Let them eat cake

February 7, 2013

From James Paterson

You’ve probably already heard the federal government wants to ban blowing out birthday candles in childcare centres. But you probably haven’t read Health Minister Tanya Plibersek’s truly bizarre press conference defending the decision. Read her answers to journalists’ questions if you want to know why freedom is under assault in Australia.

But here’s a big win for freedom: the Icelandic girl we told you about last week who sued the government to use her name has won her case. And if you thought a student being arrested for drawing in his notebook was mad (as we also told you last week), how about suspending a 7 year old for throwing an “imaginary grenade“.

Meanwhile, this is a great list of the world’s weirdest laws in The Telegraph (the government’s cake law didn’t make the list).

If you want to know why the IPA wants to abolish the Australian Human Rights Commission, here’s exhibit A, B and C:

According to the AHRC, these are the four biggest “human rights” issues in the federal election (notice anything missing?)
They have an extremely warped view of what “freedom” means
They only selectively defend the human rights they like

The best thing about the Super Bowl is the ads. Here’s a great round-up of the funniest ones this year. But do any beat the all-time funniest from 2003? We report. You decide.

Two excellent long reads this week. Mises Daily on why South Park is a great libertarian TV series and Nick Cohen in the December edition of Standpoint on how the media deserted a young female pop star targeted by radical Islam.

On Wednesday 20 February Connor Court Publishing and the LDP will host a discussion with Chris Berg in Melbourne about the IPA’s 100 Great Books of Liberty, now available in paperback. More details here.

Here’s what else the IPA said this week: