I posted about the Howard government's new(ish) sedition laws last year when they were going through Parliament, and expressed the view that they might well breach the implied cosntitutional freedom of political speech. Constitutional law academic George Williams expresses a s...
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When Ken Parish blogged on remote Aboriginal communities last week, prompting John Quiggin to blog more specifically on employment subsidies , I was reminded of the visit I paid last year with my family to Tjapukai Aboriginal Cultural Park , twenty km north of Cairns. On that...
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Courtesy of my brother, here's a quote which would be nice on our banner above, but which is a little long. The one really rousing thing about human history is that, whether or no the proceedings go right, at any rate, the prophecies always go wrong. The promises are never ful...
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PM Alkatiri (right) and National Parliament Speaker Francisco "Lu Olo" Gutteres at the recent Fretilin Party Congress which confirmed Alkatiri's leadership Further to my previous post , it appears that Australia is exerting significant and fairly open pressure to persuade East...
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You aim too please. Iintroducing the latest in gaming technology. And who said my subscription to slashdot was a waste of time.
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Anyone who missed them should try not to miss the repeats of 'Torn Curtain' the ABC Hindsight programs on the cold war. Excellent radio documentary and not too late to pick up one of the most alarming episodes. How Richard Nixon wanted the Russians to think that he was mad and...
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Visiting this site I discovered that we've missed JS Mill's 200th birthday which occured on the 20th May 2006. He was a good guy and, exemplifies much of what was uplifting about the tradition of classical economics begun by our old friend Adam Smith. Like Smith, Mill abhored...
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An apt cartoon from NT News cartoonist and Troppo blogger Colin Wicking As Colin Wicking acutely observes, the debate about responsibility for appalling conditions in remote indigenous communities has degenerated into a predictable federal/NT slanging match A similar divide is...
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Hail to the Chief? There are garbled reports of a stand-off for control of East Timorese military forces between President Xanana Gusmao and Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri. It's suggested that Xanana has taken full control of all military forces but that Alkatiri is disputing it...
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An obvious and powerful way for closed source shops to compete with open source software is to strategically open source. That is they can release bits of code and ask those people who are prepared to, to contribute code either to the software owners' specs or as they wish. Th...
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What a game! The amazing thing about State of Origin football is that so often lives up to the hype. NSW won 17-16 over QLD but with the Maroons all at sea during the first half you could have been forgiven thinking the 2nd was going to blow open and NSW romp home. The NSW for...
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I came across this review of a new book called The Economics of Attention courtesy of Economic Principles . It sounds like fun. Written by a English academic specialising in style and rhetoric (when he's not being an expert witness in legal plaigiarism cases), it's based on th...
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As frequent Troppo readers will know, I've been banging on about Aboriginal affairs issues for a very long time. I'm pleased that my obsession has at least momentarily been picked up by the mainstream media in the wake of NT prosecutor Dr Nanette Rogers' recent decisive (and c...
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Speaking of how to cut tax to maximise economic growth, how do you design shopping areas to keep everyone shopping? As some Troppodillians will know, the Viennese architect Victor Gruen gave us the shopping mall. My Dad thought he may have been a relative. But I don't think he...
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CEDA commissioned a paper from Lateral Economics on how you would cut personal taxes to maximise economic growth by increasing labour supply. A survey of the existing literature suggested 1) Cutting tax to low and middle income earners either with reduced tax rates at the lowe...
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Time permitting, I intend writing a post on the current controversy about endemic child sexual abuse and extreme violence in Aboriginal communities. In the meantime, one of the most eloquent testimonies I've yet heard about the virtual civil war situation in the troubled commu...
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I've never subscribed to the rule of ettiquette that claims one should not speak or write ill of the newly deceased. Ignoring it might cause a degree of distress to grieving close friends and family if they happen to hear or read disparaging comments, and that might well milit...
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Rafe Champion asks, apropos of nothing in particular, whether 'well-meaning socialists and big government interventionists learned anything from the failures of local policy and foreign aid to the poor states of the world?' Of course, it's a rhetorical question, because - as a...
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John Quiggin is concerned about the uncoolness of his genuine affection for ducks flying across the wall . As I commented on his post. I like the Sound of Music - the movie. Partly because of associations with my Austrian Dad who could have been one of the kids (and his sister...
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Emailed by Scott Wickstein. ...
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Ian Holm as Bilbo - not my mental image of the old hobbit, but still ... Someone needs to launch an independent enquiry into whether Dr Bob Martin is being secretly funded by Sauron, Dark Lord of Mordor: Scientists who argue the "hobbit" is really just a modern human with a sm...
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[photopress:inflate_a_man.jpg,full,pp_empty] We have a lot of sex shops here in Darwin for some reason...
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Eels in Crisis Coach resigns midway through the season, players fined and demoted for disciplinary reasons and any chance for the finals are gorn not even half-way through the season. This is what life is usually like for a South's supporter but alas it is the Eels who are hav...
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As I hawked my father from one oncologist to another I invented the Gruen tender and published details of it in a much more general article here (pdf) in the Australian Journal of Public Administration in 2002. I have subsequently outlined it at greater length in this paper (p...
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Wendell. No, it's not a mug shot though it might as well be Yes, I know Wendell Sailor is a brainless dickhead , having apparently been caught with coke in his bloodstream after previously running foul of ARU rules on more than one occasion for alcohol-related behavioural infr...
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One of the themes of the ALP spin on the budget is that the tax cuts don't make up for the 'triple whammy' of higher fuel prices, interest rates and lower wages from the new IR legislation. There's another triple whammy (silly expression isn't it?). In fact, in the spirit of t...
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Mick Cronin. An Eels and Country Legend. No, we are not related Over the fold some thoughts on the bond between a person and their football club, on the importance of tonight's City v Country game and a pointer to a good summary of the Gasnier debacle. A Supporter's Lament The...
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Expressions of interest are invited from people who are prepared to comment for The Real Game on the prospects and performance of the following teams: Geelong, Swans, Hawks, Lions, Eagles, Crows, Port, the waterside workers, Saints, Western Bulldogs, Carlton. No experience req...
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Actor Gary McDonald, whose portrait by Paul Jackson was another Archibald finalist (and my personal favourite) While I'm on the Archibald Prize, the Art Gallery of NSW now has images of all the finalists available on its website here . The winner was Marcus Wills' work The Pau...
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Portrait of Justice Michael Kirby in this year's Archibald Prize - you can see why it didn't win I have to confess that I'm one of those sad souls who's actually been reading the daily transcripts of the current High Court argument in the Workplace Relations Challenge (now int...
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Another top-notch article in the Age by Caroline Wilson looks at how the Brisbane Lions board was told in 2002 that the team was capable of four premierships in a row, but if they did try for it, there would be a long term price to be paid. The board took the short term option...
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Miranda strips down to the gym shorts and pom pom to barrack for Bill Further to my disparaging post on the ostentatiously ambitious Bill Shorten, there's something more than a little suspicious about an aspiring Labor leader who has uber-Tory Miranda Devine on his cheersquad...
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The inaugural award for mixed metaphors goes to David J Hunter for this passage in a poorly argued, but not otherwise woefully expressed effort. It's in an interesting e-zine (pdf) - Eurohealth hosted by the LSE . But the jury is out and the stakes and risks are high with the...
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Who said this a few years ago - I guess it's not that hard to guess who it might be. At the moment if you're on a 48 per cent marginal tax rate, and an employer makes a contribution into superannuation on your behalf, you get a 33 cent tax concession ¢â¬â if you are a million...
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Can a souffle rise twice? or a rich fruitcake with nuts? Paul Keating used to refer to himself as the Placido Domingo of politics, but judging by last night's performanc e on The 7:30 Report his political voice has improved with age and he can justly lay claim to the mantle of...
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Don't be misled by large government spending and tax cut announcements in tonight's budget. The Howard government is still mercantilist: it believes government finances are better off for having large under-used savings called surpluses. Mercantilism is the practice of buildin...
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Crikey has a write up of Carlton by Stephen Feneley which says this. "At his best, Carleton was THE best, and any journalism student wanting tips on asking hard questions need only dip into Carleton's archive for wisdom. For that we owe him an enormous debt." I beg to differ....
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He reminds me of someone, but who? Anyway, here is Parsons' Wikipedia entry Thinking alound about the way that economics and the human sciences could have evolved under the influence of Carl Menger and others, especially Ludwig Mises, Talcott Parsons and Karl Popper. Continuin...
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[photopress:Dreamtime_at_the_MCG.jpg,full,pp_empty] I watched quite a bit of the opening stuff on 'Dreamtime at the MCG'. I wrote a bit of a piece on aborigines and the AFL a while back on Troppo. It's nice to see the AFL flogging it for all it's worth. And apropos of the issu...
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Daniel Barenboim Through the wonders of podcasting, I was able to listen to Daniel Barenboim's forth Reith lecture on a plane back from Sydney to Melbourne last night. This was the forth of his Reith lectures in which he talks about the marvelous "West Eastern Divan" initiati...
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Andrew Johns tackles Benjie Marshall in last night's test It may not have been the result I wanted last Sunday but the Eels versus Sea Eagles was indeed the game of the season so far. There is something magic about watching league at the SCG recalling the great years of the 70...
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It may not seem that long ago that John Aloisi planted that penalty in the top-right corner of the net to send the Socceroos through to their first World Cup finals in thirty-two years. And with the kick-off of the World Cup in Germany now only six weeks away, how much can we...
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Shorten - ghoulish famewhore? Has anyone else wondered what AWU National Secretary Bill Shorten has been doing down at the Beaconsfield Mine in Tasmania continuously for the last week or so? As far as I know he has no expertise in mining or mine rescues, and no active role in...
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[photopress:King__s_College.jpg,full] This is one lovely building. Not sure the poem is up to it. But then again, I'm no connoisseur of poetry. Inside of King's College Chapel, Cambridge By William Wordsworth Tax not the royal Saint with vain expense, With ill-matched aims the...
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The man in question? Gay? There IS a faint resemblance to Oscar Wilde ... Andrew Norton asked me to write a review of a new book on Adam Smith - so here's a fairly advanced draft. I'd welcome suggestions for improvements. Postscript: I'm hoping this is a final now, and comment...
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Australia's twin pillars of foreign affairs hypocrisy You need a keen appreciation of irony and hypocrisy to really enjoy the daily practice of Australian politics. Dolly Downer lecturing the Solomon Islanders about governmental corruption while his own supine "three wise monk...
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Parents' pensions may be direct debited for rent, power and food (photo courtesy ABC) Proposal from federal Family Services Minister Mal Brough : Family Services Minister Mal Brough is proposing that some welfare-dependent families could be forced to direct debit part of their...
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The sound of one hand clapping after Freo-St Kilda farcical finish Ken has asked me to resume my post on Club Troppo, as post-modernist AFL curmudgeon in residence. Since I find blathering on about football almost irresistible, and my cat is tired of hearing my views, I've dec...
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From an email from Scott Wickstein:
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Phillip Adams - pundit unjustly maligned? The longer I keep blogging, the more I empathise with Phillip Adams. Adams is regularly assailed by assorted RWDB bloggers (notably Professor Bunyip - who seems about to make an overdue comeback to the blogosphere) for journalistic sin...
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