zhasper.com

I seem to be doing a lot of linkblogging today.

Note to self: should set up some sort of system that does this sort of thing automatically from del.icio.us or somesuch.

The latest link comes from Jeremy Zawodny who writes about some very clever dolphins:

Kelly has taken this task one step further. When people drop paper into the water she hides it under a rock at the bottom of the pool. The next time a trainer passes, she goes down to the rock and tears off a piece of paper to give to the trainer. After a fish reward, she goes back down, tears off another piece of paper, gets another fish, and so on. This behaviour is interesting because it shows that Kelly has a sense of the future and delays gratification. She has realised that a big piece of paper gets the same reward as a small piece and so delivers only small pieces to keep the extra food coming. She has, in effect, trained the humans.

and some very dumb workers:

So then I opened my mouth and said something like "you have a list with 8 items on it and I have 9 items. This shouldn't be rocket surgery." She put the clipboard down and I started to think she realized how crazy this all was. But what happened next only served to amaze me even more! She called a co-worker over to help.

I've mentioned machinegunkeyboard before, but I'm mentioning it again now because you should go and read this article.

In case anyone needs reminding, government in a first-world representative democracy exists for the service of the people, not the other way around. When government has the power to act with no justification to the public, without any means for redress of grievance, it has the power to act arbitrarily and capriciously for politically motivated ends. This is otherwise known as tyranny.

this lecture by Malcom Fraser.

In particular, the following:

We are the only democratic country, I am advised, to legislate for the detention of people whom the authorities do not suspect of any wrong doing or even of any wrong thought.

In Australia, any of us can be detained merely because authorities believe we might know something that we don't even know we know. The authorities do not have to believe we are guilty of any crime, or are planning any crime, or have consorted with any suspicious persons. How could such a law be drafted by the Government and supported by the Labor opposition? You can be detained for one week but then on a new warrant, another and another and another week. Unless it is approved in the original warrant, and why would ASIO do that? - you are not allowed to contact your wife, your husband, your child, your mother, your father and of course not a lawyer.

If you don't answer ASIO's questions satisfactorily, you can be charged and subject to 5 years in jail. But the law is reasonable, it goes on to say that if you don't know anything, then it's not an offence not to tell ASIO anything!!! But you have to prove you didn't know anything and so the "onus of proof" is reversed.

You can be asked to produce a paper and if you don't, you also go to jail on prosecution for 5 years but the law goes on to say, being fair-minded again, if you don't have such a paper, it's not an offence not to produce it but you have to prove that you didn't have it. How do you prove that you do not have something that you do not even know exists!!! Again, the "onus of proof" is reversed.

If a journalist heard that you had been detained and sought to report it, he would go to jail for 5 years. If a detained person were released and talked to anyone about his or her experiences, subject to prosecution, five years in jail.

Saturday is easily covered: sat around the house, played simcity.

Sunday takes more. Went to lunch at Bronte as discussed. Had some pleasant surprises regarding the people who turned up.. it was great to see you all :)

Afterwards, went to the airport and took photos of planes. The second plane we saw was a Qantas plane:

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Maryborough! My hometown! How exciting :)

Tinified versions of some other fantastic photos taken by the fantastic Adrian to the end of this post...

Got some great pics using Adrian's most excellent phone, giving me a severe case of camera envy.

Later, went to Ds place to watch Family guy, which proved an excellent diversion. Afterwards, we were struck by a fit of madness and headed back to the airport to take photos at night. Some of them came out very nicely.. but I don't have any of them to show you yet.

So.. that was my weekend. Nice and quiet and relaxing.

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I was watching a documentary on SBS on Sunday night about (broadly speaking) the history of homosexuality in Australia.

There was a lot of talk about the fight to get homosexuality legalised around the late 70s/early 80s.

The position as described was roughly thus:

* There was a large majority of people who thought the current situation was hideous, unfair, unjust, and generally nasty - but were unwilling to risk outing themselves or expend any effort in order to fight for change

* There was an activist group, CAMP, fighting for change

* There were other groups who didn't feel CAMP was radical enough, so they split off and formed their own even more activist groups.

At some point, people got to fighting for this in parliament. At some point, the idea of legalising homosexuality, but with a different age of consent than for heterosexuals, was raised. Some were willing to accept this, as they saw it as a stepping stone to the ultimate goal. Others felt that accepting anything less than total equality would defeat the longer-term goals.

Some things never change..