Sharpening Stones, Walking on Coals

From the Smh:

Mr Howard has decided not to allow Singapore Airlines to fly the Pacific route until a review of aviation policy is completed, The Weekend Australian newspaper reported.

In other words QANTAS can continue to overcharge on the route, costing both Australian travellers and business people as well as the tourism operators in Australia who rely on trade from American tourists.

That's right the next time that our goverment manages to lay the boots into another minority (single mothers seem to be the flavour of the month) by arguing that they need to be exposed to the rigours of the economy and free markets just rememer this. (And for the matter the sugar industry, car industry etc etc).

From The Age:

A teenage girl apparently tried to kill herself the day after a Melbourne judge ordered her to justify in front of her father - who faces incest charges against her and her brother - why she did not want to testify in his presence.

The story - which includes a partial transcript makes the judge's actions seem pretty inexcusable.

Is there a judge in the country who isn't aware of the issues concerning the cross-examination of victims of sexual offences? What was the stupid bastard thinking?

I really hope more comes out about this story.

Dear God this is what happens when you leave news reading and blogging til the afternoon.

I only picked up today's Age at 4:30 to find that Mirco Bagaric and Julie Clarke - a pair of Deakin Law lecturers are getting a whole lot of front page publicity for advocating the legalisation of torture.

They follow it up with an opnion article here (note this is the same one from the SMH).

The response has been enormous to say the least.

John Quiggin reiterates his position that I have always found fairly on the money, while Ken Parish takes it apart to show the problems with having laws supporting torture, while over at the view from Benambra the chorus gets a little louder.

Though i haven't read the main article the academics are publishing in the US I have to say if it is as bad as the aforementioned opinion piece I don't think to many great minds are going to be moved by it.

Lets take a choice bit -

There are three main counter-arguments to even the above limited approval of torture. The first is the slippery slope argument: if you start allowing torture in a limited context, the situations in which it will be used will increase.

This argument is not sound in the context of torture. First, the floodgates are already open - torture is used widely, despite the absolute legal prohibition against it. Amnesty International has recently reported that it had received, during 2003, reports of torture and ill-treatment from 132 countries, including the United States, Japan and France. It is, in fact, arguable that it is the existence of an unrealistic absolute ban that has driven torture beneath the radar of accountability, and that legalisation in very rare circumstances would in fact reduce instances of it.

Come on!

What's that word used to describe arguments like this? Oh that's right, Bullshit.

Firstly I doubt that there are abosolute legal prohibitions on torture where it is used extensively, and even when it is prohibited in many countries the hugely flagrant use of it will not be changed by simply creating a small legal zone where it is acceptable.

Furthermore would these academics believe that there really was a 'ticking bomb' scenario in any of the cases of torture that Amnesty has had reported to it?

Miss Piss does a little futurism on the dark lord of Southbank

John Quiggin calls for a US withdrawl from Uzbekistan. (more later)

Via Mark Bahnsich - Even in post-conversion of gruel to diahorrea state (or after the judicial homicide depending on who you ask), the Terri Schiavo circus rolls on

Though it's on the level of total kick in the nuts brow and offensive to many who endured the crimes being satirised I can't help but laugh out loud at this Whisky bar post

Oh god, Assignment due at the end of the week and I am doing this crap........

This Article by William Saletan had me aubidly groaning about halfway through, I was enraged by the end.

Saletan is one of the most astute, clever watchers of American politics. Though often his ideas aren't groundbreaking, he often brings them together in ways that are intended to kind of force a new perspective. He's one of my favorite writers. His writings on America's abortion wars are amongst the best I've read.

But his case for 'intelligent design' being taught was absolutely terrible. In a nutshell it's basically along the lines of 'Intelligent design is crap, but good proper science will weed it out so we shouldn't be worried'

But the real clunker comes in right near the end

[ID proponents]Calvert and Harris call this assumption a big tent. But guess what happens to a tent without poles.

Perversely, evolutionists refuse to facilitate this collapse. They prefer to dismiss ID proponents as dead-end Neanderthals. They complain, legitimately, that Calvert and Harris are trying to expand the definition of science beyond "natural explanations." But have you read the definition Calvert and Harris propose? It would define science as a continuous process of "observation, hypothesis testing, measurement, experimentation, logical argument and theory building to lead to more adequate explanations of natural phenomena." Abstract creationism can't qualify for such scrutiny. Substantive creationism can't survive it. Or if it can, it should.

Saletan has bought the arguments of Behe, Dembski, Wells and the wider ID movement hook, line and sinker. Not that he agrees with them but that he believes in this 'equal time' message that students will naturally sidle towards evolution because of it's inherent worth.

He doesn't realise that the whole point of 'equal time' measures is simply to create debate, to muddy the waters. ID'ers who have at least a partial grip on reality (ie. Behe) know that the argument can never be won, but if it can be created.

The point of the ID 'controversy' is to create a little space that people who embrace anti-Darwinism can hide in. If there's a controversy about Evolution, one can side with the skeptics and still appear sane. If this is removed then all of a sudden people have to confront the terribly anti-science stance they take by embracing this nonsense.

It's the same reason Stephen Jay Gould refused to debate creationists, that by debating (or in the case of the Kansas controversy allowing equal time in the classroom) you only give creationists the legitamacy they crave.

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The Munch masterpieces "The Scream" and "Madonna" have been incinerated, according to newspaper Dagbladet, citing criminal sources and a top secret police report.

This saddens me incredibly. Munch's work has provided me with everything from inspiration to comfort. To think that these pieces are lost forever makes me alternately despondent and angry.

I think I'll write something more on him another time.