A Commonwealth Religious Discrimination Act for Australia?

There have been a number of attempts to create a constitutional bill of rights in Australia, but all have failed. The most recent exploration of the idea of a constitutional bill of rights by the Rudd government in 2010 stalled because of church opposition. Yet Australia has embraced international norms outlawing racial and sexual discrimination passed as ordinary legislation using the Commonwealth’s external affairs power. This paper discusses whether religious freedom is a norm sufficiently well established in international law that it could also be passed as ordinary legislation in Australia. It then investigates what an Australian religious freedom law might look like and whether it could be crafted so as to allay the church opposition which has shut down previous attempts to create a constitutional bill of rights

The habeas corpus protection of Joseph Smith from Missouri arrest requisitions

This is the first of two articles discussing Missouri’s requisitions to extradite Joseph Smith to face criminal charges and the Prophet’s recourse to English habeas corpus practice to defend himself. In this article, the author presents research rejecting the suggestion that the habeas corpus powers of the Nauvoo City Council were irregular and explains why the idea that the Nauvoo Municipal Court lacked jurisdiction to consider interstate habeas corpus matters is anachronistic. In the second article, the author analyzes the conduct of Missouri Governor Thomas Reynolds in relation to the requisitions for Joseph Smith’s extradition. Even by the standards of the day, given what he knew, his conduct was unethical

BURNS V CORBETT: WHAT IF THE HIGH COURT HAD DECIDED THE IMPLIED FREEDOM OF POLITICAL COMMUNICATION ISSUE?

Because the Commonwealth has never fulfilled its promise to domesticate the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights 1966 (ICCPR), human rights in Australia remain an uncertain blend of federal and state anti-discrimination statutes, common law rights and constitutional implications. The litigation surrounding Tess Corbett’s media interview in Hamilton, Victoria when she was campaigning as a candidate in the 2013 federal election, highlights that uncertainty. Should her statements have been protected because the voters in Wannon, Victoria needed to know her views so as to vote in an informed way, or did New South Wales’ interest in stamping out the vilification of gay people justify a law in that state that burdened Ms Corbett’s expression? While the New South Wales Court of Appeal and the High Court eventually agreed that the New South Wales’ tribunals involved had no jurisdiction to hear the case in the first place, the underlying anti-discrimination v freedom of political communication issue was not resolved despite many hearings. This article considers how that question might have been resolved since the New South Wales Court of Appeal in the Sunol case in 2012 seem to have preferred the views of the minority in the High Court in Coleman v Powerin 2004

Who Was Sherem?

The Book of Mormon’s first anti-Christ, Sherem, “came among” the Nephites before their first generation was ended. Because he was an eloquent believer in the Law of Moses, there has been a variety of surmise as to his background. Was he a Lamanite, or a Jaredite or Mulekite trader? Was his presence among the separated Nephites evidence of early interaction between the Nephites and other civilisations in Nephite lands from the time of their first arrival? This short article reviews the various suggestions about Sherem’s identity and suggests he was most likely a descendant of the original Lehite party but that his identity was purposely suppressed so as not to give him more credibility than he deserved

Missourian efforts to extradite Joseph Smith and the ethics of Governor Thomas Reynolds of Missouri

This is the second of two articles discussing Missouri’s requisitions to extradite Joseph Smith to face criminal charges and the Prophet’s recourse to English habeas corpus practice to defend himself. In the first article, the author discussed the English nature of pre-Civil War habeas corpus practice in America and the anachronistic modern idea that the Nauvoo Municipal Court did not have jurisdiction to consider interstate habeas corpus matters. In this article, he analyzes the conduct of Governor Thomas Reynolds in the matter of Missouri’s requisitions for the extradition of Joseph Smith in light of 1840s legal ethics in America. That analysis follows the discovery that Governor Reynolds had dismissed the underlying 1838 charges against Joseph Smith when he was a Missouri Supreme Court judge. It also responds to the revelation that Missouri reissued indictments based on the same underlying facts in June 1843 despite the existence of a double-jeopardy provision in the Missouri Constitution of 1820

Apostate religion in the Book of Mormon

Nephite missionaries in the first century BC had significant difficulty preaching the gospel among Nephites and Lamanites who followed Zoramite and Nehorite teaching. Both of these groups built synagogues and other places of worship suggesting that some of their beliefs originated in Israelite practice, but both denied the coming or the necessity of a Messiah. This article explores the nature of Zoramite and Nehorite beliefs, identifies how their beliefs and practices differed from orthodox Nephite teaching, and suggests that some of these religious differences are attributable to cultural and political differences that resonate in the present

Context-Dependent Memory under Stressful Conditions: The Case of Skydiving

Two experiments examined the effect of differing levels of emotional arousal on learning and memory for words in matching and mismatching contexts. In Experiment 1, experienced skydivers learned words either in the air or on the ground and recalled them in the same context or in the other context. Experiment 2 replicated the stimuli and design of the first experiment except that participants were shown a skydiving video in lieu of skydiving. Recall was poor in air-learning conditions with actual skydiving, but when lists were learned on land, recall was higher in the matching context than in the mismatching context. In the skydiving video experiment, recall was higher in matching learn-recall contexts regardless of the situation in which learning occurred. We propose that under extremely emotionally arousing circumstances, environmental and/or mood cues are unlikely to become encoded or linked to newly acquired information and thus cannot serve as cues to retrieval. Results can be applied to understanding variations in context-dependent memory in occupations (e.g., police, military special operations, and Special Weapons and Tactics teams) in which the worker experiences considerable emotional stress while learning or recalling new information

Seasonal Variation of the North Atlantic Current

The seasonal circulation of the upper 1000 m of the North Atlantic between 40 degrees -55 degreesN and 20 degrees -40 degreesW is calculated using the traditional dynamic method and a circulation model with a density field that evolves with the flow. The model is of finite difference form and is based on dynamics that describe the nonlinear evolution of the ocean at low Rossby number. The model is controlled by initial and boundary conditions that include air-sea buoyancy and momentum fluxes. The model is run in two ways: with controls specified directly from observations and with controls inferred by the assimilation of all available data. These data include surface drifter trajectories, sea levels from the TOPEX/Poseidon altimeter, Bunker air-sea fluxes, and the Levitus climatological monthly means of temperature and salinity. We conclude that the North Atlantic Current transport is 40 +/- 18 Sv with seasonal variations of the order of 2 Sv. The mean vertical transport out of the region is 2 +/- 9 Sv and is subject to seasonal variations of 2 Sv. Overall, these estimates are in good agreement with integral North Atlantic Current features derived from independent long-term measurements made in the region over the past decade. The optimal ocean state has a volume transport across the western boundary of 51 +/- 3 Sv with a maximum transport of 61 +/- 5 Sv in April-May and a minimum of 42 +/- 3 Sv in October-November, This western inflow is compensated by mean outflows of 28 +/- 2 (east), 16 +/- 2 (north), 5 +/- 2 (south), and 1.8 +/- 0.4 Sv out of the domain at 1000 m. Sensitivity studies show that nonlinear mixing and seasonality are important in determining the overall circulation. Specifically, steady boundary forcing leads to annual mean transports that are 15-25% smaller than transports obtained with seasonal forcing. Winter convection is also shown to play a significant role in determining the overall circulation pattern

Lower pollen nutritional quality delays nest building and egg laying in Bombus terrestris audax micro-colonies leading to reduced biomass gain

This version of the article has been accepted for publication, after peer review (when applicable) and is subject to Springer Nature’s AM terms of use, but is not the Version of Record and does not reflect post-acceptance improvements, or any corrections. The Version of Record is available online at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s13592-021-00885-3The performance of Bombus terrestris micro-colonies fed five diets differing in pollen species composition and level of nine essential amino acids (EAA; leucine, lysine, valine, arginine, isoleucine, phenylalanine, threonine, histidine, methionine) was assessed for 37 days by recording total biomass gain, nest building initiation, brood production (eggs, small and large larvae, pupae, drones), nectar, and pollen collection. Stronger colony performance was linked to higher amino acid levels but no consistent differences in biomass gain were recorded between mono- and poly-species diets. Poorest performance occurred in micro-colonies offered pure oilseed rape (OSR) pollen which contained the lowest EAA levels. Reduced micro-colony development (delayed nest initiation and lower brood production) was related to OSR proportion in the diet and lower EAA levels. Results are discussed in relation to selection of plant species in the design of habitats to promote bee populations