Its been one of those evenings - pedantically playing with the code behind this site to make it prettier. Much better now, I think.

I have a piece in today’s Australian on what Maxine McKew’s candidancy means for the ABC.

In the AFR today (print only, or AFR Access) outgoing director of the Office of Film and Literature Classification Des Clark says censorship and classification are on their way out:

It seems to me that if you have this global stuff where you’re not able to harness it, what comes into play - for instance with online gaming - is that you have protocols established by users… it’s not something that government is necessarily able to regulate.

Or protocols established by industry. Adam Thierer, in a review of This Film Is Not Yet Rated notes that the much criticised MPAA rating system in the US is a voluntary system managed by industry, rather than by government.

Furthermore, Thierer also links to many other organisations that privately rate films according to different criteria. There is little reason to suggest that Australians could not take advantage of the MPAA’s sytem, the private ratings systems, and even develop our own.

The Financial Times reports that the EU plans to export their regulatory system to the rest of the world:

[The single market] gives the EU the potential to shape global norms and to ensure that fair rules are applied to worldwide trade and investment. The single market of the future should be the launch pad of an ambitious global agenda.

And in a very, very honest acknowledgement of their own self-interest, the European Commission notes that exporting their own regulatory burden to the rest of the world will “work to the advantage of those already geared up to meet these standards.”

It’s nice when everybody is so transparent.

All the cars from Tintin.

The EU is complaining that low Swiss taxes is in violation of free trade. What is notable is the nature of Brussels’ complaint: Swiss taxes, amongst other things, ‘distort competition’.

This conception of competition is typical of the modern regulatory state, which agrees, now that the welfare state has gone out of favour, that competition is beneficial to an economy. But too much competition is harmful, or competition which results in a competitive outcome is harmful, or competition which dislodges entrenched interests is harmful, or competition which is out of the control of the central authorities is harmful, and so on.

Competition in a regulatory state is a fragile being, requiring the love and affection that only a central bureaucratic regulator can provide.

Is Howard attacking Obama because he doesn’t think Obama will win, or because he doesn’t think he himself will win?

Not many in the Liberal Party are that optimisitic about Howard’s chances, and many free marketeers - those that have Liberal allegiences - aren’t sure that they want the Liberals to win. Is this Howard’s first pitch for a regular column in The Australian?

On Sunday I had another in my series of ‘very important issues facing Australia in the 21st century’ in The Age - this time it was the Mexican wave ban. (Previously, I deliberated on the important issue of dobbing)

The prostitution industry will be disappointed that the Melbourne city council no longer procures their services. Two notes of blatant self-interest: a) the Australian Adult Entertainment Association worried about competition from illegal brothels and b) council workers worried that the demise of their prostitution operatives will result an explosion of illegal brothels.