Missing Link Daily

Friday’s edition over the fold.

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

I think the second one is LBJ but who’s the third?

Jim Belshaw is frustrated with the insanity of Sydney water restrictions.

Lauredhel is having trouble finding out about access for the disabled at an academic conference.(KP comment – This is an even more bizarre response by UWA than it seems.  To my certain knowledge UWA pioneered an online streaming/podcasting solution known as Lectopia which automatically records, syncs and broadcasts the audio, video and Powerpoint etc from lecture presentations and uploads them to the Internet within minutes of real time completion of the lecture.  All or almost all UWA lecture theatres are equipped with the technology.  Thus they could almost certainly have acceded to Lauredhel’s request without either difficulty or significant cost, but presumably can’t be bothered.  I also wonder whether their response contravenes WA anti-discrimination law. I’ll check it out and post in the comment box.)

Robert Merkel looks at the demand for petrol, while Terje Petersen and various others love the GetUp YouTube video on Rudd’s FuelWatch scheme.

Should small-l liberals defect to the ALP? Mark Bahnisch is sceptical.

John Quiggin examines the Iemma government’s deal with the O’Barrell NSW Opposition to secure passage of electricity privatisation legislation over the dead bodies of the trade union movement (or possibly the dead body of Iemma in due course.  Time will tell.)

Jennifer Marohasy suggests that the South Australian government should stop complaining about the state of the lower reaches of the Murray and open them up to the sea.(GT – I’m confident that a refutation of Doctor Marohasy’s argument won’t take long to appear.)

Jason Soon is critical of a union with a bad case of entitlement issues.

International

Petering Time is bemused by the Canadian Islamic Congress’s action against Mark Steyn in the British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal.

Ken Lovell is impressed with Western Civilisation’s achievement of a new world record – there are more displaced people in the world than at any time in history.

Apathetic Sarah has the story that’s on YouTube but not, for some reason, the TV news: John McC*nt called his wife a cain.((And I’m a plagiarising cain. ~GT))

Norman Geras documents the half-hearted responses of many African leaders to Mugabe’s ongoing tyrannical election-hijacking.((You’d reckon there must be some workable humanitarian intervention solution between countenancing self-interested imperialist invasions and impotent hand-wringing under the guise of respecting the sovereignty of mass-murdering tyrants. ~ KP)) 

Associated Press to charge bloggers for quotes? The Editor, Lauredhel (at LP) ((In fact it’s perfectly acceptable from a copyright perspective to copy quotations of modest length from MSM or other sources as long as you critique or analyse them.  It’s only if you copy large slabs or fail to critique or analyse that you enter questionable IP territory. ~ KP))

See, it really WAS all about oil! Eric Martin argues.

Farming India’s tigers is the best way to save them (and the peasants and livestock they eat), says Kirk Leech at Spiked.


Law

Jack Balkin examines the US Supreme Court’s Boumedienne decision on habeas corpus for GITMO detainees in the context of the Bush administration’s broader responses and attitudes in the wake of 9/11.

Is it OK to be a judge even though you were barred from banking business through association with a collapsed bank acquired with drug money? asks Walter Olson rhetorically.

Legal Eagle manages to make the principles of unjust enrichment accessible and almost interesting.


Economics

Oil imports into Australia dropped by 28% against May 2007 figures, 1.6 billion litres vs an average of 2 billion litres. Peter Martin reports, citing a fall in average kilometers driven as proof that higher prices do lead to a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by way of reduced oil consumption. Meanwhile, Niall Cook* is still banging on about the average consumer being confused by pricing black magic ((Level 6 Accountomancer spell, Wisdom save to resist.~gilmae))

Terje revises some botched figures in a criticism of the Low Income Tax Offset.

Joshua Gans joins Andrew Leigh in the Quest for the Holy Randomised Trial.

Harry Clarke recycles an earlier blog analysis on policy responses to urban congestion (because his just published journal article on the subject is subscription-only).


inside the box

on the side of the box

sinister cuties no boxes

whiplash girl and boxes

Issues analysis

Alex Tabarrok sees Thailand as a successful randomised trial of the virtues of premarital sex.

At openDemocracy, Saskia Sassen explores the multiple dimesions and contradictions in the West’s approach to migration.  Highly recommended reading.  Adding to those multiple contradictions, Nathalie Rothschild at Spiked looks at a new EU policy seemingly lifted straight from the John Howard Policy Manual:

Members of the European Parliament backed the so-called return directive, which allows the 27 EU member states to hold undocumented migrants in detention centres for up to 18 months and to ban them from re-entering EU territory for five years, by a large margin.

nico is critical of the zero tolerance argument on drugs, particularly the parents of Anna Wood.

Darryl Mason points out a few things that the music industry still doesn’t get.

Brian Bahnisch examines the question of sea level changes due to AGW.

dr faustus is wary of equipping the police with the potentially-deadly taser s, worrying about a lack of accounting for their usage – there’s no bullets to track, see?

Ralph Buttigieg does not believe a dementia sufferer can make a clear minded decision on euthanasia, not while predatory relatives are planning how to spend the inheritance.


Arts

Marcellous reviews a SSO concert with piano soloist Emmanuel Ax who he considers a bit of a girly ivory tinkler, but almost certainly disagrees with Mao Tse Tung that  the piano is “a coffin in which the hammers rattle around like the bones of the bourgeoisie” (piano image from Flickr via Stumblng Tumblr).

Diana Simmonds gives a distinctly lukewarm review to the musical Altar Boyz on at Sydney’s Seymour Centre:

The novelty value of a Christian boy band spoof wears out in about 10 minutes and its to the credit of all involved that they manage to sustain interest as well as they do. That the show has been such a huge hit across the US and in New York says heaps about the bizarre state of the American psyche. And if this show was good enough to win the swag of awards and nominations listed, its blood curdling to think about what else was on offer. Ye gods and little fishes.


Sport

Shaun tips for Round 15 of the NRL.

Tony Tannous with some more Euro 2008 soccer analysis.

Moses proves that Beau Casson is not the most mediocre Australian test debutant spinner.


Snark, strangeness and charm

I’m sure this was covered at ML in the last few days, but Jason Wilson’s post on National Australia Bank’s spamming of blogs deserves highlighting again anyway.  Unethical pricks.  Lucky they’re not my bank these days.

Andrew Bolt momentarily diverts from global warming denialism to return to another pet theme: Stolen Generations denialism.

Dale posts YouTube videos reminding us that kangaroos aren’t always quite what they seem (then again maybe they are).

At Road to Surfdom, Sean pays out on Greg Sheridan and a couple of other national institutions:

The NYT is the USAs Paper of Record, and the Oz is our Paper of F*ckwitted Comparisons.

Ken Lovell is perturbed by a freaky tomato.

Save water, save the planet – wash your clothes in plastic. Lauredhel pours scorn on a brilliantly bad idea.

Vest is celebrating his 55th wedding anniversay on the 20th June. Shorter sentence, murder.

If there are any aspiring scriptwriters looking for ideas, John Surname has a link for you.

Harry Clarke is looking for an gopherEditorial Assistant.

Ronda Jambe photoblogs the sad story of her beachside investment property’s encounter with whiteants.

TroppoSphere, in case Missing Link email subscribers haven’t noticed, is now available as a convenient gateway to a world of news and expert opinion and analysis for those with feed reader phobia. It contains feeds to most of the blogs and other sources whose best/selected content we most regularly feature in Missing Link, as well as general news feeds and those from selected online magazines like openDemocracy, Reason, Slate, Spiked, New Matilda, Australian Opinion Online and Online Opinion.
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gilmae
16 years ago

Pretty sure they are Warren Harding and Calvin Coolidge.

lauredhel
16 years ago

Ken, I think you’re on the wrong foot a little, though I thank you for caring. I’m not a student (though I am a graduate who fought for external course provision, and got it, albeit only with the participation of certain lecturers (others refused point blank)).

And I’m also somewhat more audacious than you think: I would like real-time remote access to participation in conferences and seminars, not just passive streaming of content. I really can’t see the point in paying exorbitant conference registration fees to get a recording delivered and no more.

Niall*
16 years ago

I’d call it voodoo actually, Gilmae. Black Magic has a purpose. Voodoo never appears to.

gilmae
16 years ago

Clearly you’ve never followed a an ex-girlfriend’s new boyfriend around for a month to find where he gets his haircut, seduced with the not-entirely-self-confident trainee to get some hair clippings, had them stuffed into a doll and then paid a two dollar hooker to rub it on her cooter just so the two-timing bitch who dumped you would get hers.

No, nor have I, but I might have.

Niall*
16 years ago

weird

Pavlov's Cat
16 years ago

‘Cooter’?

Is that something you get cooties from?