Category: Politics

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A post for Human Rights Day

Sixty years ago today the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted by the newly-formed United Nations. After the bloodshed of the WWII, virtually every nation on the planet understood that these values were What It Was All About — and yet Australia is alone amongst Western democracies in not having enshrined them into Law. What’s wrong with us?

I’m still too ill to write an original essay today. However I’ve already written what I think about this in “Let’s just write that down…”. You may also like to read my review of Julian Burnside’s book Watching Brief.

Under the Rudd government, we seem to be closer to rectifying this gap in our laws — though I find it odd that a Bill of Rights sceptic is chairing the panel. Still, anything would be better than the comprehensive erosion of human rights under the Howard government.

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Thailand PM sacked, party banned… what next?

News is just coming through that Thailand’s Constitutional Court has disbanded the ruling People Power Party for electoral fraud, and banned prime minister Somchai Wongsawat (สมชาย วงศ์สวัสดิ์) and 35 others on the party’s executive from politics for 5 years.

What happens next is up to the Red Shirts, the pro-Thaksin loyalists. As I explained in my backgrounder, the People’s Alliance for Democracy (พันธมิตรประชาชนเพื่อประชาธิปไตย) wanted the PM to resign, so their aim has been achieved. Will the Red Shirts accept the ruling, though? Or will they turn violent? Certainly the Red Shirts are the more violent of the two factions.

Breaking News says AP reports that the second and third parties in the coalition, Matchima and Chart Thai, have also been dissolved.

I’m guessing the army is ready to roll. We’ll find out any moment…

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Do we really care about our kids?

Photograph of Verity Firth

Despite all the rhetoric about “protecting our children” and “children are the future”, our governments seem determined to prevent them preparing for the real future. Take NSW schools minister Verity Firth…

This morning the Sydney Morning Herald tells us the NSW government will receive $285M for new laptops — which will then be blocked from accessing social media and most everything else.

The Minister for Education, Verity Firth [pictured], said the Government would prevent access to the social networking sites, and other sites, even when the laptops were used at home.

“We don’t want these kids to be using these computers for the not-so-wholesome things that can be on the net. And they won’t be able to because essentially the whole server is coming through the Department of Education.”

So kids will be prevented from using their computers to connect with and understand their peers and the real world because of this continuing paranoia about unspecified “not-so-wholesome things” and parents being too lazy to supervise their own children.

Maybe Ms Firth needs to read Mark Pesce’s Those Wacky Kids, or watch the video. As Pesce quite rightly points out, if the classroom is the only part of these kids’ lives which isn’t hyperconnected, then the classroom will be seen as irrelevant.

Rupert Murdoch is right to say we have a 19th Century education system. Our Minister seems intent on keeping it that way.

Continue reading “Do we really care about our kids?”

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Thailand’s political crisis: an introduction

Photo of PAD protesters at Bangkok airport

Thailand’s long-simmering political crisis finally made it onto Western TVs this week when protesters closed Bangkok’s international airport, disrupting [shock horror] Western tourists.

The essence is that the People’s Alliance for Democracy, the guys in the yellow shirts who’ve shut down the airport, want prime minister Somchai Wongsawat (สมชาย วงศ์สวัสดิ์) to resign. They reckon he’s the puppet of a former corrupt prime minister, Thaksin Shinawatra.

You could argue that Somchai’s election, while controversial, was constitutionally valid. But PAD has run out of patience with the string of corrupt and presumed-corrupt politicians. Even the army chief reckons it might be time to call fresh elections to clear the air. But Somchai won’t budge.

This isn’t a simple story of The People versus the Evil Politician though. The roots of conflict go deep into Thai history and culture.

Continue reading “Thailand’s political crisis: an introduction”

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Live Blog: Internet censorship forum

Australia’s controversial plans to “filter” (i.e. censor) the Internet are being discussed in a major forum tomorrow — and I’ll be blogging it live on this very page. Bookmark it for reference!

The forum is at the UNSW Cyberspace Law and Policy Centre from 10am Sydney time on Thursday 27 November, through to 2.30pm, and there’s a fantastic array of speakers.

There’s three sessions: technical and social/legal to set the bounds of what’s actually possible, and then one focussing on how we actually protect the interests of children given this background — both preventing children seeing “inappropriate material” and stamping out child pornography.

Continue reading “Live Blog: Internet censorship forum”

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Bring on the olive oil, Patty!

While my Predictions for 2008 were mostly full of FAIL, there is one bonus. I did correctly predict Barack Obama as the next US President. Which means I won a bet!

Patty wrote:

If he wins, I will spank you with a feather duster and call you blinky all night long while rubbing your body with Four Seasons jam and olive oil. We must be playing Madonna’s Papa Don’t Preach in the background.

You’ll have to bring the feather duster, Patty, but the olive oil is a’warming…