Alea iacta est

Rock it, nerd-style

The awesome riffs of.....the theme to Ultima V: Warriors of Destiny.

How convenient

Ban lifted on GM crops in NSW and Victoria.

While the ban on GM canola was utterly ridiculous, lifting it now seems mightily suspicious. Why, one might think the ban was merely a sop to the Greens before a federal election where preferences were expected to play a part!

Now, now. Let's not jump to conclusions.

I don't know why the Greens keep letting themselves get screwed by the ALP, but I got to admit. It's hilarious.

Post-Mortem

Well, it's all over but the hangovers, so there's a few things to be learned from this debacle:

Congratulations to the new Prime Minister. He ran a disciplined, highly effective campaign that stayed on target.

For the Coalition, here's what went wrong:

1) Workplace reform was handled terribly. The Coalition let the media, the ALP and the Unions get the drop on them and control the narrative. If you're going to do major reforms, make it a) gradual and B) For heaven's sake, anticipate that there's going to be a reaction. The union movement had pushed out a huge anti-government ad campaign while the government sat there like stunned mullets.

2) Pork-barreling. This was a terrible habit the Coalition got into it and it wasn't pretty. It went against the core Liberal ethos. Fiscal policy should have been tight budgets, and rolling tax cuts, not dole outs for marginal seats.

3) Take the new government to task. Be an effective opposition, don't lapse into irrelevance like the state Liberal parties.

Which brings me to....

4) Now, more than ever, a concerted effort should be made to win back power in the states. No more pussy footing around with weak, ineffectual leaders (looking at you, Debnam). End the factional silliness, put in a strong, electable leader, and bring them down. It's absolutely criminal a government as incompetent as Morris Iemma's still rules the largest state. The state governments have proved to be good training grounds for ALP parliamentarians.

And finally

5) Generational change. It's a pity some of the up and coming talent like Mal Brough lost, but the Coalition needs to renew itself or it will just sink into the shit. It probably should have done this a year ago (and perhaps avoided defeat), but, too late for recriminations. The only Coalition MP to have a swing towards him was Malcolm Turnbull. Perhaps there's a lesson there...

Hell unleashed

ABC election analyst Antony Green predicts 14-seat majority Labor government.

Mighty Warlord Rudd Sacks the great Citadel of the Liberal Party

Children flee from his Peter Garrett's horrific visage.

Barbarians at the Gates

It's Election Day! Will Kevin the Rudd and his horde of Laborites successfully breach the fortifications around Canberra, or will Julius Howard and his loyal Coalition guard win the day again?

Nobody knows!

In any case, let's hope sure as hell the Greens don't get any Senate seats, since they're far-left dingbats.

UPDATE:

Exit polls tell us to welcome our new Labor overlords

Laurie Oaks is predicting twenty seats.

No, not for Kevin, for himself. (Not my joke...)

Below: ALP candidates (incl Kevin, centre with hat) prepare to take back Canberra. Peter Garrett counsels carbon-neutral attacks.

POLLS have closed:

Results will be tallied here

So far, nil all.

I think this might change, though.

UPDATE II: Sure enough, there are some votes!

Liberal/National Coalition 1,827 62.48 -2.70
Australian Labor Party 1,097 37.52 +2.70

At 0.0002 % counted, this is too close to call!

UPDATE III: Labor on track for victory.

Meanwhile, Peter Garrett (below) celebrates glorious 15% swing.

UPDATE IV: We're nearly at a half way mark. Coalition on 29, ALP on 34... everyone begins clutching their hip pocket.

Swing to Greens? Supporters (seen below) celebrate with traditional religious ritual.

ALP getting strong voting from early eastern states. Labor strategists briefly pause to contemplate their prize.

UPDATE V:

Apparently The ABC's election computer says John Howard has lost Bennelong. Libs still confident.

Below, Liberal party functionary brings "confidence" to rattled MPs.

And while we're on religion...

Here's an article from High Court Judge Michael Kirby that gets about 80% right but the 20% it gets wrong, it does so spectacular.

My point is that it is not good enough for Christians, or people of the Christian tradition, to be selective about tolerance and acceptance. We cannot selectively denounce Islam for its views on apostasy but then do equally nasty and cruel things to others by invoking imperfect understandings of our own religious tradition.

No, no, No!. Both problems, Islam's stance on apostasy and Christianity's on homosexuality don't come from "imperfect understandings of their own religious tradition", in fact said religions are quite definite on both points. The religions, at least in those matters, are just plain wrong..

I notice Kirby also throws up the "No compulsion in religion" verse. You see, that's nice and all, but said verse was written in the Medina period, and abrogated by the following verse promulgated later:

Then when the Sacred Months (the 1st, 7th, 11th, and 12th months of the Islamic calendar) have passed, then kill the Mushrikun {unbelievers} wherever you find them, and capture them and besiege them, and prepare for them each and every ambush. But if they repent and perform As-Salat (Iqamat-as-Salat {the Islamic ritual prayers}), and give alms, then leave their way free. Verily, Allah is Oft-Forgiving, Most Merciful.

Which is not so inclusive.

And herein lies the problem most moderates are always going to run into:

Fundamentalists and zealots are usually on more sound theological ground.

The Gods who built their houses on sand...

On a discussion on Samizdata and David Thompson's blog ("Explaining Why") the importance of the freedom to blaspheme (especially for non-believers) veered into some interesting discussion, vis-a-vie the intersection on religion, faith and reason. One particularly insightful comment, I thought was this:

The two "offences" most likely to be followed by violent disturbance are 1. Any "disrespect" shown the Koran 2. Any "disrespect" shown to Muhammad.

I found the Guantanamo "Koran abuse" issue totally surreal. Torture people if you must, but don't soil the holy Koran. What strange priorities.

I think that, lurking behind this indignation, is a fear that they're standing on shaky ground. For instance, Islam claims that the Koran is a perfectly preserved verbatim transcription of a speech act - in Arabic - by God. This is massively more than Jews and Christians claim for the Old and New Testaments. You only have to ask a few obvious questions to realize it's impossible this claim is correct.

There's much more in the comments at Thompson's site, but this bit in particular highlights an important point: the troubled relationship that so-called "revealed" religion has always had with reason.

It wasn't for nothing that one religious figure once uttered:

But since the devil's bride, Reason, that pretty whore, comes in and thinks she's wise, and what she says, what she thinks, is from the Holy Spirit, who can help us, then? Not judges, not doctors, no king or emperor, because [reason] is the Devil's greatest whore.

That quote is from Martin Luther, Protestant hero.

And so it was, time and time again, that religion rapidly transformed into an oppressive, intolerant force, mainly in attempt to stamp out any discovery that might contradict religious dogma. Why? It's simple. If you have a book that is believed to be the inerrant word of God it only takes one, single falsehood and the whole thing comes tumbling down in a mess.

The Church didn't arrest Galileo because he was wrong (indeed, many of the more educated bishops probably knew he was right, particularly since much of the groundwork for the science of astronomy had been conducted by clergy), but because Copernican theory posed a threat to religious dogma and they feared one drop was enough to start the deluge.

Ironically, however, religions that do survive such things, tend to end up stronger. Simply put, its followers learn to argue forcefully, with conviction, and, above all, logically. A religion that is never seriously challenged in its own sphere, a religion that is never questioned, ridiculed, nor probed for its logical flaws...such a religion will never "grow up".

Which is why cults, such as the Branch Davidians, the Exclusive Brethren, Heaven's Gate Scientology, react so vociferously to outside influence, apostasy, or attacks on dogma.

So it is with Islam. Up until recently, in every country Islam existed, it was the predominant force. Protected by law against blasphemy. Apostasy was forbidden. There was to be no criticism of the revealed word of God, nor of his final and best Messenger.

Except...the claims, as they stand, are patently ridiculous. Yet they have never been seriously questioned. The power structure of Islamic lands have never allowed it. The lack of any real textual criticism undertaken on the Qu'ran in Islamic studies, versus the vast field of Biblical criticism makes this clear.

But now....that has changed. And it will be interesting to see what the next century will bring to religion, and those that follow it.

Quackery Ahoy

Baby death: call for homeopath rules

Rules? RULES?

How about this: Homeopathy is sheer quackery, nothing else, and no homeopath should be allowed to practice medicine legally.

Who says monarchies are outdated and anachronistic?

The King of Spain tells celebrated idiot Hugo Chavez to shut the hell up.

Round of applause for the Spanish King.

(On a side note, would Chavez please stop claiming to be an acolyte of Simon Bolivar? Bolivar was a free-marketeer, and an advocate of limited government, American style. Bolivar's opinions would be more along the lines of the Economist magazine, not some fruitloop quasi-Marxist.)