Haha I love the irony of this post. Its the final archived post from my facebook notes- and its a perfect introduction to this blog.

Originally posted: Thursday, July 3, 2008 at 7:01pm

I’ve got a new blog. Instead of writing new facebook notes every time I’m bored, I’ll post there instead. http://thejackalscodex.wordpress.com/

(A lot of posts will be password protected. That’s not to stop you guys from reading it, I encourage you all to read it. I just don’t want randoms reading it. The passwords are contained here: http://thejackalscodex.wordpress.com/password) If you can’t figure it out, just shoot me a line.

That way I can migrate all my current facebook notes over there, and then remove a lot of clutter from my facebook page (including a lot of those “what are your political beliefs applications)

I’ll probably replace my current notes with a description of my core beliefs (political, philosophical and personal). I’ve been worried that recently I’ve been joking around too much and confusing people as to what my actual beliefs are. Right-wingers are now of the impression that I’m a communist, whereas left-wingers seem to think I’m an anti-feminist, gay-bashing Catholic.

Archived: International Law

I love notes I write when procrastinating. btw, Boguslawski is a case which states that retrospective recognition of states extends back in time, only insofar as the effective control of the recognised government could be said to exist.

Originally posted: Tuesday, June 24, 2008 at 5:34pm

Ok. I’m far far too busy to be posting notes but this has to be said:

Two things I’ve noticed whilst studying law.

1) The name of the Hon. presiding judge in Moore v Mitchell is “Judge Learned Hand.”

2) There is a case (for some reason omitted from our syllabus) called Boguslawski

(full name: Boguslawski v. Gdynia-Ameryka Linje Zeglugowe Spolka Akcynja)

Praise be to Heaven.

Let’s Impose Sharia Law

Note: This was a fun note. In particular, because it sparked a counter-note from one of my friends (I’ve attached it down the bottom). For the record (and I think its pretty clear), this note is entirely sarcastic. I don’t mean a single word of it. I think I may have been procrastinating instead of doing my law assignment…

Originally posted: Friday, May 16, 2008 at 9:52am

Ok. It’s time to admit it. Natural law arguments are absolute bollocks without the backing of God. There is no such thing as a just secular law, these are enforceable only by the force of state, an utterly illegitimate legal system based upon superior power.

So where do we turn, once we admit this? The solution is to immediately implement a system of laws as commanded by God. But there are so many different systems of law he’s commanded us to obey. I mean its really a testament to the breadth of God’s omniscience that some laws vary from telling us to wear magical underwear (the Mormons), to abstain from flicking light switches on Sundays (the Jews) to sacrificing sheep (most religions pre-2000).

I mean its quite difficult since even within these legal systems there are directly contradictory laws. Say the 1st Commandment (Thou Shalt Not Kill) and the various bits of the Bible where a) God kills b) God advocates genocide, say of the Midianites, adulterers, and people who work on weekends. Also, its a bit difficult to implement some of these laws, like the requirement to love your neighbour. A literal application of such laws may again conflict with laws against adultery and buggery. The alternative is the Lord Atkin approach (in Donoghue v Stephens)… which lead to the law of negligence and the nanny state (which I’ve been told is a big no-no).

But we do have one shining example of a legal system which has not changed, even in the face of a shifting moral zeitgeist or empirical evidence contrary to its claims of efficacy. And that is Sharia law. Because it is based not in fact, but in God. So what if stoning adulterers won’t stop adulterers? God tells us to, so we do. And so it shall Be.

And we cannot forget that it has been actualised into a proper legal system by many countries. Some shining examples of sophisticated jurisprudential countries like Saudi Arabia (birthplace of our dear Osama), Afghanistan (domicile of our dear Osama) and Sudan. It is a triumph of religious prophecy that a text some centuries old may still be relevant to every aspect of life, including politics, economics, science, health (inc surgeries etc) and banking. Truly, praise be to God. Allah Akbar.

———–

Katrina’s Counter Note

Title: Let’s not impose a law… let’s depend on GRACE

This is a response to John’s recent note, “Let’s Impose Sharia Law”.

I hope John understands this isn’t an attack, but rather, a series of thoughts on some of the issues raised in his note – which was very entertaining and well written, by the way. It’s also because I ran out of space in the comments.

• “I mean its quite difficult since even within these legal systems there are directly contradictory laws. Say the 1st Commandment (Thou Shalt Not Kill) and the various bits of the Bible where a) God kills b) God advocates genocide”

The commandment not to kill was given by God to his people, for them to obey. God himself reigns over all, because he’s the Creator of the universe. ALL life comes through and is sustained by him. Thus, all life is his to take.

Indeed, if you believe the Bible, it says that we’ve all turned our backs on our Creator, and deserve the punishment of death. The only reason God hasn’t struck us all dead already is because of his love for us, his incredible mercy, his grace through Jesus Christ.

• “Also, its a bit difficult to implement some of these laws, like the requirement to love your neighbour. A literal application of such laws may again conflict with laws against adultery and buggery.”

Haha, I’m sure John isn’t serious with this. But say he is … well, love taken literally doesn’t have to mean sex, “adultery and buggery”. If that were so, then what about the fact that people generally love their parents? Their siblings? Hmm, I’ll let you follow that thought to its logical conclusion … :S

Let’s look at the “love your neighbour” phrase within its original context, as stated in the Book of Leviticus 19:18:

“‘Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against one of your people, but love your neighbour as yourself.”

Clearly here God is instructing the people of Israel to love one another not in the eros sense, but in the philia sense – love between friends and brothers.

But speaking of love, there’s a third kind – agape, as used within the New Testament, to denote a specific type of love that is unselfish, all-consuming, and indestructible. It’s the love that God has for his people, so much that he sent his own son to die in their place, as atonement for their sins. John 3:16-17:

“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.”

So John, you’re right, laws in themselves don’t work. We can’t rely on laws to be made right with God, because we’re hopeless at obeying them. The Bible recognises that humanity is utterly lost – there’s nothing we can do to make God forgive us.

That’s why I have such joy in Jesus, who died on my behalf and made it possible for me to be forgiven by the Creator of this universe.

Thanks for reading! Everyone is welcome to respond. Also, check out the following sites:

Two Ways to Live

Christianity

A searchable online Bible

A Brief History of the Financial Universe

Note: I never actually made proper notes for third-year pre-honours… ironically because I spent my time writing notes for second-year pre-honours in preparation for third year pre-honours. Lol. Anyway, here are the notes I uploaded as a facebook note.

Originally posted: Saturday April 12, 10:16am

This note is mainly for my own purposes, as I find it highly likely I will lose my notes I made on finance (I think I’ve already lost them, so I might as well jot them down now). Also, I don’t feel like starting my law assignment or my mooting just yet. In a kingdom of blind men, procrastination rules supreme.

Now, I’ve just finished reading up on the Finance second year Pre-Honours course (which I didn’t do, but have to know since I’m doing third year pre-honours this semester). I have come to the conclusion that it is actually remarkably simple.

Before the emergence of sophisticated capital markets, investors were restricted to simple choices which limited their freedom to choose. Fortunately, Adam Smith came away, blew away all the communists and established efficient capital markets which increased freedom of choice considerably. However, the question remains, what financial asset will a sophisticated investor choose?

Fortunately, financial economic provides an answer by limiting the choice set considerably, and providing a few simple choices in this complicated, and most sophisticated financial system- regardless of an individual investor’s preferences.

We call this the Fisher Separation Theorem. You have an absolute freedom to like whichever assets you like, and the absolute freedom to choose whatever assets you wish to buy within the range of your initial monetary endowment. This is strictly separated from how you will actually exercise your choice, which, if you are smart, you will exercise in exactly the way we say.

But look, we’re not elitist. We think everyone is smart, or as we like to say “rational”. But there are problems, for example people who both gamble (a sign of risk-loving) and buy insurance (a sign of risk-aversion). How could this be?

Fortunately, Milton Friedman in his infinite majesty proposed a solution: maybe some investors are both risk-averse and risk-loving? Some other guy (Friedman’s blinding light blocked all light from reaching his name) disagreed, at his own peril. One does not simply disagree with Milton fucking Friedman. I admire his guts – one for standing up to Milton Friedman, and two for abandoning everything for a guaranteed place in the unemployment queue. But back to his actual disagreement. He thought that risk-loving was always irrational, and that’s fair enough. We have an absolute say over what people believe in America, I mean look at our mega-churches. Instead he proposed an alternate solution entirely consistent with being rational- maybe people are stupid, and can’t calculate simple probabilities. What if they thought they had a 1/5 chance of winning instead of a 1/10 chance? If we do a few calculations, we see buying into this 1/5 lottery is the same as buying into insurance (if he similarly stupidly believes he can get a payout without going to court for a few years against the monopolistic industry gods). It’s mathemagic!

But hey, let’s get back to being rational. You can believe whatever you want, but here’s a few rules for what you need to do to be smart.

(1) cowardice: you must be risk-averse. You can’t argue with me on this point, because I’ve just defined you to be a coward, and cowards don’t fight back remember?
(2) You are absolutely self-serving and would sell out your own grandmother if you got an extra cent. This is a logical conclusion from the fact that you are a coward and unable to stand up for any principles except the ones propounded in this article.
and there’s a few others, which I won’t list because I’m rational. It would take effort, and that’s a definite no-no without adequate payment. It’s about 5c/60 mins for hard manual labour, and $60m/5mins for sitting at a desk and pretending to be a CEO.

So in conclusion, we have financial theory to thank for making us so very sophisticated (and above all, incredibly rich). It removed the barriers choice, freeing us of those few simple choices and maximising our utilities. But to deal with the complexities of the financial markets, financial economics developed many restrictive assumptions to simplify everything down to a few simple choices. Isn’t it wonderful?