Why did it happen? I think that the combination of four factors (listed below) was close to a sufficient cause. Sufficient at least to make a terrorist attack highly likely . And they are also arguably necessary. I think if you remove any one the first three then Bondi does no...

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Is there anyone at home? Is the chess program on your phone conscious? Is ChatGPT5 a conscious agent? Will ChatGPT9 be conscious? Most people would answer "no" to the first question, "don’t think so" to the second and “don’t know” to the last. I think it is more likely that th...

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This is becoming a series. The point is that public figures now routinely refuse to engage with counter-arguments. I have another one not yet written about Nobel Laureate Brian Schmidt who did not respond to three polite emails from me. The latest intellectual coward is Liz Al...

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I posted something similar on Facebook a few days back, and thought I might get some useful feedback here. Iran is criticised for violating their obligations under the NNPT. But the NNPT was signed by The Shah, who was a US puppet deposed in 1979. I do not think this obliges t...

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There was an ostensible “news” article on the ABC news site about Trump’s executive order (EO) titled “DEFENDING WOMEN FROM GENDER IDEOLOGY EXTREMISM AND RESTORING BIOLOGICAL TRUTH TO THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT.” The capitalisation is not mine; it is in the executive order FFS! Th...

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I was reading some arguments by Bettina Arndt recently about women dominating the legal profession, especially in the Family Law sphere, so I thought I would the check the facts. This is my modus operandi . Read polar views on an issue (I also consult OurWatch and White Ribbon...

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I find it hard to understand how passionate some folks are about voting Yes or voting No. Not because I do not understand passion, but because the cases for either position are so unconvincing. I am not “barracking” for either side. If the result is Yes I will find it hard to...

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This post is rather long. If you want a point form summary, scroll down to the bottom. Secondly, this post does not represent the views of anyone else but me. As part of his pre-election platform, the now PM promised to get an aboriginal Voice into the constitution during this...

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(Cross posted from On Line Opinion) Australians are very mindful of prejudice and discrimination in our community, and rightly so. Yet, many prejudices are so fashionable and pervasive that they go unnoticed. We are blind to some bigotries. I am a member of an ethnic and cultu...

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Australia punches above its weight in the medical research space. The National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) is the main government granting agency in the field of medical research. On October 16 th , it was announced that future mid-level and senior grants will...

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I have been fully vaccinated. I wear a mask. I believe that lockdowns drove the number of infections in Melbourne to zero. I scan the QR code whenever I have the chance. When I go to the supermarket, it is just me. Yet, I see many couples shopping and not being challenged by s...

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The Fairness Doctrine was a 1949 policy that required holders of broadcast licenses (so TV and radio) to air contrasting views on controversial issues of public importance. It was upheld by the Supreme Court in 1969 but eventually was abolished in 1987 by the FCC commission un...

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I think I am in favour of gay marriage, on balance, with some reservations. I would not wave placards in the street, or even change my vote on this issue. Yet it seems that this moderate position is not considered ethical. There is almost zero tolerance among some people for a...

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I met Adam Goodes very briefly in a restaurant in Randwick in 2000. He was then not well known but my sports-mad son Oliver noticed him and pestered me to let him request an autograph. I eventually relented and, when he trotted over, I signalled to Adam my apology at interrupt...

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Domestic violence is constantly in the news these days which can lead to the impression that the problem is increasing. To the extent that scrutiny and public discussion shines light in dark places, we might have expected the real underlying rates to be tapering. So I was more...

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How would you measure the safety of private motor vehicle travel? Let’s agree to focus on fatalities. Serious injuries are also important, but all the points I am going to make hold equally as well for injuries as for fatalities. Probably the silliest way to measure road fatal...

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Alex Stewart has had his 15 minutes of fame, but may live to regret it. Earlier this week he posted a video on Youtube. It showed him smoking lawn-clipping cigarettes that were fashioned out of pages torn from the Bible and the Koran. He compared the taste “scientifically” and...

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In 1934 an Aussie school teacher wrote a little ditty about Kookaburras that was enjoyed and sung by school kids for decades. She made pretty much no money out of it all, as it was, and is, still legal for kids to sing a song at school without paying the composer, thank the lo...

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I cannot really understand how such a talentless and unlikable person as Kyle Sandilands ends up earning m$4 per year . But then, I am not part of the Idol or 2dayfm demographic. I would rather listen to the ABC or watch the SciFi channel. I am also the kind of person who like...

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Several years ago I posted a graphic plotting countrys GDP per head against mean lifetime and drawing attention to the tragic loss of life in southern Africa, mainly due to AIDS. There is a fantastic data visualisation tool called GapMinder that tells this story and other stor...

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..Looks like a quiet night. I need to get something off my chest. I have just received a notice from the Juries Commission in Victoria that I am wanted for jury service. It's one of the letters a busy person dreads. You cannot get out of it, even by paying a fine. And they are...

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Well, Gideon Haigh may be the embodiment of "self-loathing leftism", but at least he's been known to buckle on the pads - photo by Rae Allen on Flickr ...goes to Gideon Haigh. Last Sunday was the first episode of Outsiders on ABC and of course the first topic of discussion was...

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Let's start by admiting that a black man being banned for three matches for calling a dark brown Australian man a monkey is pretty peculiar. Next will be Ricky Ponting being banned for calling an English player a pommy bastard. Couldn't John Howard, cricket tragic and implacab...

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This post follows on from a discussion begun by Paul Fritjers and continued HERE . Most human activity has changed drastically over our lifetimes. And the rate of change is increasing see for instance the next generations user interface for computers. You would hope academics...

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Econometricians are often pretty smart at thinking up ways to measure things. I recently attended a seminar by Professor Matthew Gentzkow from University of Chicago Graduate School of Business who is doing research on the vexed issue of media slant. You might think that media...

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It is a rare for me to agree with Janet Albrechtsen. Still rarer for me to hear her say, almost verbatim, an idea that I have bored my friends with for years. In yesteday's Australian she draws attention to the corrupting influence of political donations and finishes with a rh...

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Left and right are both calling for the manic Sheik Al Hilali to be deported from these fair lands. The left take offence at his comparing uncovered women to "raw meat". The right take offense at his support for terrorists. Listening to ABC radio this morning, I seemed to be...

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On Insiders last Sunday, the topic of the day was the growing debacle in Iraq. It included sound bites from the PM, a longer interview with Paul Kelly and some predictable political tap dancing from Kevin stay-on-message Rudd . The armchair discussants included David Marr and...

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Obviously the biggest news of the day is the recent Lancet article which concludes that the number of excess deaths in Iraq since the war began is around 655k with 95% confidence interval (393k,943k)*. Cause of death is also attributed with over half due to gun shot, 90% viole...

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So it happened again. No Melbourne team in the grand final. In fact, none of the top four teams in the AFL competition were from Melbourne. We will go through the motions of pretending that grand final week still means something. And at 5.30 on Saturday there will be a quiet e...

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Last week I spent some time collecting some data from various sources that summarise the differences and relationships between various crude measures of national performance, mostly for an introductory class on regression (which according to Rafe is the most fun that you can h...

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Surely we cannot let 11/9 pass without a single relevant post? After all, the world changed forever five years ago today. For a start, folks the globe over ( sans moi ) have now begun quoting dates backwards, like the Americans. SBS recently aired a bizarre documentary allegin...

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Something light to start off with. I woke up this morning to the clock radio's bad news about the Bali Nine and sitting in a traffic jam on the Easter freeway I wondered about what was really going on and reminded myself that 2+2 usually eqauls 4. Listening to RN in my office,...

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