E-mails from Burkino Faso

I wonder how many people reply to e-mails such as the one below?

FROM THE DESK OF IBRAHIM ALPHA
BILL AND EXCHANGE MANAGER,
AFRICAN DEVELOPMENT BANK
OUAGADOUGOU, BURKINA FASO.
Dear Sir,

I am the manager of bill and exchange foreign remittance at the department of African Development Bank (ADB).

In my departmentn we discovered an abandoned sum of $ 22.6 m US dollars (Twenty two Millon six hundred thousand US dollars) . In an account that belongs to one of our foreign customer who died along with his entire family in a concord plane crash in the year 2000 in paris that almost took the whole life of the pasengeres on board.

“I am Lady Mrs.Blessing Paul, suffering from cancerous ailment without a child.”

I’m the most lucky person in the world if the number of internet lotteries I’ve won is any guide. Below is another spam e-mail I received today for your enjoyment.

Good Day To You,

I am Lady Mrs.Blessing Paul, suffering from cancerous ailment without a child.

“Progressive fusionism”

A few bloggers have recently written progressive fusionism. Skeptic Lawyer (otherwise known as Helen Dale who I kind-of-knew from University of Qld days) has written a piece on it over at her blog.

She writes:

The idea that libertarians and ‘progressives’ could hammer out some of their differences and reach a compromise far more workable than that between conservatives and libertarians is an interesting one.

It looks like an enjoyable read. There may be some areas in which Liberal and Social Democrat thought are very similar and on which people can work together. I wonder if the essential difference between Liberal thought and Social Democratic thought is different conceptions of property rights and its importance.

On other matters, I’ve printed out a set of game theory lecture notes to read through – I’ve never learnt game theory and it might be interesting and even useful in my work.

Same-sex marriages in Australia

The recent announcement by the federal Attorney-General to appropriately incorporate de facto same-sex relationships into Commonwealth legislation is sensible and welcome, but his explanation on last night’s 7:30 Report about why the marriage laws won’t be changed was unconvincing.

Of course, the major reason they won’t be changed is that Labor doesn’t want to upset swinging voters and it thinks that recognising same-sex marriages may do this. Another reason is that there are many socially conservative ALP members, unions (the SDA is one) and supporters, and the ALP doesn’t want to alienate them.

While the actual electoral impacts of changing the marriage laws seems uncertain, I can see no substantive reason they should not be changed. And by not changing the marriage laws, same-sex couples married overseas will presumably not have their marriages recognised in Australia. Australia should recognise these overseas marriages and change Australian law to recognise same-sex marriages.