The art of the obit is a tricky one and potential exponents have had a field day recently what with Joh - a unique amalgam of the mayor of Porpoise Spit in Muriel's Wedding and a dyslexic John Calvin - and Al Grassby. Al was a colourful - shall we say larger-than-life? - dude...
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I could do with a 24 hour moratorium on Gallipoli roadworks responsibility wrangling. There's been a road there for decades. I used it in 1990 when I went to Anzac Cove. From what I can make out, that road has been widened and the current brouhaha is about whether the widening...
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I watched Denton tonight and needed a shower on conclusion. He interviewed Frederick and Mary Glucksburg. A couple who might have been a mid-ranked corporate duo anywhere in the western world really - perhaps a double -diamond Amway family or goodlooking Scientologists maybe....
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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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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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Maybe I'm a bit strange but it occurs to me that casting a vote purely on the basis of your sexuality is a pretty dumb way to exercise your democratic franchise. I share this insight because there's a campaign underway within the gay community to punish the ALP for supporting...
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The ALP has played an interesting card in the FTA debate. Yesterday the Labor caucus voted overwhelmingly to support the FTA. The FTA is of course a deal or no deal affair. Either it's accepted or it's not. Having done that, Labor then introduced two amendments to the enabling...
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Paul Watson has noted , stylishly, that a feature story in yesterday's Oz looks, on the surface of it, to be a strange fit with the brief of the nation's daily newspaper. That thought had also occurred to me. The gist of the story is pretty unremarkable on the face of it, thou...
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One of the oddest stories to emerge from the 15th International AIDS Conference in Bangkok is that James Glassman of the American Enterprise Institute found - to his considerable shock - that the American delegation booth didn't have a photo of George W. Bush displayed. It see...
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The SMH reveals - in a piece of shameless advertorial - that 1,000 Australian men were so sadly bereft of life-fulfillment options that they measured their penises and sent the results off to some vaguely-defined corporate entity - for marketing dept fun and company profit. Fo...
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I was checking out Alexander Downer's bio the other day, as one does, and came across this: "Alexander Downer was born on 9 September 1951. He was educated at Crafers Primary School, Geelong Grammar School, Victoria; Radley College, Oxford, United Kingdom; and the University o...
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Tim Dunlop has a good post up about Brian Toohey's piece in yesterday's Sun-Herald . Toohey argues that much of the commentariat hand-wringing about malign shock-jock influence could be sensibly addressed by politicians simply not giving them the issue-based oxygen they requir...
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There's few things less attractive than a former enfant terrible who insists on clinging relentlessly to his former persona. OK, domestics in comment boxes comes close but Richard Neville's latest diatribe in the SMH surely plumbs the depths. In a call-to-arms to Gen X'ers (wh...
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The news is that Easter church attendance is up on previous years. To my recollection Easter church attendances have reportedly been "up" every year for about the last 30 years, yet annual attendance rates seem to steadily fall. It's a Mystery of Faith as Mel might observe. Le...
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Another Baghdad report from the Guardian columnist confirms that being Robert Fisk just isn't enough. I particularly like his idiosyncratic style which could be termed "informed bemusement." A bit like the rest of us - only more lyrical.
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Whew! If you were concerned about the potential effects of another Ralph Nader presidential punt on the Bush/Kerry race, you can now officially relax! Phillip Adams and Barry Jones are on the job . According to Phillip, he and Barry are about to change Nader's mind as only the...
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The question on lips everywhere seems to be, "Vietnam?" "I don't think so'' would be my response though the realpolitik underlying American withdrawal from that particular quagmire an innate liberal democratic society squeamishness about engaging in wars that produce televisu...
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I'm not currently blogging - you didn't notice? Oh. Anyway it's terrific that Ken is blogging. The reason I'm not blogging is pretty much directly related to a deadline drawing ever closer. Early next week I'm due to deliver a draft submission in respect of the Australia/US Fr...
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News today from Rhea County, Tennessee where county commissioners have just voted 8-0 to ban homosexual acts. "We need to keep them out of here," said Commissioner J.C. Fugate, who introduced the motion - and who appears to be blissfully unaware that the US Supreme Court has r...
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An interesting OpEd in The Washington Post considers the health benefits that have accrued in eastern Europe since the Iron Curtain rusted through. In Poland, rates of smoking, cardiovascular disease and alcoholism have all plummetted (despite the presence of western product m...
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British journalist, Simon Jenkins, in the latest issue of the Spectator - published on March 11 - offers this no doubt enduring testament to the importance of timing: "Nothing to fear but fear itself: Simon Jenkins says that Tony Blair's Sedgefield speech was just another atte...
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It's true. According to a study reported in the Oz "members of the elite Special Air Service (SAS) were exposed to lead, teargas and explosions in training, and experienced high levels of physical trauma and stress." Who knew? To be utterly even-handed, the Study does dwell at...
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It's 1.20pm in Sydney. The annual Sydney Gay and Lesbian Parade and Party is due to get underway in around 8 hours time (though the parade is always late in starting) and - wouldn't you know it? - it's raining. This may be due to the influence of a cyclonic low moving south fr...
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Alistair Cooke's " Letter from America " has been running on the BBC, the ABC and a host of other English-speaking public broadcasting systems, for much longer than I've been alive. It all began in 1946 and no fewer than 2,869 Letters have gone to air since. But this week, age...
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The always entertaining Professor Bunyip - surely Gianna's first choice for Godfather of the newly arrived Harley - waxes eloquent. In a, "you might get what you wish for," cautionary tale, about the perils that that might await maritally-inclined poofs, he offers this gem: "A...
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As poor old Baroness Thatcher might say - were she 100 and had the Tory party not bribed her medical advisors to gravely inform her that she was no longer capable of speaking in public. Yes! I note, in passing, that I've just racked up my posting century here on the Northern T...
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Chris Sheil , who recently opined that someone named Ryan Adams is the legitimate heir to Dylan and Springsteen, won't be pleased to hear this . Erratum (Chris points out that he was merely passing on the views of others - and is, quite possibly, as vague as I am on the oeuvre...
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It's not every day that a Leader in a Very Important Newspaper can make you laugh out loud. In fact, all things considered, it's probably preferable that it should not. But this one, from the UK Telegraph , is hilarious, and worth posting in full. "Killer pouffes (Filed: 29/02...
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"The Moving Finger writes, and, having writ, Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line, Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it." Omar Khayyam When Alexander Downer bustles forth in fresh viyella shirt and blue blazer, on a Sunday morning, so...
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Here's dear old John Ray - the curmudgeonly crowd's favourite psychologist - offering a free and unsolicited appraisal of Andrew Sullivan : "Keith Burgess-Jackson and many other conservatives have been appalled at Andrew Sullivan's extreme, irrational and hysterical reaction t...
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Look, I know I'm going on about it, but this piece (from grudnuk via Tim Dunlop ) is an eloquent (if slightly tear-jerking) testament to the human dimension of gay coupling that ideological theorising across the battlelines, kind of misses. Now I'll shut up about it.
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Everyone has seen it. Cardinal Pell has seen it and warmly recommends it's age-old message: flagellation is more redemptive than wearing a hair-shirt any day. The Holy Father has seen it and may - or may not - have observed that "it is, as it was.' Brian Henderson used to say...
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George Bush, after months of hedging around the issue, finally declares his wholehearted support for amending the US Constitution to deny equal rights to a discrete group of his fellow citizens. Andrew Sullivan - with all the pain of the personally betrayed - puts it this way:...
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This piece from the UK Telegraph considers the modern phenomenon of mass recreational grieving for celebrities and it's offshoot activity: the wearing of a variety of multihued "cause" ribbons to indicate one's enthusiasm to be identified as the sort of person who cares enough...
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One of the many ironies about the Redfern Block is the fact that the Block is only just in Redfern. It's just an LJ Hooker billboard or two away from much more real-estate friendly Darlington. Much of Redfern parts of which are but a 10 minute walk from the southern edge of th...
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The year is hardly underway, but those who like compiling annual "you wouldn't believe it" lists, should note the ambitious, early bid for inclusion that Piers Akerman makes in today's Tele . I quote from midway down his fevered - though strangely familiar - expose on the the...
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We recently dropped into the Broadway Multiplex - proudly serving the residents of Glebe, Ultimo and Camperdown since 2001 - to catch Master and Commander - The Far Side Of The World . More about the movie later. Right now - perhaps surprisingly - I want to discuss obesity. I...
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I note - via the SMH - that Qantas will no longer permit people to 'congregate' on long haul flights, with particular reference to hanging around outside the loos. The directive was apparently issued late yesterday by the US Transport and Security Administration, which is dema...
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Indeed, do bloggers holiday? Most people - certainly in our part of the real world - seem to feel obliged to at least pay lip service to the notion of "the break" at this time of the year. There's something a bit suspicious - even tragic - about being seen to pass up the commu...
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Books mainly. Including Michael Moore's latest, " Dude, Where's My Royalty Cheque !" or somesuch. An elderly relative gave it to me with the advice that it had been recommended by the girl in the shop for "a guy who enjoys current affairs." It was sweet of her and it's now han...
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It's the preferred seasonal salutation of Aussie naturists apparently and since I'm not far off being nude at the mo' myself - no, it's purely climate induced, and there is no link - it's kind of appropriate. It's a while since I blogged. Indeed, as Wendy James might rightfull...
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It's all a bit tragic - not least in the timing. On a slow news weekend - when the next biggest story seems to be that Bob Brown has invited Mark Latham to tour the old growth Tassie forest - Senator Andrew Bartlett's fall from grace has exploded all over the season of ho, ho,...
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A veritable Niagara of comment has poured forth about Mark Latham in the last couple of days but the Daily Telegraph's sordid little contribution gave me special pause. Latham's first wife, Gabrielle Gwyther, is featured , observing that: "He talked about climbing the ladder t...
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You would think that at a time when the United States needed all the resources at it's disposal it might have thought twice about it's ludicrous "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy which excludes openly gay servicemen and women from the Armed Services. The Washington Post covers th...
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This sad little story concerns a 7 year old boy named Marcus whose seat of learning is Ernest Gallet Elementary School in Lafayette, Louisiana. He was nabbed telling a classmate, (in response to a question), what "gay" means. "It's when a girl likes another girl" he offered, b...
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According to ABC News, Ray, Faulkner and McMullan - The Three Wise Men - have popped in today to see their parliamentary leader to impart the news that he no longer enjoys the majority support of the ALP caucus. Should he not avail himself of the opportunity to step down in th...
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Who'd a thunk it? The excision of all those islands could have just been about the comedic inability of a Mosman Kebab shop owner to organise his way out of a slightly greasy paper bag! The SMH reports that the 14 Kurdish 'asylum seekers' last seen on Melville Island - frantic...
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Permanently dyspeptic academic Professor Bunyip has stumbled upon an Australian perspective in the Hong Kong-based Asia Times which leaves Alison Broinowski's thesis - about Asians getting all the wrong messages about us - looking overly pessimistic. It's the most thoughtful a...
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My good friend Paul has very kindly forwarded me Malcolm Fraser's online petition seeking the release of kids from illegal entry-associated confinement. As Tim Dunlop observes , a spot of petition signing isn't a bad way for bleeding hearts to salve their consciences - and it...
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London's Daily Torygraph editorialises favourably on why gay couples should have equality under law. It's an eminently sensible - and very well-written - casebuild.
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....is of course the name of an American drag queen in the ubermawkish Hollywood weepie, Torch Song Trilogy . It was only a matter of time before some enterprising blogger launched as Bertha Vablog but, perhaps surprisingly, Christopher Sheil chose not to. Instead, he's chosen...
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Young Brisbane poof, Daewi, guest snarks on noted Australian Arts and Letters blog, Spin Starts Here Darl , and delivers the definitive critique on Australian Idol - the Final. It's a brilliantly observed piece - kind of "National Enquirer meets Jerry Springer and does serious...
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Mild-mannered Ozblogger, Tim Blair, reports being driven to drink by Margo's latest revelation, which is: - " A growing proportion of the media are behaving as propagandists, not as journalists." "'And Margo would know," Amanda Meade pointed out succinctly, whilst inducting Ma...
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It was certainly spectacular. Just as dusk fell in Brisbane last night, Pauline Hanson and David Ettridge walked free from their respective prisons, acquitted of the fraud charges that had incarcerated them 11 weeks previously. Hanson looked thinner, a bit vulnerable (not surp...
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One of the few relatively sober sentient beings at Flemington Racecourse this arvo was a South Australian lady horse named Makybe Diva. Therefore, unencumbered by stilettos, a dickhead hat, attire like a hotel concierge or bottles of cheap methode champenoise, she galloped awa...
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The ABC's Australian Story has been steering a dangerous course, somewhere between the Shoals of New Idea and the Reef of Lowest Common Denominator Sentimentality. Who can recall that awful Oz story hagiography on Pan Pharmaceuticals founder Jim Selim without lunging for their...
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Democracy is dying , fascism is on the rise, the PM is laughing maniacally as he cruelly excludes War Widows from ceremonies at the Australian War Memorial - just to be a bastard -and guess what? The Newspoll punters have just given the Evil One his biggest single poll boost s...
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So.....it's Una's Restaurant, 340 Victoria St, Darlinghurst on Tuesday 4 November at 6.30pm. Troppo bloggers past and present are invited to join Great Armadillo Ken Parish, and I, for dinner. You don't have to be a Troppo blogger to join us - after all, most people who'll be...
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Nicholas Kristof in the NYT muses on the findings from a recent study showing that many lesbians - like most men - will have a ring finger that is longer than their index finger whilst women generally, have an index and ring finger roughly the same in length. A quick, albeit u...
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The National Trust is running low on Australian Living Treasures and would like public assistance in replacing the 11 Treasures who have gone to Immortality since the program was initiated in 1997. All you have to do is zap off your nomination to the National Trust. They don't...
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At about the point that Hu Jin-Tao was subtly making his House of Representatives case for Captain Cook being a Johnny come lately, news came through that the formidable Madame Chiang Kai-Shek had passed away. It was a timely interruption because I'd just started daydreaming a...
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The visits of Presidents Bush and Hu may be big news elsewhere but, interestingly, the brouhaha du jour in Sydney appears to be the Sydney Peace Foundation's award of it's annual Peace Prize to Dr Hanan Ashrawi - noted christian Palestinian academic and politician. As I write,...
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It's a signal indication of the strange place that the Parliamentary Labor Party currently resides in when they can devote their weekly caucus meeting to a discussion on whether or not to stand up or sit down in the presence of the United States Head of State and where clappin...
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Ever lie awake thinking about how great Richard Perle is? Or find yourself rolling on the floor at the wicked, rapier-like wit of Rummy? You could just have insomnia - or indisgestion. On the other hand, you too could be a neocon. The Christian Science Monitor (kooky religion,...
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I'm back from New Zealand and I can inform you that it was very green - and very neat. In fact, my partner, Lance, observed that the lush, manicured verdure through which we were driving looked like it was mown and rolled on a daily basis. The cows and sheep are also sparkling...
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I'll be in one from tomorrow: New Zullind to be precise - until October 12. I won't be posting until I'm back but I'm sure I'll find the opportunity to comment from time to time.
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Nigeria has just launched it's first satellite - from a missile base in Russia. The Washington Post reports Nigerian space agency spokesman, Solomon Olaniyi, saying that the government plans to use the $13 million satellite to monitor water resources, soil erosion, deforestati...
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Out go Richard Alston and Wilson Tuckey - they'll be hoping there's no ambassadorial vacancy in Chad. Vanstone to Immigration, Ruddock to Attorney-General, Abbott picks up Health, Patterson gets Family and Community Services, Daryl Williams goes to Communications and De-anne K...
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Molly, our elderly neighbour has just popped over. She lives a few houses down the river and is one of the few residents left who can remember the days when Undercliffe was a bold Chifleyite housing solution to the overcrowded slum terraces of Surry Hills and Erskineville. To...
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Dennis Shanahan ran a piece, in Saturday's tree edition of the Australian - no online link - covering a speech that Wayne Swan gave to the Blaxland FEC on Friday night. Much of it was predictable stuff: "if we get it wrong at the next election we're out for a dozen years; Howa...
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Earlier in the week, Thabo Mbeki - in New York attending the UN General Assembly meeting - granted an interview to the Washington Post , wherein, he observed: "Personally, I don't know anybody who has died of AIDS." Asked whether he knows anyone with HIV, he added quietly, "I...
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Federal Liberal MP, Teresa Gambaro, burst from deep backbench cover this morning with the funniest tax proposal since Pauline Hanson's little - "take 2 away from 2 and add 2 " - side-splitter convulsed the nation back in 2001. Ms Gambaro - also from Queensland, oddly enough -...
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Big Armadillo and expert in legal hairdressing jurisprudence, Ken Parish, has announced his 50th birthday. Ken confided "long lunch plans" as celebration. I would not anticipate a learned exposition on Callinan J's judgment re Hanson, anytime soon.
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Perth uberblogger, Gareth Parker, turns 21 today. Run on over and cheer him up with predictions as to how long it'll be before he goes bald, and stuff.
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Those who lament the UN as a bastion of lefty luvvies should take heart from today's release of the latest report from the UN Office on Drugs and Crime. Fresh from the trenches you might say.... The first ever UN global survey on amphetamines and ecstasy, claims that in the pa...
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There's something profoundly Australian about an heroic, one-eyed Kangaroo named Lulu rescuing her owner. She may well be suffering under the misapprehension that she's actually a Blue Heeler - she may even bark like a dog - but never mind. We know, deep down, that she represe...
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Allison Henry, the national director of the Australian Republic Movement had one of those characteristically, ill-humoured pieces in the Oz this morning that always manages to reduce the Republican cause to a joyless, lemon-lipped bitchslap. Harry "Blue" Windsor is plainly ent...
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Slim Dusty passed away this morning. There'll be the odd pub with no beer in Tamworth tonight..... (and a patently insincere and tasteless tribute from Ken Parish).
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Scott Wickstein , ever-perceptive, concludes that Sydney and Australia are different places. The incontrovertible evidence that Scott produces to support his proposition is the extraordinary brawl that broke out yesterday between former Kings School alumnus, now professional R...
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Greg Sheridan - on the History Wars - in The Australian this morning: "One of the most irresponsible things in normal democratic politics is to inflate the language you use about your opponents, to import moral absolutes into the prosaic and wholesome debates a democratic peop...
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There I was sitting in front of 'Lateline" and Secretary of the Treasury, Ken Henry - who looks alarmingly like Malcolm Turnbull in a certain light - pops up on the screen. I'd clearly nodded off and had entered the realm of telepathic communication, because his message was ob...
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A 10 year old girl is mauled by a croc in a billabong at Patonga in Kakadu and where do I read about it? In The Australian breaking news ! What has become of the Northern Territory News ? Surely that publication's sole raison d'etre is to record the table d'hote proclivities o...
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You've got to hand it to Margo Kingston - our own roll-your-own, Oriana Fallaci-in-a Flannie. While lesser political commentators - "Quislings" as Webdiary , rather derivatively terms them - waste time on considered analysis, reasoned reflection and logical conclusion, Margo g...
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Germaine Greer's just-published Quarterly Essay, Whitefella Jump Up , adds yet more credence to my theory that Greer has metamorphosised into a Barry Humphries creation: the eccentric old bluestocking aunt who loves to blather on in a colourfully opinionated, slightly shocking...
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Fouad Ajami makes the case with the sort of elegant eloquence to which this armadillo can only ever aspire - unsuccessfully. In Foreign Policy magazine , Ajami, the Majid Khadduri professor at Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies, and a contribut...
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Our house fronts on to the Cooks River, along which a public pathway gives access to a continuing parade of runners, power-walkers, dreamers, cyclists and The Old Greek Homeless Guy who sleeps in the facilities block in the park across the river and makes his way along the pat...
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It wasn't on the Road to Damascus - and he isn't St Paul - but colourful C-Filer Jack Strocchi has had a revelatory moment of truth about Iraq. It's an entertaining read and a rare and gracious moment of blogospherical concession.
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I hold relatively few politicians in high regard, but Bob Carr is an exception. He's an unlikely political success story in our culture: bookish, verging on teetotal, private to the point of suspected misanthropy, but still with that indefinable something that begins to build...
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Boris Johnson, Editor of The Spectator and Tory MP for Henley-on-Thames, offers a few thought-provoking musings on the great gulf between the discourse of the journalistic-politico class and those he terms the "civilians." Using the Kelly case as his example, he goes to the he...
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Paul Keating ripped into it last night as he launched Stuart Macintyre's new book, The History Wars - upon which Chris Sheil blogs below. It was colourful, controversial and indeed ground-breaking as interesting words like "Tintookies" (puppets apparently) emerged from etymolo...
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Singapore's Straits Times gives the Abu Bakar Bashir trial outcome the sort of finessed analysis that eludes the crapped-out, where's-the-fuckin'- handle-gone gestetner, that is the PR vehicle of the alleged Leader of the Australian opposition. You could imagine the briefing C...
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Fount of blogospherical wisdom, Bargarz, points to the lamentable tendency for Simon Crean to emerge like some cheapjack, showbag Jack-in-the-box - roughly every fortnight - to report on his latest "gate' discovery. "This is ethanolgate" he sonorously pronounced shortly before...
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For those of you who don't know - or who've forgotten - Scott Wickstein is taking your entries, under the heading, The Ten Most Influential Australians Of the 20th Century over at his place . He's going to be collating them tonight and plans to publish the outcome tomorrow. Th...
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What an unedifying spectacle we have before us. Pauline - according to her sister Judy - wearing thongs! "I've never seen her wearing thongs before" Judy confided merrily - perhaps a tad too merrily, given the circumstances - to the massed media outside Walco Gaol. I for one f...
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Here at the 'dillo we're more on to it than Marr - and much merrier with it. Especially when it comes to Mike Carlton. Weeks before David the Dilettante pointed out that the SMH's Saturday polemicist had elevated Senator Robert Byrd to the Moral Conscience of the Age, without...
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It's a gray day in the Emerald City. Rain is setting in and I'm a feeling just a bit hungover. What better restorative than to proceed to my local bookshop to purchase the just released Judith Brett opus - Australian Liberals and the Moral Middle Class - from Alfred Deakin to...
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Those of you planning Battle of Bosworth Field Memorial wakes today - hard to believe I know, but it's 518 years since Richard III was defeated by Henry Tudor at Bosworth Field, time flies etc - will be gratified by this In Memoriam notice from todays SMH: PLANTAGENET, Richard...
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It all seemed so sudden. One moment she was photo-opping in time-honoured fashion, the next she was being sent down for three years. Shut away in the sort of seclusion that will be the stuff of a dozen New Idea covers - "Pauline's Prison Torment!" Indeed, it's already started...
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As Harry Belafonte might have put it: "Down the way where the nights are gay, And the sun shines daily on the mountain top. I took a trip on a sailing ship and when I reached Jamaica, my eyes just popped! For, just erected (if I might use that word) in Kingston's Redemption Pa...
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Kooky eccentric, former UN Weapons Inspector and all-round funster, Richard Butler has just been appointed as Her Majesty's Representative in Tasmania. Last heard of banging on pretty much endlessly about Howard's perfidy in claiming Iraq had WMD - despite the fact that he him...
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So ran the header on Radio Australia's Tokpisin News broadcast . The item related to John Howard's advocacy of former DFAT First Assistant Sec - and 25 year Pacific veteran - Greg Urwin, to head the Pacific Forum secretariat. Suva-based Pacific Islands magazine , in it's Augus...
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The currently on-vacation Andrew Sullivan races back online to share his enthusiasm for Arnold Schwarzenneger's ah....candidacy....and demonstrates that gay bloggers need to be particularly conscious of the double entendre morass that unbridled metaphorical allusion can lead t...
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Despite my Resident Poof status on 'Dillo de Trop - or maybe because of it - I've resisted blogging, up till now, on the vexed question of gay marriage, propagation of the species and the increasingly strident demands of the over-privileged gay minority - and ever-cognisant of...
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Having just finished Man of Honour , Michael Duffy's new book about John Macarthur - Founding Father, Sheep Husbandry Enthusiast, Major Rorter and all round cranky bugger - I'm extremely grateful that The Great Perturbator predated the internet. There'd be more stepping out go...
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Like a blogospherical supernova, this pundit says it all in one brief incandescent burst - and then goes out. Link via Tim Blair . Illuminating!
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Bill Clinton is often described as one of the keenest political intellects of the age. Simon Crean never will be, to which his ill-advised blundering about in the crocodile-infested Second Sydney Airport swamp bears eloquent testament - were further testament to the fact not e...
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My thanks to Gummo for pointing the way to one of the most telling, funny, wry and altogether moving valedictories to a parent, I've read for a long time. If you haven't read it, go there .
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Grieving Somali widow Muna Zulu Iyama emails me with the deal of a lifetime. From : Mrs. Muna Zulu Iyama refugee Camp South Africa muna_helpline@indiatimes.com Dear Friend, Complements of the season. I am delighted to contact you after coming across your contact in the interne...
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We live on the Cook's River, about 10 kms south of the Sydney CBD, and a couple of kilometres upstream of Botany Bay. A 15 minute run downriver from our place brings you to the point where the 6 roaring lanes of the Princes Highway cross the stream. On the far side, a clump of...
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The Right is notoriously short of clever humourists but Canadian RWDB - if that's not oxymoronic - Mark Steyn can be very funny. This piece of his from the UK Telegraph - which I beg you to believe I'm not posting in search of a political debate - is really, very funny. Link v...
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Is plucky, Baghdad blogging, man of mystery, Salam Pax really Robert Fisk!? Scroll down to read this observation: "At that press conference there was a gentleman who asked an extremely important question which was answered by Sanchez with "that is speculation. Next question."...
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Malaysiakini one of the few truly independent Malaysian media voices, reports as follows: Three judges in Anwar's trials promoted Arfa'eza A Aziz 11:25am Wed Jul 23rd, 2003 Two infamous High Court judges who were involved in the controversial trials of jailed ex-deputy prime m...
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Today's Newspoll has been most perplexing. We learn that J. Howard and his cronies have mysteriously endeared themselves to the punters such that 45% of them would vote for the Coalition compared to just 35% for the ALP. Were this to be an election result the ALP would be shed...
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I'm not one of those people who plonk myself in front of Media Watch every Monday evening in the delicious anticipation of being Thoroughly Outraged and Deeply Disturbed at the manifest evidence of Left Wing Bias. That the ABC will largely reflect the broadly left liberal slan...
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Shock news from Washington DC confirms the extraordinary power of the blogosphere. Scarcely had the Battle of Tim-Tim ensued on the net than the US House of Representatives Ways and Means Committee exploded in an uncannily accurate - and similarly acrimonious - reprise of that...
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Miranda Devine doesn't pretend to be much more than she is: a once-over-lightly agent provocateur for the Fairfax stable. One of her few redeeming qualities, in fact, is her tongue-in-cheek self-awareness of the brief. She rarely strays down the path of ponderous self-importan...
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The Guardian publishes it's annual Media 100 List . The top movers and shakers across UK publishing, advertising, TV and Radio are ranked 1-100 with ex-Australian and Left-wing dartboard pin-up, Rupert Murdoch, coming in at number 2. Less predictably, 'A blogger' sneaks in to...
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The just-released independent evaluation report on the 18 month safe injecting room trial in Sydney, is positive on the benefits the facility offers in terms of ongoing harm reduction benefit accrual. John Della Bosca, the Minister for Miscellaneous Political Fixes, indicated...
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Jennifer Lopez has breakfast in the nude according to the funky side of the Sydney Morning Herald website. In the third most accessed SMH article since midnight AEST, the extraordinary talent who the New York Daily News has ungallantly dubbed "the broad-beamed Bronx bombshell"...
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I thought Crean did a useful job with the Shadow Cabinet reshuffle. Gilllard and Roxon are definite assets and - pragmatically - the across-his-brief Kevin Rudd is still in place, despite less then total support for Simon. Craig Emerson, well.. let's wait and see and Mark Lath...
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My thanks to my co-blogger on Armadillo des Tropiques, Christopher Sheil, for inspiring the brilliant header. If there's a God, the evidence for Her existence is unconvincing. Nevertheless, if you have to have one, the traditional Anglican version has always had appeal. Sort o...
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From the Weekly Standard : PJ O'Rourke trashes the Rodham-Clinton memoir in the funniest book review I've read this year. He's way good! I'd offer some excerpts but I'm crying too much to do it. Go there - and enjoy.
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The stirring injunction that adorns the pediment of the US Supreme Court has a new resonance today - and Andrew Sullivan is ecstatic. In a 6/3 majority decision the Court yesterday struck down the gay-specific anti sodomy laws of Texas thereby implicitly invalidating all remai...
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Sydney's new Lord Mayor, the glamorous Lucy Turnbull, has just announced the 1,458th go at cleaning-up "The Cross," since 1962. Lucy's ideal of Kings Cross seems to shape as the kind of place where a go-getting squattocratic Darling Point girl can shut her eyes and imagine her...
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General Mike Jeffery's appointment to Yarralumla has had a curious Papal tone to it, given his stated commitment to emulating the Papacy...I mean, Governor-Generalship of Sir Zelman Cowen. Just like John Paul I emulating Popes John XXIII and Paul VI. Or John Paul II emulating...
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This morning a caller to Sally Loane's ABC Radio show raised the vexed question of the "unfair advantage" accruing to the NZ All Blacks from their pre-game Haka - 'Ka Mate! Ka Mate!' or 'Te Rauparaha's Haka.' With the World Cup looming, the caller was concerned that our nation...
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This interesting feature from the Washington Post canvasses the emergent academic field of - yes - "White Studies." Before you're overwhelmed with images of white sheet wearers, burning crosses and rousing choruses of the Horst Wessel Lied , I should offer some reassurance: Wh...
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On Tuesday night I swallowed a lump of exquisitely prepared Beef Ragu and that was it. It failed to move anywhere other than my oesophagus. Given that it was still firmly lodged there at 4am, my partner, Lance, decided it was high time to get me to our local hospital emergency...
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A friend of mine has suggested that the ALP leadership contest is like the intrigues at your typical Italian renaissance court. The only response to that is something like, "I knew Cesare Borgia, and mate let me tell you, neither of these dudes is Cesare Borgia." But my relati...
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Alex Petridis is an eloquently acerbic Arts critic for the Guardian. Check out this wicked little critique of the Stones' concert at Olympiahalle in Munich an out-take from which I append as a teaser: When the Rolling Stones play badly, you are left with a pantomime of leather...
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Bazza Jones was assuring us this morning that ALP leadership was not about beauty, it was about policy. Well, perhaps. But if he comes near you with a Knowledge Nation policy proposal, you'd be well-advised to run like fuck. Given that this wisdom echoes Simon Crean's "this is...
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This wicked little Daily Telegraph Op Ed, by Tom Uttley , asserts that all Australian men are homosexuals and that Prince William should be appointed our next GG to "cheer up the Sheilas" and to put our nation "on the map." The opportunities for offence to be taken here, are u...
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This morning's press conferences were like a plumber's yard pitch session. Kim was concerned at "connection" problems while Simon had major issues with "destabilisation" Both could do you a really good deal on the rectification front. Simon lashed out at those who were - inexp...
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You'd be hard placed to sell Tonga as a believable fictional scenario . An over-populated and under-resourced Polynesian island kingdom presided over by an absolute monarch who combines the strategic skills of Mad King Ludwig of Bavaria with the physique of an aging sumo wrest...
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This piece by Matt Price in today's Australian was timely, because I too had been wondering about whether "rooster" was such a bad term of reference for a fellow Australian male. In the loose-limbed vernacular circles that I move in, it could almost be heard as affectionate -...
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That respected repository of medical wisdom, the British Medical Journal , has devoted it's current issue to the vexed question of doctor/drug company relationships. One side of this eternal argument insists that the creme de la creme of our great teaching hospitals are but pu...
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