Online Bidz is a ‘highest unique bid auction’ where a variety of goods donated by local businesses are placed up for auction and the proceeds goes to charity.

I haven’t used it, but it seems worth giving a plug.

Note: it’s Australian-based, so shipping and handling for outside Oz might be expensive.

Chicago Manual of Style / Turabian styles and tips (other styles also available at the site).  Very useful for writing papers in the humanities (esp. if you are in Politics).

Tux Magazine: the first and only magazine for the new Linux user.

I found it when I was googling for help with OpenOffice templates.  They also have a good article on 10 reasons to switch to Linux

I just got back from a two-day conference in Shepparton about cultural diversity in rural/regional Australia where I presented on research I had done on the social integration of Iraqi Muslim migrants in Cobram Victoria.  (You can read the original report here).

I had the opportunity to meet lots of very interesting people, including one of the conference organisers, Frank Purcell who has been a vocal leader of prominent Catholics opposed to Cardinal George Pell’s recent heavy-handed tactics (eg. threatening Catholic politicians with sanctions if they vote in positions Pell believes are not in keeping with Catholic doctrine).

In his talk on interfaith and social cohesion, the former priest elaborated a position on the role of religious politicians responsibilities living in pluralistic democracies.  It was, without doubt, the best explanation I have ever come across.  Essentially it boiled down to this:

* living in a religiously pluralistic society, people can hold varying positions on moral questions that affect society (i.e. should we pursue embryonic stem-cell research? should women have free access to abortion? should drugs like marijuana be made legal? etc.)

* various religions provide ‘revelation’ on answers to various questions, but unless it is possible to support those positions by appeal to reason, a person does not have the right to impose their faith-based position on others. 

To give a simple example, the Qur’an says that God prohibits the consumption of pork, however unless I am able to show through reason and science that the prohibition on consumption of pork should be made compulsory for everyone regardless of their religious affiliation, then I have no right to stop non-Muslims from eating pork products.

* a politician who is a member of a government in a religiously-pluralist society, therefore, is not being asked to vote on the morality of a particular law, but on the effectiveness of a law in question.  I might believe it is morally wrong to have an abortion, but the prohibition on abortion led to all sorts of awful situations like young girls dying from back-yard abortions that carried on anyway.

So as someone religiously or morally opposed to abortion, I can recognise the ineffectiveness of a blanket prohibition on abortion and the effectiveness of allowing legal abortions in controlled settings.

* It is up to religions to inspire believers to act morally.  I.e. it is the role of religion to educate and instruct followers on the immorality of gambling, to inspire the followers of churches, synagogues and mosques etc. to eschew gambling even though it is legal.

This is much more realistic for pluralist societies.  Think of all sorts of issues where members of different religions and denominations have various positions: abortion, contraception, embryonic stem-cell research, working on the Sabbath, eating pork, consuming alcohol, joining the armed-forces, entering politics; uncovering the head in public; euthanasia; homosexual marriage… I could go on. 

Now think on any one issue, if members of different religions imposed *their* views on you?  Do you have the right to impose *your* views on them?  Even though some of these are important moral questions.