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

Reason‘s Jesse Walker on the fate of the Spaghetti Monster (originally a comment on the obscurantist “intelligent design” predilections of the burghers of the US town on whose courthouse nature strip it was placed):

The Editor and Kim are both reeling at Steve Fielding’s latest revelation – he has nipples just like anybody else((Not suitable for anytime, really. ~GT)) .

Robert Merkel thinks the current government is doing a good job of killing off solar photovoltaics. Ashleigh is a mite ticked off about it as well, arguing it is less middle-class welfare than environmental policy. Joshua Gans also argues it wasn’t middle class welfare, it was a behaviour changing carrot.

clarencegirl bags the Iemma party.

Darryl Mason notes that trials of medicinal cannabis will start soon.

Mercurius gives Brendan Nelson a bit of stick for teacher bashing.

Apathetic Sarah demands mob justice for animal killers.

Is no-one safe from the unwanted attentions of Troy Bussell ?

Tim Lambert has had a lively exchange of views with Don Aitken.

Ken Lovell wants the roads made safer – but not just yet.

Chris Berg wants to protect the bar culture from early morning lockouts.

International

Ken Lovell thinks George Bush needs some remedial education on the subject of negotiation. Saint disagrees. ((Pugnaciously?~gilmae))

Meanwhile, Turcopolier argues that Dubya’s negotiating skills with his erstwhile mates the Saudis could do with a bit of refining too.

At openDemocracy, Thomas de Waal examines a possibly looming war between Russia and Georgia over the Black Sea territory of Abkhazia.

Andrew Bartlett discusses a US soldier’s refusal to serve in Iraq.

Derek Barry looks at the history of Kashmir.

Andrea Charron and Dylan Kissane discuss the UN’s duty to protect at WebDiary.

The Samizdata libertarian collective do some great work exposing UK government excesses, as with this post about authoritarian government standover tactics by Perry de Havilland.  But this nasty little piece of character assassination of Tony and Cherie Blair (masquerading as a condemnation of an even more repugnant slag of the latter in The Observer) does them no credit at all.

Economics

Slim argues there is a limit to productivity as a wage determinant.

Nicholas Gruen discusses the tragedy of the anti-commons.

Law

In a welcome return to active blogging, David Starkoff points out an ominous observation from High Court Justice Dyson Heydon: “Be that as it may is not a warm embrace. Be that as it may are chilly words.”

Andrew Koppelman closely analyses the judicial reasoning in last week’s California Supreme Court decision ruling prohibition of gay marriage unconstitutional. 

summer

delivery

shadow play

morning coffee

Issues analysis

Mercurius opens a discussion of the ethics of free speech.

John Quiggin posts a sequel to his Prospect article (with Tim Lambert) on Rachel Carson.

Andrew Norton (white, male, middle class, somewhere south of middle-aged) confirms that Australian blog readers are predominately white, male, middle-class and somewhere south of middle-aged.((Hmm.  That must be a different post than the Andrew Norton one I read, which said “As we would expect, younger AES respondents were well represented among blog readers, with about a quarter born in the 1980s. However, the rest were fairly evenly spread among the decades going back to the 1940s.  …. The only result that did surprise me was that there was gender balance.”. ~ KP))

Harry Clarke suggests there might be something in the link between the drug treatment doctors supporting marijuana decriminalisation and, in a post whch would dent is libertarian credentials if he actually had any, praises the effects of smoking bans.

Arts

Oanh has mixed feelings about having one of his pieces published in the book Growing Up Asian in Australia.

Alison Croggon discovers the dangers of blogging:

Blogs are the crack of the literary world, they burn up your brains and leave you dribbling by the kerb, an object of pity and derision to all right-minded people.

Luckily for us (in a sense), she’s decided to cut back her theatre-going instead of her blogging.

Ming-Zhu and Alison Croggon both call for donations to save Carlton’s La Mama theatre (iconic focus of Australia’s theatre revival in the 1970s).  Anyone have a spare thousand bucks or so cluttering up the sock drawer?

Mark Bahnisch argues that mash-ups may be a more important form of undergound Open Source Political Protest than most people realise.

Marcellous combines a review of an Australia Ensemble concert with a bitch session against noisy sweets unwrappers and his partner’s carping about the expensive pushbike he just bought.

Shaun Cronin posts a heavy metal muxtape.((which I certainly won’t be listening to at work, or probably anywhere else ~ KP))

Snark, strangeness and charm

John Quiggin and Tim Lambert have succeeded where others have failed. Their recent article in Prospect on Rachel Carson has drawn the ire of J F Beck, who has ended his prolonged silence to defend her reputation – or his preferred version of it.

Is Obama an appeaser who will give in to terrorists? MK approaches the topic in his usual direct fashion at AWH, while the Currency Lad prefers a more nuanced approach, quickly proceeding from mutilated metaphor to the rhetorical high ground of obscurantism.((That’s gilmae nicely dropped in it ~GT))((Not really your Neutral Point of View this item, but you can’t blame Gummo for failing to resist a bit of CL-baiting? ~ KP))  

Andrew Bolt’s inner luvvie finally gets the better of him:

Andrew at Worst of Perth spreads his wings and posts exposures of the worst of other places as well (like the one at right). 

Lauredhel passes on the story of the little gecko that could.

tigtog asks which of these booty boys and booty girls you’d marry, shag, or defenestrate.

Audrey commemorates her mother.

Harry Clarke reviews a biography of Isaac Newton, and recommends wikipedia for further reading.

Speaking of wikipedia, David Tiley had an interesting read.

Colin Campbell’s son has started playing football. Or at least the seven year old version.

Football at that age is played a little like Aussie Rules Football with all the little kids running in groups wherever the ball is. Eighteen kids around the ball was quite normal.

Kev Gillet is hoping that someone  – we’re looking at you, Kerry Stokes…again – buys the latest set of Australian war medals up for auction, those of Maj. Peter Badcoe.

Andrew Elder puts together a What If alt-history: What If Whitlam lost in 1972.

Dale observes that the obsession of Conservapedia readers with homosexuality is only to be expected, but what about goats?

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