It has been interesting reading the various responses to the government’s plan to ban smoking in prisons. Most have been quite predictable. The libertarians have scoffed at the idea of a ban. The left-wing blogs have droned on about human rights. Most of the right-wing blogs take the tone that prisoners forfeit their rights upon [...]

The only thing that saves the stupid headline below from joining my Spam Journalism collection is the fact that the article it heads is not trivial: Govt’s tough line on violence isn’t working – police Police say the Government’s policies to reduce violent crime have had little effect, as such offending is still on the [...]

Spam Journalism: The spurious use of sensational headlines to add spice to an otherwise pointless article. It’s funny how things come full circle. We are now at example 70 in my spam journalism series which has now been running for over a year. Believe me when I tell you that there was plenty more where that came [...]

Well, there seems to be no doubt what the (supposedly unbiased) Herald’s official position is on the proposed “three strikes” law. The headline ‘Unjust’ bill means 11,000 per cent rise in prison time is not exactly studiedly neutral. And making out that Kim Workman comes from “an independent organisation on crime” is simply a bad [...]

In September 2008 I wrote this: Unfortunately, what this [the repeal of section 59] does to parents is place them in a position of having no clear idea what is an acceptable smack. Worse still, it allows children to threaten their parents, thereby seriously reducing their authority, even if the child has no intention of [...]

That, apparently, was the defense that was put forward by the killer of Navtej Singh, the man shot by thugs in his liquor store and left to bleed to death. Anitelea Chan-Kee, the man behind the gun that ended Navtej Singh’s life claims that the killing was “accidental” because he “did not realise the gun was [...]

The Herald reports a 17 year old boy (who has name suppression for no apparent reason – go get ‘em, Whale) has been sentenced to 8 months home detention (on top of 4 months in custody – an effective 12 month sentence) for assisting the suicide of 16-year-old Ben Dowdell. I won’t be revisiting the [...]

In what has to be the most bizarre over-reaction I have heard in a long time, the Herald reports that a 12-year-old girl was arrested for scrawling on her desk. That is: properly arrested in handcuffs and dragged off to the police station and given eight hours of community service as her sentence. Wow. I [...]

An Australian court ruling has brought the entire basis of section 92a of the copyright act into doubt. In a dispute between Australian ISP iiNet and Australia’s copyright watchdog, AFACT (Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft), the judge has found in favour of the ISP saying, essentially that the ISP is not responsible for the copyright [...]

Now here’s an interesting headline… Ex-UN weapons inspector faces child sex charges PHILADELPHIA – A longtime UN weapons inspector who blamed a 2001 sex-sting arrest on his criticism of the Iraq war has again been charged in an online child-sex case, and this time he was caught on camera. Scott Ritter, 48, of Delmar, New York, [...]