I thought I should post a brief Christmas message; if it's good enough for the Queen it's good enough for me. May all loyal Troppo readers (and even the disloyal ones) have a happy Christmas and a peaceful New Year. It won't surprise readers to learn that I don't expect to be...

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The Peruvians are great wall builders. Show the poorest campesino a field full of rocks and before you can say Sexy Woman, he ´s knocked together a wall - around his house, around his field, along the river, up and down the mountain side. Travelling across the altiplano throug...

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Ahhh the magic moments in travelling. Not that I could begin to match the masterwork by Yobbo, but then anyone who goes to that sterile island off the coast of Malaysia and compounds the error by flying Qantas deserves what he gets. I ´m sitting at an Entel terminal in La Paz...

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In his usual idiosyncratic fashion J.M. Coetzee has orated his Nobel Lecture through the persona of Robinson Crusoe. With great plagues, decoy ducks, parrots and mutliple Defoe references Coetzee weaves a fascinating tale of isolation, unease and confused identity. Worth a rea...

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Its just three weeks from Christmas so I thought I'd help those news organisations with a few ole trusty news angles that appear every Christmas. Early this month we had a new variation with Cocaine Christmas cards from Chile , which I believe would provide a new style of seas...

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It's all a bit tragic - not least in the timing. On a slow news weekend - when the next biggest story seems to be that Bob Brown has invited Mark Latham to tour the old growth Tassie forest - Senator Andrew Bartlett's fall from grace has exploded all over the season of ho, ho,...

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A veritable Niagara of comment has poured forth about Mark Latham in the last couple of days but the Daily Telegraph's sordid little contribution gave me special pause. Latham's first wife, Gabrielle Gwyther, is featured , observing that: "He talked about climbing the ladder t...

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You would think that at a time when the United States needed all the resources at it's disposal it might have thought twice about it's ludicrous "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy which excludes openly gay servicemen and women from the Armed Services. The Washington Post covers th...

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This sad little story concerns a 7 year old boy named Marcus whose seat of learning is Ernest Gallet Elementary School in Lafayette, Louisiana. He was nabbed telling a classmate, (in response to a question), what "gay" means. "It's when a girl likes another girl" he offered, b...

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What else is there to say? How depressing! I think I'll return to blogging hibernation. I just hope they surround Motormouth with sensible minders, and spike his morning coffee with Prozac. For John Howard, Christmas has come 23 days early. On my part, my election date bet wit...

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Words can ´t really do the vision justice. As one walks into the main entrance the view of the site is amazing, mindblowing, I can ´t imagine what it must be like to see it through the Sun Gate at sunrise. That ´s right, I didn ´t walk the Inca Trail because my knees are shot...

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The leadership of the ALP is up for grabs , so why don't I write about a complete irrelevancy? From the same Tim Blair column that Ken Parish links to below : Anyone who picks up Noam Chomsky's latest book probably deserves to have their hands removed. But, since we're still m...

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According to ABC News, Ray, Faulkner and McMullan - The Three Wise Men - have popped in today to see their parliamentary leader to impart the news that he no longer enjoys the majority support of the ALP caucus. Should he not avail himself of the opportunity to step down in th...

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As a male who (by choice) spends the vast majority of his time surrounded by women, who uniformly share an unshakeable conviction that the world would be a much better place if run by their sex rather than blokes, I can't resist sharing this passage from Kundera's Immortality...

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Despite still being swamped with exam marking and administrative tasks at CDU, it's past time to inject a bit of legal content into Troppo Armadillo , which seems of late to be evolving de facto into an online literary magazine. Not that there's anything wrong with that, mind...

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Who'd a thunk it? The excision of all those islands could have just been about the comedic inability of a Mosman Kebab shop owner to organise his way out of a slightly greasy paper bag! The SMH reports that the 14 Kurdish 'asylum seekers' last seen on Melville Island - frantic...

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The votes are in the ABC's search for Australia's favourite book , and the winner according to the voting public is Tim Winton's 'Cloudstreet'. Now, these lists may only be useful for conjecture, and I think like most lists, this one also tends to favour the more recently publ...

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Permanently dyspeptic academic Professor Bunyip has stumbled upon an Australian perspective in the Hong Kong-based Asia Times which leaves Alison Broinowski's thesis - about Asians getting all the wrong messages about us - looking overly pessimistic. It's the most thoughtful a...

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My good friend Paul has very kindly forwarded me Malcolm Fraser's online petition seeking the release of kids from illegal entry-associated confinement. As Tim Dunlop observes , a spot of petition signing isn't a bad way for bleeding hearts to salve their consciences - and it...

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G ´day from Cusco in Peru, I write these words breathless from the high altitude and the grandeur of the Inca empire. Contrary to what Ken said about taking time to blog while on holiday I will post regularly if for no other reason than it helps me to remember the finer points...

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London's Daily Torygraph editorialises favourably on why gay couples should have equality under law. It's an eminently sensible - and very well-written - casebuild.

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Wendy James recently posted a piece called " Shlock Horror! ", about best-selling horror novelist Stephen King's being awarded a lifetime literary achievement award. By coincidence or otherwise, I'm currently reading Immortality , a work by Milan Kundera of Unbearable Lightnes...

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The Kennedy assassination bores me to tears. So, while I should be studying, I am instead reading some of the various assassination - related articles on wikipedia . I just wanted to know, is anyone aware of who coined the phrase " magic bullet "? The magic bullet is the one t...

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....is of course the name of an American drag queen in the ubermawkish Hollywood weepie, Torch Song Trilogy . It was only a matter of time before some enterprising blogger launched as Bertha Vablog but, perhaps surprisingly, Christopher Sheil chose not to. Instead, he's chosen...

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Young Brisbane poof, Daewi, guest snarks on noted Australian Arts and Letters blog, Spin Starts Here Darl , and delivers the definitive critique on Australian Idol - the Final. It's a brilliantly observed piece - kind of "National Enquirer meets Jerry Springer and does serious...

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Mild-mannered Ozblogger, Tim Blair, reports being driven to drink by Margo's latest revelation, which is: - " A growing proportion of the media are behaving as propagandists, not as journalists." "'And Margo would know," Amanda Meade pointed out succinctly, whilst inducting Ma...

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Rather than getting carried away and actually doing some substantive posting, I've tackled the rapidly shrinking index page of Troppo Armadillo by editing the preferences in Moveable Type to display 12 days of posts instead of only seven. Nevertheless, I'm rather hoping that G...

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From the New Yorker , some suggested questions for Bush's next press conference: Zen question: "Sir, if the ability of the Star Wars ABMs to hit a nuclear missile is imaginary and the nuclear missiles in Iraq are imaginary, does that mean a Star Wars ABM could hit an Iraqi nuc...

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I'm going to link to that rant by Kim du Toit [via pretty much every blog under the sun, but most recently Gummo's ]. Being a man whose only problem with Queer Eye is that weird thing they have against mono-brows, du Toit's so-called "essay" is the funniest thing I've read in...

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The DFAT site is supposed to alert travellers to any difficulties that are being experienced overseas.I suspect however that they don't really know what's going on outside the embassy, and in countries like Bolivia and Ecuador, outside the embassy means the streets of Santiago...

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Maybe it's because I should be in bed, having not slept for a while now. I spent all night and all of yesterday finishing an essay for uni, and my mind is a little addled at this point in time. But still, for some reason it feels a little unsettling to find myself in basic agr...

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It was certainly spectacular. Just as dusk fell in Brisbane last night, Pauline Hanson and David Ettridge walked free from their respective prisons, acquitted of the fraud charges that had incarcerated them 11 weeks previously. Hanson looked thinner, a bit vulnerable (not surp...

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Australian's let us rejoice, For we are young and free. For a start if it means me, that's ageist, I'm now chronologically superior and if it refers to the age of the country, when do we become grown up ? Apropos the debate about freedom to espouse a political ideology and fre...

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One of the few relatively sober sentient beings at Flemington Racecourse this arvo was a South Australian lady horse named Makybe Diva. Therefore, unencumbered by stilettos, a dickhead hat, attire like a hotel concierge or bottles of cheap methode champenoise, she galloped awa...

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The ABC's Australian Story has been steering a dangerous course, somewhere between the Shoals of New Idea and the Reef of Lowest Common Denominator Sentimentality. Who can recall that awful Oz story hagiography on Pan Pharmaceuticals founder Jim Selim without lunging for their...

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Democracy is dying , fascism is on the rise, the PM is laughing maniacally as he cruelly excludes War Widows from ceremonies at the Australian War Memorial - just to be a bastard -and guess what? The Newspoll punters have just given the Evil One his biggest single poll boost s...

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Just surfing the blogs and I came across this . Love the way s/he pays out on government , irishmen , looks at love , and gives a great example of the art of teaching . Go read, the whole blog is very refreshing.

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If you've ever despaired at what passes for political debate in this country, Senator George Brandis' Greens-as-Nazis speech would surely have confirmed your cynicism. I suspect that his attempt to explain himself on last Friday's Lateline will not exactly fill you with hope f...

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So.....it's Una's Restaurant, 340 Victoria St, Darlinghurst on Tuesday 4 November at 6.30pm. Troppo bloggers past and present are invited to join Great Armadillo Ken Parish, and I, for dinner. You don't have to be a Troppo blogger to join us - after all, most people who'll be...

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I've been mean I know, leaving poor wen to bear the load all by herself, a newly hatched armadillo no doubt wondering what she's let herself in for; me, I'm more interested in watching the rugby than blogging. But I have more excuses. For nearly a week my computer has lain idl...

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I like Bob Brown. I especially like how he manages to drive those who dislike his politics into paroxysms of rage. So yesterday, we learnt from Liberal Senator George Brandis that Bob Brown is objectively pro-fascist [excerpted from yesterday's Hansard ]: I think until fairly...

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I've just now finished unavoidable university work prior to flying out to Sydney on the "red eye" flight just after midnight tonight. In my case it really will be red eyes, because I've had about an hour's sleep in the last 2 days while completing urgent tasks. We had the offi...

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I don't often agree with Alison Broinowski, and indeed much of her article in today's Australian is just her standard kneejerk anti-western cringe that we sensitive New Age Right Wing Death Beasts have come to know and detest. ( Update - I couldn't be bothered dealing with mos...

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Jason Soon links to an excellent historical summary of public choice theory by its founder James Buchanan . As one of the principal components of the group of ideas usually called "neo-liberalism" or "economic rationalism", public choice theory remains an important influence o...

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Last Christmas I attended a farewell function in Manly for my brother Gordon's best mate, a Welshman named David, and his wife Bridget and their 2 kids. They'd decided to go back to Britain to live after 8 years in Sydney. The kids were reaching high school age, and David thou...

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Nicholas Kristof in the NYT muses on the findings from a recent study showing that many lesbians - like most men - will have a ring finger that is longer than their index finger whilst women generally, have an index and ring finger roughly the same in length. A quick, albeit u...

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The National Trust is running low on Australian Living Treasures and would like public assistance in replacing the 11 Treasures who have gone to Immortality since the program was initiated in 1997. All you have to do is zap off your nomination to the National Trust. They don't...

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At about the point that Hu Jin-Tao was subtly making his House of Representatives case for Captain Cook being a Johnny come lately, news came through that the formidable Madame Chiang Kai-Shek had passed away. It was a timely interruption because I'd just started daydreaming a...

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Here he is , wondering why those pesky Kurds don't want Turkish troops in Iraq: My old buddies the Kurds, a long-mistreated people we freed from Saddam, are now looking a gift horse in the mouth. I hope somebody explains that American expression about shortsighted suspicion to...

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I'll try and shut up for the rest of the day after this, and let other armadillos have a go, but I can't let the opportunity slip to point out some excellent news for anyone with an interest in Australian law. AustLII , already the world's premier free access online legal reso...

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If I was Wendy I'd be right chuffed by Sophie Masson's compliment about her "lovely, limpid" prose style (an evaluation which I share, for what it's worth). Sophie should know, being no mean exponent of the art of lovely, limpid prose herself. I find that immersion in turgid l...

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Every Thursday night at around 8pm the same questions occur to me. Was John Clark actually as funny as I remember when he was Fred Dagg? Or were those sketches just as utterly devoid of humour as his 7.30 Report stuff with Brian Daw? Or do comedians lose their bite when they'r...

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Suzy Kruhse's son Dan and his wife Tarun are presently backpacking in South America. Their timing might have been improved, because right now they're in Bolivia, which hasn't been the most peaceful country in recent weeks. Here's an email from Dan and Tarun that might interest...

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The visits of Presidents Bush and Hu may be big news elsewhere but, interestingly, the brouhaha du jour in Sydney appears to be the Sydney Peace Foundation's award of it's annual Peace Prize to Dr Hanan Ashrawi - noted christian Palestinian academic and politician. As I write,...

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As others have noted , if that " imminence " business shows anything, it's that George Bush is incredibly careful with what he says. With that in mind, here's some week-old news : Mr Bush rejected claims that torture is being used in the terrorist detention centre at Guantanam...

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Being rather unfamiliar with the whole History Wars imbroglio , it's maybe a little stupid of me to enter the fray, but what the hell. I'm going to make a few observations about the Quadrant article by Keith Windschuttle that Ken Parish linked to below . I should make clear th...

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My post earlier today about Margo Kingston's SIEV X ramblings generated numerous comments, including one by the esteemed Jozef Imrich which approvingly linked an article by refugee advocate Julian Burnside QC . Now I don't share Professor Bunyip's typically jaundiced doubts ab...

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There are few things more certain in blogging than that Tim Blair or Professor Bunyip will post on Margo Kingston's latest Web Diary frolic . Published to mark the second anniversary of the sinking of the asylum seeker vessel SIEV X, one of Margo's favourite obsessions, what i...

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My passing mention of the Anzac myth in a post earlier today has triggered a train of thought I can only quench (derail?) by writing. It's perhaps the most powerful aspect of Australian heritage and tradition, its effects flowing down through Australian society to the present...

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While searching unsuccessfully for the conference paper on which Errington and van Onselen's article on political party databases (see the previous post) was based, I came across another interesting paper by Brian Galligan and Winsome Roberts titled Australian Multiculturalism...

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The SMH/Age carries an article this morning that deserves close attention by anyone who really considers him/herself a student of Australian politics. It's by Wayne Errington and Peter van Onselen and it deals with political party databases. Update - Jozef Imrich has kindly pr...

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My personal desire to revisit the History Wars is roughly on a par with my aspiration to experience the joys of lung cancer or leprosy. However the topic has been a perennially popular/controversial one on Troppo Armadillo, and always seems to generate acrimonious (and sometim...

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With news this week that " the Jews rule this world by proxy ", NSW Opposition police spokesman Peter Debnam would like to make you aware of another sinister cabal : There's about a thousand young men, typically between 18 and 30 who are basically running Sydney at the moment,...

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45 - 8 after 50 minutes Wallabies v Romania. But a sub-standard effort against sub-standard opposition. Too many penalties conceded, far too many dropped balls in the backs and a continuing lack of fluency and combination. Matthew Burke's having a great game at centre, but tha...

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Reading Gianna's blog I had to look at the orgasm simulator and decided to read the blog Bifurcated Rivets when I saw an interesting bit on credit cards . My credit card (CC) has been taking a hammering lately as I book flights and accommodation in preparation for going to Sou...

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Soaking rain last night. Good for garden, bad for cycling. Steep downhill pinch to Lee Point, loose damp gravel and wet leaves. Front brakes grab, sail spectacularly over handlebars then graceful forward roll on impact. Armadillo unhurt, bike completely cactus. Carry bike back...

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As Roop Sandhu decided to post his first piece to TA before I woke up this morning, and Wendy James left hers until after I'd left for work, it's only now that I've found time to post their respective biographical sketches (after prioritising appropriately and watching The All...

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Hello. My name is Roop Sandhu. You might know me as "adam" from the Floating Baby Moses Syndrome . Then again, you might not. In time, I too will take potshots at Alan Cadman . That is all.

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So, people have criticised the decision of the "Coalition of the Willing" to go to war with Iraq. Said criticism is often based on the fact that Iraq did not pose an imminent threat. From this, a conclusion is drawn by some anti-war types that the Coalition misled us, because...

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Stan Gudgeon has trained his beady, jaundiced bunyip eye on leftie econo-blogger John Quiggin: Being of the left, it goes without saying that John Quiggin is an enemy of pleasure -- at least those that don't involve curtailing the not-good-for-you joys of others. The focus of...

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TA reader Homer Paxton has been hounding me for news of the outcome of the recent Katherine by-election in the NT, caused by the retirement of long-serving former CLP Deputy Chief Minister Mike Reed. The CLP candidate won, but there was a swing to the ALP of almost 10%, and th...

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I've just posted the following announcement on the websites for the undergraduate units I'm teaching this semester at CDU: Tomorrow's classes are still on, notwithstanding the strike. I certainly support strongly the principle of academic independence, and strongly oppose gove...

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For a while now I've read the global warming debate on this site but, not having sufficient knowledge of the arguments to be able to contribute, have not added to the comments of JQ, bark, draino and sMiles flying back and forth. Anyway, I'm much more interested in the 'big pi...

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It's a signal indication of the strange place that the Parliamentary Labor Party currently resides in when they can devote their weekly caucus meeting to a discussion on whether or not to stand up or sit down in the presence of the United States Head of State and where clappin...

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Ever lie awake thinking about how great Richard Perle is? Or find yourself rolling on the floor at the wicked, rapier-like wit of Rummy? You could just have insomnia - or indisgestion. On the other hand, you too could be a neocon. The Christian Science Monitor (kooky religion,...

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* Warning another long global warming post - probably should be ignored by all but enthusiasts. John Quiggin and Ken Miles are both erudite and generally mild-mannered bloggers, except when it comes to the global warming debate. John Quiggin, for instance, tends to label peopl...

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I'm back from New Zealand and I can inform you that it was very green - and very neat. In fact, my partner, Lance, observed that the lush, manicured verdure through which we were driving looked like it was mown and rolled on a daily basis. The cows and sheep are also sparkling...

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Now be honest ! Who amongst you hasn't had a full blown, boots'n'all sexual fantasy about some one, depending upon your preference, male or female, depending upon your age, older or younger than you ? I want a lover with an easy touch I want somebody who will spend some time N...

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My son's IQ exceeds 150. Consequently I am of the view that IQ is hereditary,and further that boys inherit their IQ from their father (I made up that last bit). I read an article in the AFR a couple of days ago about how the traditional concepts of IQ were being supplanted by...

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Lots of Rugby news over at RWC Round Up but I can't agree with the list of posers (def; drink in lounge bars and sit down to piss) so I've decided to show you some of the players I admire most. Sure they may have faces only a mother could love but they are the one's that, at t...

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The RWC game France v Fiji was extremely disappointing for me, apart from the score, it's sad to see one of the most exciting rugby teams in the world having to recycle Serevi, a player whose most trenchant supporters would admit, has passed his peak, added to the likelihood t...

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Two articles in Friday's AFR, John Hewson's "Reaping the whirlwind" and Laura Tingle's "Full of promise but short on substance" (only available online to those prepared to pay) make interesting reading, partly because they are about the same subject, looked at from different p...

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A 24 - 8 win against Argentina first up. Scratchy but promising. A solid performance by the forwards, especially Baxter at prop, David Lyons in place of Toutai Kefu, and David Giffin before the sickening collision of his head with the ground. At least it's apparently only conc...

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Nobel Prize winner JM Coetzee's novel Disgrace is, as its title hints, about an ageing humanities academic forced to resign in disgrace after his callous seduction of a female student is uncovered. As the Amazon.com review encapsulates: David Lurie is hardly the hero of his ow...

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My mum always told me I had 'big bones', I'm not really fat, just 'cuddly' according to my wife and so I've always had a reasonably positive self image, but I was doing some research on Metabolic , a company involved in finding drugs to reduce obesity, in preparation for buyin...

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Following on from my post about the Defence Symposium held in Darwin, some of the papers are now available. If you are interested in obtaining some background, the details of the economics of the defence forces in the NT 2000/1 are here . The (very heavily censored?? edited) p...

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George Williams attempts to broaden the debate about constitutional reform in an opinion piece in today's SMH. He opposes, as I do, John Howard's proposal effectively to remove the Senate's power to block legislation by providing that there could be a joint sitting of both Hou...

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Uncle at ABC Watch posts an item taking a passing sideswipe at retired American Anglican Bishop John Shelby Spong for misusing his clerical office to promote personal opinions arguably intrinsically inconsistent with Christian ministry . Uncle probably has a point, because as...

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The worst thing about failing to post anything on the blog for a week or more is that just about the only messages I now get in my home email inbox are Nigerian business proposals and marginally premature attempts to persuade me to buy some Viagra. Meanwhile, Sam "Yobbo" Ward...

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Oh what a feeling ! (perhaps Toyota have trade-marked that, never mind)..... Lovely to know that somebody makes the effort to trek on over to TA every day to read the musings of the post-moral majority. I thought I'd better post something to assuage Mork and those readers of h...

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Chris Sheil reckons I'm having a "post-50 funk/sulk-out ". He might be right, although there's stuff going on in my life at present that's a bit more significant than that (at least from my subjective viewpoint) and arguably not related per se to being 50. However they're even...

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Ken Parish alluded to the Charles Darwin Symposium titled "The Eye of the Storm: Northern Australia's Location in an Arc of Instability " in which several speakers explore[d] ... the regional security issues that have arisen since the commencement of the 'War on Terror' and th...

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Congratulations to J.M. Coetzee for winning the 2003 Nob(el)le Prize of literature. Of course, being a Nostradamus-like figure that I am, he was one of the four writers I highlighted for the Noble gong last year, (even if I couldn't spell his name.) When I have a spare moment,...

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UnAustralian Ken Miles has a reflexive whinge about an article in yesterday's Australian newspaper by noted geologist Professor Ian Plimer. Why? Well, I can't be sure because I didn't buy yesterday's Oz, and the article isn't online (at least not for free). But it's a fair bet...

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I'll be in one from tomorrow: New Zullind to be precise - until October 12. I won't be posting until I'm back but I'm sure I'll find the opportunity to comment from time to time.

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Nigeria has just launched it's first satellite - from a missile base in Russia. The Washington Post reports Nigerian space agency spokesman, Solomon Olaniyi, saying that the government plans to use the $13 million satellite to monitor water resources, soil erosion, deforestati...

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Out go Richard Alston and Wilson Tuckey - they'll be hoping there's no ambassadorial vacancy in Chad. Vanstone to Immigration, Ruddock to Attorney-General, Abbott picks up Health, Patterson gets Family and Community Services, Daryl Williams goes to Communications and De-anne K...

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Over the next couple of days I'll be peripherally involved with the Charles Darwin Symposium titled " The Eye of the Storm: Northern Australia's Location in an Arc of Instability " being conducted at my place of employment. I'm co-ordinating the digital recording of the procee...

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Molly, our elderly neighbour has just popped over. She lives a few houses down the river and is one of the few residents left who can remember the days when Undercliffe was a bold Chifleyite housing solution to the overcrowded slum terraces of Surry Hills and Erskineville. To...

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Dennis Shanahan ran a piece, in Saturday's tree edition of the Australian - no online link - covering a speech that Wayne Swan gave to the Blaxland FEC on Friday night. Much of it was predictable stuff: "if we get it wrong at the next election we're out for a dozen years; Howa...

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Earlier in the week, Thabo Mbeki - in New York attending the UN General Assembly meeting - granted an interview to the Washington Post , wherein, he observed: "Personally, I don't know anybody who has died of AIDS." Asked whether he knows anyone with HIV, he added quietly, "I...

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Keeping a blog gives you a glimmer of insight into what it must be like to produce a daily current affairs program on radio or TV. Finding enough fresh and interesting material to put to air can be problematic on slow news days. Of course, blogs aren't really like that, in tha...

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Federal Liberal MP, Teresa Gambaro, burst from deep backbench cover this morning with the funniest tax proposal since Pauline Hanson's little - "take 2 away from 2 and add 2 " - side-splitter convulsed the nation back in 2001. Ms Gambaro - also from Queensland, oddly enough -...

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I've been catching up on surfing my favourite blogs (it seems many blogspots were down yesterday) and I came across a 'pome' on Gummo's blog. Even though I'm a "wise old wood god" who has seen the offspring of "first primeval calf", to tell you the truth I don't understand why...

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Big Armadillo and expert in legal hairdressing jurisprudence, Ken Parish, has announced his 50th birthday. Ken confided "long lunch plans" as celebration. I would not anticipate a learned exposition on Callinan J's judgment re Hanson, anytime soon.

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Perth uberblogger, Gareth Parker, turns 21 today. Run on over and cheer him up with predictions as to how long it'll be before he goes bald, and stuff.

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Those who lament the UN as a bastion of lefty luvvies should take heart from today's release of the latest report from the UN Office on Drugs and Crime. Fresh from the trenches you might say.... The first ever UN global survey on amphetamines and ecstasy, claims that in the pa...

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There's something profoundly Australian about an heroic, one-eyed Kangaroo named Lulu rescuing her owner. She may well be suffering under the misapprehension that she's actually a Blue Heeler - she may even bark like a dog - but never mind. We know, deep down, that she represe...

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Mark Latham has achieved his aim of deflecting attention from Simple Simon's poor poll results by hyping his 'saving plan for low income families'. Mr Latham said breaking the poverty cycle was crucial in overcoming many social ills, such as welfare dependency and crime. "If y...

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Allison Henry, the national director of the Australian Republic Movement had one of those characteristically, ill-humoured pieces in the Oz this morning that always manages to reduce the Republican cause to a joyless, lemon-lipped bitchslap. Harry "Blue" Windsor is plainly ent...

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Earlier this afternoon we drove down towards Palmerston (Darwin's satellite city, more commonly known locally as Palmerslum) to inspect progress on the Darwin-Alice Springs Railway. Track-laying reached Palmerston on Friday and was supposed to be due to end 10 km further north...

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I had a relatively late start to REAL work. I was having such a good time at Uni (supported by my wife; I only agreed to marry her providing she graduated successfully and was able to keep me etc. etc...) Then after one year masquerading as a teacher, bumming around Europe for...

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Margo Kingston has a fascinating follow-up piece on the AEC and its current Commissioner Andy Becker. This story may turn out to be more significant than I first imagined. Update - EvilPundit highlights a Labor-related body called the "Fair Go Alliance" that also seems to fit...

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Slim Dusty passed away this morning. There'll be the odd pub with no beer in Tamworth tonight..... (and a patently insincere and tasteless tribute from Ken Parish).

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This article from News Online may say more about Australia's World Cup prospects than all the pundit analysis to date: Rugby league recruit Lote Tuquiri jumped up on to the canopy. Matt Dunning and Matt Burke were "up close" at the front of the boat when the crocodile lunged....

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Margo Kingston's Web Diary hosts an excellent post this morning by UNSW Latrobe law lecturer Joo-Cheong Tham discussing the issues surrounding whether the Australian Electoral Commission should require Tony Abbott's delightfully deceptively-named Australians for Honest Politic...

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There's plenty of room for cynicism about the Howard government's motives in Tony Abbott's introduction into Parliament today of tough new legislation regulating the troubled building industry, just as there was in relation to the Cole Royal Commission that gave rise to the pr...

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Despite Geoff Honnor's elegant demolition of Germaine Greer's egregious Quarterly Essay titled " Whitefella Jump Up - The Shortest Way to Nationhood ", and even despite Greer's figurative self-immolation on Andrew Denton's program last Monday evening, I continue to feel compel...

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Scott Wickstein , ever-perceptive, concludes that Sydney and Australia are different places. The incontrovertible evidence that Scott produces to support his proposition is the extraordinary brawl that broke out yesterday between former Kings School alumnus, now professional R...

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I was just thinking about the last time I wore shoes. Since ceasing work in an office I find that the occasions where I have to wear 'proper' footwear are becoming less and less. Going to work these days involves donning a pair of bathers and an Austswim instructors shirt to p...

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Greg Sheridan - on the History Wars - in The Australian this morning: "One of the most irresponsible things in normal democratic politics is to inflate the language you use about your opponents, to import moral absolutes into the prosaic and wholesome debates a democratic peop...

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After persistent shaming by Mark Gallagher , I've finally gotten around to implementing some code he supplied that creates permalinks at the foot of all comment box contributions. People will now be able to create hyperlinks directly to specific comments published on Troppo Ar...

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This post is an experiment in audio-blogging (or oral blogging) using streaming audio. Click here to listen. You'll need to download and instal the latest version of Windows Media Player (free download) to be able to listen in "streaming" format (i.e. without waiting for the e...

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There I was sitting in front of 'Lateline" and Secretary of the Treasury, Ken Henry - who looks alarmingly like Malcolm Turnbull in a certain light - pops up on the screen. I'd clearly nodded off and had entered the realm of telepathic communication, because his message was ob...

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As today's Australian notes , bail applications and appeals against refusal of bail by One Nation founders Pauline Hanson and David Ettridge were yesterday refused by Queensland's Court of Appeal. What I hadn't realised (not being a criminal law specialist) until I did some qu...

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A 10 year old girl is mauled by a croc in a billabong at Patonga in Kakadu and where do I read about it? In The Australian breaking news ! What has become of the Northern Territory News ? Surely that publication's sole raison d'etre is to record the table d'hote proclivities o...

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You've got to hand it to Margo Kingston - our own roll-your-own, Oriana Fallaci-in-a Flannie. While lesser political commentators - "Quislings" as Webdiary , rather derivatively terms them - waste time on considered analysis, reasoned reflection and logical conclusion, Margo g...

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For those of us married to Kiwis, last night's smashing 48-22 NRL win by the NZ Warriors over the Canterbury Bulldogs raised seriously for the first time the depressing prospect that Kiwi teams might well take out both the Rugby World Cup and the NRL premiership. Sux months of...

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My brother and his wife are currently touring the old dart and I thought you may be interested in an extract from their recent newsletter. On the Isle of Skye we went to a Highland Games, great entertainment, the spectators sit on a grassy rise surrounding a flat arena where s...

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The Twin Towers rise again. If you don't believe it you don't know Darwin. Back in the 1980s our principal gay nighclub was named Dix, while its main hetero competitor was called Fannies. PS - Speaking of restraint and good taste (not to mention wit and intelligence), I see Ti...

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This story is worth reproducing in full: People who want to live longer and stay healthier were urged by an expert on ageing to have more sex and earn more money. Dr Ronald Klatz, president of the American Academy of Anti-Ageing Medicine Inc, said on Thursday that a British st...

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I'll let the man in black speak "I hear the train a comin'; it's rollin' 'round the bend, And I ain't seen the sunshine since I don't know when. I'm stuck at Folsom Prison and time keeps draggin' on. But that train keeps rollin' on down to San Antone. When I was just a baby, m...

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Germaine Greer's just-published Quarterly Essay, Whitefella Jump Up , adds yet more credence to my theory that Greer has metamorphosised into a Barry Humphries creation: the eccentric old bluestocking aunt who loves to blather on in a colourfully opinionated, slightly shocking...

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Michael Costello seems now to have joined the ranks of those (including this armadillo) betting on an early double dissolution federal election. From memory of a bet made months ago, I win a nice bottle of red from Michael Jennings if a DD election is held any time between Dec...

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From the transcript of last-night's Lateline -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- TONY JONES: Except of course Al Qaeda, for example, would still have safe and quite prolific training camps and bases inside Afghanistan wh...

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CNNNN tonight had a hilarious episode in which the immutable backbencher Alan Cadman challenged for the Liberal leadership, which is an amusing enough as a stand-alone scenario. In a wonderful parody of the navel-gazing speculations of the press gallery, Cadman entered the pic...

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Now that the debate about what white Australia can do to improve the living conditions of Aboriginals is back on track I thought I'd add my two dollars worth. $2 because this is a subject that I actually know something about, having put my snout, along with almost every other...

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Fouad Ajami makes the case with the sort of elegant eloquence to which this armadillo can only ever aspire - unsuccessfully. In Foreign Policy magazine , Ajami, the Majid Khadduri professor at Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies, and a contribut...

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I might as well spread this one before some other smartarse does. How many lawyers does it take to change a lightbulb? "Such number as may be deemed necessary to perform the stated task in a timely and efficient manner within the strictures of the following agreement: Whereas...

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One of the difficult things for us non-expert lay observers of the ongoing global warming debate is that the zealots on both sides seem to have little hesitation in misusing climate statistics to "prove" their case. The website of global warming sceptic John Daly currently con...

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I had a terrible shock a few minutes ago. As I walked out of my bedroom about to leave for the office (after a morning of updating the NTU website from home), I came face to face with a Catholic nun standing at the front door. Lord forgive me! I instantly thought. They always...

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Former ARM President Greg Barns sallies forth into the History Wars today, but only to bemoan their pointless tedium in a way not dissimilar to most of us in the blogosphere (other than the committed ideologues on either side): When Melbourne University history department coll...

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It's not often that I agree wholeheartedly with flaming pink blogger Rob Schaap, but I have no hesitation in endorsing just about every word of his fine post on great Aussie blunders (responding to Gummo Trotsky's contest ). Does this mean I'm lurching to the left as I approac...

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Paddy McGuinness is enthusiastically (and no doubt mischievously) pushing the "Carr for Canberra" cart. He touts Leaping Leo McLeay as the bloke most likely to surrender his lucrative seat on the parliamentary exercise bike for the greater good. Leo is Geoff Honnor's local mem...

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John Quiggin answers the question "Are blogs chatrooms?" with the obvious response: NO. But he also inserts a throwaway asserton that: Political blogs like this one are intended as competion for mass media such as newspapers, and have had at least some success in this role. Sp...

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(Via Tim Blair ) For us execrated boomers it's a black day. Warren Zevon's dead after a "long illness". I thought you only got mesothelioma from asbestos.

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Carita Kazakoff asks about spring in Darwin in a comment to Geoff Honnor's slightly sardonic Sydney spring soliloquy Christopher Sheil's poem of earlier today. As an habitue of East Timor I thought she'd realise there's no such thing in the monsoonal tropics, at least if you j...

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Our house fronts on to the Cooks River, along which a public pathway gives access to a continuing parade of runners, power-walkers, dreamers, cyclists and The Old Greek Homeless Guy who sleeps in the facilities block in the park across the river and makes his way along the pat...

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I thought I should post a belated apology for the lack of bloggage from this armadillo over the last several days. I've just been flat out like a lizard/armadillo drinking. Fortunately the co-armadillos have maintained an admirable flow of challenging posts. I'll post a commen...

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It wasn't on the Road to Damascus - and he isn't St Paul - but colourful C-Filer Jack Strocchi has had a revelatory moment of truth about Iraq. It's an entertaining read and a rare and gracious moment of blogospherical concession.

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I hold relatively few politicians in high regard, but Bob Carr is an exception. He's an unlikely political success story in our culture: bookish, verging on teetotal, private to the point of suspected misanthropy, but still with that indefinable something that begins to build...

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Windschuttle fan Suzy assails mild-mannered centrist armadillo with Keith's most persuasive argument (click thumbnail image).

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In response to the question "I was wondering more whether the antipodean Aristotle might have a range of Op Ed commentators in mind whose prose might "make the heart skip a beat?" Whose legacy might be enduring?" posed by Geoff, in this blog Chris mentioned the name Charles Be...

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Yet another grand conspiracy, just a fortnight ago it was the firebrand from Ipswich who seemed to fail to recognise a political party is more than a cult of personality. This time its Outdoor Recreation Party 4WD-greenie-anti-grennie-friend of the worker-master of the mystica...

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Boris Johnson, Editor of The Spectator and Tory MP for Henley-on-Thames, offers a few thought-provoking musings on the great gulf between the discourse of the journalistic-politico class and those he terms the "civilians." Using the Kelly case as his example, he goes to the he...

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The responses to the blogs I've written about David have been, without exception, very supportive, and thank you one and all. I really expected that there would be one or two that said something like "wake up and get a life loser, stop wallowing in self pity and write somethin...

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Paul Keating ripped into it last night as he launched Stuart Macintyre's new book, The History Wars - upon which Chris Sheil blogs below. It was colourful, controversial and indeed ground-breaking as interesting words like "Tintookies" (puppets apparently) emerged from etymolo...

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Singapore's Straits Times gives the Abu Bakar Bashir trial outcome the sort of finessed analysis that eludes the crapped-out, where's-the-fuckin'- handle-gone gestetner, that is the PR vehicle of the alleged Leader of the Australian opposition. You could imagine the briefing C...

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Tim Blair blogs approvingly on (of all things) an Alan Ramsey column in the Silly Moaning Hillmer which castigates Labor frontbencher Craig Emerson for his apparently inept performance when interviewed by Laurie Oakes about the Hanson/Abbott affair on the Nine Network Sunday p...

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We watched the first doco 'The Topic of Cancer' ten years ago while our son David was in the middle of chemotherapy treatment. At the time we were certain that he would pull through and consequently found the program interesting but not particularly upsetting. Even when the Da...

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MEMO TO : OFFICE OF NATIONAL ASSESSMENTS FROM : DEFENCE SIGNALS DIRECTORATE SHOAL BAY ECHELON INTERCEPT DATE : August 28 2003 CLASSIFICATION DISTRIBUTION TO LEVEL MSC1A Based on identification of DICTIONARY item " Department of Defence" the following intercept was received on...

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Steve Edwards blogs about the latest Newspoll on the standing of the federal parties and their respective leaders. I agree with pretty well everything Steve says, especially this paragraph: The ALP is behind by two-percent in the two-party preferred stakes. This doesn't sound...

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Chapter 3 of Suzy's autobiography Close to the Bone is now formatted and uploaded. I've broken each of the three chapters to date into smaller, bite-sized chunks so they're much more manageable for Internet reading. I suspect I won't be blogging much myself until I finish load...

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My father reached his 77th birthday two weeks ago. I love him dearly and I don't like to disagree with him but in the last few years he's become obsessed by, what he calls, the blight of single mothers. It started out with his bitching about the cost of welfare payments. He us...

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Sonia Harford has written a pretty piece, A long-lashed barman leaning across the counter to ask for your order. A couple on a bus smiling smugly and leaning into each other as the vehicle bumps and sways. A woman's long, languid yawn, bangles skittering down her arm. A police...

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In the late 1800s, economist and avid gardener Vilfredo Pareto established that 80% of the land in Italy was owned by 20% of the population. While gardening he later observed that 20% of the peapods in his garden yielded 80% of the peas that were harvested. And thus was born a...

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Matt Price always a master at reporting the shenanigans at Parliament House has a short article in the Sunday Telegraph, which I stumbled upon by accident. The story focused on the Senate vote to increase the printing allowance of every MP to $150,000. You might recall that Pe...

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Fount of blogospherical wisdom, Bargarz, points to the lamentable tendency for Simon Crean to emerge like some cheapjack, showbag Jack-in-the-box - roughly every fortnight - to report on his latest "gate' discovery. "This is ethanolgate" he sonorously pronounced shortly before...

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The comment thread to my previous post Can Pauline Sue Tony Abbott? has thrown up some fascinating discussion. It also seems to have reached a consensus of sorts, well summarised by Dave Ricardo: " I agree that what Abbott did was just grubby business as usual politics. But th...

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I like reading ... anything, everything, my tastes are exceedingly eclectic. I'll sometimes pick up half a dozen books from the library and read the lot in a day or two, even though I know from the first page that they are crap, it seems that once started I feel as though I ow...

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For those of you who don't know - or who've forgotten - Scott Wickstein is taking your entries, under the heading, The Ten Most Influential Australians Of the 20th Century over at his place . He's going to be collating them tonight and plans to publish the outcome tomorrow. Th...

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Uncle at ABC Watch and Tim Blair have both blogged on ABC Radio National's suspension withour pay of Religion Report host Stephen Crittenden. Nothing surprising about that in itself. Both are serial Auntie-bashers from way back, and both seem to define "bias" as a concept meas...

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Gianna is pregnant ! Congratulations! Plenty of time for late night blogging while coping with teething, chronic gripe and insomnia from 4am feeds.

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I must say I've been a bit bemused by the reaction of some in the media (not least Red Kezza on this evening's ABC 7.30 Report) to the imagined revelation that Tony Abbott had lied to Four Corners in 1998 about whether he had bankrolled or arranged the bankrolling of disgruntl...

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What with the Blaster virus and Sobig F still causing headaches in computer networks around the world, I thought it was worthwhile posting this joke email just forwarded by Suzy Kruhse BE ON THE LOOK OUT FOR THE FOLLOWING VIRUSES: CLINTON VIRUS: Gives you a 7 Inch Hard Drive w...

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What an unedifying spectacle we have before us. Pauline - according to her sister Judy - wearing thongs! "I've never seen her wearing thongs before" Judy confided merrily - perhaps a tad too merrily, given the circumstances - to the massed media outside Walco Gaol. I for one f...

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This post is just an exercise in housekeeping, intended to provide short biographical details (and in some cases photos) of the Troppo Armadillo blogging semi-co-operative. The biographies are mercifully short, although they may still tell you more than you really want to know...

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In a hopefully minor aftermath to the Chris versus Norman flamewar of a week or so ago, Christopher Sheil is still upset that I accused him of being "wrong" about the spelling of the Aboriginal man "Mosquito". His name is spelled that way in the Oxford Companion to Australian...

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Niall Cook blogs an amusing (and surprisingly honest for a leftie) appraisal of the Public Service: The tribal wisdom of the Dakota Indians, passed down from generation to generation, says that when you discover that you are riding a dead horse, the best strategy is to immedia...

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Sometimes I find the inspiration for a blog post in the most unlikely places. Earlier this evening I took Jenny out to the after hours medical clinic at Darwin Private Hospital for treatment for a persistent migraine. Being a rather expensive establishment, it doesn't get the...

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Here at the 'dillo we're more on to it than Marr - and much merrier with it. Especially when it comes to Mike Carlton. Weeks before David the Dilettante pointed out that the SMH's Saturday polemicist had elevated Senator Robert Byrd to the Moral Conscience of the Age, without...

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It's a gray day in the Emerald City. Rain is setting in and I'm a feeling just a bit hungover. What better restorative than to proceed to my local bookshop to purchase the just released Judith Brett opus - Australian Liberals and the Moral Middle Class - from Alfred Deakin to...

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You were Columbus! You were born in Corsica in 1451. As a child you caught rides on ships; you always loved the sea. You didn't get much formal education but you were very clever when it came to navigation and sailing. Your idea to sail west to Asia was not to prove that the w...

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Remember you read it here first ! Well, after you probably saw it here . Today's NT News reports that the local Army Reserve has begun training the ultimate deterant to invasion of the Top End. Major 'Sammy' Serambuka, project team leader told the News, "Crocs may appear stupi...

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Apropos Ken's article on the Evatt Foundation site (contributors to TA are required by our verbal contracts, you know the one's not worth the paper they're not written on, to shamelessly promote the chief Armadillo's work), it's pleasant to see the toothless revolutionary deli...

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Those of you planning Battle of Bosworth Field Memorial wakes today - hard to believe I know, but it's 518 years since Richard III was defeated by Henry Tudor at Bosworth Field, time flies etc - will be gratified by this In Memoriam notice from todays SMH: PLANTAGENET, Richard...

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It all seemed so sudden. One moment she was photo-opping in time-honoured fashion, the next she was being sent down for three years. Shut away in the sort of seclusion that will be the stuff of a dozen New Idea covers - "Pauline's Prison Torment!" Indeed, it's already started...

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This month's Atlantic includes an interesting piece by Christopher Hitchens on Edward Said's Orientalism , which is being re-released with an updated introduction. As Hitchens points out Said's upbringing was ideal in allowing him to traduce the conceptions of several cultures...

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The concept of the rule of law is not one that most people readily associate with Indonesia. However, if this article by Ross Clarke in the Australian Journal of Asian Law is anything to go by, the assumption that judges of the new Indonesian Constitutional Court will be pliab...

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Years of bitter experience have taught me that if you don't blow your own trumpet, it's fairly rare that anyone else will do it on your behalf. As readers may recall, a couple of months ago Tim Dunlop wrote an excellent analytical article about blogging for the Evatt Foundatio...

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On the day after murderous terrorist suicide bomb attacks on the UN headquarters in Baghdad and a bus in Jerusalem, I can't think of anything more appropriate than to reproduce without comment (except the headline) the following extract from Andrew Denton's interview with form...

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Professor Bunyip has been notably AWOL from the blogosphere over the last week or so. However, his bile has obviously been quietly but ominously building up volcanic pressure during the hiatus, and today it burst forth in a spectacularly dazzling virtuoso spray against his fav...

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One knows not to question the wisdom of the Delphic seers , those voices of prescience whose cryptic counsels were so poorly interpreted by their clientele. Whether that be poor ole King Polydectes who was warned he would be killed by his foster-son or some other glutton for a...

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(Via Gummo Trotsky ) Big Western Benito is an Aussie ex-pat blogger who recently arrived in the Solomons, apparently on an extended stay. It's fortuitous given that his arrival coincided with that of the Australian-led peacekeeping contingent. Benito's blog is certainly one to...

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As Harry Belafonte might have put it: "Down the way where the nights are gay, And the sun shines daily on the mountain top. I took a trip on a sailing ship and when I reached Jamaica, my eyes just popped! For, just erected (if I might use that word) in Kingston's Redemption Pa...

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Catallaxy blogger and Centre for Independent Studies thinktank denizen Andrew Norton has a useful article in this morning's Australian about the distinction between neo-conservatism, ordinary conservatism, neo-liberalism, ordinary liberalism and so on. He suggests that the "ne...

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The Australian newspaper is obediently singing in harmony from the John Howard songbook in its editorial of this morning : JOHN Howard is being denied his right to govern by alliances of convenience between Labor and the motley collection of minor party and independent eccentr...

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Kooky eccentric, former UN Weapons Inspector and all-round funster, Richard Butler has just been appointed as Her Majesty's Representative in Tasmania. Last heard of banging on pretty much endlessly about Howard's perfidy in claiming Iraq had WMD - despite the fact that he him...

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There are few things I find more deliciously enjoyable than a story in which every single character is thoroughly detestable with no redeeming personal qualities whatsoever .

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Tony the Teacher doesn't think much of "Kasey Chamber-pot ", who he accuses of "inflicting on us the worst, most whiney, most tuneless, most irritating song in living memory". I certainly agree "Am I Pretty Enough?" is a first rate puke-inducing shocker, but the worst in livin...

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Blogger Paul Watson , whose work I greatly admire, has a chip on his shoulder. He sees himself as a "Generation Xer" whose opportunities in life have been circumscribed by the self-centred hedonism of the babyboomer generation that preceded him. It's a repetive theme on Paul's...

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I've just discovered through following blogroll links on Tubagooba that its author Dan is part of what may well be Australia's first (almost) complete blogging family. As well as Dan (whose surname appears to be Gordon), Dan's brother Angus also publishes a blog (a shiny new T...

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One fairly obscure aspect of the Manildra affair (which John Howard seems to have successfully if unjustly "toughed out" despite clearly lying to Parliament and failing to retract or apologise) relates to corporate political donations. The other day I heard Labor frontbencher...

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Jack Balkin blogs an interesting post about an attempt by Rupert Murdoch's (US) Fox News group to stifle free speech by litigating to enforce US trademark dilution laws: Fox News is suing Al Franken in the New York courts, attempting to enjoin sales of his forthcoming book, "L...

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The running feud between Christopher Sheil and Norman Hanscombe is really getting quite out of hand IMO, and spoiling everyone's enjoyment of what could otherwise be challenging and worthwhile debates. I don't intend to censor or ban anyone from this site because it's against...

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So ran the header on Radio Australia's Tokpisin News broadcast . The item related to John Howard's advocacy of former DFAT First Assistant Sec - and 25 year Pacific veteran - Greg Urwin, to head the Pacific Forum secretariat. Suva-based Pacific Islands magazine , in it's Augus...

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If you're a white/red-neck racist, sexist jerk with a chip on your shoulder, you'll be ostracised by "polite" middle class urban society and possibly dealt with by HREOC or a State or Territory anti-discrimination body for "racial vilification". If you're an urbanised (part) A...

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Christopher Sheil reckons there's no such thing as a Left Wing Death Beast. It sounds to me like a dubious proposition at best. What about Paul Keating? Admittedly it's a bit of a stretch describing him as a "left winger" but at least he's an ALP politician not a Tory. Here's...

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The post below this one introduces Stephen Hill as an occasional member of the Troppo Armadillo motley crew. Stephen published his own witty, elegant blog "Rambling Man" until fairly recently, but found the time demands unsustainable because of tertiary study/research commitme...

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Second instalment of an extended allegorical cricketing yarn, begun as a comment to the post Australia's worst government? : Well we've just come back from drinks, and there's little new to report. Adding to the scoreboard we have been a couple wides after a wayward over from...

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I've resisted until now the temptation to blog about the death penalty, because it's dancing to John Howard's tune. But I keep thinking about it, so I suppose I'll just have to write it out of my system. Others have already beaten me to the punch here , here and here (update -...

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Long lunch at Law School expense, thanking Law Librarians for their efforts in running e-tutorials under stress. Good food, fine wine, gazing out across the bay from the terrace of the restaurant at Darwin Museum, listening to Yothu Yindi playing their entire repertoire in reh...

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Yesterday's post Australia's worst government? generated one of the longest, most entertaining and occasionally incisive comment threads I can remember on Troppo Armadillo . Comment no. 54 by lapsed cultural blogger Stephen Hill is one of my favourites. Stephen manages to sust...

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I see that the High Court yesterday reversed an earlier Full Federal Court decision which had ruled in favour of the South Sydney Rabbitohs Rugby League Club in relation to the circumstances of setting up the 14 team NRL competition to settle the so-called "superleague war". T...

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John Quiggin blogged yesterday on the fact that John Howard manifestly lied to Parliament over the Manildra/ethanol issue, and the equally manifest prospect that he'll get away with it. John also pointed out in a post-script that a former Howard Chief of Staff is now a Manildr...

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Geoff Honnor blogged on this not so long ago, but it's worth recording the gratifying news that Nigerian email scams are spawning rapidly, making the repetitive task of inbox deletion at least a bit more varied and entertaining. I received one from the Philippines the other da...

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If there's one aspect of the identity of the mysterious Professor Bunyip about which we can be completely confident, it's the fact that he really is a parent of teenage children. Only another fellow sufferer could have written this : The real surprise about teenagers isn't tha...

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At the risk of boring readers rigid, I can't resist another blast on climate change/global warming. It's partly provoked by Wayne Wood's Homer Simpson perspective on global warming (immediately below) and partly by a Salon article linked by John Quiggin , which highlights the...

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I don't really understand the in-depth research done by the IPCC, and always thought a 'hockey stick' was something Nova Peris used to get a gold medal. Then there is the usual dash of Ricardo ridicule, providing evidence once again that somebody enjoys Ken's blogging so much...

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Troppo Armadillo doesn't have the huge audience of a megablog like Instapundit, but it certainly attracts the attention of more than a few key participants in important debates. The latest is Nir Shaviv, one of the two researchers whose paper on the influence of supernovae on...

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Catallaxy's Andrew Norton blogs a review of Judith Brett's new book Australian Liberals and the Moral Middle Class . He actually makes me want to read it, and seems to explain its content and purpose far more thoroughly than Paul Kelly's effort in the Australian . Kelly appear...

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There are times when Tex's earthy blogging style really suits an issue perfectly. This is one of them .

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My wife and I have been away for a couple of days, far from the madding crowd. We went 250 kilometres down the Stuart Highway to a place called Edith Falls, actually it's called some other Aboriginal name now since it's been incorporated into Nitmiluk National Park, but we'll...

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From my fairly hazy memory of it, Judith Brett's Robert Menzies' Forgotten People ranks as one of the less incisive Australian works of political biography I've read in the last decade or so. But if Paul Kelly's review is anything to go by, her latest book Australian Liberals...

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The currently on-vacation Andrew Sullivan races back online to share his enthusiasm for Arnold Schwarzenneger's ah....candidacy....and demonstrates that gay bloggers need to be particularly conscious of the double entendre morass that unbridled metaphorical allusion can lead t...

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Alfred Einstein ? Still it's all relative, I suppose.

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Bali bomber Amrozi's death sentence has generated some strange resonances with the just-concluded Troppo Armadillo debate on Alison Broinowski's ideas about Asian perceptions of Australia. The first is that Amrozi's apparent apology to Australians (dealt with below by Christop...

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Ian Firns, the courageous (possibly in a Sir Humphrey Appleby sense) contract academic at the centre of the Newcastle University plagiarism cover-up scandal, contributes some fascinating observations to the comment box of my previous post . One of them is to express a degree o...

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Rob Corr has an excellent post on yesterday's decision by the High Court upholding the applicability of Australian industrial awards (and the jurisdiction of the AIRC) in relation to foreign-crewed and owned vessels operating in Australian coastal shipping. Here's an Age artic...

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I've been puzzled by the failure of any bloggers or mainstream op-ed pundits even to mention last week's Nine Network Sunday program which revealed apparent serious erosion of fundamental academic standards at University of Newcastle. It appears that widespread plagiarism by f...

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Despite my Resident Poof status on 'Dillo de Trop - or maybe because of it - I've resisted blogging, up till now, on the vexed question of gay marriage, propagation of the species and the increasingly strident demands of the over-privileged gay minority - and ever-cognisant of...

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My previous post about Alison Broinowski generated quite a bit of discussion. However, it's apparent that most commenters haven't actually read either her book or her thesis. I can't really blame them for that. Although the thesis is freely available in PDF format, some people...

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At the risk of fuelling up John Quiggin and UnAustralian Ken Miles (though only with renewable energy resources), here's a fascinating post on Aaron Oakley's Bizarre Science summarising new research suggesting that much of the observed 20th century global warming is actually c...

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Despite the title, this isn't a Bob Hope obituary. In fact it's a continuation of the Asian theme initiated with the previous post. I've just posted on the NTU Law School website a paper recently presented by NTU's Professor Jesse Wu in Malaysia. It was the 4th Professor Ahmad...

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I've been pondering on Indonesia and realpolitik. Professor Bunyip's elegant pay-out on Alison Broinowski first set me off on that track. I even took the time to skim-read Broinowski's doctoral thesis (of which her new book is a reworked version), which the Professor kindly li...

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I generally like the way Deirdre Macken writes for the AFR. She has the happy knack of making the most mundane report appear interesting. Her piece in the Weekend AFR is no exception. She discusses the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare's 2002 report, in particular the...

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Having just finished Man of Honour , Michael Duffy's new book about John Macarthur - Founding Father, Sheep Husbandry Enthusiast, Major Rorter and all round cranky bugger - I'm extremely grateful that The Great Perturbator predated the internet. There'd be more stepping out go...

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Like a blogospherical supernova, this pundit says it all in one brief incandescent burst - and then goes out. Link via Tim Blair . Illuminating!

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I can live with Right Wing Death Beast Paul Sheehan's dissing of Harry Potter , but stretching a single joke, and an unfunny one at that, to fill an entire column is another thing entirely. Even Phillip Adams doesn't usually sink to that level of uninspired op-ed desperation....

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The blogger behind the amusingly named in de-nial has taken blogging anonymity to new heights. S/he doesn't even adopt a pseudonym as far as I can see. I think I'll refer to him/her as Floating Baby Moses, because I suspect this will be a blog I'll be mentioning frequently. FB...

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(Via Aaron Oakley ) Rachel Carson's Silent Spring anti-DDT tract was a fraudulent beat-up , and millions of third world residents have died from malaria and other easily preventable insect-borne diseases as a result of its ill-advised banning in the early 1970s. The author eve...

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It isn't just bloggers who rely heavily on the Google search engine, it seems. Ian Firns , the Perth-based Newcastle University contract lecturer who uncovered the fact that 30% of his Malaysian students had plagiarised large slabs of their assignments by copying and pasting f...

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Posting has been light from me for the last few days because it's been crunch time for NTU Law School's new external law degree program, for whose implementation the Dean and Head of School made me responsible, not least because I've touted it unmercifully for the last 3 years...

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I finally got so irritated with myself that I twisted my own arm behind my back and updated the Troppo Armadillo blogroll!! I've tried to be as inclusive as possible, linking all Australian bloggers who can be described even vaguely as "political". If your blog isn't listed, i...

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Bill Clinton is often described as one of the keenest political intellects of the age. Simon Crean never will be, to which his ill-advised blundering about in the crocodile-infested Second Sydney Airport swamp bears eloquent testament - were further testament to the fact not e...

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Gummo Trotsky has a truly inspired post on why libertarians dislike yum cha! Scott Wickstein spares no sympathy for OzTaliban David Hicks. I agree, but I certainly don't agree that the Americans are justified in depriving him of basic civil rights (like legal representation of...

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After 5 years of an absurdly overheated residential property market, especially in Sydney and Melbourne, it's hardly surprising that housing affordability rates are at record lows : First home buyers in Sydney are being forced to fork out a record 40.6 per cent of average inco...

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Ken rang me today telling me to read a comment he put on a blog exhorting me to comment on the Rugby. When I went there, I notice Chris said the same thing. While I was looking I read the Wog's piece for her/his father - and I had to email her/him saying that her/his father wo...

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My thanks to Gummo for pointing the way to one of the most telling, funny, wry and altogether moving valedictories to a parent, I've read for a long time. If you haven't read it, go there .

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Here's another of Suzy Kruhse's joke emails. I'm sure it's just one of the standard ones that circulate on the Internet, but some of them raised a chuckle in me, anyway. For those who love the philosophy of hypocrisy and ambiguity. 1. Don't sweat the petty things and don't pet...

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Grieving Somali widow Muna Zulu Iyama emails me with the deal of a lifetime. From : Mrs. Muna Zulu Iyama refugee Camp South Africa muna_helpline@indiatimes.com Dear Friend, Complements of the season. I am delighted to contact you after coming across your contact in the interne...

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A reminder that the " 29 bullshit expressions in a single sentence " contest remains open until Friday afternoon. The contest has already attracted some quality entries, the last from William Burroughs' Baboon, who is himself about to initiate a new contest where contestants m...

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We live on the Cook's River, about 10 kms south of the Sydney CBD, and a couple of kilometres upstream of Botany Bay. A 15 minute run downriver from our place brings you to the point where the 6 roaring lanes of the Princes Highway cross the stream. On the far side, a clump of...

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Now that James has access to all the dirt - well everything that goes on in (quasi) government departments must be filed in the library, n'es pas ? - we'll all be much better informed. Personally I'm pleased to see he has got a (nearly) real job, all he needs now is a haircut!

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I've always been profoundly suspicious of flat tax advocates. However, a post this morning by Graham Young on the OLO Forum has me intrigued. In fairness to Graham, I should point out that he's only thinking aloud and not actually advocating a flat tax regime as such. Indeed h...

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Well, we now know what previously we just strongly suspected. The Wallabies are so far behind New Zealand they can only hear the thump of their own reputations hitting the tarmac. The largest loss to the All Blacks ever at 50-21 says most of it. John Connolly in the SMH someho...

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The Right is notoriously short of clever humourists but Canadian RWDB - if that's not oxymoronic - Mark Steyn can be very funny. This piece of his from the UK Telegraph - which I beg you to believe I'm not posting in search of a political debate - is really, very funny. Link v...

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Just-published ABS figures on income inequality are a good opportunity to blog on this topic, which I've intended to cover ever since co-blogger Chris Sheil blogged his hell in a handbasket post . Michael Costello also focused on the ABS figures in yesterday's Australian . The...

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Bite the bullet . Why is it easier to expose emotions and vulnerabilities to hundreds of strangers on a blog than to just one on a tram? The evolution of a trend towards blending of the personal and political in the blogosphere, arguably initially orchestrated by Gianna , is a...

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(Via Tim Blair ) After noting Uncle at ABC Watch's blogging of Andrew Bolt's response to Media Watch's slagging of him last week, I should also record that Crikey.com is hosting the ongoing slanging match , with a response from David Marr and a further riposte from Andrew Bolt...

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Readers not yet in the tertiary stages of Alzheimer's Disease will recall that a couple of months ago I conducted a contest where comment box participants were invited to nominate how long Tim Blair could last without mentioning his bete noire Margo Kingston . Sadly, all my re...

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Is plucky, Baghdad blogging, man of mystery, Salam Pax really Robert Fisk!? Scroll down to read this observation: "At that press conference there was a gentleman who asked an extremely important question which was answered by Sanchez with "that is speculation. Next question."...

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Living adjacent to a beautiful waterfront park is a mixed blessing. On Cracker Night (1 July) it's like being in the middle of the shock and awe bombing of Baghdad. It's made even worse by a mob of casino workers who rent the big house opposite and regularly have parties start...

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Malaysiakini one of the few truly independent Malaysian media voices, reports as follows: Three judges in Anwar's trials promoted Arfa'eza A Aziz 11:25am Wed Jul 23rd, 2003 Two infamous High Court judges who were involved in the controversial trials of jailed ex-deputy prime m...

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Forbes magazine carries an interesting graphical representation of the most recent OECD data on comparative total tax takes of the 48 member States (including Australia) as a proportion of GDP. As you'll see, Australia has one of the lowest total tax takes in the OECD, with on...

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The High Court's Cattanach v Melchior decision has attracted much attention both in the blogosphere and mainstream op-ed media. Angela Shanahan , Janet Albrechtsen and Sydney legal academic Regina Graycar have all published op-ed pieces about Cattanach (although not one of the...

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Today's Newspoll has been most perplexing. We learn that J. Howard and his cronies have mysteriously endeared themselves to the punters such that 45% of them would vote for the Coalition compared to just 35% for the ALP. Were this to be an election result the ALP would be shed...

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I'm not one of those people who plonk myself in front of Media Watch every Monday evening in the delicious anticipation of being Thoroughly Outraged and Deeply Disturbed at the manifest evidence of Left Wing Bias. That the ABC will largely reflect the broadly left liberal slan...

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Web design genius (and my former blog landlord) Mark Gallagher has kindly provided me with the code allowing comment boxes to be resized by users just like any other Window (by using the maximise icon at top right). It's a feature Ron Mead requested, and his wish was our comma...

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Robert Corr blogs a post about yesterday's demo near federal Immigration Minister Phillip Ruddock's house. Rob effectively unpicks (I won't say "unpacks" because of its pomo denotations) the somewhat hysterical media coverage of the event, uncovering the usual mix of exaggerat...

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Caroline Baum had an interesting piece in the Weekend Age dealing with the stresses fiction authors may place on personal relationships when they use thinly-disguised friends or acquaintances as fodder for a novel or short story. As a blogger who occasionally pens "vignettes"...

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Shock news from Washington DC confirms the extraordinary power of the blogosphere. Scarcely had the Battle of Tim-Tim ensued on the net than the US House of Representatives Ways and Means Committee exploded in an uncannily accurate - and similarly acrimonious - reprise of that...

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In a previous blog The Business of Health I copied a paragraph from Penelope Williams's book, Alternatives in Cancer Therapy ; The economic argument is certainly compelling. The cancer industry, indeed the entire health industry, is a tangle of vested interests including the p...

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I see that Bright Cold Matt and James Russell are both in despair about the blogosphere in the wake of the Tim versus Tim blog wars. Matt's reaction is especially understandable, because it was a fairly innocuous post of his musing about Delta Goodrem and the nature of celebri...

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I have been known to be critical of Tim Dunlop's obsessive ongoing focus on Iraq and WMD. However, this post is Tim at his finest; careful, coolly analytical and even-handed (qualities of which you'd seldom accuse the other Tim). It's well worth a read.

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I blogged a couple of days ago in defence of the reasonableness of MPs' superannuation arrangements . I deliberately omitted any reference to the other most frequently mentioned alleged politicians' rort: overseas "junkets" at taxpayers' expense. Coincidentally, Alan Ramsey ha...

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Taking a break from his playground spat with Tim Dunlop (see here and here ), in which both Tims and their respective supporters are competing to see who can dream up the most childishly spiteful arguments against each other on an issue of mind-blowing triviality, Tim Blair bl...

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I see that both Scott Wickstein and Bernard Slattery have already blogged on yesterday's Cattanach v Melchior decision, where the High Court dismissed an appeal from a Queensland judgment where substantial damages had been awarded to a couple (the Melchiors) who ended up with...

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You'll see from a glance at the sidebar that I've implemented a "Most recently commented posts" category, using code kindly supplied by John Quiggin . Like John, I'm hoping that this innovation will tend to promote more considered, reflective comment box debate over an extende...

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24601 has a useful post over at Australian Libertarians blog. It links pretty well all the recent blog posts about the nature of libertarianism and the merits and otherwise of its various sub-cults. The principal features of the sub-cults themselves are also succinctly summari...

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I see rightie Australian newspaper columnist Janet Albrechtsen reckons politicians are tricky and greedy for continuing to award themselves what she sees as over-generous (and unfunded) superannuation benefits. Leftie blogger Stewart Kelly agrees. We have a rare cross-ideologi...

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It's estimated that as much as half of the world's wealth is tied up in real estate. The value of the world's real estate far exceeds the market capitalisation of all the world's stock markets, futures markets and bond markets. Vast fortunes have been made and lost in real est...

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Peripatetic blog commenter Norman Hanscombe fires the latest shot in the "culture wars" , with a guest article on Tim Dunlop's blog detailing inaccuracies in Lyndall Ryan's work uncovered by Keith Windschuttle. Having digested Windschuttle's book in a rather hasty scanning ses...

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Suzy Kruhse cultivates female friends even more eccentric than herself. I suspect she finds the comparison reassuring. Billie-Jean is a prime example. Middle-aged grand-daughter of a well-known pioneering pastoral family, Billie-Jean has a torrid relationship with her long-tim...

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I don't know about you, but I've just about had a gutful of these whinging lefties rabbiting on about whether the PM knew about doubts over the reliability of intelligence about Saddam seeking uranium in Africa, and why assorted spy outfits failed to tell him despite the fact...

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Miranda Devine doesn't pretend to be much more than she is: a once-over-lightly agent provocateur for the Fairfax stable. One of her few redeeming qualities, in fact, is her tongue-in-cheek self-awareness of the brief. She rarely strays down the path of ponderous self-importan...

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The Guardian publishes it's annual Media 100 List . The top movers and shakers across UK publishing, advertising, TV and Radio are ranked 1-100 with ex-Australian and Left-wing dartboard pin-up, Rupert Murdoch, coming in at number 2. Less predictably, 'A blogger' sneaks in to...

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The just-released independent evaluation report on the 18 month safe injecting room trial in Sydney, is positive on the benefits the facility offers in terms of ongoing harm reduction benefit accrual. John Della Bosca, the Minister for Miscellaneous Political Fixes, indicated...

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Tim Blair blogs an item about Australian gun laws and crime rates: Despite Australia having "the most up-to-date" gun laws, gun crimes still happen somehow: From 1999 to 2002 the number of robberies involving firearms in Sydney's most populated areas rose by 34 per cent, whil...

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Jennifer Lopez has breakfast in the nude according to the funky side of the Sydney Morning Herald website. In the third most accessed SMH article since midnight AEST, the extraordinary talent who the New York Daily News has ungallantly dubbed "the broad-beamed Bronx bombshell"...

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You'd have to be very unobservant not to have noticed that there are an awful lot of bloggers with an avowedly (and sometimes aggressively) libertarian political philosophy. There's even an Australian Libertarians group blog, and a British equivalent called Samizdata (whose ti...

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As readers may have noticed, I haven't been posting much over the last week or so. I apologise belatedly for the hiatus. I've been flat out marking exams and essays, and cranking up the systems for NTU/CDU's external law degree program. It's being delivered solely via the Inte...

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I thought Crean did a useful job with the Shadow Cabinet reshuffle. Gilllard and Roxon are definite assets and - pragmatically - the across-his-brief Kevin Rudd is still in place, despite less then total support for Simon. Craig Emerson, well.. let's wait and see and Mark Lath...

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We all know that talking on a mobile phone while driving (except with a hands-free setup) is an offence. However, having sex while driving apparently isn't , at least in Germany. Can anyone offer an opinion on which kama sutra position would be most consistent with road safety?

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My thanks to my co-blogger on Armadillo des Tropiques, Christopher Sheil, for inspiring the brilliant header. If there's a God, the evidence for Her existence is unconvincing. Nevertheless, if you have to have one, the traditional Anglican version has always had appeal. Sort o...

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From the Weekly Standard : PJ O'Rourke trashes the Rodham-Clinton memoir in the funniest book review I've read this year. He's way good! I'd offer some excerpts but I'm crying too much to do it. Go there - and enjoy.

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I was searching a reference and somehow got here.

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Robert Manne has an op-ed piece on equality and George Orwell in this morning's SMH. He ends with this observation: Orwell wrote a brief review of the most important anti-socialist manifesto of the 20th century, F.A.Hayek's Road to Serfdom. Orwell was honest enough to admit th...

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My sister Sue's husband Adam is a knockabout sort of bloke. A carpenter by trade, mostly doing heritage-style renovations around Sydney's north shore and inner west. Great husband and father, likes a few beers and the occasional joint. Loves nothing better than a good chin-wag...

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The stirring injunction that adorns the pediment of the US Supreme Court has a new resonance today - and Andrew Sullivan is ecstatic. In a 6/3 majority decision the Court yesterday struck down the gay-specific anti sodomy laws of Texas thereby implicitly invalidating all remai...

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Jason Soon's employer Henry Ergas in today's Australian newspaper: SENATOR Richard Alston's announcement that legislation will be introduced to sell off the 50.1 per cent of Telstra that is government-owned could create a more dynamic and competitive telecommunications market....

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The Senate voted to reject the Howard government's media law "reforms", with all 4 Independents as well as Labor, Democrats and Greens voting against. Margo Kingston (link via Tim Dunlop) has an excellent article on the saga. As Margo points out, no other print media are givin...

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You wouldn't think the murder of a Melbourne gangster and notorious hitman would have anything to do with constitutional law, would you? Actually, you'd be right. But there is a connection of sorts, however indirect. Jason Moran was gunned down the other day while watching his...

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HG and Roy's immortal saying " when too much sport is just barely enough " has never been truer than tonight. The Blues over Queensland in thugby league by 27 - 4, followed by Wimbledon tennis action. And in Darwin, the V8 Supercars are in town for the annual round at the Hidd...

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Sydney's new Lord Mayor, the glamorous Lucy Turnbull, has just announced the 1,458th go at cleaning-up "The Cross," since 1962. Lucy's ideal of Kings Cross seems to shape as the kind of place where a go-getting squattocratic Darling Point girl can shut her eyes and imagine her...

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I hadn't realised until now just how many crims are keen ballet fans. Bravura performances of the Dying Swan are now more common among gangsters (not to mention white collar crims) than imitations of Al Pacino in The Godfather a few years ago. Bernard Slattery , for instance,...

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Last night's ABC 7.30 Report contained a depressingly predictable story suggesting that the Catholic Church has learned little or nothing about how to handle child sexual abuse by its clergy and teachers, and remains frozen into a lawyer-driven stance of dishonesty, denial and...

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General Mike Jeffery's appointment to Yarralumla has had a curious Papal tone to it, given his stated commitment to emulating the Papacy...I mean, Governor-Generalship of Sir Zelman Cowen. Just like John Paul I emulating Popes John XXIII and Paul VI. Or John Paul II emulating...

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This morning a caller to Sally Loane's ABC Radio show raised the vexed question of the "unfair advantage" accruing to the NZ All Blacks from their pre-game Haka - 'Ka Mate! Ka Mate!' or 'Te Rauparaha's Haka.' With the World Cup looming, the caller was concerned that our nation...

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This interesting feature from the Washington Post canvasses the emergent academic field of - yes - "White Studies." Before you're overwhelmed with images of white sheet wearers, burning crosses and rousing choruses of the Horst Wessel Lied , I should offer some reassurance: Wh...

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I'll leave the detailed rugby post-mortem to Christopher Sheil or Wayne Wood. However my own immediate reaction is that, although England had a decisive victory over the Wallabies (25-14), things weren't as bad as I feared. Australia clearly needs to improve in numerous areas,...

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According to the Sydney Morning Herald (link via Tim Blair ), Communications Minister Richard Alston is on the verge of clinching a deal with the 4 Independent Senators which would see the effective abolition of Australia's current foreign and cross-media ownership laws, albei...

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It's a shame Tim Blair (blog cactus at present) is still successfully ignoring the amazing Margo Kingston. Yesterday's Web Diary piece was a monumental achievement in journalistic vacuity even by her stellar standards. Someone apparently gave Margo one of those "can do" Americ...

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I don't think I've ever until now linked a story from Channel 9's A Current Affair . Tonight, however, they had a story on an idea that's been a hobbyhorse of mine for a long time: DIY real estate sales . Having spent nearly 20 years running a private legal firm which involved...

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Bailz has a truly inspired take on Channel 9's The National Driving Test 2003 , aired earlier this week. I confess I didn't bother watching it, because it was compered by Eddie McGuire, who I find about as talented as a brick wall. As it turned out, I suspect Bailz's take on t...

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The elegant and erudite Gianna is the latest (and second last, I'm told) blogger to be granted refuge by that great blogospherical philanthropist Scott Wickstein . What with Boynton et al , the Ubersportingpundit empire may well be the only part of the blogosphere to achieve s...

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On Tuesday night I swallowed a lump of exquisitely prepared Beef Ragu and that was it. It failed to move anywhere other than my oesophagus. Given that it was still firmly lodged there at 4am, my partner, Lance, decided it was high time to get me to our local hospital emergency...

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Why does the ABC insist on showing a never-ending stream of Pommie "celebrity" chef shows, when English cuisine (as it's laughingly called) is among the world's worst? Is this the last bastion of the great Australian cultural cringe? Is there really a huge audience for the see...

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John Quiggin has an excellent post on Ross Gittins' latest column about a new ABS study on Australian working hours. Gittins effectively suggests that the union-inspired concern about Australians working longer and longer hours has been exaggerated. JQ, on the other hand, sugg...

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Gareth Parker is back on deck and blogging full steam ahead. That's a relief, I feared for a minute that we might have lost one of the ozplogosphere's leading young talents. Anyway, Gareth's too young to have a midlife crisis. Despite his blogging sabbatical, however, Gareth's...

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Many apologies to readers that this blog has been effectively out of operation for several hours. We haven't been able to post articles; in fact I lost a very long one I'd been working on for over an hour, which made me very happy indeed. Readers also haven't been able to post...

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Further to my previous post Leadership Renewal , I felt I should make a centrist endeavour to maintain blogging balance in sexuality as well as political terms. Accordingly, here's a thumbnail of Geoff Honnor's nominee for Liberal Party deputy leader - gay icon, NIDA drama stu...

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The BlogGeist seems to be in fine form at the moment. Like yours truly, Uberleftie blogger Rob Schaap has posted an item which shamelessly exploits sex. In contrast to mine, however, Rob's piece has a certain passing intellectual elegance. PS - Rob also pays out on Frog post-m...

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I see that the esteemed Bernard Slattery has joined the ranks of bloggers granted protection visas by Troppo Armadillo's warm-hearted host Scott Wickstein . And in contrast to Phillip Ruddock , cash donations are not required. I'm also given to understand that another prodigio...

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One of Australia's leading newspapers was today condemned by an eccentric Scottish tourist and media campaigner for "blatantly sensationalist tabloid journalism". "The Sydney Morning Herald featured a 'crocodile shock' story on the front page of its Internet edition earlier ye...

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While I'm on a political leadership and election strategies theme, I observed in a comment to a post yesterday that a recent speech by Labor's prize nincompoop Mark Latham revealed the ALP's intended "wedge" propaganda lines for the next election. Thinking more about it, altho...

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The most evocative scene in tonight's ABC TV Australian Story program about Simon the Unlikeable was the very last one in Crean's office earlier today, right after the leadership vote he survived seemingly in comfort. Only Simon's loyal if none too bright wife Carole was happy...

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Remarkable! A moderate, sensible, even balanced column about Muslims from Miranda Devine. No it's not an oxymoron, and I haven't been ingesting hallucinogenic substances. Read it for yourself .

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Blogging and coughing and postponing starting the day's renovations. I see from a comment by Tex that he's from Darwin. He probably won't thank me for this, but the penny's finally dropped. Tex is the brother of Mark Textor, senior federal Liberal Party pollster and John Howar...

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Contrary to Geoff Honnor's opinion, I have little respect for Dodson and I think that many of the endemic problems that beset ATSIC, are at least partly the fault of Dodson in his previous incarnation. His recent address is the same old same old; long on rhetoric, short on sol...

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Raging flu ... bad back ... aching all over ... God I feel crook ... renovation frenzy ... must finish this weekend ... God I feel crook ... no energy for blogging ... co-bloggers hold the fort ... over and out!

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It seems the Teachers Union Health Fund has got itself in a spot of bother with government regulators over some of the financial deals the TUH board has done using members funds. In an article by Colleen Ryan as a sidebar to a feature on health funds in the AFR 13/6/03 (availa...

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When David Morgan suggests (AFR 12/6/03) "...accelerating the phased increase in the preservation age for superannuation from 55 to 60....." those of you currently aged less than 50 who are anticipating (semi)retirement at 55, should be re-assessing your plans. It's most unlik...

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When you live in Darwin, the horrendous levels of violence in our indigenous community are impossible to ignore. Even more so when my wife Jenny has taught in a predominantly Aboriginal school for the last decade, and when I've spent almost 20 years doing legal work for a vari...

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A friend of mine has suggested that the ALP leadership contest is like the intrigues at your typical Italian renaissance court. The only response to that is something like, "I knew Cesare Borgia, and mate let me tell you, neither of these dudes is Cesare Borgia." But my relati...

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Perry De Havilland (via Stephen Dawson on Libertarians ) has a strange little post on Samizdata , asserting that blogging should be seen as a marketplace rather than a democratic conversation space. The reasoning seems to flow from the extreme libertarian/neo-liberal viewpoint...

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John Quiggin has an excellent post this morning on John Howard's economic policies. It provides a perfect bookend to Christopher Sheil's piece on economic rationalism (see below). I especially like Jason Soon's comment: "My reading of Howard's commitment to free market reform...

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As you'll notice from the entry immediately below, Christopher Sheil has joined the co-blogger team at Troppo Armadillo . As many readers will be aware, Chris has been a frequent and valued comment box contributor to numerous blogs over the last couple of months, and I thought...

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What do you do if you're a university student and you've just finished 2 poorly researched, sloppily written undergraduate essays, neither of which contains even a modicum of critical or analytical thought? Go to the pub and drown your sorrows? Hit the books and start studying...

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Mike Steketee has an article in today's Australian which carries forward the debate about constitutional reform we've been having in the blogosphere since John Howard announced his patently cynical proposal for reforming the Constitution's deadlock/joint sitting provisions as...

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Watching the 7.30 report the other night I was interested to see a segment on Human Growth Hormone. The pharmaceutical benefits advisory committee (PBAC) has restricted subsidy to children, thus causing anyone over 14 that reckons they need the drug to pay full price if they w...

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Alex Petridis is an eloquently acerbic Arts critic for the Guardian. Check out this wicked little critique of the Stones' concert at Olympiahalle in Munich an out-take from which I append as a teaser: When the Rolling Stones play badly, you are left with a pantomime of leather...

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Since I recently published my conclusion that historian Lyndall Ryan apparently didn't have an answer to Keith Winschuttle's accusation of fabrication of Aboriginal massacres statistics in Tasmania, I should also link to Ken Miles' recounting of a recent meeting he attended wh...

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George Williams proposes a reform measure for the Senate that strikes me as vastly preferable to John Howard's cynical proposal. Williams' idea involves fixed 4 year terms for Federal Parliament, along with a somewhat liberalised joint sitting mechanism for twice-rejected bill...

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( *Warning - long blog ahead) Longer term readers of Troppo Armadillo will know that one of my pet hobbyhorses has been the global warming debate. However, I've been a bit remiss of late. Ken Miles (the UnAustralian) has been blogging away for weeks, undertaking an admirably d...

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Bazza Jones was assuring us this morning that ALP leadership was not about beauty, it was about policy. Well, perhaps. But if he comes near you with a Knowledge Nation policy proposal, you'd be well-advised to run like fuck. Given that this wisdom echoes Simon Crean's "this is...

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Professor Bunyip is at his sardonic best this morning.

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Further to the post immediately below on Howard's "gut the Senate" referendum scam, I see both Paddy McGuinness and Alan Wood have come out in predictable lockstep support of the Dark Lord's proposal. Expect the other Wringwraiths to follow suit: Janet Albrechtsen, Miranda Dev...

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"Fresh" from an exhilarating weekend of high pressure renovation, I see John Howard has been floating a trial balloon for constitutional "reform" of the Senate to allow governments to to put twice-rejected Bills before a joint sitting of Parliament without the inconvenience (n...

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I've just completed an agribusiness project for my brother to offer to a couple of his friends who have expressed an interest in raising cattle. One is a lawyer, another an architect, both of whom have been moaning about changes to the tax laws that prohibit them from 'hobby f...

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Darwin has more than its fair share of halfwitted revhead dickheads whose idea of fun is spending all Friday and Saturday nights doing donuts, wheelies and burnouts around otherwise quiet suburban streets. The cops are never in evidence. As I lie awake for hours listening to t...

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Meika the dolebludger on belonging, alienation and "the system": To refuse to blame the system is to assume a certain power, the way a pretender assumes a royal title or titular duchy or two. Curiously you are more likely to gain employment in the system if you lie about this...

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Go to Tim Blair's blog , take the "dodginess" quiz and post your score in Tim's comment box. I was only moderately dodgy, as befits a centrist, at 7 years prison and a 7,500 pound fine. Of course, they were mostly committed when I was young and silly (as opposed to middle-aged...

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This wicked little Daily Telegraph Op Ed, by Tom Uttley , asserts that all Australian men are homosexuals and that Prince William should be appointed our next GG to "cheer up the Sheilas" and to put our nation "on the map." The opportunities for offence to be taken here, are u...

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You might notice that I've deleted the hit counter Scott stuck in my new template. It was irritating me. Nevertheless, we seemed to be running at around 400 hits per day, which is quite respectable in all the circumstances. many thanks to all the bloggers who plugged Troppo Ar...

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Emma Tom is in Darwin. Who else could visit Crocodylus Park and then write a column about croc penises (and croc sex in general)?

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Ross Gittins has a typically excellent review of Clive Hamilton's book Growth Fetish in today's SMH. I blogged on aspects of the book dealing with happiness studies some time ago, as did other bloggers including John Quiggin here and here . Gittins discusses a range of other i...

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Another Reuters piece : McDonald's has sued one of Italy's top food critics for raking its restaurants over the coals, but the critic says he has no intention of going back on saying its burgers taste of rubber and its fries of cardboard.

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The Tories certainly don't have a monopoly on humourless killjoy politicians. With Simon Crean in the news, however, you don't really need reminding of this. Nevertheless this Reuters story about the WA Labor government provides further confirmation: An Australian state has pu...

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This morning's press conferences were like a plumber's yard pitch session. Kim was concerned at "connection" problems while Simon had major issues with "destabilisation" Both could do you a really good deal on the rectification front. Simon lashed out at those who were - inexp...

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Two of the ozplogosphere's most prominent pseudonymous bloggers, Professor Bunyip and Gummo Trotsky , are having a squabble about stoning adulterous Nigerian women to death. Bunyip reckons Fairfax journo Pamela Bone (and presumably Gummo) is an inconsistent leftie and a willin...

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I apologise to long-suffering Troppo Armadillo readers for the recurring blog access problems experienced today. I must have done something truly appalling to anger the gods of cyberspace to this extent. Being a daily visitor to James Russell's Hot Buttered Death , a fellow re...

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You'd be hard placed to sell Tonga as a believable fictional scenario . An over-populated and under-resourced Polynesian island kingdom presided over by an absolute monarch who combines the strategic skills of Mad King Ludwig of Bavaria with the physique of an aging sumo wrest...

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I've just returned from the International Golden Oldies Rugby Union Festival in Brisbane (I'll try to get around to posting something on ubersport) to find that Ken has been chastised by the cyber fairies for some, as yet undisclosed, transgression against cyberfuddle. I've be...

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This piece by Matt Price in today's Australian was timely, because I too had been wondering about whether "rooster" was such a bad term of reference for a fellow Australian male. In the loose-limbed vernacular circles that I move in, it could almost be heard as affectionate -...

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Former UNSCOM boss Richard Butler has a useful opinion piece in this morning's Australian , observing that the failure so far to find WOMD in liberated Iraq " has led to serious expressions of concern around the world that the rationale for invasion may have been false or fabr...

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I see that Jozef Imrich is also back and blogging after a fairly lengthy hiatus. Jozef has a mostly European focus, combining literary with political interests. Jozef picked up on the same article on academic blogging from Chronicle of Higher Education that I mentioned yesterd...

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Last week's conviction and (weekend) gaoling of flamboyant stockbroker Rene Rivkin for insider trading, and today's conviction and sentencing to one years' imprisonment of Queensland Chief Magistrate Di Fingleton for interfering with a witness, may cumulatively be quite signif...

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Stewart Kelly is a seriously disturbed young man .

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(Via Jack Balkin ) The Chronicle of Higher Education has a feature on academic bloggers . It has a strongly American focus (being a US journal), but is well worth reading. A sample: Mr. Balkin sees this openness and pluralism as a rebuke to the argument posited by Cass Sunstei...

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That respected repository of medical wisdom, the British Medical Journal , has devoted it's current issue to the vexed question of doctor/drug company relationships. One side of this eternal argument insists that the creme de la creme of our great teaching hospitals are but pu...

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I see Scott Wickstein has announced the resurrection of Troppo Armadillo. It might have been better to wait until there was something resembling actual readable content, but que sera sera. Many thanks to Scott for granting a protection visa to this cyberspace asylum seeker, an...

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HI THERE AND WELCOME TO THE FINAL RESTING PLACE of TROPPO ARMADILLO. On first inspection, you may be thinking "Gee this site looks crap". And you'd be right too- it does look a bit like it was put up in a hurry. That is because it WAS put up in a hurry- Ken was making ominous...

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