Abdominal interference

Victorian health minister Bronwyn Pike has seen reason and backed away from plans to impose a 48 hour waiting time for women wanting late term abortions. Her support for the move resulted in a heavy backlash from other Labor Party MPs. But of course, the bill was still a good move and didn't involve the erosion of reproductive rights for no good reason.

"Ms Pike's spokesman Ben Hart said the minister was disappointed that some people had characterised her original intention as "interfering" with a woman's right to choose to have a late-term abortion."

Of course, she wasn't interfering, what were we thinking? Making someone wait two days before they can do something they can currently do in a couple of hours hardly constitutes "interference."

Every 15 minutes

A police report today indicates that a child is abused every 15 minutes nationally with 33,000 incidents reported to police, almost half of which were in New South Wales with an abuse estimated to be carried out every 35 minutes. Coupled with a rise of 5% annually over the past five years, the NSW police have acted to combat the disturbing statistics.

The police have called a three-day National Policing Forum to, with the help of members of the FBI, plan effective national guidelines and strategies for dealing with child abuse. The strategy is likely to be directed at homes, where 72% of the assaults take place, 35% at the hands of the child's parents.

It is likely this rise is a result of increased awareness and reporting of the problem, rather than an actual substantial increase in the number of incidents. Nevertheless it is obviously a serious problem that needs to be addressed, and this is a step in the right direction.

More oil for palaces

Midway Trading, a US oil trading firm, has pleaded guilty to paying $400k in bribes to Iraqi officials to secure oil deals in the oil-for-food program. They will pay a $250k fine. It's likely they will not be the last either.

Locked up for the common cold

As the ever-present threat of bird flu provides a convenient distraction for the public from other important political issues, the government today revealed it would detain airline passengers into Australia for up to six days should the threat escalate any further. This comes after seven pidgeons imported from Canada were destroyed after testing positive for bird flu related antibodies and further shipments banned.

I don't plan on being hold up in a Kingsford-Smith airport hangar bay with up to 499 other people just because someone on my flight has a cold, but that's what it may come to if the government's drastic plan is implemented. Hopefully this will have all blown over by the time I return on 6th March.

Howard has again appealed to the public to stay calm and not panic. Don't worry, it's just an oncoming pandemic, nothing to worry about. Of course, this nothing but encourage the people to worry even more - has no one worked this out yet? Perhaps that's the point, keep the public fearful about bird flu, flood the media and avoid difficult questions about IR, anti-terrorism laws and that woman we sent to the Philippines (what was here name again?).

Oh no, John, save us from the bird flu by passing anti-terrorism laws which are largely useless at preventing terrorism, let alone bird flu, and we won't worry about our pay and conditions being nuked by cost-cutting employers gladly calling the hotline asking how they can further exploit their workers. Just don't let the Bad Birds in!

At least we don't have 600 empty prison camps awaiting a martial law declaration.

Satire is the right word

Why is it always the lawyers who make the biggest fools of themselves? American anti-videogame crusader Jack Thompson has made blunder after blunder in recent weeks in the pursuit of his cause, progressively making himself look more and more like a raving religious-right ideologue and alienating his allies.

Jack's line is essentially that violent videogames cause young people to commit murder and mayhem, and should therefore be banned or heavily regulated. There's something to be said for ensuring younger teens are prevented from playing games with adult content, at least without parental consent, but Thompson's obnoxious, hardline position and tactics are very much beyond the pale. He once compared Electronic Software Alliance president Doug Lowenstein to Adolf Hitler.

The most recent row began last Monday with Thompson issuing a "modest proposal" to the game industry, in particular Take Two and Rockstar Games who make the infamous Grand Theft Auto and upcoming title Bully, to create a game featuring a vengeful parent whose child has been murdered by a gamer. The character goes on a nation-wide rampage, killing everyone from gaming industry figures to Walmart cashiers. Thompson said he would donate $10k to charity if the game was made.

This was probably the last straw for the National Institute on Media and the Family founder David Walsh, who shares concerns about child gamers, but in a much less militant fashion. Walsh wrote to Thompson saying the organisation has "a growing concern that your use of our name, without our permission, has had a negative influence as we try to educate the public," and that Thompson's "commentary has included extreme hyperbole and your tactics have included personally attacking individuals for whom I have a great deal of respect." He then requested that Thompson cease using their name and remove the link to their website from him, effectively disassociating Jack Thompson from NIMF.

Thompson then hit back with a two letter reply to David Walsh, and accused him of distancing NIMF from him for financial reasons:

"...Dave Walsh, who takes money from video game retailers, Target and Best Buy, and doesn't disclose that on his website?"

"Dr. Walsh's efforts are funded by Target and by a foundation run by Best Buy lawyer and Best Buy Director Elliot Kaplan. I am suing Target and Best Buy over the Bully game, which both Target and Best Buy are pre-selling. You connect the dots."

Thompson also sent a letter to Senator Joe Liberman, who was CCed on Walsh's letter, slandering Walsh.

In the meantime, artists from the popular webcomic Penny Arcade sent an email the Thompson regarding his proposal:

"10 grand is pretty weak man. Through our charity http://www.childsplaycharity.org/ gamers have given over half a million dollars in toys and cash to children's hospitals all over the country."

Included in the email signature was the phone number of Mike Krahulik, one of the Penny Arcade duo, which Thompson promptly called twice to abuse him. Mike managed to get off a pertinent question during the one-sided exchange: "If a company made his reprehensible game, he would literally have to sue himself and talk about what a bastard he was on national television?" The question went unanswered.

Four groups of gamers made hasty attempts at constructing a game to fulfill Thompson's challenge, including a text adventure by the Old Grandma Hardcore blog. Also, unknown to Thompson, a group of GTA modders know as the "Fighting Hellfish" had made a mod remarkably similar to Thompson's proposal a week earlier, only with Thompson himself carrying out the carnage.

Thompson declared the result insufficient and refused to hand over the money to charity, saying his proposal was merely "satire" intended to "highlight the patent hypocrisy and recklessness exhibited by the video game industry's willingness to target cops, women, homosexuals, and other groups with some of their violent games." Making himself look even more silly, he ended his response with:

"You all seem rather bothered and worried about a nonentity. God is in this battle, and I am privileged to be a foot soldier. You all should be concerned, not about me, but about Him."

As the community collectively rolled their eyes, Penny Arcade did something positive, donating the $10k themselves, in Jack's name, to The Entertainment Software Association Foundation, a fund which has raised $6.7 million in eight years.

Jack Thompson was not impressed, writing to Mike "This story is completely false and defamatory. Take it down or else." Mike responded with a fake auto response email. This succeeded in enraging Thompson further. You would think he would be through digging his own grave by now, but like all good lawyers gone a bit funny in the head he made some legal threats, namely sending a fax to the Seattle police department asking them to arrest Penny Arcade for their supposed "campaign of harassment."

Unfortunately for Jack, he sent the fax to everyone other than the police. He also misspelled the Penny Arcade url. Later, GameSpot was contacted by Thompson, saying the police now had the correct url and actually had the fax this time. GameSpot called the Seattle police, they still had not received the fax. Penny Arcade remained completely unworried the entire time.

On Tuesday night, Thompson appeared on CNN for 15 seconds of fame, speaking out against new game Blitz: The League. Afterwards he triumphantly posted on GamePolitics, telling gamers to "get a life."

It's pretty clear that Jack Thompson is not only extremely wrong in his opinions, but incompetent at publicising them. Perhaps the best take on the whole saga was from Mike Krahulik, pointing out that Thompson is not at all special, just the mouthpiece those concerned about the "corruption" of modern youth - the latest threat being videogames. He is just an actor playing his part. If he were to be shut down, and he could be easily, someone else would just take over - and that someone might actually have a clue. So, Mike contends, perhaps the gaming community is lucky it has a muppet for its opposition.

The only satire here is the adventures of Jack Thompson.

Carpe jugulum

It's one thing to attempt to stop someone from speaking in parliament, but it's another to try it literally - as NSW Roads Minister Joe Tripodi discovered today when he was throttled by National Party MP Andrew Fraser. The minister was giving a speech on the Pacific Highway upgrade in the Lower House, and made a remark about Mr Fraser not being in his electorate of Coffs Harbour last time Tripodi had visited. Upon hearing this, Fraser threatened to throw a glass of water on Tripodi, then jumped to his feet and grabbed his throat. It took six members to separate the two and throw Fraser out of the chamber.

There have been only a few similar incidents on the floor of parliament in the last few years, one of which involved Andrew Bartlett, which we won't return to. Somehow I think Andrew Fraser's actions are a bit more serious than Bartlett's arm-grabbing, and warrant more than just the simple apology he has given.

Such behaviour is obviously unacceptable from elected members of parliament and should be condemned, but calling for his head - which will inevitably occur, as in other cases - is excessive, though one would expect that Fraser will face some kind of internal party reprimand and then everyone can move on.

Come on guys, this isn't Taiwan.

Update: Fraser has been suspended from parliament for eight sitting days and has resigned from the front bench, though he will probably be reinstated once he has serves his suspension. He claims he was not drunk at the time, though he did have a glass of wine before the session. Tripodi seems to already be over it.

Elsewhere: Sam Butler discusses the dirty politics leading up to the event.

Terror in the detail

Now that ACT Chief Minister John Stanhope has done the nation a service by publicising the draft proposal for the new anti-terror laws, and the same draft has become avaliable to politicians around the country, the legislation looks to be in serious trouble, with a Liberal backbench revolt poised to water it down.

This is because all the ideological hackery and vague press releases have been proven, as one might expect, to be quite different to the actual bill - showing itself to be a largely useless and over-reaching raft of new laws that will do little to actually prevent terrorism, and are so badly written they are open to misuse.

This is of course what people feared, and now that the public has been provided with the details to constructively discuss the legislation, a public backlash is quite possible. I'll return to this when I have a bit more time.