Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Anders Behring Breivik is evil, not insane






Monday, November 28, 2011

Is Walkley winner Julian Assange a true journalist?






Drunk Fremantle burglar calls cops out of guilt

The "dumb criminals" genre is popular across all media. There are plenty of amusing examples to satisfy its fans. And here's a local lawbreaker who fits into that category, but who also has an intriguingly strong moral conscience.

See, this young Fremantle bloke got drunk, then broke into a nearby house and stole a laptop. Stricken with guilt he then called the plods, told them what he had done and asked them to come and pick him up!

So not only did the plonk, or whatever he was skolling, bring out his true criminality, it also made him want to 'fess up; to tell the truth.

In vino veritas indeed.

Wednesday, November 23, 2011

Friends of Monash Bushland outraged over nothing

Sometimes greenies are so desperate to be offended it's just incredible. Take the Friends of Monash Bushland group. They've been arcing up about the clearing of trees for a temporary car park right next to Charles Gairdner Hospital. As The West Australian reports:

They say the bush provided and important ecological linkage between Kings Park and other bush belts in the area, as well as being home to the endangered black cockatoo.

The spokeswoman said the block was also had "important healing value" for patients of the hospital.

If you have a squizz at the area in question on Google Earth, you'll see it's a tiny block of bush that's already surrounded by massive hospital buildings. And the suburb of Nedlands is on the other side of Monash Avenue. The area is heavily built up for miles around. So this argument that it's a crucial part of some chain of vegetation going west is just silly.

That said, perhaps a hundred metres from the block in question is a huge expanse of bushland called Kings Park. Hell, it's not like there's a lack of trees in close proximity to the hospital. So if any black cockatoos have been living in the ones being cleared they don't have far to fly to find a whole lot more.

Similarly, the loss of any supposed "healing effect" that the tiny area promotes would be counteracted by the presence of all those trees in Kings Park, surely. Even according to their own nutty, er, reasoning the outraged reaction of these activists seems way over the top.

Anyway, if applied consistently it would mean the very houses they're living in are a scourge upon the natural environment. So they should demolish them and sod off, shouldn't they?

Saturday, November 5, 2011

Comment trolls should be laughed at, not unmasked

Nasty anonymous commenters can be annoying (although usually they're just sad). And I think they lack cohones for not using their own names. But this push by Labor MP Andrew Waddell to demand that they publicly identify themselves strikes me as petty and pointless. It's also pretty authoritarian.

By writing their puerile and vindictive comments all they do is reveal their own sad emotional state. Sure, the fact that there are so many people like this out there is a bit of a worry. It's a phenomenon that needs to be studied, if anything. So we shouldn't outlaw the evidence.

And if people get upset by troll comments they should just learn to shrug them off. These people have nothing worthwhile to add, so why be bothered by their hatred? That old schoolyard saying about "sticks and stones" is certainly worth remembering here.