It wasn't until the recent flood of articles on Joeuser about the cartoon incident and its follow-up that I came to this revelation. But the words of brave advocates on this blog site have persuaded me - there is no difference between a Muslim who explodes a bomb and a Muslim who a)doesn't know it happened, b)is appalled or c)doesn't care. They're all the same! I don't know who exactly I have to thank for this revelation, but it really makes my life easier to be able to combine Laska...

There seems to be a disconcertingly common tendency amongst certain commentators to blame the media for the products it produces. Not only is this extremely socialist, one might say communist, but it shows a worrying faith in tradition that, were the education system properly functioning, would not happen. To analyse the position of the media as a business in the 21st century we must consider the changes it underwent in the 20th. At the dawn of the 20th century there was a perception and...

Abortion is murder. It's an interesting concept on an intellectual level, and a terrifying one when taken to its logical extreme. I'm going to assume everyone knows the basics of this faith-based perspective, so let's skip to a condescending example. There is a woman. Let's call her 'Jane'. She, being a woman, is capable of having children. Because she uses the pill, she has regular periods. Every time she does so, an egg fails to be fertilised and thus is expelled from her body (t...

First of all for all the readers out there who somehow haven't chanced upon this fact, I'm not an American. I'm not even a Texan. I'm not going to be so condescending as to say that I'm from the proud country of Not America (anyone who doesn't understand what that means should stop reading here; I will continue to use words of three syllables or more, and frankly I doubt you should contribute even if you agree with me). I'm an Australian, and therefore in my country we don't speak in terms...

It's a common thing these days to hear various places thrown around as the first democracies. Greece, Rome, certain islander tribes, France, the US, they're all there. But really, can we consider any of them real democracies as we know them? Greece restricted voting rights to native males with property whose age lay within a set scale. Rome lumped the majority of its citizens into just four houses, leaving only the Tribunes as a source of vague democratic power. The islander tribes are...

Last week there was a terrorist event 15km from my home. I say event, because while apparently somewhere between 2 and 11 bombs exploded, it happened in the process of catching a terrorist, so realistically it doesn't count as an attack . The bomber and a handful of his servants, friends family and assorted other hangers-on were killed in the blasts. No one is entirely sure (at least no one I've spoken to) whether these blasts were accidents or deliberate attempts to destroy evidence a...

Everyone out there should be aware of this particular gem of a website: Link But I'd like to draw your attention specifically to this article: Link We all know that the French, whether you love them or hate them, have a reputation for being more sophisticated than our American cousins. I think the article says it all: whether throwing a pipebomb or demolishing a McDonalds, the beret is vastly more sophisticated than the baseball cap. C'est la vie, gitu deh and she'll be right ma...

Hey everyone. Quick question to everyone (anyone?) who has Pages - has anyone ever tried to use it to do any serious academic work? What I need is a program that can handle a anthropological thesis - 60-80 pages of text with embedded tables, graphics and footnoting without giving my 1.2Gb iBook a heart attack (okay, okay, I accept that as a near certainty anyway but humour me) or forcing me to spend half my time fixing formatting errors and the like. It also needs to cleanly export to PDF for...

To begin with this article needs a bit of an introduction. A few weeks back I watched 'The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen' on DVD (it came with the infinitely better 'Pirates of the Caribbean' in a twin pack). I was surprised to realise that I had never heard of one of the characters, Dorian Gray (all the characters save the token American hero are from 19th century literature). So when I saw 'The Picture of Dorian Gray' at the bookshop I decided to buy it. I was surprised. Here ...

I like to think that in normal everyday life I’m a nice guy. I do my best to get on with other people. But I have a lot less tolerance for people I run into on the internet. Whereas in real life I might smile politely and wait until a moron’s stupidity causes their eventual death, I find that I lack that patience online. Kind of strange, really. Is the world so different simply because there’s several hundred k’s of cable separating me from the cause of my ire? Apparently so. When I ...

To whom it may concern I have no interest in your green cards. You spam me mercilessly with advertisements and emails declaring that I fulfil the requirements for your godforsaken treats, but I have no interest. Firstly, I am not in any way interested in moving to the US. I can't imagine how it could be any better than my homeland, and struggle to imagine how working there could be any more relaxed or satisfying than what I do at the moment. And yet still you write to me, pleading....

As most are probably aware, Bali bomb suspect Abu Bakar Bashir was sentenced yesterday to 30 months in prison for his involvement in an 'evil conspiracy'. Naturally the US and the Australian governments complained through both official channels and the press about the lightness of the sentence. But that's not the interesting bit. What I found more entertaining was Mr Natalegawa's response: Mr Natalegawa says Indonesia, unlike many countries, has processed its terrorism suspects through...

I've been in Indonesia for a little over a month now, and I think I'm finally starting to understand what many on this have spoken about before - the high price of living in a society where law enforcement is simply a matter of paying support to the biggest gang of them all - the police. In Indonesia it seems it's not uncommon to be asked to provide supplements to a policeman's income if you require their aid or if you are pulled over on the road. If you break the law on anything but drug...

There seems to be an inordinate amount of worry amongst many Americans in particular about the axis of evil getting nuclear weapons. Why? The US president has recently restarted research into the use of nuclear arms on what would previously be considered conventional targets, in particular as bunker-busters. So to the US government an increase in the use of nuclear arms is merely good policy, and certainly not something that has to be stopped. Of course one could reply that Iran and Nor...

In recent times I think we've all grown aware that there seems to be a thriving trade in insults on the political pages of Joe User. From the Right's stock phrases "Go back and look at Clinton" and "loony loopy/lopopy luddite" (Drs. Guy et Miler, 2005) to the leftist's "shut up you ignorant moron" and vitriolbot (Myrrander et al, various), I think JU is seeing a renaissance in insults not seen since the height of the pre-election fervour. I for one applaud it. I think it's time for eve...