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
Shaun Cronin regrets that there are as yet no grounds for sacking the NSW government:
All Iemma is guilty of is gross misjudgment and having the spine of a jellyfish. The governor would have nothing to justify the use of any of her reserve powers.
Harry Clarke notes similarities between the Kimberley Coroner’s recommendations and Mal Brough’s NT Intervention policies.
International
I’ve (KP) mostly found Juan Cole’s relentless negativity about everything to do with Iraq quite trying since I’ve been monitoring his blog. Nevertheless, his coverage of the fighting between Turkish forces and the Kurdish PKK (see video at right) and its background is admirable in its thoroughness and balance. Better than anything you’ll find in the MSM.
Andrew Leigh writes about Obama and the politics of hope, and its application to Australia. Highly recommended.
wmm(‘Duckpond’)bb complains that Western media are conditioned to miss the extent of non-violent protests by Palestinians.
Hilzoy reports on the retirement of US Defense Department General Counsel William J. Haynes II, who presided over the Guantanamo show trials including that of David Hicks. The Hicks prosecutor Morrie Davis tells an illuminating story about Haynes’ attitude to the trials:
“I said to him that if we come up short and there are some acquittals in our cases, it will at least validate the process,” Davis continued. “At which point, 1 eyes got wide and he said, ‘Wait a minute, we can’t have acquittals. If we’ve been holding these guys for so long, how can we explain letting them get off? We can’t have acquittals. We’ve got to have convictions.'”
Morocco may be liberal by the standards of the region, but there are limits to free expression. Derek Barry tells the story of Fouad Mourtada, who made the mistake of impersonating a member of the royal family in Facebook.
Economics
Peter Martin reports that two organisations are warning the Treasurer that our boom time fiscal surplus disguises a structural deficit. Peter also doesn’t think much of the idea of paying the tax cuts by way of superannuation, even as a default option as Nicholas Gruen recently suggested.
Joshua Gans investigates the advantages to broadcasters of technologies to thwart ad-skipping.
Law
Joshua Gans turns his hand deftly to lawyering and concludes that Apple’s mooted locking of access choice to its iPhone may be a poor business decision but is unlikely to breach Australian competition laws (contrary to a Murdoch press beatup).
Issues analysis
Arts
Sophie Masson seems to be having as much trouble with a recalcitrant primary school audience as she once had with equally recalcitrant lefties here at Troppo.
Ben Peek writes an open letter to Sly Stallone in the wake of seeing Rambo IV.
Marcellous’s legal practice can’t be too busy at the moment. He managed to fit in a visit to Bell Shakespeare’s Sydney production of As You Like It last night and then punch out a review of it, after a busy weekend at the Queer Screen Film Festival.
The Oscar nominations movie clip at right, to the accompaniment of the superb (and Oscar winning) song Falling Slowly, is via Peter Black. Noice. Unusual. Different.
Sport
Mike Salter thinks that soccer referees get more respect on player disciplinary decisions than they deserve.
Snark, strangeness and charm
The video at right (via Roger Migently ) will be depressingly familiar to any parent of a teenager.
dr. faustus is trying to get a calendar synced across many devices and finds this is not a simple proposition.
John Quiggin has found someone who blames bloggers for the decline of the book review.
has some tips to add to The Official Cityrail Guide to Train Etiquette. ((I’d like to add ‘Shut up’ but I am told this makes me petty.~gilmae))
- Haynes’s[↩]
I can’t read the Train Etiquette piece. I get looped onto an ozdirect ad website. Anyone else?
Working for me.
It works fine when I click it.
It got redirected when I used Mozilla at home. At work, using IE, no redirection happened.
Cazza, maybe try a different browser? Or go to the home page –
http://xandeerandnico.blogspot.com
It is a problem that happens sometimes and I don’t know why or how to fix it…
Thanks for the linkage though.
The depressing thing about the Oscars was Eva Orner’s reported comment that “she will be forced to stay in New York because the Australian film industry can not support the type of films she wants to make.” There is no shortage of topics as yesterday’s Coroner’s report re the 22 Kimberley deaths shows. Add your suggestions at No Country for film makers Hope someone takes up the issue of corporate funding of documentaries at he 2020 Summit. Go for it Cate.
I’d really like to have Queensland Rail’s Citytrain clarify what they mean by no loud noises which annoy fellow passengers. Surely that includes etiquette challenged arseholes who deliberately conduct their private and personal, or worse, business telephone conversations while travelling on a crowded peak hour commuter train.
I imagine that’s what Gilmae meant by his “shut up” note on the primary post.
Ken
This is just a thought I’d like to throw out there. It’s conceivable that I’m the only person in the world who thinks this — and it wouldn’t be the first time –but… Aren’t embedded video files, like the three you’ve put in this post, eyesores? They take up a lot space, provide almost no information in their right, and are generally ugly. Perhaps there is some reason, related to convenience, why a normal text link is not adequate, but I haven’t discovered it. The only thing I can think of is that in some cases seeing the blurry first image may help you decide if you’ve seen it before and therefore needn’t bother clicking. But most of the time the text and context will be enough, so that’s not enough to justify the aesthetic cost, it seems to me.
I’ll be interested in what others think. Personally I like embedded YouTube and Google videos. I don’t find the blurry thing aesthetically unpleasing, and I like the convenience of being able to watch them without leaving the Troppo site (even though it’s only a mouse click to return). I like the idea of breaking up long posts with images, given that the design of the Troppo template is very “texty”, and an image that moves and talks is potentially even better (depending on what it does and says). However, if lots of people have the same reaction as James and say the videos give them the shits I’ll reconsider.
Ken, Juan Cole’s “relentless negativity” on Iraq has been thoroughly vindicated by events, which have turned out even worse than he predicted. He never thought it would cost a million dead.
Perhaps you ought instead to have said you find his “relentless accuracy” depressing; such accuracy in the case of Iraq is indeed depressing.