Missing Link Daily

A digest of the best of the blogosphere published each weekday and compiled by Ken Parish, James Farrell, Gilmae, Darlene Taylor and Saint.

Politics

Australian

tigtog believes that a Federal Government scheme for national registration of medical professionals will help to weed out the Patels and Reeveses more quickly.

Harry Clark argues that the Rudd government is damaging Australia’s economy in bypassing the Productivity Commission and appointing Labor mates to report and recommend interventionist Button-style “industry policy”.

Peter Martin looks at Lindsay Tanner’s semantic game playing with Labor election promises on maintaining defence spending.  Not quite a “non-core promise” replay but not far short.

Meanwhile, pseudonymous Liberal propagandist Kevin Rudd R Less proffers relentlessly negative takes on everything Ruddish including the 2020 Summit ((I wonder whether this is the same bloke who ran the Mark Latham sendup blog a few years ago – it’s certainly the same style of obvious if sometimes funny undergraduate humour ~ KP)), while Guy Beres compiles a Missing Link-style roundup of MSM and blogosphere reaction to Rudd’s 100 days in office promo.

International

Guy Beres applauds the self-promoting Bob Geldof’s caricature-busting sympathetic view of George Bush

Alex Hutchinson peddles the (somewhat unlikely) proposition that Obama is the harbinger and representative of a New Generation of non-ideological non-aligned pragmatists.

Doug B wonders why the US doesn’t have compulsory voting, while Roger Migently highlights disturbing suggestions that the electronic voting system they actually do have is fairly dodgy to say the least.


Economics

Melburnian Joshua Gans sees Sydney’s road toll system as a case study on squandered scale economies.

Peter Martin reports that, due to high ‘wholesale rates’  the banks will probably increase variable home loan rates by more than the 0.25 percent cash rate increase expected today.

Andrew Norton explains how, under a Universities Australia scheme to securitise HECS/HELP liabilities, in net effect ‘the government would be lending to itself to finance universities, a very strange state of affairs.’


Issues analysis

Jeremy Sear doesn’t think much of State governments’ performance on disadvantaged housing

Alex Tabarrok links and disputes research (not by Peter Roebuck) purporting to show that spanking kids causes sexual problems as adults.

Roger Migently explores what happens when a child disses the Bible in an American schoolroom.


Arts

Norman Geras doubts that an organised boycott of Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice for its anti-semitism is a brilliant idea.

Amanda Rose loves Dolly Parton but hates Céline Dion at great length.

Who was Bach? asks Norman Geras, inexplicably ignoring doctoral research by my (KP) CDU colleague Martin Jarvis claiming that old Johann plagiarised a fair slab of his stuff from his missus!!


Sport

Mike Salter wonders whether Sydney FC’s purchase of John Aloisi for $1.4 million is a good idea.

Shaun Cronin previews the 2008 NRL season, keeping his fingers crossed for Parra and sharing my (KP) pessimism about Manly’s prospects for this year.


Snark, strangeness and charm

Cast-iron Helen would appreciate help with displaying images in WordPress.

Saint on an attempt to embarrass Benny Hinn on stage. ((My mental image is of a huckster chasing people in wheelchairs and on crutches to the tune of Yakety Sax.~gilmae))

Ben Peek hates Wollongong.

Kieran Healey argues that women pundits like Charlotte Allen (who happily admits to being stupid and a bad driver and sees these as female characteristics) are just an example of the wonders of a market economy.

Mark Bahnisch deploys years of experience to doubting research showing that blogging boosts your social life, while Peter Black looks at Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales’ apparent dumping of his girlfriend on Wikipedia itself, and also contemplates the death of email.

About Ken Parish

Ken Parish is a legal academic, with research areas in public law (constitutional and administrative law), civil procedure and teaching & learning theory and practice. He has been a legal academic for almost 20 years. Before that he ran a legal practice in Darwin for 15 years and was a Member of the NT Legislative Assembly for almost 4 years in the early 1990s.
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Amanda
16 years ago

Amanda Rose loves Dolly Parton but hates C

wilful
wilful
16 years ago

Please stop covering “Kevin Rudd R Less”. Not witty, not insightful. Banal and predictable PR hackwork from the Young Libs. Don’t deserve the traffic/’endorsement’.

TimT
16 years ago

I’m glad to know that the Kevin Rudd R Less site exists – now I know not to go there in the future. The satire certainly is banal and predictable, which is a pity – as Rudd’s shallow, congratulatory ‘100 days’ report and his ideas summit PR stunt really is begging for good political satire.

I remember when I first read Ruth’s glorious John Howard blog – now that was a fresh and genuinely amusing site. Could be in the next few years a similar Kevin Rudd satire will spring up somewhere in the blogosphere. Rudd R Less isn’t it.

wilful
wilful
16 years ago

It’s absolutely not a matter of their politics, it’s a matter of their quality. Be as eclectic as you wish, that’s what I want. I just don’t want juvenilia.

gilmae
16 years ago

Perhaps the banal predictability is all part of the satire, or meta satire if you like….oh dear, I just committed the Thinking About It Too Much Fallacy.

Tony T.
16 years ago

I read the John Howard Blog, like, once.

Patrick
Patrick
16 years ago

Guy Beres applauds the self-promoting Bob Geldofs caricature-busting sympathetic view of George Bush.

Isn’t anyone who writes about their time with the President of the US inherently ‘self-promoting’? That struck me as a really weird choice of words.

Joshua Gans
16 years ago

If those characters are the future of the Liberals, that’s very heartening.

Kevin Rennie
16 years ago

To find out why Hillary is a second hand station wagon and Barack is a brand new 4WD click the link. One has lots of baggage and one isn’t run in yet, but that’s not the full metaphor.

Helen
16 years ago

Cast-iron Helen would appreciate help with displaying images in WordPress.

Problem is fixed, thanks. I’m feeling pretty up myself. I won’t bore anyone into a stupor by explaining here what I did, but if any WordPress users find they are suddenly unable to display uploaded pictures where they could the day before, you are welcome to email me! In the meantime, I’ll be waving a Hahn and singing Queen’s execrable WE ARE THE CHAMPIONS (of WordPress…)

Wilful, this time, I could not agree with you more. Can’t we pulp the Young Liberals?

Bill Posters
Bill Posters
16 years ago

the patient, constructive, policy-oriented hard work of the Australian Democrats

Bah ha ha ha!

Graham Bell
Graham Bell
16 years ago

Everyone:

The essential difference between the the Counter Summit blog I started http://countersummitaustralia2020.blogspot.com and the site you mentioned in Club Troppo at http://kevinruddrless.blogspot.com/2008/03/my-2008-smartarse-summit.htm is that while I have been very critical of how this brilliant concept has been fumbled, all that other blogger can do is knock and whinge. So he doesn’t like Kevin Rudd – big deal – what’s his own vision for policies to bring us a better future? That’s if he has any vision at all.