The Subtle Erosion of Mount St. Helens

So, if you follow politics like I do, you probably know all about this whole Crosby Textor thing. (Original on stuff)
While I’m sure I could go on at length about the damage this sort of campaigning does to the political dialogue, (which is oh-so-precious) what I really want to talk about here is the subtle [...]

Sidetrack: EFA paralells in America

I know, I know right? Two sidetracks in a week. I’m getting bad at this. But this one is really important. It highlights why laws like the EFA are necessary.
Despite believing passionately in free speech rights, I’m a staunch supporter of the electoral finance act, which includes limits on the amount spent on advertising by [...]

All discrimination was not created equal

An interesting talking point that’s floating on the internet right now is that making general statements about rich white men is discrimination and shouldn’t be supported. Obviously this is someone’s first barbeque.
While I certainly agree that these sorts of characterisations are mild discrimination, I actually don’t agree that discrimination is always a terrible thing no [...]

Green Party: A very representative list.

For those of you who don’t follow politics closely, the Green Party1 released their party list recently. Because party members vote directly for their party list, it’s been nowhere near as secretive as is usually the case for other parties.
Worth noting is that five of the first eight (there will be a minimum of four [...]

Police ignore sexual misconduct

Idiot/Savant over at No Right Turn has an excellent piece on the fact that police have ignored the recommendation that they include guidelines on power abuse and other sexual misconduct in their Police Code.
Shame on the police- writing something like this into their code is an extraordinarily easy commitment to meet, and could have wide [...]

Gay Rights are Straight Rights

One fact that always seems to be overlooked in the debate over gay rights is that it actually impacts the rights of straight couples, too. Laws that reform the way we view couples to include gay rights- such as our own Civil Unions bill- have generally also extended new rights to straight couples. Not only [...]

Australia catching up…

Australia is set to have its first female governor general. It’s great to see Australia catching up to the idea that women should hold high government offices, and Quentin Bryce looks like a woman I could definitely get behind for the job.
Not only a law graduate and one of the first female lawyers in Queensland, [...]

The Elephant in the room

So, we’ve kinda got this big fat animal in the room and nobody has really had the courage to speak up about the fact that it’s there, because hey, we like to think we can ignore elephants and they can just go away.
But it won’t go away. We like to talk about our support of [...]

The Standard is Naming and Shaming

Every once in a while, those of us concerned with feminism (or just women in politics in general) have to stand up for what we believe in, and call attention to shameful comments about women. The guys over at The Standard have done some excellent naming and shaming, causing the offender, a long-time blogger, to [...]

Better a quitter or a loser?

The Dominion Post is catching up with news from America. Specifically, the controversy over Hillary’s comments to her aides that she’s not going to give in just because the big boys are applying pressure. Personally speaking, I have no issue with the comment- look what people are asking her daughter, for instance, and you’ll see [...]