Wondered why the heavier cruisers didnt have multiple laser turrets, and smaller turrets to shoot smaller craft.
They do, sort of. Next Gen ships have omnidirectional phaser arrays capable of firing multiple beams coupled with sensors that can maintain a lock on multiple targets (DS9 had a scene in Sacrifice of Angels, IIRC, which showed a Galaxy-class ship firing two beams simultaneously from its forward ventral array at a Cardassian cruiser, pounding the s@#% out of it). The trouble is that this would make Federation ships far too kick-arse to use combat for dramatic tension in the plot, so the writers have to either: (a) have the crew do stupid things or under-utilize the capabilities their ships have; or (b) have systems perform unpredictably according to the needs of the plot (shields are the worst offenders as regards reliability, closely followed by the warp core and, of course, bridge control panels).
True enough, but what's odd is that the defendant bar owners settled when they were in such a strong position (on the facts as described in the great grandparent post). Perhaps there is some procedural defect in the local legal system that got in the way (i.e. not being awarded costs on successfully defending the action)?
Oh, and I was a little hasty and reckless when posting before. Victoria Park v Taylor was an action brought in private nuisance, not trespass. The plaintiffs tried arguing that the defendant's actions in erecting a platform from which to watch and broadcast commentary on the races somehow interfered with the plaintiff's right to exclusively use and enjoy the land, viz. by running horse races to make a profit through ticket revenue, registration fees, etc. The court said no: the interference element of nuisance must be actual physical interference by means of noise, light, pollution, etc. Many apologies.
Um, no. The article you link to refers to a separate story by a different author (although admittedly from the same newspaper) covering this year's figures only. The piece linked to by this story is an opinion piece looking at this year's figures as well as the general trend since 1998. I suppose, in this day and age, that it's too much to expect people posting about potential dupes to R both TFAs in question.
That's very odd, there was a case in Australia in the 1930s with very similar facts that went the opposite way: see Victoria Park Racing and Recreation Grounds Company Ltd v Taylor (1937) 58 CLR 479. Considering that actual presence on or interference with the plaintiff's property is one of the elements of trespass, the idea that you could be sued for merely watching what's happening on somebody else's land is very strange indeed.
If you've ever seen one of the ear thermometers, it's not a hulking box, and you don't need to hook them up to it. You just stick it in their ear, push a button, and beep! there's their temperature on the readout.
True, but not all instruments are like that and doctors often have to do a whole battery of tests to work out what's wrong with a given patient, in which case (as I said) the time cost of all those tests, even if they are quick and simple, adds up. Also note that a remote sensor would greatly facilitate automatic data collection, relieving nursing staff of the need to go around checking the vitals and other relevant data of every patient on the ward every $x hours.
If the Kiwis can get this so right, WTF can't the Oz govmnt? Who bought them out, and for how much?
They aren't...at least, not really. One copy only for personal use is pretty restrictive. The article referred to is pretty sketchy, but it seems that a number of details haven't been considered. What happens if the one copy you're allowed to make is damaged or destroyed? Why shouldn't you be allowed to make as many copies as you like for personal use (one copy for the car, one purely for backup, one for a compilation CD you use at parties, whatever).
The legislation seems to be a political crock wherein the government can claim to be on the public's side against the big, bad record companies while not gaining much for the public at all. It wouldn't surprise me if the reaction of the industry in the article wasn't just a bit of theatre pre-arranged between themselves and the government.
You are not properly constructing the "right" as it is described. The NZ government is considering creating an exemption to the copyright regime such that it is not an infringement of copyright to format-shift for personal use. In other words, you do not gain a "right" enforceable against the record companies, they lose their right to insist that you not format-shift, and you gain a corresponding liberty to do so according to your own desires.
To offer an analogy: the fair use exemption that allows copying for educational purposes would, according to your reasoning, confer a right on the public to demand that the record companies provide educational material and services related to the works in respect of which they own the copyright.
AFAIK the inertial damping system (IDS) is a lot like the artificial gravity generators in that the crew still has to be accelerated with the ship, it's just that gravity-assisted freefall is a lot better for you than pressure applied to only one part of the body.
Remember, acceleration due to gravity does not of itself cause any physical sensation, it's the reaction force from the ground that does that. Just ask anyone who's been in orbit.
Yes: you don't have to waste time doing a lot of simple tests whose time cost adds up or hooking up a (possibly convulsing) patient using wires to a hulking box in the corner when you can just look at a panel to get a wealth of data. Very handy in an emergency.
No it isn't. Snail mail sends the important sub-textual message that not only does the writer care enough to write about this issue, s/he cares enough to print out a hard copy, put it in an envelope, and fork over 48c for postage. Handwritten material gets extra credit here.
Getting thousands to sign an online petition or send a form e-mail is easy, getting thousands to send in handwritten letters is hard, and requires genuine grass-roots depth of feeling.
Just out of interest, have you ever tried to solve any problems that were not inherently recursive (e.g. traversing a tree) using a functional language?
I assume you've coded a lot of solutions that use iteration, yes? Iteration and recursion are the same thing, looked at from a different point of view.
Take the canonical example of finding the factorial of n. In an imperative language you would just use a for loop and an integer counter. Recursiverly, you would just say something like this (using Haskell):
fact 0 = 1 fact n = n * fact (n - 1)
In general, any problem that can be reasoned about using mathematical induction is susceptible to solution both by iteration and recursion.
I hate to quibble, but to judge the quality of the info by judging the quality of the source (i.e. you) I have to ask what you're doing filling out a return if you're a wage-earner with no deductions, etc. Do you have an alternate source of income or something?
Just a friendly inquiry, not a flame.
If anything should be deterministic it's the tax code. The refund/liability amount should be perfect to the last penny, in all but the most complex returns.
Sorry, but while the tax system has to deal with fuzzy real-world concepts like income and the definition of an antique it's always going to be a bit non-deterministic. Hence the system of ATO rulings (both public and private ).
Re:Old news - they handled my brother
on
Space Burial
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· Score: 1
Judging from your nick, you obviously don't intend for them to be handling you anytime soon.:)
You should also take into account the local take-up of broadband. Other posters have pointed out that most homes have their own 'net connection, thus obviating the need for cafes, but an Internet cafe with a fat pipe offers considerable advantages over a home dial-up connection. Australian take-up of broadband is still pretty poor, so maybe this is a contributing factor.
my girlfriend and I are moving to Canada where, while far from settled, the issue of gay couples is being taken seriously.:)
You could always consider Tasmania, which now allows for registration of same-sex de factos. Slightly less chilly, and slightly further away from a certain fundamentalist Christian with a burning desire to "preserve the sanctity of marriage" and the launch codes to 60,000 odd tac nukes. Or you could try sunny Queensland (my home state) where same-sex de factos now have the same rights as other de facto couples. Not all family matters are under the control of the Commonwealth (or the "moral majority" for that matter).
Please don't interpret my remarks as explicit support for this line of reasoning (hence the "Make of this argument what you will" line rather then a "This is the One True Policy Approach to same-sex unions" line). My personal opinion is that there has to be a serious re-appraisal of the purpose of family law before we can properly make a judgment on whether to afford formal legal recognition to gay unions.
That all depends on your basic ideas about the proper role of marriage. Most international human rights treaties enshrine both a right to marry and a right to raise a family, but there is some confusion over what this right actually entails. At one extreme, the "right" is simply a disability on the State interfering in personal matters, at the other, it is an obligation on the State to help facilitate personal relationships and protect the participants from the fallout when the relationship goes pear-shaped. It seems that the current thinking tends towards the latter view, especially given the proliferation of protections covering distribution of property now afforded to people in de facto relationships (which are a bit silly, if you ask me, given that the whole point of a de facto relationship is for the individual parties to maintain legal independence).
I'm a bit skeptical of the idea that people should be so readily able to drag the law into their personal affairs, but I also think that if you do look at this purely from a "public interest" perspective then the institution of marriage as it stands cannot be supported, and should be replaced with a regime that only allows protection to people who are raising a family or committed to starting one.
Re your remarks on Howard: on reflection you are probably right. After all, if Howard really was interested in raising the birth rate he would support publicly-funded paid maternity leave and other ideas that obviously Make Sense. It seems that he is simply adopting a public interest line with regard to gay marriage as a convenient cover.
The same thing can be seen in the recent amendments to the superannuation legislation. The Coalition refused to pass legislation that would allow the beneficiary of a super fund to direct that it should be given to a gay partner on the beneficiary's death. This was done apparently regardless of the fact that it's their money that they should be able to dispose of it as they wish, and that the Government used the "it's their money" line to justify the $4/week sandwich-and-milkshake tax cut!
No it won't. The Commonwealth Constitution has been held to imply certain doctrines, such as freedom of "political communication" (watered-down free speech), the rule of law, equality before the law (a bit iffy, this one; I think Leeth v Commonwealth has since been overruled), but these are very basic and aren't apparently contravened by a few nasty IP provisions.
Additionally the clear separation of powers between the branches of government has the effect of preventing Parliament from enacting ex post facto legislation or passing Bills of Attainder or Pains and Penalties, but whether it guarantees certain basic due process rights is still an open question.
I think you should go and have a talk to your lawyer friends about some of the misconceptions you have disclosed in your post. You got it right when you referred to the common law (i.e. the body of judge-made law that can trace its origins back to the Norman monarchs, and really got going when the Plantagenate Henry II established a uniform court structure to replace the local assemblies previously used by individual areas to dispense justice specific to that area) as common sense, but the common law is almost entirely subordinate to the will of Parliament, which, like Congress, has a reputation for doing all sorts of stupid things. The US is also a common law jurisdiction, but that hasn't stopped the DMCA yet as far as I am aware.
Your reference to the lack of specific legislation is simply reflective of the differences in legislative practice between Australia and the US. Australian Parliaments tend to make statements of general principle that the courts can interpret with a certain amount of flexibility, whereas US legislatures seem to be much more controlling, even to the extent of very specific (and often quite harsh) sentencing formulae.
The right to record TV broadcasts doesn't actually exist: it is most definitely illegal. The right to decompile is protected by legislation, not by common law. Go read the Copyright Act (avaiable at AustLII) for more info.
Finally, the article you linked to is by Sir Anthony Mason, Chief Justice of the High Court during the most progressive era of its existence. His words should therefore be treated with a certain amount of caution, especially given the more conservative, literalist makeup of today's Court.
Not really, it's more of a John Howard Loves George Bush kind of negotiation. Johnny wants to be in the club with Dubya and Tony. So he sent troops, maintains the US had intelligence on WMD, defends Bush and Blair
Sadly true./.ers must realize that Howard is the consummate politician, but that this is his only talent; he has no ability as a statesman or in any other capacity. He coasted into office on the back of uneasiness and dissatisfaction with the radical economic reforms of the Hawke/Keating Labor government, and happily reaped the long-term benefits of those reforms for his own advantage. His only major achievement is a broad-based indirect tax system that (due to political wheeling and dealing) looks a lot like the old narrow-based indirect tax system and is arguably more complex.
It's seriously questionable as to how much he realizes what a bad idea this is, given the potential for white-anting the multilateral trade framework (allowing the US to "divide and conquer", negotiating favourable terms with individual countries rather than compromising in a forum where there is a more equal distribution of influence) and the potentially disasterous consequences of present US fiscal policy (alluded to elsewhere by other posters).
talks tough on gay marriage ('survival of the species' he says... apparently if gays marry then hetero couples will somehow lose the ability to procreate)
Not really. The argument is that gay marriage should not be allowed because no public interest would thereby be served. Recognition of a legal marriage costs money, both in terms of registering or otherwise administering the formation of the marriage, and in court resources if and when the marriage breaks up, not to mention any tax advantages that may arise. Given that the State must allocate resources to these ends in order to 'legalize' gay unions, it has a legitimate interest in knowing what the payoff is. Howard's agument is that since gays cannot procreate (at least not in the economically efficient way Nature provided) there is no real payoff that would come from the expense.
Make of this argument what you will, but please don't set up strawmen.
Let's say you were looking after your dieing mother when they came to your home. If you were to deny them access on medical grounds because of the stress it would put on your mother, that would be acceptable and you would not be in contempt.
Probably, but just saying "I'm innocent, and I can PROVE IT!!!" just won't do.
Under our Westminster system, not the government, or even the courts can expunge our 'Common Law' rights.
Correct, if you're referring to the executive and judicial branches, but you're forgetting that, under our cherished Westminster system, the executive government usually owns Parliament, which can do what it damn well pleases. Up to and including revoking important bits of the common law or conferring statutory powers on courts to make all sorts of funny orders.
As you can see, you can if you so chose deny access, but you had better have a pretty good reason.
I'd rephrase that: you can deny access, but only if you want to go to prison until such time as you do allow access or the order is lifted. Contempt is contempt, regardless of your reasons for doing it. Much better to grant access, demonstrate the falsity of their allegations, then try and do the bastards for perjury for the false affidavits/testimony they would have provided to get the order.
No, it's a civil matter brought by private individuals (or, in this case, corporations) which means that the State and its agencies really have no business interfering or being dragged in. Think of it as the civil equivalent of a search warrant: in a criminal matter the State can do the search because the State is a party to the case.
It's not exactly ideal, the Anton Piller order and its cousin the Mareva injunction are sometimes referred to as the tactical nukes of the law, but there isn't another viable way to stop dishonest defendants from trashing evidence or the property you're trying to get back, and it's fairly tightly regulated.
If someone brings a frivolous action then they're likely to have costs awarded against them on an indemnity basis (as opposed to costs on a standard basis if they just lost without having been shown to have acted frivolously). Furthermore, a lawyer who assists in bringing a case s/he knows is baseless and is done for some ulterior purpose is likely to be forced to indemnify the client for costs, and may face disciplinary proceedings.
Both the crime and tort of barratry have, however, been abolished in most Australian jurisdictions.
I hate to burst your bubble, but Anton Piller orders aren't exactly new. They're available in any civil case (not just IP) whenever a party can show that search and seizure is necessary to "preserve the subject matter of proceedings", e.g. to prevent destruction of evidence. It's fairly tough to convince a court that you need one, and you'd better not be getting one frivolously, but given that Kazaa isn't pure as the driven snow I'm not surprised an order was granted.
Slashdot Mirror
Wondered why the heavier cruisers didnt have multiple laser turrets, and smaller turrets to shoot smaller craft.
They do, sort of. Next Gen ships have omnidirectional phaser arrays capable of firing multiple beams coupled with sensors that can maintain a lock on multiple targets (DS9 had a scene in Sacrifice of Angels, IIRC, which showed a Galaxy-class ship firing two beams simultaneously from its forward ventral array at a Cardassian cruiser, pounding the s@#% out of it). The trouble is that this would make Federation ships far too kick-arse to use combat for dramatic tension in the plot, so the writers have to either: (a) have the crew do stupid things or under-utilize the capabilities their ships have; or (b) have systems perform unpredictably according to the needs of the plot (shields are the worst offenders as regards reliability, closely followed by the warp core and, of course, bridge control panels).
True enough, but what's odd is that the defendant bar owners settled when they were in such a strong position (on the facts as described in the great grandparent post). Perhaps there is some procedural defect in the local legal system that got in the way (i.e. not being awarded costs on successfully defending the action)?
Oh, and I was a little hasty and reckless when posting before. Victoria Park v Taylor was an action brought in private nuisance, not trespass. The plaintiffs tried arguing that the defendant's actions in erecting a platform from which to watch and broadcast commentary on the races somehow interfered with the plaintiff's right to exclusively use and enjoy the land, viz. by running horse races to make a profit through ticket revenue, registration fees, etc. The court said no: the interference element of nuisance must be actual physical interference by means of noise, light, pollution, etc. Many apologies.
Um, no. The article you link to refers to a separate story by a different author (although admittedly from the same newspaper) covering this year's figures only. The piece linked to by this story is an opinion piece looking at this year's figures as well as the general trend since 1998. I suppose, in this day and age, that it's too much to expect people posting about potential dupes to R both TFAs in question.
That's very odd, there was a case in Australia in the 1930s with very similar facts that went the opposite way: see Victoria Park Racing and Recreation Grounds Company Ltd v Taylor (1937) 58 CLR 479. Considering that actual presence on or interference with the plaintiff's property is one of the elements of trespass, the idea that you could be sued for merely watching what's happening on somebody else's land is very strange indeed.
In Soviet Russia, new giant mutant chicken overlords welcome YOU!
True, but not all instruments are like that and doctors often have to do a whole battery of tests to work out what's wrong with a given patient, in which case (as I said) the time cost of all those tests, even if they are quick and simple, adds up. Also note that a remote sensor would greatly facilitate automatic data collection, relieving nursing staff of the need to go around checking the vitals and other relevant data of every patient on the ward every $x hours.
If the Kiwis can get this so right, WTF can't the Oz govmnt? Who bought them out, and for how much?
They aren't...at least, not really. One copy only for personal use is pretty restrictive. The article referred to is pretty sketchy, but it seems that a number of details haven't been considered. What happens if the one copy you're allowed to make is damaged or destroyed? Why shouldn't you be allowed to make as many copies as you like for personal use (one copy for the car, one purely for backup, one for a compilation CD you use at parties, whatever).
The legislation seems to be a political crock wherein the government can claim to be on the public's side against the big, bad record companies while not gaining much for the public at all. It wouldn't surprise me if the reaction of the industry in the article wasn't just a bit of theatre pre-arranged between themselves and the government.
You are not properly constructing the "right" as it is described. The NZ government is considering creating an exemption to the copyright regime such that it is not an infringement of copyright to format-shift for personal use. In other words, you do not gain a "right" enforceable against the record companies, they lose their right to insist that you not format-shift, and you gain a corresponding liberty to do so according to your own desires.
To offer an analogy: the fair use exemption that allows copying for educational purposes would, according to your reasoning, confer a right on the public to demand that the record companies provide educational material and services related to the works in respect of which they own the copyright.I hope that's clear. :)
AFAIK the inertial damping system (IDS) is a lot like the artificial gravity generators in that the crew still has to be accelerated with the ship, it's just that gravity-assisted freefall is a lot better for you than pressure applied to only one part of the body.
Remember, acceleration due to gravity does not of itself cause any physical sensation, it's the reaction force from the ground that does that. Just ask anyone who's been in orbit.
Yes: you don't have to waste time doing a lot of simple tests whose time cost adds up or hooking up a (possibly convulsing) patient using wires to a hulking box in the corner when you can just look at a panel to get a wealth of data. Very handy in an emergency.
Snail mail to MPs is a waste of resources
No it isn't. Snail mail sends the important sub-textual message that not only does the writer care enough to write about this issue, s/he cares enough to print out a hard copy, put it in an envelope, and fork over 48c for postage. Handwritten material gets extra credit here.
Getting thousands to sign an online petition or send a form e-mail is easy, getting thousands to send in handwritten letters is hard, and requires genuine grass-roots depth of feeling.
Just out of interest, have you ever tried to solve any problems that were not inherently recursive (e.g. traversing a tree) using a functional language?
I assume you've coded a lot of solutions that use iteration, yes? Iteration and recursion are the same thing, looked at from a different point of view.
Take the canonical example of finding the factorial of n. In an imperative language you would just use a for loop and an integer counter. Recursiverly, you would just say something like this (using Haskell):
In general, any problem that can be reasoned about using mathematical induction is susceptible to solution both by iteration and recursion.
I hate to quibble, but to judge the quality of the info by judging the quality of the source (i.e. you) I have to ask what you're doing filling out a return if you're a wage-earner with no deductions, etc. Do you have an alternate source of income or something?
Just a friendly inquiry, not a flame.
If anything should be deterministic it's the tax code. The refund/liability amount should be perfect to the last penny, in all but the most complex returns.
Sorry, but while the tax system has to deal with fuzzy real-world concepts like income and the definition of an antique it's always going to be a bit non-deterministic. Hence the system of ATO rulings (both public and private ).
Judging from your nick, you obviously don't intend for them to be handling you anytime soon. :)
You should also take into account the local take-up of broadband. Other posters have pointed out that most homes have their own 'net connection, thus obviating the need for cafes, but an Internet cafe with a fat pipe offers considerable advantages over a home dial-up connection. Australian take-up of broadband is still pretty poor, so maybe this is a contributing factor.
my girlfriend and I are moving to Canada where, while far from settled, the issue of gay couples is being taken seriously. :)
You could always consider Tasmania, which now allows for registration of same-sex de factos. Slightly less chilly, and slightly further away from a certain fundamentalist Christian with a burning desire to "preserve the sanctity of marriage" and the launch codes to 60,000 odd tac nukes. Or you could try sunny Queensland (my home state) where same-sex de factos now have the same rights as other de facto couples. Not all family matters are under the control of the Commonwealth (or the "moral majority" for that matter).
Please don't interpret my remarks as explicit support for this line of reasoning (hence the "Make of this argument what you will" line rather then a "This is the One True Policy Approach to same-sex unions" line). My personal opinion is that there has to be a serious re-appraisal of the purpose of family law before we can properly make a judgment on whether to afford formal legal recognition to gay unions.
That all depends on your basic ideas about the proper role of marriage. Most international human rights treaties enshrine both a right to marry and a right to raise a family, but there is some confusion over what this right actually entails. At one extreme, the "right" is simply a disability on the State interfering in personal matters, at the other, it is an obligation on the State to help facilitate personal relationships and protect the participants from the fallout when the relationship goes pear-shaped. It seems that the current thinking tends towards the latter view, especially given the proliferation of protections covering distribution of property now afforded to people in de facto relationships (which are a bit silly, if you ask me, given that the whole point of a de facto relationship is for the individual parties to maintain legal independence).
I'm a bit skeptical of the idea that people should be so readily able to drag the law into their personal affairs, but I also think that if you do look at this purely from a "public interest" perspective then the institution of marriage as it stands cannot be supported, and should be replaced with a regime that only allows protection to people who are raising a family or committed to starting one.
Re your remarks on Howard: on reflection you are probably right. After all, if Howard really was interested in raising the birth rate he would support publicly-funded paid maternity leave and other ideas that obviously Make Sense. It seems that he is simply adopting a public interest line with regard to gay marriage as a convenient cover.
The same thing can be seen in the recent amendments to the superannuation legislation. The Coalition refused to pass legislation that would allow the beneficiary of a super fund to direct that it should be given to a gay partner on the beneficiary's death. This was done apparently regardless of the fact that it's their money that they should be able to dispose of it as they wish, and that the Government used the "it's their money" line to justify the $4/week sandwich-and-milkshake tax cut!
*shakes head*
Additionally the clear separation of powers between the branches of government has the effect of preventing Parliament from enacting ex post facto legislation or passing Bills of Attainder or Pains and Penalties, but whether it guarantees certain basic due process rights is still an open question.
I think you should go and have a talk to your lawyer friends about some of the misconceptions you have disclosed in your post. You got it right when you referred to the common law (i.e. the body of judge-made law that can trace its origins back to the Norman monarchs, and really got going when the Plantagenate Henry II established a uniform court structure to replace the local assemblies previously used by individual areas to dispense justice specific to that area) as common sense, but the common law is almost entirely subordinate to the will of Parliament, which, like Congress, has a reputation for doing all sorts of stupid things. The US is also a common law jurisdiction, but that hasn't stopped the DMCA yet as far as I am aware.
Your reference to the lack of specific legislation is simply reflective of the differences in legislative practice between Australia and the US. Australian Parliaments tend to make statements of general principle that the courts can interpret with a certain amount of flexibility, whereas US legislatures seem to be much more controlling, even to the extent of very specific (and often quite harsh) sentencing formulae.
The right to record TV broadcasts doesn't actually exist: it is most definitely illegal. The right to decompile is protected by legislation, not by common law. Go read the Copyright Act (avaiable at AustLII) for more info.
Finally, the article you linked to is by Sir Anthony Mason, Chief Justice of the High Court during the most progressive era of its existence. His words should therefore be treated with a certain amount of caution, especially given the more conservative, literalist makeup of today's Court.
Sadly true. /.ers must realize that Howard is the consummate politician, but that this is his only talent; he has no ability as a statesman or in any other capacity. He coasted into office on the back of uneasiness and dissatisfaction with the radical economic reforms of the Hawke/Keating Labor government, and happily reaped the long-term benefits of those reforms for his own advantage. His only major achievement is a broad-based indirect tax system that (due to political wheeling and dealing) looks a lot like the old narrow-based indirect tax system and is arguably more complex.
It's seriously questionable as to how much he realizes what a bad idea this is, given the potential for white-anting the multilateral trade framework (allowing the US to "divide and conquer", negotiating favourable terms with individual countries rather than compromising in a forum where there is a more equal distribution of influence) and the potentially disasterous consequences of present US fiscal policy (alluded to elsewhere by other posters).
talks tough on gay marriage ('survival of the species' he says... apparently if gays marry then hetero couples will somehow lose the ability to procreate)
Not really. The argument is that gay marriage should not be allowed because no public interest would thereby be served. Recognition of a legal marriage costs money, both in terms of registering or otherwise administering the formation of the marriage, and in court resources if and when the marriage breaks up, not to mention any tax advantages that may arise. Given that the State must allocate resources to these ends in order to 'legalize' gay unions, it has a legitimate interest in knowing what the payoff is. Howard's agument is that since gays cannot procreate (at least not in the economically efficient way Nature provided) there is no real payoff that would come from the expense.
Make of this argument what you will, but please don't set up strawmen.
Probably, but just saying "I'm innocent, and I can PROVE IT!!!" just won't do.
Under our Westminster system, not the government, or even the courts can expunge our 'Common Law' rights.
Correct, if you're referring to the executive and judicial branches, but you're forgetting that, under our cherished Westminster system, the executive government usually owns Parliament, which can do what it damn well pleases. Up to and including revoking important bits of the common law or conferring statutory powers on courts to make all sorts of funny orders.
As you can see, you can if you so chose deny access, but you had better have a pretty good reason.
I'd rephrase that: you can deny access, but only if you want to go to prison until such time as you do allow access or the order is lifted. Contempt is contempt, regardless of your reasons for doing it. Much better to grant access, demonstrate the falsity of their allegations, then try and do the bastards for perjury for the false affidavits/testimony they would have provided to get the order.
No, it's a civil matter brought by private individuals (or, in this case, corporations) which means that the State and its agencies really have no business interfering or being dragged in. Think of it as the civil equivalent of a search warrant: in a criminal matter the State can do the search because the State is a party to the case.
It's not exactly ideal, the Anton Piller order and its cousin the Mareva injunction are sometimes referred to as the tactical nukes of the law, but there isn't another viable way to stop dishonest defendants from trashing evidence or the property you're trying to get back, and it's fairly tightly regulated.
If someone brings a frivolous action then they're likely to have costs awarded against them on an indemnity basis (as opposed to costs on a standard basis if they just lost without having been shown to have acted frivolously). Furthermore, a lawyer who assists in bringing a case s/he knows is baseless and is done for some ulterior purpose is likely to be forced to indemnify the client for costs, and may face disciplinary proceedings.
Both the crime and tort of barratry have, however, been abolished in most Australian jurisdictions.
I hate to burst your bubble, but Anton Piller orders aren't exactly new. They're available in any civil case (not just IP) whenever a party can show that search and seizure is necessary to "preserve the subject matter of proceedings", e.g. to prevent destruction of evidence. It's fairly tough to convince a court that you need one, and you'd better not be getting one frivolously, but given that Kazaa isn't pure as the driven snow I'm not surprised an order was granted.