I've been relying on historian blogger Christopher Sheil to keep us all informed about any new shots in The History Wars . But he's let me down, possibly too busy perfecting his own unique brand of black is the new white sophistry . Instead I stumbled on the fact that a new "H...
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I have an investment in a little cashbox that raises finance to invest in biotechnology companies. It's had a couple of successes (e.g. C3 and Starpharma) and I'm hopeful that some of it's current investments will pay off in the future. I received an email alerting me to a new...
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Yesterday I said I'd post about national politics if anything happened to change my tentative intention to vote Labor at the forthcoming federal election. But I didn't expect that to happen within 24 hours. Last Sunday I watched Laurie Oakes interview Health Minister Tony Abbo...
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I've added a couple more blogs to the Troppo blogroll: Ambit Gambit , a blog associated with Graham Young's Online Opinion ezine (sorry Gianna), and Andjam . I'll be keeping a very regular eye on Ambit Gambit , because I have a high regard for Graham Young's qualities as a pol...
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This article by Peter Hartcher in the SMH and this one by Michael Costello in the Oz both seem to me to offer incisive analyses of the state of play for the forthcoming federal election. Both suggest Howard may have the inside running (though offering slightly differing ration...
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I don't know whether others have noticed it, but there seems to be a developing meme on the conservative side of politics lamenting the "decline of manners", musing about its causes and what might be done about it. Of course, it might in part be a deliberate Tory response to M...
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Shock! Horror! Mary-Kate has anorexia . But have a look for yourself . I reckon Ashley's even skinnier. I blame that prick Morgan Spurlock . These girls need to get biggest mobs of Maccas into them without delay.
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It's taken me a while to identify a sufficiently worthy winner of the Blog Bile Award . But Paul from Paul and Carl's Daily Diatribe has come up with this little beauty about a German-made doco on "the horrors of America's brutal treatment of prisoners and heartless war crimes...
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Strolling along the foreshore near Rapid Creek with "B" last evening. A mob of mildly agitated Aboriginal women approaches. One of them comes up to Jenny. " Dat thing dangerous, you know ," she says, gesturing towards the gleaming new high-tech aluminium automated ablution fac...
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While idly traversing the blogs just now in a successful attempt to find an excuse (almost any excuse) to escape from exam marking for a while, I came across a post by Steve Edwards fulminating against the depravity of producers of a UK 'reality' TV show called There's Somethi...
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In The Atlantic Monthly : July/August 2004 Christopher Hitchens writes, Leon Trotsky survives as part kitsch and part caricature. But the reissue of a majestic biography reveals him as he always was - a prophetic moralist; The Prophet Armed: Trotsky 1879-1921: The Prophet Unar...
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Newspaper reports this morning suggest rugby league's greatest current player Andrew "Joey" Johns is about to switch rugby codes and sign a two season contract to play rugby union for the NSW Waratahs for a reported fee of $2 million. Ah the benefits of an ARU awash with cash...
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Glenn Milne has an article in this morning's Oz about the (alleged) political watershed/revolution that voting for a Latham-led ALP would involve. Milne's article includes a long-ish quote by Labor fellow-traveller and ANOP pollster Rod Cameron: "For the first time in my 30 ye...
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Darwin in the dry season has the best climate on earth in my unbiased opinion. This morning when I popped into Casuarina Shopping Square (to pick up my spectacles from being repaired) it was actually warmer inside the air-conditioned centre than the open air outside. Sixteen d...
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I probably should know better than to keep rising to the bait of Paul Watson's repetitive "baby boomers are bastards" theme, but I can't help myself. Anyway, one of his more recent rants gives me a pretext for making some points I've had on my mind for some time. Paul cites a...
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Well, Troppo readers like Homer Paxton might think I'm full of bovine excreta, but at least Kim Beazley's former chief-of-staff Michael Costello is on the same wavelength as this armadillo. Costello should certainly know all about "small target" strategies if anyone does, havi...
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Northern Territory readers may have noted brief mentions in today's local media of the fact that the High Court yesterday dismissed an appeal by North Australian Aboriginal Legal Aid Service (NAALAS) in the matter of North Australian Aboriginal Legal Aid Service Inc v Bradley...
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This article (about the latest Dick Morris-inspired ALP policy - banning food ads during children's TV programs) makes me wonder whether Loopy Latham might be about to change his name by deed poll to Tarquin Fin-tim-lim-bim-lim-bin- bim-bin-bim bus stop F'tang F'tang Ol© Biscu...
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John Quiggin put his mouth where our money is a couple of days ago, and blogged a list of potential spending areas/waste that Mark Latham could attack to raise the money for substantial Labor spending initiatives and tax cuts. JQ's list looks eminently sensible to me. Unfortun...
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I don't have a problem per se with John Howard's announcement yesterday of a $500 million program to subsidise the development of currently non-commercial "low carbon emission" technologies. It's fairly clearly aimed mostly at development of so-called "carbon sequestration" te...
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Christopher Pearson speculated in the Weekend Oz that a Latham government might have secret plans to try to "stack" the High Court with reformist Labor appointees, by increasing the size of the current Bench from 7 to 9 (a step not constitutionally barred) as well as replacing...
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(Via Gareth Parker ) An IT expert writes (in Crikey's subscriber email): There is a good chance that Labor will give the Howard Government a hard time over its failure to make e-commerce safe through adequate regulation of ISPs. The Minister for Telecommunications Darryl Willi...
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I haven't until now entered the general blogosphere discussion about the imminent federal ALP preselection of Peter Garrett, which seems already to have degenerated into a predictable left versus right slagging contest. Garrett's political views are quite a long way to the lef...
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ATSIC NT North Zone Commissioner Hill is astounded Mr Bob Beadman, a former senior public servant, has displayed such ignorance. Commissioner Hill made the comments following the release of Mr Beadman's report; Do Indigenous Youth Have A Dream? published by the Menzies Researc...
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I suspect the Professor has been caught speeding past the billabong again. I continue to be amazed at his eloquent loquacity even if not agreeing with his point of view. I think he would agree with this. You may have noticed me at an academic conference or meeting sometime in...
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It looks like Ken doesn't have to resort to blog bile posts, porno photos et al. to start a lively debate in the comments section, he simply throws together a piece about his old favourite global warming and the commentaries flock in, (not that I would for one moment suggest a...
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Tim Dunlop is running an 'open-mike' post on how readers are intending to vote at the forthcoming federal election and why. My own most recently-announced voting intention was to vote informal, because I couldn't bring myself to vote for a Howard-led Coalition and was so unimp...
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I received an email today entitled; DO YOU REMEMBER WHEN...? All the girls had ugly gym uniforms? It took five minutes for the TV warm up? Nearly everyone's Mum was at home when the kids got home from school? Nobody owned a purebred dog? When a a shilling was good pocketmoney?...
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Paul Watson sometimes irritates me intensely (mostly in his repetitive and silly GenX whinges), but he's also frequently an incisive observer. Paul's take on the current furore over whether/when the Howard government knew about allegations of prisoner mistreatment at Abu Ghrai...
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For any readers who've been following the legal issues surrounding the suppression of reporting of identification evidence in the Falconio/Bradley Murdoch murder committal hearing, and the Nine Network's unsuccessful challenge to the magistrate's suppression order (about which...
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A couple of commenters have asked what is going on with the beastiality links in various comment boxes. Presumably they haven't been paying attention to the fact that (apparently) most blogs running on a Moveable Type or similar platform are now subject to periodic attack by b...
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