However, a couple of other things caught my eye:

(1) Bennett (Solicitor for the Commonwealth) is getting into dangerous territory: Caught between being a Jew-hater and an apologist for genocide!

“If the Canaanite cities had had a federation with section 51(vi) in it there is little doubt that it could have been invoked against the children of Israel”.

But seriously folks….

(2) What I found interesting was Bennet’ts bit about not really needing a control order “if the terrorist act is one which is likely only to cause damage to property and not a substantial amount of property”.

OK, so digging a trend across all the main roads into a CBD (or an industry park) at 3 in the morning (leaving flashing lights on so no-one accidentally drives their car into the ditch and gets hurt, taking care not to cut water, gas or phone lines and ideally leaving enough room for an ambulance to get through), causing no deaths and only minimal damage to property, is an act that does not warrant a control order. So, according to the definition of terrorist act in section 100.1, not endangering life (and thus in subsection 3), digging up all the roads is not a terrorist act. But I bet if someone were to do it, the executive would be calling it a terrorist act as soon as a microphone was shoved in their faces.

(3) Oh, and we also get the commonwealth (through it’s solicitor) being against Jesus:
GLEESON CJ: Was whipping the moneychangers in the temple an act of terrorism?
MR BENNETT: Your Honour, it might depend on a number of matters.
OK, so the government solicitor is likening Jihad Jack to Jesus, or saying that Jesus SHOULD have been executed by the Romans as a terrorist. What will the Howard-loving Christians think!

you do not use the police traditionally for fighting asteroids

That’s a great line from Kirby!

But that’s just me. Katz would no doubt bring a legal challenge to the employment of military force, and turn to the Victorian police instead.

Don’t be silly, Paulus.

Of course the military with their hardware and expertise would be the ideal asteroid zappers.

And as long as Parliament gives consent, as far as Gummow and I are concerned, they can zap to their hearts’ content.

It’s not the performance of these functions that disturbed Gummow, it was the rhetorical legitimation of untrammelled executive control of these functions that sent a French-Revolution-inspired shiver down his spine.

And in any case, why shouldn’t a citizen have a right to bring a legal challenge to the exercise of any executive function? Doesn’t the legal system exist to serve as a check on executive tyranny?

now wants his fur rubbed up the wrong way

Did Tiddles have a word in your shell-like?

Nabs, we’re drinking BruichLaddich on the Derrideans of Death thread!

http://larvatusprodeo.net/2007/02/15/the-war-on-the-punditariat/#comment-349162

Get your bum over there, dude.

For “susage” read “hostage”.

That was gonna be my next point, you thieving bastard.

“why do people keep calling Obs weird?”

It probably started about the time he quoted Wilheim Reich as an authoritive source on the universal pyschology of the completely mixed bag of fruits, nuts and liquorice allsorts that hang about this site.

Or was it when he started getting all Santorum, lecturing everyone that gay marriage was a slippery slope to violating his cat Tiddles and then snakes? Lots of snakes.

Or perhaps when his every second comment started included a link to a completely OT News Corp article?

Or wait, was it when he started imparting the folk wisdom of the “smoko room”, again often utterly OT?

But yeah as Kim said, Zoe started it. It’s all her fault the witchy bitch.

Look I’m sure obby’s a perfectly decent old buffer in real life. It’s just he has a major problem with online life, especially with all those smart cheeky chicks effortlessly patronising him. Though I suspect he secretly enjoys the attention. He certainly seems like someone who has bored shitless everyone in his corporeal life and now wants his fur rubbed up the wrong way by strangers while trying to pretend he doesn’t like it. I used to think such behaviour was pathetic until I started getting older too.

As for Birdy, oh yes he is certainly sui generis but not really in the way he thinks he is.