Upbringings

I normally find Miranda Devine’s articles contentious, but I do believe she has a valid point in this article: Church and family can save kids.

I’m sure the cynics and naysayers will find flaws in the causal links espoused in the article, but as a generalisation, I think it is quite sound. When moral norms in society fluctuate, what does a child growing up have to grasp upon? Genetics only go so far in moulding people – it is mainly the societal environment that shapes how people think and feel about things in life. What’s “cool” and what’s not.

“Family and spiritual values” sounds like prudish, staid and boring conservatism. Definitely not cool. But as with everything in life, there has to be a balance. And that also means balancing conservatism with the highly iconoclastic tendencies which have accumulated in society over the years, masquerading under the banners of “experimentation” and “question everything with a healthy dose of cynicism”. What do you think?

The response of the babyboomer Left to this epidemic of youth misery has been to blame government and economic rationalism.

You will hear them moaning about the boring 1950s, when they grew up in a war-weary society that valued order, civility, domesticity and tranquillity. You will hear them fondly reminisce about the 1960s sexual revolution, their Kombi vans, their often-still-active ponytails.

Never will you hear them accept responsibility for trashing precious social institutions, destroying taboos, devaluing motherhood or squandering the moral capital built up by their forebears. Now, when their children and grandchildren are suffering the consequences, they see higher taxes as the cure. They seem not to listen even when scientific evidence emerges like a slap in the face to say childhood suffering is caused by a lack of spiritual meaning, an absence of expectations and limits and a breakdown in authority structures.

  1:29am (GMT +11.00) tomorrow  •  Culture  •  Tweet This  •  Comments (12)  • 

Photologs

For a little diversion… some good photologs: Quarlo, Will Simpson, Teofil, Couloir.

  6:43pm (GMT +11.00) tomorrow  •  Internet  •  Tweet This  •  Comments (1)  • 

RWC Semis

Aus vs NZ: Electric!!!

Update (10pm): GO THE WALLABIES!!!!! Final score: 22-10.

  8:18pm (GMT +11.00)  •  Sports  •  Tweet This  •  Add a comment  • 

Studying at Home

Time for a time-out with my journal. It’s late again, and I’ve just finished covering the wonders of judicial review of administrative decisions. Tomorrow I have to cover natural justice (aka procedural fairness, due process, what Hicks is getting none of because he’s outside the boundaries of the Rule of Law), prerogative writs and equitable remedies. But I’m sure you’re as interested in hearing about that as I am in reading about it. So, moving on, I found this amusing {src: Swhat}. Anyhoo… this is what I really wanted to say:

Stop deluding yourself, you’re not going to the library to study.

I have never found the concept of going to the library to study attractive. It takes time to get there and you have to lug all your stuff around with you. It’s not like you actually use any of the thousands of books that are around you. The chairs are hard and uncomfortable, you’re not allowed food or drinks, and the air is stale.

So, the rationale is that there’s no distractions like at home (“Hmmm I wonder if Fark updated”, or, “Hmmm a second Paris Hilton video where she’s allegedly in a threesome is floating around on the net”, or even, “Gee these bookshelves really need to be dusted!”). But let’s face it, you’ve everything you need at home. Food, drinks, a comfy chair, all your books, notes, paper and a computer. Maybe the computer is the bane – the ultimate procrastination device, the time-acceleration machine – but typing up notes is a helluva lot faster than writing them. The library doesn’t have computers. Well, it does, but they all have high speed internet connections so that doesn’t do jack for getting away from distractions. Bring a laptop? That’s assuming I could afford one, and anyway with the uniwide wireless network, you can’t escape a net connection these days. And there are people around in the library. You’ll bump into friends, then you’ll end up chatting, then realise you’re getting absolutely no work done, and end up going downstairs for a coffee that lasts three hours. When you’re at home, you’re a Nigel, true. But studying, albeit appearing more enjoyable, is not terribly effective when it’s a social event.

(With apologies to Paste)

All this is logically, probative evidence that it’s better to just stay at home. Besides, your bed is much more comfortable than the graffitied library desk in front of you.

  3:11am (GMT +11.00) tomorrow  •  Life  •  Tweet This  •  Comments (6)  • 

Asylum Seekers in the High Court

“There’s this urgent human need to have food every so many hours.” -Justice Kirby

Read what happens when the judges start attacking each other instead of the barristers before them. I see it now, written in the judgment: Kirby J (dissent).

  7:54pm (GMT +11.00)  •  Law  •  Tweet This  •  Add a comment  • 

Go Wallabies!

Hmm, Vodafone’s carrier signal has switched from “VODAFONE” to “Go Wallabies”. Did they run the World Cup final rounds to clash with exams on purpose?!

  6:08pm (GMT +11.00) tomorrow  •  Sports  •  Tweet This  •  Comments (2)  • 

Backbench Issue 4

Issue 4 of The Backbench is now out. We’ve got a bit about ethics and investing, Italians and what they show on TV, Hicks and Habib and of course Australia and Iraq.

  7:33pm (GMT +11.00)  •  Site News  •  Tweet This  •  Add a comment  • 

GeoURL

Hear Ye! is finally
GeoURLed.

(Isn’t it funny how these “to do” things happen to get done during exam stuvac week?)

  3:35pm (GMT +11.00) tomorrow  •  Site News  •  Tweet This  •  Comments (3)  • 

Warcraft II Preservation Site

I got a nice surprise when Friel from the old and venerable OzWL league and Kali days dropped me an e-mail to tell me about his Warcraft II preservation page. Ahhh, brings back so many good memories of clan wars and all. Up the mighty Deathwind Clan!

  3:33pm (GMT +11.00) tomorrow  •  Consumer Electronics  •  Tweet This  •  Comments (1)  • 

Friendster Photos

Guide to interpreting Friendster photos. Funny. I have some disparaging comments about Friendster (or at least, how some people appear to use it), but I’ll leave such rantage for another time.

  3:33pm (GMT +11.00) tomorrow  •  Internet  •  Tweet This  •  Add a comment  • 

The Three Stages of Consciousness

Too much work to get through. Oh well, there’s always time to make a post. Back in high school, I used to have a Sunday-morning tutor who would outrageously doze off while writing, mid-sentence. He’d be writing a word, then suddenly the pen would stop momentarily, then start sliding off in one direction, leaving a line across the page – which in many cases began looking like graph paper. Apart from the awkwardness of not knowing how to snap him out of his stupor, I could never fathom how someone could drop off while writing. Not until I got to uni, that is. I now present to you empirical evidence of my varying states of consciousness in the form of class notes:

Subject: Torts. State of consciousness: Awake.
The handwriting is legible, the notes are fairly detailed.

Subject: Criminal Law. State of consciousness: Quite Fatigued.
Lines not straight. Writing trickles to a scrawl at end of line. Barely legible.

Subject: Adminstrative Law. State of consciousness: Dropping in and out of REM cycles.
Struggling to complete words. Blotches where fallen asleep. Attempts to correct illegible words upon awakening (eg, “consequences”). Notes non-sensical.

And there we have it. Time for bed.

  3:41am (GMT +11.00) tomorrow  •  Law  •  Tweet This  •  Comments (4)  • 

Nice Clock

Now this would make an awesome timepiece to hang on the wall. Too bad about the price.

While we’re on the topic, the same company has a program called World Watch which simulates the expensive wallclock on the computer. I also know of Geoclock, but that still is a 16-bit program. Does anyone know of any other clock programs that show a map of the world and what parts of the world are in darkness? If it can be used as a screensaver as well, all the better. (Drop URLs in the comments.)

  2:33am (GMT +11.00) tomorrow  •  Consumer Electronics  •  Tweet This  •  Comments (4)  • 

Chicane

Just a word of warning. There’s a restaurant called Chicane just off Oxford Street. It was having a special deal – buy an entree dish and dessert and get a main for $4, so I went to dinner with Kev and Cath earlier in the week to check it out. Even though the meal was about $40 with the deal, even that was bad value. Food’s not terrific, service was inordinately slow, waiters looked like they really wished they were somewhere else, they got our order wrong, failed to refill bread and water, overly dim lighting… unsatisfying.

  11:11pm (GMT +11.00)  •  Food  •  Tweet This  •  Comments (4)  • 

Law School Website Facelift

UNSW Law School’s website has finally received a much needed facelift. I think LawSoc’s site will need a complete overhaul for next year.

  10:24pm (GMT +11.00)  •  Law  •  Tweet This  •  Add a comment  • 

Failure of the System?

The Queensland Court of Appeal allowed Hanson and Ettridge’s appeals, and their convictions were quashed. Newspapers report that Hanson is proclaiming that “the system failed her”. Yet, by mere virtue of the fact that, through the appeals process, she was exonerated implies that the system ultimately has not.

Mr Ettridge said there was no jury in Queensland that would not have been prejudiced against them because of all the publicity they had received in the lead-up to the trial.

“It’s an attack on the democratic process and the rights of Australians,” he told Radio 4BC in Brisbane.

“In the same way that Lindy Chamberlain was judged by the public and the media before she ever got to a court, we were.”

Mr Ettridge said he wanted compensation for the time he and Ms Hanson spent in prison and for the disruption to their lives over the past two years.

“I’d like to see some compensation, but the Queensland government has protected themselves against recourse and of course they can do these things and you can’t sue them for it,” he said.

Some things to note about his inferences of trial by media. Firstly, he complains to the media about how the media prejudiced the jury against them. Secondly, he complains about how the Queensland government has protected themselves which allows them to “do these things”. What things? Hanson and himself were convicted by jury – the government had nothing to do with it. Something is gravely amiss with his conception of the separation of powers doctrine when he criticises the government. The main problem is the time he spent in jail, which was, it turned out to be, wrongful incarceration (but not illegal)… it is definitely regrettable, however, the criminal system has never purported to be perfect. Ettridge also said something that I thought was quite noteworthy:

Journalist: How would you some up your last eleven weeks in jail?

Ettridge: It’s been an interesting experience. I think I’m enriched as a result of having been in prison. I’ve seen another part of life that people talk about, but never experience. People who now want to give opinions on putting people in prison and how severe their sentences must be, have no idea of the effect that it has on a prisoner, their family , their friends, their assets their whole life. I’ve met people in here who are doing fourteen years, twenty years, fifteen years, it is incomprehensible to think what effect that has on a person.

An astute observation.

  7:24pm (GMT +11.00)  •  Law  •  Tweet This  •  Comments (3)  • 

When Justice Sleeps

Hahahaha!

A Toronto judge fell asleep in the middle of a criminal trial but woke up when a defence lawyer dropped a 2,136-page copy of the Criminal Code on the desk in front of him, a court was told yesterday. …

Unsure it was really happening, Schofield said she turned to check with her assistant, Cyndi Burns, who “agreed that it appeared His Honour had fallen asleep.”

Crown Attorney Jennifer Strasberg confirmed it as well, said Schofield, who, along with her colleague, came up with a plan.

“We decided that I would drop a copy of Tremeear’s Criminal Code … in order to wake His Honour,” she said in her affidavit. “I dropped the Code and His Honour was visibly stirred from his slumber.”

Not wanting to make an issue of it in front of the judge, Schofield said she and Strasberg carried on as if nothing had happened.

“I was not sure of what to do,” she said.

The judge’s conviction was overturned on appeal. Read article.

  1:42pm (GMT +11.00) tomorrow  •  Law  •  Tweet This  •  Comments (1)  • 

Short Skirts at Westfield

Oh for goodness sake…

A woman is suing shopping centre giant Westfield for defamation and wrongful imprisonment, claiming security guards detained and harassed her about her mini-skirt. …

Mrs Strasberg alleges Ms Remoundos told her: “There have been complaints made against you. You are dressed in a provocative manner. You are dressed inappropriately. It is offensive. Your skirt is too short.”

Mrs Strasberg alleges those words were defamatory and Ms Remoundos spoke to her in an aggressive manner, standing with her fists clenched on her hips.

Read Article (with photo).

  1:39pm (GMT +11.00) tomorrow  •  Culture  •  Tweet This  •  Comments (2)  • 

Matrix: Revolutions

Caught the midnight session. Needs a rewatch. I need some time to think. Special effects were fantastic. Plot was disappointing, although I’m too tired to think fully about it now. More later.

  3:39am (GMT +11.00) tomorrow  •  Movies  •  Tweet This  •  Comments (12)  • 

Valance’s Case

In case you missed it, here’s the 249 paragraph judgment of the Holly Valance case: Biscayne Partners Pty Ltd v Valance Corp Pty Ltd & Ors.

  11:59pm (GMT +11.00)  •  Law  •  Tweet This  •  Comments (1)  • 

Bluejacking and Stealth Disco

Do you have a bluetooth enabled mobile? Are there bluetooth enabled devices inadvertently (or otherwise) set in “discoverable” mode? Send it a contact named “Nice shoes!” and watch its recipient look bewildered. This new practice has been termed Bluejacking, although I think that Bluepranking would be more apt. It’s things like this that give people like me endless entertainment. {src: Cacheop, which also links the classic Stealth Disco}

  5:40pm (GMT +11.00) tomorrow  •  Consumer Electronics  •  Tweet This  •  Add a comment  •