"About time!" enthused Bernard Darnton, Libertarianz law and order spokesman at the welcome news of liquor law reform. "The ban on Sunday sales was a hang-over from the Dark Ages of religious rule. Our liquor laws are now a step closer to the twentieth century, and just in time for the twenty first. Only trading laws on spiritual holidays and spirits sales now stand in the way of a clean sweep."

"It's such a refreshing change for a law change to mean more freedom, not less," says Darnton. "Every year we are further suffocated by literally thousands of new laws and regulations. The rare occasion when some are scrapped is truly a time to celebrate."

"That said, there are still problems," he notes. "The alacrity with which state ID cards were voted in for young drinkers is troubling; more worrying is the mistaken belief that our rights are given to us by parliamentarians. They are not. Rights derive from man's nature as a thinking, rational human being, not from a politician's gift. The state cannot give rights, but it can take them away.

"The Libertarianz party knows this, and is the only party dedicated solely to protecting those rights with laws defending against murder, assault and theft. Not against drinking on Good Friday, or selling whisky in a supermarket."

© Scoop Media

Gordon Campbell: On the Sony cyber attack

Given the layers of meta-irony involved, the saga of the Sony cyber attack seemed at the outset more like a snarky European art film than a popcorn entry at the multiplex.

Yet now with (a) President Barack Obama weighing in on the side of artistic freedom and calling for the US to make a ‘proportionate response’quickly followed by (b) North Korea’s entire Internet service going down, and with both these events being followed by (c) Sony deciding to backtrack and release The Interview film that had made it a target for the dastardly North Koreans in the first place, then ay caramba…the whole world will now be watching how this affair pans out. More>>