One of the books I read over the holiday break was Helen Garner's latest, Joe Cinque's Consolation . Like Garner's previous work The First Stone , Joe Cinque's Consolation takes the form of a journalistic dissection of real life events, but becomes something much more profound...
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A big issue in the Australia-US FTA debate last year was the possible implications for local content on tv. It's reasonable to ask whether there is that much compulsively watchable Australian tv around at the moment. Certainly, as just about every tv reviewer in the country ha...
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Bureaucracy was arguably invented in Prussia, and German civil servants are justly reknowned for their impartiality. This apparently extends to cutting benefits to jobseekers refusing sex work .
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Good morning to all Troppo Armadillians on this last day of January! And I am finally out of my major revisions to my novel, Malvolio's Revenge--and just before I restart work on my new one, The Tyrant's Nephew--so thought I should finally come back to do the occasional post....
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Miranda Devine heads her column this week "More Like a Leaking Nuclear Reactor than an Arts Faculty" . The target of her ire is Sydney University's Arts Faculty. I made the point a few days ago in passing that Sydney Uni has seen more than its fair share of disputatious academ...
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...is now done. There are a lot of new blogs added to the leftish and centrist categories. 15 new leftish links and 4 centrist ones. It's interesting to note how many of the new blogs are written by women and also by people in their 20s. As opposed to us thirty something bloke...
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It was my little sister's birthday yesterday - she's 34. As Lucy Harker said in Nosferatu "time is an abyss, a thousand nights deep". I will also be having a birthday soon - on the 13th of Feb (which wasn't a good High School birthday at all - the day before Valentine's...). I...
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The blogosphere doesn't seem to have picked up on a recent presser from a couple of Macquarie Uni speech scientists. Their study has apparently revealed that the Australian accent is moving away from "the stereotypical broad Australian English - a la Paul Hogan" to a more gene...
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The Guardian today has two news items which may not be unconnected - a profile of Lynton Crosby , former John Howard strategist and now strategist to Michael Howard, the UK Tory leader, and a call from the Tories' Education shadow for British students to learn "basic facts" ab...
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John Quiggin thinks that the left side of the blogosphere is a much more vibrant place than the right - a turnaround in John's view from when he first started blogging. I'm in the process of updating the Troppo blogroll - and most of the blogs I plan to add are leftish or cent...
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I recently bought new glasses. I've worn contacts for years but I decided that it was high time I invested in an alternative option. OK, Yes. This feeling was not unrelated to advancing senescence. So, I bought these rimless things made of utterly non-biodegradable super titan...
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Oh the magic of the the internet. Lazily looking through web pages scrutinizing subjects somehow linked to the Teutonic Orders when I came upon this gem. Did you know Australia was discovered by the Chinese admiral Zheng He ? A recent controversial theory put forward by Gavin...
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Long-time Troppo readers may recall that I was once a moderate global warming sceptic, a viewpoint more commonly found in people with far more rabidly right wing views than my own. It tended to confuse readers more than a jot. But my scepticism arose not from Don Arthur's belo...
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Fresh from her win as Best Australian Personal blog, Gianna proves what her readers knew all along - she can post some damn good politics as well. Her whole post is worth reading, but her point that Ruddy's comment that the ALP is a "God awful shambles" will come back to haunt...
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Julia Gillard made one extremely interesting suggestion in the remarks she made yesterday at an Australia Day function when announcing that she would not contest the ALP leadership . Gillard suggested that Beazley should drop his affiliation with the Right faction as a token t...
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Keks has announced the results of the 2005 Australian Blog Awards . Troppo won in two categories - best Australian Collaborative Blog and Best Northern Territory Blog (this year there was some competition). Congrats to all the other winners and runners up - including Troppo fr...
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I see the results of the Australian Blog Awards have just been published at Keks (Vlado). Troppo Armadillo did quite well, despite the fact that I didn't even know the awards existed and therefore missed the opportunity to engage in surreptitious lobbying or vote-stacking. Tro...
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Any lawyers out there with too much time on your hands? How about setting up an Australian version of " Sue a Spammer ". It is bad enough that we get all the world's spam in our inboxes. Sadly, there doesn't seem to be much we can do about that. But if we can at least put the...
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An argument that Beckers belief Forget about truth . It's an airy-fairy philosophical concept that even the experts can't satisfactorily define. In practice, what most people demand from an idea is that it's useful for something. And like other consumer products, the supply of...
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Probably as a result of their focus on endless dissections of federal Labor's leadership woes, most bloggers seem to have overlooked a potentially very significant centralist gambit by Howard government Health Minister Tony Abbott in today's Oz. The Mad Monk, it seems, is agit...
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As Gilly hits the phones to guage support , the tortured politics of the ALP's attitude towards Gilly's marital status etc. is examined in a feature in The Australian . Among other outrages, apparently her kitchen is too clean. I wish I could say the same about mine. The Oz in...
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Who'd have thought that Eric Hobsbawm's concerns about the difficulties of exporting democracy would be echoed by a Professor at the George H.W.Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M University ?
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As if to prove the point I made in my previous post about the current mission of the Sydney Institute to expose all media types as feckless readers of the signs of the times , Hendo can't resist bagging out other journos for getting it all wrong about Latham . Hendo advances t...
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It's about the horse race, stupid! I recently suggested to The Currency Lad that he visit the wonderful Lifeline Bookfest in order to pick up a copy of that classic 1930s Australian novel The Currency Lass . I've been over the weekend (for non Brisvegans, it happens twice a ye...
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Queensland Premier Peter Beattie has echoed NSW Premier Bob Carr: "I think Kevin has enormous ability and I think one day there's a very strong possibility that he will be prime minister of this country," Mr Beattie told reporters. He said what Labor needed most was a healer a...
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Eric Hobsbawm, the world's greatest living historian, has some cautionary words about the conditions for democracy and the limits to power in the Guardian , in response to the aims set out in George W. Bush's inaugural address : This idea is dangerous whistling in the dark. Al...
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Everyone knows that some consumer products go together. Ties go with suits, check shirts and RM Williams boots go with country music, and beer goes with barbecued sausages . As Grant McCracken argues, goods have cultural meanings. The clothes we wear, the food we eat, the subu...
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There's an interesting sidebox in an article on the Labor leadership race in today's Sunday Mail where Julia Gillard discusses her intention not to have children and her single status: Julia Gillard believes she can lead Australia as a single, childless woman. The Opposition h...
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US Deputy Secretary of Defence and leading Neo-con Paul D. Wolfowitz has no need to resign in the face of Abu Ghraib, "the army we have" and so on and on, because as President Bush said, "we had an accountability moment, and that's called the 2004 elections" . Nor is he as for...
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Christopher Pearson writing in The Australian has (or thinks he has) the good oil on the social agenda of a third term Howard government: Legislation preventing gay marriage was the Coalition's most significant third-term concession to the more conservative of its supporters....
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Pablo Picasso's Guernica George W. Bush has been inaugurated for a second term, promising to spread freedom "to the darkest corners of the world" . With much discussion of whether the second term will bring a new direction, this is an appropriate time to consider whether the W...
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...comes Chris Sheil at BackPages , with a momentary Friday night return to blogging to endorse Ruddy for leader (and Julia for Rudder if there's a Deputy spill) with the persuasive argument and fine political reasoning that made BackPages the doyen of blogosphere political co...
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Good to hear from the inimitable Laurie Ferguson that Gilly isn't "just a trendy commodity" . "She's actually intelligent, articulate and strong-minded", Ferguson opined. Ferguson also said "I think she'll fire people". The next Labor leader could do worse than fire the distin...
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I find that, with advancing years, my short term memory is fading; it's getting more and more difficult to remember what I did a year ago. I understand that the ability to remember stuff that happened way long ago improves as one slips memory-less into CRAFT's disease, life be...
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My name's Mark and I'm a blogoholic. Well, I'm not drinking any grog, have just decided to change the "go out once a week" rule to "don't go anywhere except to Coles or the Uni library", and progress is happening on finalising my PhD thesis for submission . But not enough, and...
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On the 7.30 Report , Dr Peter Botsman called for a rank and file election for Labor Leader. His criticism of Beazley for lack of party reform was also interesting. Crean tried to some extent, Beazley did not. The fact that Beazley is the candidate of AWU leaders Bill Ludwig an...
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As Rex points out , it's interesting indeed to read the whole of Julia Gillard's remarks then contrast them with how they're played in the media ( SMH story here , The Age and the Murdoch take ). I'll put the whole transcript over the fold . Note the repetitious nature of the...
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From today's press conference at Melbourne Airport. JULIA GILLARD: I'd like to thank the many members of the media who volunteered to come out to the airport and help me with my bags. That was very generous of you. We thought in view of those many kind offers that it was proba...
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If anyone's still having difficulties posting a comment, it's probably because of an issue to do with the way your firewall interacts with our site. Please refer to this thread for information as to how to configure your settings to avoid this issue. As is well known, Troppo i...
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And Other ALP Leadership News Nic White at The 52nd State has helpfully compiled votes in the blogosphere primary for ALP leader. So far Gilly's got 6 bloggers backing her, the Beazer 3, Rudd 3, anyone but Beazley 1, and "never voting ALP again" 1. Elsewhere on the net, Margo...
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In a review of Elektra , Paul Byrnes in the SMH makes this astute observation : Garner looks terribly serious, her plump lips pursed into a parody of determination. Boy, that top lip is plumper than I remember it being in Suddenly 30, the last film I saw her in. That lip would...
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Continuing the age old tradition of arcana imperii in the interests of raison d'etat , Dr Condoleeza Rice has refused to be drawn on "interrogation techniques" in her confirmation hearing , saying that going into details would not be in the interests of "American security": Ri...
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An automatic consequence of Latho's resignation from Parliament will be a by-election for his seat of Werriwa. One Labor member is quoted in the SMH as saying: "There's a real prospect in the current climate that we'll lose that seat," one MP, who asked not to be named, said....
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For my money, Michael Gordon's piece in The Age is the best op/ed article on the Labor leadership contest published to date. Writing of Beazley, Gordon comments: But others are more sceptical. They see Beazley as a caretaker leader who will see the party through tough times, b...
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My grandmother died on 16 November 2004 and I, along with her other three grandsons, was a pallbearer at her funeral. One thing that was moving was a photo of her as a young woman on her coffin. The Catholic Church is now moving to restrict such personal touches : Placing meme...
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After John Quiggin set a useful precedent with his commentathon to raise money for Tsunami aid, Gianna at She Sells Sanctuary has announced that she'll donate the proceeds of her blog ads to Tsunami relief. Good one, Gianna!
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As a number of commenters have already advised Troppo readers, Mark Latham has resigned as Labor Leader and as Member for Werriwa . At some point I might do a retrospective on Latho's time in office, but at this stage I just want to wish him well, hope that he recovers his hea...
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Rob Corr at Kick & Scream has come up with a good argument for Gillard as leader - unlike Henri IV, for her, Paris isn't worth a mass. She's got some convictions.
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Hendo's jumped on the communist t-shirt bandwagon that had the blogosphere rolling last week with posts at Troppo , Catallaxy and Quiggin . Gerry excuses Prince Harry's wardrobe malfunction because the third in line heir to the Australian throne is "ignorant" and asks rhetoric...
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Margo Kingston's back from hols , and appears to be the only journalist still supporting Latho, while doyens of the press gallery such as Michelle Grattan join Jim McGinty and (by implication) Peter Beattie in demanding that he stand down . What's odd about Margo's first post...
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While voting is underway for the 2005 Australian Blog Awards , news surfaces about another award. For sexiest RWDB . ELSEWHERE : Visit Darlene's place , to learn why this award might constitute objectification of RWDBs.
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The Currency Lad has returned , and is supporting the Tractarian Ticket for the ALP leadership... Welcome back to blogging, C.L. To commemorate this event, Troppo is happy to unveil a blogosphere exclusive - a candid snap of Currency pondering his next post taken by one of our...
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The weather's horrible at the moment here in Brisbane. Sticky, humid, and it's hard to sleep. The other day I was talking about the political climate in the Joh era , and suggesting a bit of a link (other tropical cities - like New Orleans - have shared loopy, extravagant and...
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John Howard must be getting a little irritated by Sophie Panopolous. The co-convenor of the backbench tax and welfare reform group doesn't seem to spend too much time developing ideas, as the economic rationalist ginger group of the Fraser years did, but rather constantly sing...
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It used to be socialists who wanted to radically reorganize society In our society relationships between individuals are governed by a number of separate institutions with separate norms. The market is just one institution among many. For decades socialists like William Lane a...
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"The fact that the left did not make use of the lash does not stop the right from resorting to the backlash." Tim Dunlop over at Road to Surfdom is steamed up : God, if I click on one more left-leaning blog that has a post about how bloody wonderful it is that Andrew Sullivan...
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I really will have to get moving on that promised post reviewing Julia Baird's book Media Tarts: How The Australian Press Frames Female Politicians . Kerry-Anne Walsh writes this about Julia Gillard : The Victorian MP has been at Mr Latham's elbow for his roller-coaster 12 mon...
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At Catallaxy Jason Soon argues that "Criminal conduct is just an externality like pollution. It should be properly ‘priced’" On this view the community should decide on the optimal level of criminal conduct and set the price accordingly. There is a huge gulf between right-wing...
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John Quiggin is offering to donate one Australian dollar for every comment on this post at his site until midnight tonight to the Australian Red Cross tsunami appeal ... Click on the hyperlink, go over there and post a comment now! At the time of writing, John has received 209...
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While Troppo Armadillo has pioneered a new form of direct democracy through its advice to the Labor Party to pick either 1. Julia 2. Rudd for Rudder (thanks, FXH) or the other way round, the blogosphere primary is now well and truly off and running. Staying at home first, blog...
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I had some hopes that the election of Mahmoud Abbas as President of the Palestinian National Authority would lead to a breaking of the deadlock between Israel and Palestine. These hopes were bolstered by the entry into the Israeli government of Shimon Peres and Labour . Howeve...
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Many of us will always remember the election campaign of 04 through the lens of frequent late night visits to BackPages . So, this tidbit from an article on the internet and democracy is interesting indeed: Most blogs languish in obscurity but some give rise to new media perso...
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ALP Caucus members are reported to be having meetings to work out who the next leader should be. Latho might also be better advised to pick his mates for their communication skills next time: Labor frontbencher and a close supporter of Mr Latham, Joel Fitzgibbon, said while he...
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The Oxford tortured faith research is not, it seems, the only bright research idea to come from the land of the free: A US plan to develop a bad breath bomb and a chemical weapon to make enemy soldiers sexually irresistible to each other has been revealed in newly declassified...
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Back in December Scott wrote about Internet dating . Yellowvinyl has been a participant in the cyberdating game, and has some interesting (and sharp!) reflections on the vicissitudes of finding a partner online . Unfortunately Livejournal doesn't support trackback, but Troppo...
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All the discussion of communist t-shirts overlooked, as far as I can tell, the use of fashion to make a statement about a political or a social issue, as opposed to being an aspect of the commodification of dissent. The photo of Naomi Campbell above is from British designer Ka...
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Latho has made his statement . Reaction seems, largely, well, confused. The SMH ponders whether the Party will go back to the Beazer or plunge into the unknown. Senior MPs, this time identified as frontbenchers, are said to be confused and angy : Far from soothing his party, M...
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It was Joh's 94th birthday today . Time to revisit the Dispatches from Johburg and share some random memories of my teenage years under the reign of Bjelke: - as a young public service clerk, going up to the third floor of the Treasury Building with some friends and sitting in...
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Alex White at Psephological Catechism has published an article on his blog about Labor's need to articulate a different vision of Australia . I couldn't agree with him more. John Howard's "ordinariness" and his identification as the quintessential avuncular Aussie have been a...
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I'm more and more convinced the world morphed into postmodern weirdness when I wasn't looking. Or there's been some sort of Gwyneth Paltrow like time distortion parallel universe thing happening. This just in : People are to be tortured in laboratories at Oxford University in...
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Christopher Sheil of late lamented BackPages fame , threw a cat among the pigeons in the thread on Che t-shirts . Chris coined the neat new theoretical concept "conspicuous indignation" to explain why right wing pundits and pollies get all steamed up without actually doing any...
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Troppo Armadillos have been sceptical about Latho's leadership future since the election. In November, I asked if Latho would be home by Christmas, or at the latest by February . Chief Armadillo Ken Parish (presently on walkabout somewhere in the Deep South according to dispat...
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At the half-way mark of the Twentieth Century, in 1950, the French Annales historian Fernand Braudel wrote, "what an endless century it has been, indeed, leaving its bloody mark on Europe and on the whole world". Eric Hobsbawm describes this murderous century now past into his...
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With a bit of encouragement from her friends , frequent Troppo commenter yellowvinyl has turned blogger. Her blog, also called yellowvinyl , should be one to watch. Good luck, Kim!
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The intellectual heirs of Adam Smith have two battles to fight. The first is to rescue the free market from mercantilism and central planning and the second is to rescue our moral sentiments from intellectuals who think they are inefficient and overly sentimental. Catallaxy's...
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The case against Bush's foreign policy is often diminished by attack style books such as Michael Moore's or tired and repetitive critiques such as Noam Chomsky's. It's refreshing then to come across in my reading for my PhD thesis a well-argued, brilliantly documented and coge...
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The Courier-Mail reports , "State Opposition Leader Lawrence Springborg has labelled Prime Minister John Howard unhelpful and " idealistic "..."
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Incorporating the Shorter Hendo (TM) In the late 70s and early 80s, Joh Bjelke-Petersen used to get awfully frustrated with a group of small l Liberal backbenchers known as the "ginger group". They had a habit of speaking out against government policy and occasionally crossing...
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Do governments put too much emphasis on economic growth? Winton Bates pumps his own moral intuitions and satisfies himself that the answer is no In the latest edition of Policy , economic consultant Winton Bates takes on Clive Hamilton's anti-growth arguments ( pdf ). After ag...
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Mark at his Doctoral Graduation I'm slowly finding my way around the Brisbane blogosphere. It's very random - we don't appear to have the same sort of community that exists in Perth, Melbourne and Sydney. Or at least if there is one, I can't find it. As I reported earlier , I...
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Miss Piss at piss'n'vinegar is rightly horrified by a proposed law in Virginia requiring women who have a miscarriage to report it to the police within 12 hours - on pain of a fine or gaol term. In a discussion on Michael's post on Pentecostalism , Irant expressed some sceptic...
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A while back I criticised dogmatism among atheists as well as an excess of certainty in belief. The question of theodicy , as I noted a few days ago , is popping up again and again in the wake of the Tsunami tragedy. To some degree, I think this debate now has a momentum of it...
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A Guest Post by Michael Carden Pentecostalism was much discussed in the leadup to and aftermath of the Australian election, with much debate around the link between churches such as Hillsong and the Liberal Party and the politics of Family First. For a lot of commentators and...
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A recent trip to the Myer Centre convinced me that the latter day Leninist sects like the GreenLeft mob are on the wrong track with the protesting (and the infiltration of community groups, etc etc). The quickest and easiest way to destroy capitalism would be to convince teena...
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The debate on theodicy continues. In the SMH , Linda Morris elicits "qualified opinions" . This has to rank as a cheap shot, surely: After all, why is it, ponders Alan Nichols, acting director of Public Theology for the Evangelical Alliance of Australia, that religious organis...
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The SMH has the now traditional daily report on Latho's leadership. With the exception of the references to Latham's illness, the same story could have run any time since the election. Same leadership non-contenders (Rudd, the Beazer, the Glimmer Twins) and same notion that Pr...
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In the wake of news that Mark Latham's pancreatitis has recurred , only announced after he was criticised for his lack of comment on the Tsunami tragedy, reports are already appearing about his leadership being called into question . This is not a good start for Labor's new ye...
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Mark at Sydney Uni in 99 (Skiving off from a Conference at UWS Parramatta, captured just before wine consumption in Glebe) The Emerald City? At last, a musing on life from me. I quit my job at QUT today. I've worked there for eight years, which is long enough. I'm applying for...
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"Paul Keating is the greatest Australian Prime Minister since Federation". Discuss.
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Labor's Craig Emerson has found the path to economic enlightenment .
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The Evil Pundit, baiter of left-wing bloggers everywhere, writes This applies to people using Norton Internet Security, Norton Personal Firewall , or similar software firewall products. For people who use this, the default privacy settings on the firewall will prevent posting...
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Some commenters have reported that it's not possible currently to post comments. I'm extremely grateful to Evil Pundit for a possible diagnosis of what's gone wrong. Please read the comments on this thread if you're having any difficulties. Unfortunately, I'm no technical guru...
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Dean Philip Jensen, whose views on the Tsunami we've discussed here and here , has been calling talback in the wee hours, according to the SMH . (Thanks to commenter yellowvinyl for drawing this to my attention). The Dean must have felt that he needed to explain why he was cal...
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Tim Dunlop at Road to Surfdom has the latest info well summarised. UPDATE : I'm happy to join Tim, Phil and Rowen in commending the Prime Minister for his handling of this issue and the extent of Australia's commitment to Indonesia .
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To coincide with the release of the Cabinet Papers from 1974, The Currency Lad wrote a rather acerbic post on Gough Whitlam . Some how or other (as you do in the blogosphere), I ended up debating the contribution that Islamic civilization has made with a number of commenters o...
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Craig Emerson has worked out how to restore Labor's economic credibility. The Buddhist Way . ELSEWHERE : Robert Merkel at The Road to Benambra dissects Emerson.
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I must be getting old. I had no idea til I read about it at Virulent Memes that Einstuerzende Neubauten had a new release out in 04... Anyone care to list the best new albums of the year just gone?
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It's time to vote in the 2005 Australian Blog Awards .
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The number of right-wing blogs I read has just dropped from one to none. Sadly for the blogosphere, The Currency Lad is taking a blogging hiatus to work on finishing a book and a new research project. We'll miss you, C.L., you were always worth reading - a fine writer, very fu...
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Or, Another (Condensed) Dispatch from the PhD Thesis Front Prior to s11, the paradigm case for the new wars of the new world order was the Kosovo War in 1999. This is more properly seen as the last act in a drama which began with Milo¡ević's speech on the 600th anniversary of...
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The SMH previews new tv shows for 2005. This is really sad : Rock Star (Nine) In a nutshell INXS search for a new singer, with auditions in the US, Canada, Australia, Britain and Japan. Biggest hurdle Too much American polish on an Australian band. X factor Producer Mark Burne...
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Compassion isn't a problem, writes Gerard Henderson Click onto the Centre for Independent Studies web site and you'll find a prominent advertisement for Patrick West's book Conspicuous Compassion: Why Sometimes it Really is Cruel to be Kind . West argues that public displays o...
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MsFits wants to know where Mark Latham's been. It's an interesting question - with all that's been happening from the Bhaktiyaris to the Tsunamis, I can't remember hearing a lot of reaction or comment from the Labor Party. A search of Google News tends to suggest MsFits is rig...
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This is becoming a trend. Gerry's talking sense again . ELSEWHERE : Phil at Citystate has more on Hendo .
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As Geoff observed in a previous thread, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams , wrote an op/ed piece for the UK Telegraph conceding that faith may be disturbed by the horrible disaster in Asia : The question, 'How can you believe in a God who permits suffering on thi...
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Following on from my recent ruminations on politics, love and participation, I wanted to explore further some questions about how we could revitalise our public discourse and culture and political participation in Australia. Central to my previous argument was my agreement wit...
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Hi-Yo Silver Away! ... to the keyboard "Those educated more at the movies will fancy themselves as the Lone Ranger, or Gary Cooper in High Noon, upholding the right on lawless streets whence all but he had fled. Being individualists, we're vain that way, measuring our courage...
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As part of the discussion in the thread about inappropriate responses to the Tsunami tragedies , it was noted that Immanuel Rant had criticised the Anglican Dean of Sydney, Phillip Jensen's remarks about God's will ... Dean Jensen was quoted as saying "the will of God involved...
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The enemy of my enemy is... a puppet Imagine this - teenage boys, puppets having sex, and Miranda Devine. Yes, Miranda has been to see Team America World Police and she loved it. Devine and the creators of 'Team America' have something in common. Both whip up publicity by piss...
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Saintinastraightjacket at DogFightAtBankstown reminds us that 2005 is the UN Year of Microcredit . I agree with Saint that microcredit is an aid approach worth supporting. Go read his post for lots more info.
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The New York Times reports on "G.I. Families United in Grief, but Split by the War" . And a blogger tracks the stories of war amputees .
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It's heartening to read that governments like the US and the Japanese are now increasing the amount of aid they are giving to the countries and people affected by the Tsunamis . The stories appearing daily about the human and societal impact are heartbreaking. It was most appr...
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Or, Should Columnists Condemn Puppet Porn? Some denizens of the leftish Oz blogosphere heart conservative columnist Andrew Bolt - in a big way . He's MsFits' "one true love" . Darlene Taylor has a post entitled "A Quickie with Bolt" . Jess at Ausculture addresses Andrew thusly...
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The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters, Francisco de Goya, 1746-1828 One of the nice things about blogging is the feeling of camaraderie and collegiality that you get. One of the not so nice things about writing a thesis is that you feel almost necessarily isolated. So I was ab...
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Alan Wolfe argues that while the left has adopted Carl Schmitt 's theoretical anti-liberalism , it is the American right that is putting theory into practice. According to Wolfe's article in the The Chronicle of Higher Education : Liberals think of politics as a means; conserv...
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Paul Keating famously educated the media and himself about the art of "pulling the levers" of the national economy. For a few years, the J-Curve was the subject of water-cooler discussion, the "twin deficits" theory was widely bandied about, and everyone had an opinion on micr...
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Just popping my head up briefly from festive celebrations and heinous manuscript revisions to urge you all to take part in Norm Geras' poll, re your selections for the greatest ten pop and rock songs of all time. Email Norm, normblog@yahoo.co.uk and give him your list now(entr...
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Immanuel Wallerstein On One More Year Taking another leaf out of The Currency Lad 's book, I've updated my New Year's Eve report and will now proceed to a brief post on politics (note - it's thesis related! ). But rather than excoriate Gough Whitlam like C.L., I'd like to brin...
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"And if you can't be with the one you love" sang Stephen Stills , "Love the one you're with." As 2004 ended Andrew Norton and Mark Bahnisch wrote about desire. Andrew wrote about the link between happiness and the desire for consumer goods while Mark compared disappointed Labo...
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Or, The Thesis That Ate January Just a quick entry to let people know that my blogging activity will be a bit sparse for a while while I bring my PhD thesis to a state warranting submission. Rejigged bits of the thesis may pop up from time to time, and I'm really grateful for...
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