Some interesting statistics from this Newsweek article:

91% of Americans believe in God
82% identify themselves as Christian
48% reject the theory of evolution
34% of university graduates accept the Biblical account of creation as fact
73% of Evangelical Protestants believe that God created humans in their present form within the last 10,000 years
3% identify as atheist
62% said they would not vote for an atheist candidate (78% for Republicans and 60% for Democrats)
26% said that atheists could not be moral

Well, looks like I’m immoral then.

From The Australian, Kevin Rudd has been overseeing some major policy shifts in the Australian Labor Party. Specifically, his proposals include opposing passive welfare, supporting the sale of Telstra, promoting free trade agreements, and ’embracing the casualisation of the workforce’ whatever that means. The Australian is anticipating a showdown between Rudd and Labor’s left wing factions over this change in policy direction. This is absolutely delightful for several reasons. First, the ALP is finally adopting more modern and mainstream policies. Second, this sidelines the left wing factions, which is long overdue. Third, it puts the ALP in a position where, for the first time in a long while, they can directly compete with the coalition for some of their voter base. It will be interesting to see to what extent the ALP actually lives up to these spoken goals. Now, if only the ALP would embrace Australian Workplace Agreements they’d have my vote for sure.

From the Spiegel, a German judge has effectively ruled that it was okay for a man to repeatedly beat his wife and threaten her with death. Why? Becasue they were both Muslims of Moroccan descent. As such, the case must be seen in the context of their religious and cultural background. The judge even quoted a passage from the Koran in defense of the husband’s actions. Last year Scott Aaronson and Dave Bacon coined a word to describe this:

circumpolitical: So far to one end of the political spectrum that one is actually on the other end.

“Professor Zimmerman mounted a circumpolitical defense of hereditary dictatorship, female genital mutilation, and the dragging of murdered homosexuals through the streets, arguing that we have no right to condemn these indigenous practices of non-Western peoples.”

How on Earth can a judge morally justify this position? If you’re an immigrant living in Germany, you live by German law. You can’t bring your own laws with you. The same applies to every other country. When Shapelle Corby got busted for drug smuggling in Bali, could she use the defense that in her country it was socially acceptable to smoke pot? Some people need their heads screwed on. It appears that this circumpolitical judge is one of them.

Update: The judge in question has now been removed from the case following a nationwide outcry in Germany.

Here’s a fresh one. According to a US congressman Australia has an interest in nuclear weapons and is a part of the nuclear threat against the US.

As part of John Howard’s recent cabinet reshuffle that cost Amanda Vanstone her job, Malcolm Turnbull has been promoted to Minister for Environment and Water. This is fantastic news for the cabinet. Under a govenment that has turned it’s back on liberal principles and instead embraced large scale middle-class welfare and high taxation, Turnbull has been almost a lone voice in pressuring for major tax and welfare reforms. I hope his place in cabinet brings with it considerable influence to reverse this trend. Australia’s current love affair with middle-class welfare is nothing other than a disgrace. The labour maket is suffering and becoming uncompetitive, incentive to earn is being completely undermined, and the costs are becoming increasingly unsustainable. Malcolm, save us from the hands of socialism disguised as liberalism.

Hate the tax system? Try this one on for size. From the SMH, “Iraq kickbacks tax deductible”

A tax office investigation has found the $390 million AWB funnelled to Saddam Hussein’s regime were not bribes and could rightly be claimed as tax deductions.

Good work.

It appears that Bush has been dealt a coup d’etat, with the Dems winning not one but both houses (Senate 51-49, House 229-196), not to mention a majority of Govenors and the (effectively forced) resignation of Rumsfeld. Ouch!

Awwww, poor Bushy.

It will be interesting to see what the Dems do with their newfound power. Hopefully opening up lots of investigations into things that were previously suppressed: political corruption (a la Abramoff), corruption in handing out government contracts (a la KBR/Halliburton), voter manipulation (see previous post), mishandling of the Iraq war etc. etc. etc.

We’ve all heard of dirty campaigning. But nothing I’ve ever heard comes close to this (via the following sites [1, 2, 3, 4]). Apparently the Republicans have been engaging in misleading robo-calling – mass automated phone calling – in an attempt to undermine the Democrats. In principle this doesn’t sound any worse than e-mail spamming – annoying, irritating, but ultimately quite benign. However, the GOP are going all out this time round. Here are some of the tactics they’ve been using:

• Strategically calling voters who are demographically likely to vote Democrat, posing as the electoral commission and providing them with false information on voting times so they miss voting.
• Doing the same as above but providing false information on how to vote so their vote is rendered invalid.
• Doing the same as above and advising the person that on grounds of some legality they are ineligible to vote and if they turn up to vote they will be criminally charged.
• Calling and pretending to be a representative of the Democratic candidate many times over and at inappropriate times like the middle of the night, so as to disgruntle the voter and turn them away from the Democratic nominee. Apparently the Democrat headquarters have received numerous complaints, demanding that they stop calling.

Here’s a video allegedly showing one such recording. No confirmation whether this one is authentic, but it’s certainly consistent with the articles from above.
Here’s another one on dirty campaign advertising.

In good news, the Democrats have taken the House in a landslide! Smoke that.