The 9pm Secrets of Dinosaur Club on Ketamine with Snarky Platypus

A vast strange robotic creature only vaguely like a whale drifts through an aquatic environment. In the foreground, silhouetted against the bright blue scene, is a crowd of onlookers.
China’s aquariums utilise robotic whales to reduce the costs associated with keeping live animals. Photo: SCMP composite / Shutterstock / Weibo. Platypus inset photo by Taronga Conservation Society Australia / Chris Wheeler. Digital composition by Stilgherrian.

No, we’re not really on ketamine. But as the spring series continues we’re going sideways with a bonus episode featuring my good friend Snarky Platypus and many, many topics.

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The 9pm Sleepless in Canberra

Screenshot from Tony Abbott press conference, 8 February 2015

Yes, this episode of The 9pm Edict is hitting the internets just one week after the previous one. Crusader Rabbit explains in detail why he should stay on as Prime Minister. Everything seems to be a bit chaotic, and Malcolm Turnbull seems to know why. Ah, such joy!

In this podcast there’s talk of music, chaos, character and the Liberal Party’s problem with women, as well as sex with animals, and philosophy.

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The 9pm Road to War

Screenshot from WCSC Live 5 News: click for original news story

Prime Minister Tony Abbott points to the enemy, and to the difficult road ahead. What road is that? Foreign Minister Julie Bishop gives a clue.

We also determine the three key differences between Philip Ruddock and a mechanical duck.

We award elephant stamps for people who have been exceptional in the category of thinking to the authorities of Summerville, South Carolina, for arresting a 9th-grader for an alleged dinosaur killing (pictured above), and the 20-year-old man arrested at Riverwood on 26 August.

And we introduce a new segment, Ubergasm, exploring the work of our favourite libertarian disruptors. Today we hear about Uber’s playbook for sabotaging Lyft and a tweet from PR columnist Ed Zitron.

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The civil liberties we lost in 2007

Photograph of Richard Ackland

In today’s Sydney Morning Herald, Richard Ackland has published his “top 10” list of intrusions on our civil liberties for 2007.

“A year ago we published a list showing how our liberties had been whittled, starting with the sedition laws and ending with David Hicks. Now there is a fresh outcrop of abrasions to our rights, although, sadly, there is an eerie consistency about some of the players.”

His list includes an entire entry just for one man’s efforts:

4. Philip Ruddock. Once again the former attorney-general deserves his own special entry in the human rights hall of infamy. This time for his unique conception that an accused person can have a “fair trial” based on hearsay evidence and evidence extracted by coercion.

As number 1, Ackland mentions just a name: Dr Mohamed Haneef. I’m hoping the forthcoming judicial inquiry gets to the bottom of that debacle!