Right to peaceful protest - upheld

A major part of the NSW government's special WYD laws that had many in the local blogging community up in arms has been overturned.

Two activists have taken the state government to the Federal court over the recently passed World Youth Day laws. Their argument that the laws were unconstiutional because they made peaceful protest illegal was upheld, in part because the definition of "annoy" was potentially too broad.

(Their other claim - that banning the unauthorised sale of items such as stickers, badges and T-shirts, was unconstitutional - was not upheld.)

Manufacturing dissent

Another WYD post.

I agree strongly with Ninglun's point - by so casually tossing aside our freedom to make simple protests, the NSW government has created a much bigger desire to protest.

As it was, there would have been some minor level of at worst moderately disruptive protest (for which there are already sufficient laws for police and officials to rely on), but most people that are irritated by the inconvenience, the gifting of large amounts of supposedly secular government money to support a religious event, the ridiculous attention given to that ludicrous entity the Catholic Church and the equally ludicrous Pope Dorothy* would not have been annoyed enough to even think about actually getting out and protesting.

Now a lot of people are damn annoyed. Result: protests.

Either the government is stupid, or it's a deliberate Bushification tactic. Either way, this is one unhappy puppy.


*(think about it - ruby slippers, visiting the land of Oz - what else am I going to call him? Expect Pope Dorothy in Oz comics if I can get time to do some.)

Nobility must be earned

A random post.

Annoyance #99:
My state government has a "don't offend the Catholics" law in place. I have to fork over *lots* of my hard earned cash (via the government) to support the stupidly-named World Youth Day (a lovely little convention where altar boys from all over the world can compare their sodomization stories), and I can't even wear a FUCK THE POPE T-shirt?

Well, fuck the pope and this government.

Next election, if I have to vote for those fetid arsewipe Libs in order to get rid of this lot, I will; of course, I'd vote against them next time around - maybe giving the current mob a few years in opposition will do some good. This mob has been in too long, and the Liberals don't stink quite so much just now. It would make me puke just to vote for them, but if I'm going to puke either way, it might as well be in the service of getting some new blood into the government.

Who knows, maybe the Libascists can get the trains running on time.


[Aside added in later edit]: More on WYD over at The Thinkers Podium.

Maybe I need a T-shirt like this.

Something like this - the second part shows what it would look like if I put a bit of tape over the middle, rather than folding it. It's a bit subtler, I think:


Now, to be really subtle, just have the first line and cover the bottom half. If they read something into that, well, that's their own evil mind, innit?


More T-shirts at Five Public Opinions
[end of edit]




On an almost completely unrelated matter, PZed said:

We are not princes of the earth, we are the descendants of worms, and any nobility must be earned.

I'd like to put that on a t-shirt. Except the pope would be offended and I'll be out $5500 and get strip-searched.