Missing Link Daily

A digest of the best of the blogosphere published each weekday and compiled by Ken Parish, gilmae, Gummo Trotsky, Amanda Rose, Tim Sterne, Jen McCulloch and Stephen Hill

Politics

Australian

The Worst of Perth sculpts former WA Premier Geoff Gallop and yearns for his return in the context of chair-sniffing revelations about the current Opposition Leader:

Andrew Bartlett suggests the IOC has lost the plot on the Olympic spirit – and maybe his current committee has lost the plot on Aboriginal policy (I’m not too sure what Gummo – who I think inserted this item – is getting at here – KP).

International

Derek Barry looks at how the Nigerian oil strike might affect oil prices.

Guantanamo prosecutor, Moe Davis’s testimony in the trial of Osama bin Laden’s driver catches the attention of
Richard Tonkin, clarencegirl, beju and Kim.

Dan Miller is appalled by the latest utterances of Obama’s retired pastor Rev Jeremiah Wright (here’s a news story summarising what he said), including re 9/11: “You cannot do terrorism on other people and expect it never to come back on you.”  Norman Geras comments:

Not only is Wright rather selective in what he takes from the Bible, since somewhere in it there will be an injunction against killing the innocent, he himself is innocent of the understanding that guilt is not acquired simply through community membership, much less by being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Of course, whether this exacerbates Obama’s inability to clinch the Democratic Party nomination is another question.  Meanwhile, Joshua Gans draws attention to a bizarre Clinton/McCain policy (which thankfully Obama at least apparently doesn’t endorse) for a pause in petrol taxes but with lost revenues being made up by taxing the oil companies!!!

Turcopolier sees promising signs of a peace deal between Israel and Syria.

At openDemocracy, Roger Southall posts a superb article on tha appalling Thabo Mbeki’s efforts at “mediation” in Zimbabwe and his waning fortunes within the ANC.  Highly recommended reading.


Economics

Andrew Leigh grumbles about middle class welfare and (quoting Peter Martin) reports on a motted Rudd government plan for first home savers’ accounts that give twice as much to the rich as the poor.  Good one Kev!


Law

Howard Wasserman reports on the first instance rejection of a challenge to the validity of a new Indiana law requiring all voters to produce photo ID before being allowed to vote.((I would have laid money on John Howard copying this one if he’d still been in power~KP))

For the vast number of readers fascinated by legal theory, Lawrence Solum has a neat and succinct little riff on natural law, legal positivism and JS Mill.


contrived rustic

contrived edge schlumucky

digital emergency

at a pinch

Issues analysis

Harry Clarke looks at research on indigenous smoking and wonders why he’s been ridiculed for suggesting it’s a major problem (the smoking that is, not the research).

Is the Heartland Institute’s list of scientists with doubts about global warming about to shrink?

Henry Farrell looks at academic freedom in the context of a Muslim teacher sacked after pressure exerted by the odious Daniel Pipes.


Arts

Marcellous has been reading Dorothy Hewett.

Ben Peek posts an incisive if belated review of the Coen brothers’ No Country for Old Men:

For many, it seemed, it was a return to form for the Coen brothers.

I suppose I’ll come down to the line of disagreeing, but not because I think the film is bad, but rather because the end misses its thematic mark, and that sense of missing a mark has been my sense with the Coens for a while now.

 Kodjo reports on a damning review of Jon Avent’s new movie 88 Minutes (signifying both its running time and the amount of time the protagonist is warned by his killer that he has to live):

Avnet is setting a noble example here: if all movies were named after their running time, Hollywood would instantly become a brisker place. Would Peter Jackson have dared to put us through a Tolkien Trilogy called Nine and a Quarter Hours of Elves? I dont think so


Sport

Darryl Mason wonders if we’re too hard on Rugby League players.


Snark, strangeness and charm

Sarah tells a tale of a scumbag.

Jeremy isn’t impressed with the recording industry’s special pleading on copyright.

Graham Young blames Brisbane bloggers for failing to tell him why his train was running late!!!

Caroline has a lovely photoblogging farm animals post.

The Stumbling Tumblr examines the fate of the bloke who revealed the fake Hitler Diaries.

About Ken Parish

Ken Parish is a legal academic, with research areas in public law (constitutional and administrative law), civil procedure and teaching & learning theory and practice. He has been a legal academic for almost 20 years. Before that he ran a legal practice in Darwin for 15 years and was a Member of the NT Legislative Assembly for almost 4 years in the early 1990s.
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David Jackmanson
15 years ago

Graham Young blames Brisbane bloggers for failing to tell him why his train was running late!!!

Or, in fact, he doesn’t.

Living in the 21st Century, troubled by the lack of information, and equipped with a 3G phone, I decided to consult the Internet. Nothing that I could find.

50 minutes later I am still no wiser, yet this event, whatever it was, must have been disrupting trains all over the city as the consequences of not being able to go through Brunswick Station shunted their way down the line. This is information that is much more vital to the average Brisbanite than knowing that the Hale Street Bridge will cost $57 more. At least they’re reasonably certain of getting a bridge, whereas who knows whether the trains will get anyone home on time for the evening meal.

Let’s not pick on the ABC, The Courier Mail and The Brisbane Times had nothing whatever about this incident either.

So, while QR has the primary responsibility to keep its customers informed, and didn’t – they must have known what the problem was and been able to make an intelligent guess as to how long it would take to fix – the guardians of the public interest also have a duty to get information out despite the incompetencies of the public service. 100 years ago it might have been good enough to read about it in the next morning’s paper, but today things are much different.

stumblng tumblr
15 years ago

“Howard Wasserman reports on the first instance rejection of a challenge to the validity of a new Indiana law requiring all voters to produce photo ID before being allowed to vote.”

I don’t understand what’s meant by “first instance”. It was a decision of the SCOTUS, on appeal, as I remember, from a decision of the 7th Circuit USCA.

gilmae
15 years ago

/me hangs his head in shame

David Jackmanson
15 years ago

Ken, the paragraph that you think I “carefully omitted” clearly places the primary responsibility on the mainstream media. As do the sentences

“Lets not pick on the ABC, The Courier Mail and The Brisbane Times had nothing whatever about this incident either.

So, While QR has the primary responsibility to keep its customers informed, and didnt – they must have known what the problem was and been able to make an intelligent guess as to how long it would take to fix – the guardians of the public interest also have a duty to get information out despite the incompetencies of the public service.”

(My emphasis)

An article which directly blames QR, the ABC, the Courier Mail and the Brisbane Times, and, at worst, obliquely mentions bloggers, can’t really be said to be blaming bloggers at all.

Niall
15 years ago

Reads to me as if:
(a) Graham has too much money, using a 3G phone to access the internet;
(b) a totally unrealistic expectation of both the internet AND his fellow bloggers;
(c) and something of a rationality disconnect from the real world.