Monthly Archives: December 2006

An exclusive institution

Posted on December 31, 2006 by Jacques Chester

  Helen Mirren as QEII We went to see The Queen yesterday. The film is about our queen who lives her whole life in sacred sites and in lives lived before her. The ugly part is the public/private/conservative controversy that … Continue reading →

Posted in Films and TV | 12 Comments

Attack of the Killer Mall Rats: Is Sydney becoming a ‘behavioural sink’?

Posted on December 31, 2006 by Don Arthur

Big business lobbyists and greedy foreigners are turning Sydney into an overcrowded hell hole, says Clive Hamilton. In Saturday’s Sydney Morning Herald Hamilton draws on John Calhoun’s famous rat experiments to argue that Sydney risks becoming a ‘behavioural sink‘ — … Continue reading →

Posted in Environment, Life, Politics - national | 18 Comments

Hayek Shrugged

Posted on December 30, 2006 by Don Arthur

[photopress:Rand_Window3_1_2.jpg,thumb,alignleft] Ayn Rand despised Friedrich Hayek. In a letter to Rose Wilder Lane she described him as "an example of our most pernicious enemy". At Thoughts on Freedom, Andrew Russell takes issue with some of my earlier comments on the … Continue reading →

Posted in Philosophy | 15 Comments

The Australian Chess Championship – watch it like you were there!

Posted on December 30, 2006 by Nicholas Gruen

I took Alexander (my son) to the Australian Chess Championships being held in Canberra the other day. There on the top boards were four Grandmasters playing (I think Australia only has two – and both were there – Ian Rogers … Continue reading →

Posted in Sport-general, Uncategorised | 3 Comments

Call for helpful suggestions

Posted on December 29, 2006 by Ken Parish

Earlier this week I downloaded Mozilla Firefox and started using it as my default browser.   However its inbuilt version of Google is much more primitive than the Google Toolbar I’ve been  accustomed to using with Internet Explorer.   Accordingly … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorised | 13 Comments

Ancient VW Beetle confounds modern faith based science

Posted on December 27, 2006 by Rex Ringschott

Some weeks ago, Tim Blair, in his ongoing quest to ridicule Global Warming out of existence, decided to take a swipe at influential UK columnist George Monbiot. If you don’t know of Mr. Monbiot he appears to be a very … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorised | 49 Comments

Summer reading

Posted on December 27, 2006 by Christopher Sheil

Amartya Sen’s Identity and Violence: The Illusion of Destiny (Allen Lane/Penguin) was a short treat. Here is one orphan paragraph, rounded for interim finish by the sentence that immediately follows (p. 175): The illusion of singular identity, which serves the … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorised | 4 Comments