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  • The fast track to devil worship: Humanist ethics in public schools

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    I wrote a while back about Special Religious Education (SRE) in State schools in Australia. The are problems both with the concept itself, and with the State-by-State implementation. WA Today reports that some Victorian students may soon have access to… Read More ›

  • Otterday! And Open Thread

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    Please feel free to use this thread to natter about anything your heart desires. Is there anything great happening in your life? Anything you want to get off your chest? Reading a great book? Anything in the news that you’d like to discuss? Commiserations, felicitations, temptations, contemplations, speculations?

  • Go look at the moon.

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    Full moon and perigee are coinciding this month – go check out the biggest, brightest moon since 1993. Last time this happened, we went down to the beach and proved that we really could read newsprint by moonlight with sunglasses… Read More ›

  • Mailbag: Junk mail and Code breaches

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    I was poking through my junk mail, which has multiplied with the advent of the Season of Consumerism. And I thought I’d share some tidbits. Dick Smith: anyone for “massage”? I’m guessing this is even legal in Texas! “Rechargable Hydra… Read More ›

  • The Queensland Police say I’d be a crim…

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    …. if I so much as watched the baby-swinging video. (Please don’t post any direct links to the material here.) In a statement, Queensland Police said the term “child-abuse material” even extended to clips in which a child “appears” to… Read More ›

  • Thursday Cheezburger

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    Runnerup: “Do I look like the blue bird of happiness?” Post your favourite cheez-o’-t’-week here. [Use a link to the full page or the embed code, not just the image, and wait for admin image magic.]

  • Quick hit: New Centrelink “equality” to hit older lesbians the worst

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    SMH: “Gay couples to face new era of financial discrimination” Adele Horin December 6, 2008 A major achievement of the Rudd Labor Government is the recent passage of historic legislation to remove discrimination against gay and lesbian couples from dozens… Read More ›

  • What the fuck, ABC?

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    Next up in my “What the fuck” series is ABC’s “AM” programme. Today’s show was titled “Caesarean rates surge“. [emphases are mine] Tony Eastley’s introduction: The number of pregnant women requesting caesareans for psychological or social reasons has increased by… Read More ›

  • Focus: Design

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    Stephen Colbert this week looked at the case of Jerilea Zempel, a fibre artist who was arrested at the US/Canadian border a couple of months ago – for having drawn an SUV. The drawing was a base sketch for a… Read More ›

  • Otterday! And Open Thread

    By on • ( 36 )

    This cool character was grabbed by FreeSpirit5 on flickr. Please feel free to use this thread to natter about anything your heart desires. Is there anything great happening in your life? Anything you want to get off your chest? Reading… Read More ›