Proselytizing in the Schools

The US Supreme Court has allowed a religious use of public schools that will pose a serious threat to principles of religious neutrality and church-state separation — I have a fix for this little problem. A chip needs to be implanted in everyone’s head. The moment somebody says; ‘My god is the true god and I will force my ignorant narrow minded beliefs upon you’, the chip is activated and their head explodes. This would leave the remaining population free to worship their own gods safe from the obnoxious god botherers — should end the odd religious war at the same time

Drug Wars

Enslave your girls and women, harbour anti US terrorists and destroy every vestige of civilisation in your homeland, and the Bush administration will embrace you. All that matters is that you line up as an ally in the drug war, the only international cause that the United States still takes seriously

Spam

A congressional committee has yanked the teeth out of The Unsolicited Commercial Electronic Mail Act of 2001, a bill designed to curb spam, leaving it with few consumer protection provisions. Instead of allowing consumers and ISPs sue spammers and apply fines, it only requires that spammers use a legitimate return e-mail address — easy to see the big money pushing those changes through

Big Brother

An oddly astute Queensland Labor MP, Linda Lavarch, has accused the producers of the appalling pseudo-reality television program Big Brother of making millions of dollars from viewers voting off cast members. She suggested that people give their money to charity instead

Human Rights

Influential Republicans and Democrats in the House have threatened to hold back $244 million in dues to the United Nations if the United States does not recover a seat on the Human Rights Commission next year — it’s not like the bastards ever paid up in the past, nothing like throwing a childish tantrum on a global scale

Taking it to the streets

The aim is spectacular — to close stock exchanges around the country, suspending ‘corporate tyranny‘, for a moment. The how of it is, quite simply, through anarchy. That’s not to say it isn’t organised, though. Melbourne legal activist Damien Lawson, who placed volunteer legal observers on Melbourne streets for the S11 protest, is doing this job again for the Melbourne stock exchange blockade. He says 50 law students, and solicitors from community legal centres and private practice will observe police behaviour at today’s protest. These legal observers, backed by the video tapes of alternative media group indymedia, are responsible for the Victorian Ombudsman holding an inquiry into police brutality in Melbourne

Thousands expected to blockade ASX

Thousands of demonstrators are expected to converge on the Australian Stock Exchange Building in Melbourne from 7am to protest against capitalism and globalisation. The protests have been organised by the M1 alliance, an offshoot of the S11 group behind the demonstrations that disrupted the World Economic Forum in Melbourne last September. The alliance comprises human rights and environmental activists, unionists, students and christians who plan to highlight the negative effects of global capitalism

Crikey.com.au

The Victorian State Government’s banning of crikey.com.au journalist and editor Stephen Mayne from a recent media conference was a worrying trend for press freedom — well you wouldn’t actually want an independent angle on a story from a non-corporate journalist, the truth may get out

Forced Filtering

The ramifications of a new US law forcing public libraries to filter Internet content against their will or risk losing federal funds may impact Australia. But free-speech advocates are fighting back.