some of them were well known to the Melbourne public; one was a musician of some distinction, whose friends warned him that he was running grave risks. But the advice was unheeded. The police became suspicious about this knot of enemy subjects who were to be seen emerging by a side door on dark nights. The result was that the entire group was suddenly consigned to a concentration camp [sic] to meditate upon its folly.

From The Official History of Australia in the War of 1914-1918, Chapter IV "The Enemy Within the Gates" (Ernest Scott, 1941).