Last Friday the world woke up to the announcement that scientists had made an extraordinary discovery concerning gravity waves. It received a great deal of press and interest on places as diverse as The Daily Mail and others. Ever since that bombshell I’ve had ordinary Austral...
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Oh aren’t they so tough our current leaders? Beating their hairy chests over the ISIS threat to Western civilization. Here’s Cigar chompin’ Joe Hockey Wenesday morning We will not be intimidated by the threats of murderers; we will never be intimidated as a nation or a people...
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Remember the last time the Coalition government was insinuating treachery on the part of the ABC, and making like it was about to take a cricket bat to it? That was back in the days when Prime Minister Howard’s government was keenly promoting our mission to bring freedom and d...
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People talk many many times over about the world is getting smaller. About communications technology how it crosses the gulf between here and there. I have seen this in abundance with my own eyes and you too. The new ways of offshoring the jobs and work, like call centre, that...
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Dear President Yudhoyono Or can I call you Susilo? We like to use first names here in Australia. It’s a sign of informality. It indicates that you’re not wanting to be stand-offish. If you like we can go with middle names so that’d be Bang Bang right? You can call me Tone, or...
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The Australian stock market opened lower this morning on the back of Rupert Murdoch’s speech to the Lowy Institute last night. A senior analyst, interviewed by this correspondent attributed the fall in the Australian share price to the “transparent and misguided attempt at nat...
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High profile climate un-changer Professor Andrew Bolt of the Herald Sun School of Thought Homogeneity, is well known for his contention that the temperature rise of the planet has stopped. He’s been saying it for years. Today, Professor Bolt wrote that a leaked IPCC report con...
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The excitement is palpable, the atmosphere is electric, the game is in motion as media attention quickly turns away from the dull low-wattage reality of the Coalition win, to the contest that really matters – The leadership of Labor in opposition. Bill “Spud” Shorten has alrea...
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“This is not an equity argument” said Tony Abbott on this morning’s Chat n’ Chew with Fran . “Its’ a watershed social reform, it’s an idea whose time has come?” This was in answer to the first ever half-serious line of questioning on his justification the Coalition’s controver...
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Just as the Coalition surges ahead to the lead in this election and Mr. Rudd's increasing signs of rude ill-health are threatening to burst out from his rapidly expanding jowls, fitness freakoid and PM apparent Tony Abbott, who has been restraining his normally excessive over-...
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There's a beauty to cover songs. The musician, free from obligation to be new, hip commercial or even original, has simply to play homage to the songs that they love. When some people, not big stars, just talented people with some recording gear and the desire to have a crack...
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A gusty performance by Ecuador, granting asylum to Julian Assange. Assange's claim that he faces further extradition to the US from a disingenuous Sweden, appears to be borne out by the Ecuadorian behind-the-scenes investigations. A simple assurance from the Swedes that furthe...
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They played the studio version of this song by Colin Hay on the day that we learned that Greg Ham had died. It was a good choice. I saw Colin Hay play this song back in 2002 at Woodford. Back then it was just him, a guitar and his gorgeous wife. Here he is playing it at the Co...
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Anzac Day. A day for reminiscing. A day for remembering great deeds, and the heroic words that were written about them .
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God speechless at outrageous Atheistic slurs It was billed at the debate to end all debates. The one where the big questions would be finally resolved. Renowned God scoffer, Richard Dawkins verses Australian stuffed-shirt-in-chief Cardinal George Pell were to have it out on th...
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A Club Troppo Research Project In the Melbourne telephone directory, there are: 89 Head(s) 5 Neck(s) 13 Body(s) 1 Shoulder 14 Arms 69 Hand(s) 35 Finger(s) 52 Legg(s) 27 Foot(s) 1 Feet 6 Toe(s) 2 Heart(s) - A Time Lord? 22 Lung(s) 13 Kidney(s) No Stomach 1 Bowels No Penis, but...
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A voice of reason from way out West speaks clear unvarnished truth. That the minerals Mother Nature once laid down in her youth, are the hope of teeming millions seeking sanctuary and jobs. Free Enterprise the means by which we’ll fill their starving gobs. We hear the message...
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Struggling Australians breathed a sign of relief today, when they read that the 'relentless pressure ' applied by Melbourne's Herald Sun has forced a humiliating climb-down by the big banks and delivered the full interest rate reduction passed down from on high. The paper repo...
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Just in case you didn't notice it, there's been a crevice that's opened up on Tony Abbott's long road to the Lodge. A crevice that in just a few days has opened up to bloody great yawning credibility gap. It was just last week, in the wake of the Qantas fiasco, and the critisi...
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It was a sign of things to come perhaps. As the All Blacks performed their pre-match war dance with its stamping, grunting, eye-bulging and tongue lolling, the camera cut away to a shot of Australia's Radike Samo. His face shiny with perspiration, was framed by a 'do that look...
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The lads from the BBC radio comedy The Now Show, distill the essence of Copenhagen. The English Blog has the transcript
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If you are of a certain age, you will know what people mean when they refer to "The War". You will be able to cast your mind back and imagine a type of blustery former warrior, of proud bearing, and fixed views on pretty much everything. Having been in the War, they were accor...
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Technically speaking it was a tricked up cover band knocking out a few old Beatles numbers for a bunch of grey haireds on a nostalgia kick. But for those of us actually living the nostagia kick in Hamer Hall this evening, we were living the dream. It was the Beatles' White Alb...
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Sometimes videos detract from an original piece of music. This vid is just too obvious and adds a little too much schmaltz to Mitch Benn's funny and rather moving little number. I think it's better with your eyes closed.
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I dont know whether youve noticed, but theres a bit of an obsession with crime thats built up the last few years. I put it down to the Underbelly effect. The writhing naked bodies and the brazen offhand, almost pedestrian depiction of violent and murderous crime, has been migh...
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Dave Bloustien looks like a cross between Dr. Who and a 1960s mod with a cravat, waistcoat and sideburns. Certainly a contrast to the t-shirt and jeans that constitutes the usual comedy clobber, but Mr. Boustein doesnt deliver the usual stand-up routine either. Instead he offe...
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Theres a laminated sign that sits over the sink in the office kitchen. It says : There is NO magical kitchen fairy please clean up your dishes yourself. I hadnt really paid attention to it before, but noticing it for the first time the other day floored me. It was after all a...
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Fancy a little time travel? This time eight years ago, satirical magazine The Onion reported on the new Bush presidency. Bush: 'Our Long National Nightmare Of Peace And Prosperity Is Finally Over' It may have been a joke, but reading it now, it comes across as historical fact....
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Nostalgia. It just gets better with age .
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In a world rapidly sinking into a grand funk, with nothing going right for overpaid CEOs, for US Auto workers, for the climate, for climate scientists, for denialists, for the US (apart from Obama), for the sales of SUVs and large cars, for the US, UK and Europe, for Afghanist...
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Steven Long It's hard to escape the irony. Two decades ago, the historian Francis Fukuyama proclaimed the end of history with the triumph of American capitalism. But Socialism, for Wall Street, is alive and well. After the bail-outs AIG, and the mortgage companies Freddie Mac...
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Blogger Beth Hamburger at the convention reports the comments of the Ambassador to Israel "Do we want to be more like France, Sweden, Denmark and the rest of Europe, with a hands-off policy when it comes to the Middle East, with a neutral love of life ?" Damn those Europeans....
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Yesterday, Republican Vice-Presidential candidate Governor Sarah Palin, or the Palinator as some of her more excitable fans have taken to calling her, took to the stage in Minnesota to make her pitch. There must have been some trepidation in Republican ranks. She is to most af...
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Andrew Bolt admonishes abusive foam flecked greens for their reaction to a grim metaphor and contrasts the obsession with AGW with a lack of concern about the coarsening of our culture. A moderator has just told me half a dozen spectacularly nasty comments have had to be snipp...
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Whats the difference between James Lovelock environmental scientist and inventor of the Gaia hypothesis, and Andrew Bolt Herald Sun columnist and inventor of such useful terms such as red mist, green gods and compassion industry? Well... less than you might think. James Lovelo...
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As members of the coalition opposition struggle with finding the right words in response to Mr. Rudds plan to say sorry, it is pleasing to see that every man and his dog is pitching in and offering their own form of words to help them out of this pickle. To add my support to t...
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Australia, Australia, we think of you each day, Australia, Australia, at work and at play, we think of you in the evening and in the morning too, we even wake at midnight so we can think of you. Australia, Australia, we love you from the heart, the liver, the kidneys, the gibl...
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You wont get any deep insights from Ronnie . The autobiography of Ron Wood, the other Rolling Stones guitarist. What you will get is a stargazing jaunt through the best part of British Rock history. Youll also get plenty on the booze hes drunk, the coke hes used, and the women...
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While absent-mindedly sauntering home the other night from a little Melbourne city gathering , I was shaken from my reverie by a fellow who adopted a strange stance as I approached. Out of the corner of my eye I noticed that he had lifted one leg from the sidewalk, and swung i...
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Dramatic photos from The Age this morning show Melbournes enormous Port Phillip Bay on a tilt. Readers were witness to the astonishing spectacle of giant cruise liner Sun Princess apparently motoring uphill to berth at Station Pier. There was no explanation for this perplexing...
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A collection of useful words arranged in satisfying ways for the benefit of future historians. (Also beneficial when faced with drunken red-faced Howard-Huggers at Christmas parties over the next month who embarrass the host by rudely asserting that Mr. Howard was the best Pri...
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Its a repudiation. Its a rejection of Mr. Howard and much that he has stood for, and behold it is good. The Labor victory is so emphatic that it makes a mockery of the conservative vanity that somehow they were more attuned to the pulse of the nation. Yesterday Mr. Howard turn...
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Secret Internal polling conducted exclusively for Club Troppo , has found its way into the public domain today. This new poll, a welcome addition to the cacophony of other polls testing the mood of the nation reveals that my confidence in the Government as effective economic m...
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I travelled overseas a while back. I was tasked with an important mission for private enterprise so I flew Business Class. Business Class Travel has a lot to offer the practiced observer of the human condition. Just arriving at the airport for example offers an appreciation of...
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The week began with the combined forces of the Foam-O-Sphere directing their heavy artillery on a supposed weak spot in the hitherto impregnable defences of the Rudd campaign. Altitudinous egghead Peter Garrett, provided the foamers with their first big break when he neglected...
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As the Government turns up the heat in this campaign and tries to araldite the 70% Union Bosses tag to Mr, Rudds forehead, damning information about the Governments own front bench has surfaced which places this debate in a whole new light. One of the Governments key lines in...
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Thirty Four Billion Dollars. Sounds a big number right? Its more than Ive got and Id hazard a guess that its more than youve got too. Its a number so large, such a very very big number, that only a Government can throw it around and still be taken seriously. Today Mr. Howard a...
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So Mr. Howard has this morning climbed into the back of the Prime Ministerial Comcar slid across the shiny leather seat and ordered Jeeves to the Governor Generals pile to officially name the date for the election. It would, I suppose, have been a surreal moment. Sitting in th...
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Doubts have started to emerge today about the resilience of Kevin Rudds leadership in polls. Liberal Party sources confirm that doubts do exist, which has led to intense speculation among some parts of the media as to whether the ALPs ability to project an air of confidence ha...
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Australian Mateship is the name given to the practice of referring to a person as mate when you cant remember their name.
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Last night on the 7:30 report Mr. Howard gave us the truth. We know this because he said so several times. He levelled with the Australian people last night. Its a new tactic to seize the initiative. The Honest John tactic. The question is will it work? In a way its refreshing...
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No not me. I don't want it!
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Today must surely be a watershed moment in the lead up to the 2007 election. Malcolm Farrs revelations concerning the secret Liberal party polling conducted by Textor Crosby, the findings that the voters see Howard as old and dishonest and its recommendation to respond by blam...
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You may talk o' bat and ball An say Warneys great an all, An' pay omage to The Don just like yer mean it; But about that funny thing On yer head ol Dunga Gin Did yer get it cleared by Customs when yer brung it? cause weve got standards ere yknow Were not yer alf-baked bloomin...
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News today that Prime Minister John Howard is on the nose in New South Wales must surely be a big blow to the morale of the Committee to re-elect the PM , that has been trying desperately to claw its way back into the game at this point of the election cycle. Machine Rudds ste...
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Today, in essential reading for all patriots, Ruperts Organ of Freedom throbs big time with big ideas and larger than life loftiness. Beginning at Planet Janet we find ourselves once again saving Western Civilisation as she goes suborbital around Muslim Terror. Its Good v Evil...
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Another fascinating insight into the current Iraq counter insurgency strategy by Lt. Col. David Kilcullen. Reading this you can't help thinking that maybe - finally- they've got the right people on the job.
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You might recall a few months back during both the Victorian and New South Wales State elections, when Opposition Leaders Ted Baillieu and Peter Debnam were parading around in Speedos in the lead up to their campaigns, that they were widely mocked for scaring the children and...
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Anyone who remembers Channel Nines greatest contribution to Australian political life will remember the worm. A wobbly plot of aggregate punter intent scrolling across the bottom of the telly, that purported to assess, real time, the leader in the political dogfight showing on...
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John Howard introduces his strategy for the future.
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Well bugger me. If Andrew Bolt in todays Herald Sun isnt having a good old whinge about the blatant bias of the recent ABC series Bastard Boys . Whod a thought it hey? The bias unveiled by Mr. Bolt includes inadequate mentions of the nick, inadequate representation of bludging...
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Tomorrow, as the 2007 Extravaganza Budget is knocked off the front pages by the developing drama of Paris Hiltons bid for freedom, the Australian punters, flush with already factored-in cash from yesterdays tax cut announcement, will no doubt cast a critical eye over Treasurer...
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When President Bush announced his "surge" strategy for Iraq in January, he replaced General Casey, the last in the conga-line of Rumsfeld yes-men, with perhaps the sharpest General in the whole Iraq campaign, General David Petreus . Gen. Petreus is described as a warrior intel...
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Last weekend I decided I'd better do something about organising the shed. Well, to be accurate, I opened the doors of the shed to get the rake. The rake handle was just reachable if I leaned in over the clu tter, but in that awkward, out-of-balance posture, it was not possible...
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"Talk to the Hand". That's the message the Prime Minister is giving the Australian people as an attempt at a cheerful smile collapses into a Dick Cheney impersonation with the results of yesterday's Newspoll What's going wrong in the house of Howard? Is the greatest politician...
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On the fourth anniversary of the Iraq war, Prime Minister John Howard has been forced to clarify his position on the existence of a plan to cut and run . The Opposition asked John Howard whether he was aware of reports the United States (US) has prepared a plan for a phased wi...
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Last week, a fellow by the name of Patrick West, TV columnist for the UK based internet-magazine Spiked ( Yes, the one of dubious provenance ) , published an entirely stereotypical and quite unenlightening piece about we marvellous Australians. Because despite all of their pro...
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Michelle Grattan was speculating this morning on Fran's Chat n' Chew , that the fulsome confession out of Gitmo resident and terror mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed might turn the tables in Australian politics. Ms Grattan's theory was along the lines that having a real proven...
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It's been fifteen years since Captain Jeff Kennett, and his corporate turn-around team took the reigns in Victoria and started the State on the road to recovery. It's been thirteen years since Mr. Kennett applied his marketing genius to spruce up the State's fleet of car numbe...
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Seventy two hours (give or take a day) after the news that Kevin Rudd had met with disgraced Labor scuzz-bucket Brian Burke way back in 2005, and the Government scoured the Old Testament looking for language to describe the evil they were witnessing, and the Canberra press gal...
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If you like your crime stories to be littered with corpses. To feature brutal crims who live in a world of paranoia,deceit and ego, whoâll stop and nothing to be the last man standing, then youâll love this tale of true crime Melbourne style. And today the mystery body was als...
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It was compelling telly . All the actors were there. A testament to how high profile the continuing detention of David Hicks has become. Col. Moe Davis of the prosecution: Representing the rights of politicians to make up laws and arbitrarily detain people for political reason...
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Flap Flap, Squawkety squawk. Itâs the sound of feathers flying, and wings beating with nervous Nelly intensity, as the Rodent transmogrifies in the space of a week to a chicken hawk thatâs more chicken than hawk. After spending the better part of last week trying to brush the...
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In the last few years Australiaâs most lucrative export, coal, was dug up, and shovelled offshore,at a rate of 232 Million Metric Tonnes per year. Slightly more than half of that is used in steel making (metallurgical coal), and the remainder for burning as a fuel, mainly in p...
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Take a gander at this series of photos showing the VW Phaeton Factory in Dresden. Then consider for a moment why Germany is the worldâs number one exporting nation , and weâre just digging up coal to flog to China. (Via Jwalk)
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Melbourne's Herald Sun today warns Melbourne's fashion conscious women about the dangers of those stylish extra large handbags WOMEN are risking health problems by carrying fashionably huge handbags. It's the load on the musculoskeletal system that's the real worry. The Herald...
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It was a forty degree stinker on Tuesday this week in Melbourne. The sky was a smoky haze, and the sunlight orange from the bushfires raging around the State. At 4.00pm. The hottest part of the day, the power went out. It wasn't just any old power failure. It was a doozy. With...
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Today US President George Bush told lawmakers that he would be sending 20,000 more troops to Iraq . And Australia? What will we, as a " firm and faithful friend " who is "in there with the President in the fight against terror" be doing to help? Send a small additional contr...
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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 impressive fellow . He has led a very exciting life, having...
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For those members of the Barmy Army who are over here and overawed. Spiked columnist Ethan Greenhart had some advice for you , which apparently you ignored. Flying to Australia is never acceptable.
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Back in 2003, Federal Liberal MP Sophie Panopoulos (now Mirabella) was keen to see that Australian "terrorist" David Hicks "paid for his crimes". Her eagle eye had spotted that Hicks' father Terry was trying to beat up sympathy for his son. In an attempt to attract sympathy,...
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Just remember. This link brought to you and endorsed by Club Troppo. Home of middle aged grumpy respectability .
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It was utter madness on the streets of Melbourne this evening, as literally tens of people listening to Huggy on the Gold FM, drive time, Bread back-to-back retrospective were thrust rudely into the new millennium by the shocking but welcome news that Shadow Foreign Minister K...
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Winners and winner-groupies were hugging themselves with delight and gay abandonment today, at the unbelievable news, that Australia's most famous news packaging and dissemination service, News Corporation , was first with the news, that News had been extremely successful at t...
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Michael Moore empathises with US conservatives and offers the poor dears a compassionate head tilt .
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Just one day after the launch of the Victorian State Election, the Bracks Labor Government is facing a crisis with members across the State threatening to ignore the voting directions of the Party bosses by voting below the line on the ballot, and in an even more significant m...
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Its been harrumphing and gasping aplenty in Australia's two ring media circus this week, as the Alan Jones Biography hits the stands, and the pundit-o-rama gets all precious about Mr. Jones' secret life being public fodder. A loathsome attack bleats Tim Blair. Rank homophobia...
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The readers of Melbourne's Herald Sun went into deep shock yesterday, when former Dutchman, and contrived controversy confectioner, Andrew Bolt launched his missiles of mockery in support of international pop sensation Madonna's right to spend her wealth on acquiring African o...
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If I'm not mistaken the Beazer is actually getting some traction right now. Witness yesterday's delightful poke in the Prime Minister's eye in Parliament, where the Beazer with an admirable paucity of prolix jabbed out these belly punches on the failed strategy in Iraq. One: S...
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Heartening news for Australian patriots in today's Age (A hotspot of soft-Leftism if you believe the paranoid fantasies of Gerard Henderson on Sunday's Insiders ). According the Nielsen Poll Labor's primary vote jumped three points to 42 percent ahead of the coalition on 39 pe...
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There is nothing, I'm sure you'd agree, more fascinating, more delightful to observe, or more satisfying to the soul, than to see two grown men poke their tongues out at each other, fully extend to the other, the middle digit of both hands and for good measure unbuckle the bel...
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Fear gripped the pulsing metropolis of Melbourne on this meaningful Monday the 11th. Fear and dread. Fear, and dread, and doubt (no doubt). We'd been warned just this weekend passed that we were on the top of the list of targets, and so on this day of symbolism and portent, we...
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The first time I heard about Steve Irwin, I was in the back of a taxi in San Francisco in 2000 with a couple of other Aussies. We were engaging in humorous banter with the heavyset black taxi driver. As you do when you're OS and you're looking to sample the local mood, and get...
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I was mightily relieved to read this in today's Herald Sun. MADONNA has weighed in on the Middle East crisis ... The accompanying picture seems to show a preference for some sort of peacekeeping force separating the two parties although I'm yet to decide if it is a peacekeepin...
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You'll hardly ever hear the words "Mark" and "Latham" uttered in the same sentence in ALP circles without the utterer mouthing a sneer and shooting a small gob of distaste at the nearest spittoon. It's become de rigour to demonize de-Latham in the ALP. It's just another litt...
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