by cameron | Mar 20, 2007 | freedom of speech
Scenario: A student stands out the front of a high school with a banner reading “Bong Hits 4 Jesusâ€.
Question: Should he be allowed to? Can the school expel him on the grounds that his message is “pro-drug”? Or is that a violation of his freedom of speech? Can the student sue the Principal of the school for violating his free speech?
This is a real case going on in Alaska at the moment. Education Week has great coverage here. The U.S. Supreme Court is hearing the case and the justices are split.
For my money, this should be clear-cut – this is about speech, not drugs. Our public institutions, such as schools, may have anti-drug policies, but TALKING about drugs isn’t DOING drugs. It’s back to my argument about Nitschke. Our freedom to talk about subjects, as offensive as those subjects might be considered by certain members of society, is fundamental to a free society. As soon as we relax our stance on this issue, we’re on a slippery slope.
Your thoughts?
by cameron | Mar 20, 2007 | Melbourne, Podcast, Uncategorized
Big shout outs tonight to my old buddy Shane Williamson for chucking some cash into the Shave thing. Thanks mate. Oh and thanks Jesus. Shane recently sold a copy of the infamous Microsoft Bob on ebay for the princely sum of $15.50. I’ve often thought about when the time will be right for me to auction off some of my Microsoft memorabilia so as to maximize the return on my investment. When they are finally acquired by Google perhaps?
Another big shout out to my homies from Tassie – Bruce “The” Moyle and Q-Dog – from the Cool Shite crew. They were in Melbourne today for some event and we caught up for a quick bite afterwards. Always good to geek out with Bruce about movies and TV and as this was the first time I’ve met Q-Dog in person I was surprised to learn he isn’t gay after all. They have a real score on their show this week – an interview with Edgar Wright director of HOT FUZZ, the new Simon Pegg – Nick Frost comedy (the guys behind SHAUN OF THE DEAD). When I asked how they managed to get Edgar on the show they cockily informed me that HE contacted THEM. Bastards. Complete bastards.
by cameron | Mar 19, 2007 | Podcast
Tonight in the Bitchcast, I’m joined by Jodie Miners and Tony Goodson. We bitched about a bunch of things, including (but not limited to):
Why HP don’t have Windows Vista drivers for the HP Photosmart 7150
How hard it is to move your iTunes library from your old PC to your new PC
Why Office 2007 is so goddamn slow, why they took out Clippy, and how much productivity LOSS the you-beaut ribbon is causing
Vista is nice and pretty and seems to work okay, but where did Microsoft’s 5 years of R&D go?
And why doesn’t Google Desktop seem to work properly in Vista?
“The Departed” is a good enough film but should Martin Scorsese really get a “Best Director” statue for making a carbon-copy film? (and then screwing up the last scene??)
Why wasn’t TalkShoe showing this podcast as being “live” while we were recording it? Why were people who came 15 – 30 minutes late not able to see the show or dial into it? What’s up with that?
Finally, we each suggest some great podcasts to listen to and blogs to read.
By the way, I apologise for my mic being up too loud at the beginning and blame it on the new PC. My set-up isn’t exactly right. Also – when I went to edit this show I discovered that 1Mb RAM isn’t enough! Not even with the Dual Core. The whole machine froze to halt.
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The G’Day World Theme Song is “Save Me†by The Napoleon Blown Aparts.
My Podcast Alley feed! {pca-e11eba2a10f7d5387ed9368086fe3a37}
by cameron | Mar 18, 2007 | Podcast, TPN
My co-host, the right honourable J. David Markham, did an interview recently with a journalist from USA TODAY and as a result our little show got a small mention in a bigger article about podcasting. Of course, they named the show incorrectly and didn’t link to it in the online article, but it’s still nice of them.
Here’s an online copy of the article.
by cameron | Mar 18, 2007 | Uncategorized
Hunter was mucking about with the camera this arvo and took some photos of the new head. Thanks to Christophe and Michael who have contributed post-shave to the donation site. It’s now up to $460!
The new head is growing on me (no pun intended). Belinda hates it and says I look like a thug. The kids love it though and can’t stop running their hands over it. I’ve taken to purring like a kitty every time they do it.
