Missing Link Daily

A digest of the best of the blogosphere published each weekday and compiled by Ken Parish, gilmae, Gummo Trotsky, Amanda Rose, Tim Sterne, Stephen Hill and Saint.

Politics

Australian

Andrew Bartlett reports on the Senate Inquiry into housing affordability:

The first day of hearings included evidence from people such as the newly expanded Housing section in the Department of Families, the Master Builders Association, the Planning Institute, the Urban Development Institute, Housing Industry Association, NATSEM, and Treasury.

Kim endorses a Crikey proposal to salvage the 2020 gabfest, while Peter Timmins is underwhelmed by some of the selected participants.

Helen wants to see some progress on the education revolution front.

Currency Lad wonders why Kevin Rudd’s offer to help Hillary Clinton with campaigning isn’t being condemned by the left in the same strident terms as GW Bush’s blatantly partisan efforts for Howard while Loopy Latham was Labor leader.(I’m (KP) more worried by the blatant stupidity, given that Hillary now seems to have Buckley’s chance of winning the Democratic nomination.)

Mirko “The Torturer” Bagaric argues against the folly of paid maternity leave.

International

Norman Geras doesn’t think much of the Guardian‘s call to Zimbabweans to show “courage and resolution” when the election results eventually materialise, while Kel at Osterley Times happily summarises a Guardian article on the implications of anticipated Mugabe fraud:

If the government does attempt to fix the result it will not go unchallenged. The election commission will have to substantially alter a large number of polling booth returns in order to overturn Tsvangirai’s significant lead. But the MDC has photographed results declarations pinned to the doors of more than 8,000 polling stations. If the numbers announced by the election commission are different, the party says it will have indisputable evidence of fraud.

Juan Cole continues detailed Iraq coverage, and Publius dissects an article by RWDB American pundit Michael Ledeen about the US/Maliki government offensive against the Mahdi Army, while Currency Lad reckons lefties like John Quiggin are just traitorous dogs:

If only they were as serious about liberty and peace as they are about “global warming.”

Economics

Andrew Leigh catches out fellow academic David Zyngier (who labelled Andrew’s work on increased resourcing and decreased performance of Australian education as “misleading”) in an egregious error. 

Joshua Gans relaunches a proposal for a “HECS-like system that would give a housing lifeline to households that find themselves in temporary distress in mortgage repayments or rents”, and Harry Clarke also closely examines Australia’s emerging debt crisis in light of Monday’s Four Corners program.

Peter Martin points out the rather weak position of the music industry in lobbying for “three strikes and you’re out” laws against illegal downloaders at the same time as it’s enjoying record sales figures (no doubt partly as a result).

Law

Eric Posner explains the difference between hypocrites and literocrites.

sunflower on terracotta

light anyone?

Not Brack

hung out to dry

Issues analysis

David Tiley tells the story of Nim, a chimpanzee caught up in experimentation and hubris.

David Bath thinks it’s time we woke up to the possible social problems H5N1 could cause.

Lee Malatesta makes an argument for religious thought to influence secular society. ((If enough reflexive anti-Islamists read as far as the second paragraph, we may have another of those cock-fights.~gilmae))((Fine by me. So far the Fitna cock-fight has turned out a complete fizzer. ~GT))

Andrew Norton looks at a push by Liberal students to target lecturers seen as guilty of “indoctrination“.

Arts

Matthew Clayfield offers a review of Simon Stone’s adaptation of Anton Chekhov’s earliest play Platonov suggesting that Stone’s effort to condense this epic work (originally seven and half hours long) into a more settled structure results in a play of some psychological acuity. (And from reading this I cannot help thinking how much this work shares the qualities of personal world weariness that would characterise Chekhov’s better known early play, Ivanov – written just six years later.)

Paul Martin previews the John Cassavetes showcase kicking off in mid May.

Apparently Chopper Read has artistic reservations about Underbelly:

I’m enjoying it, but there should definitely be more shooting and less rooting …

As promised Alison delivers two reviews.  Ricketts Hill from the ‘junkyard aesthetes’ Suitcase Royale as well as a more favourable review of Red Stitch theatre’s The Winterling than that posted by On Stage (and walls) Melbourne.

Mono no aware posts that haunting Mad World video clip.

Oz rounds up goings on at the V Festival in Sydney.

George Murray at Bookninja provides some poetry links and promotes his own newly published book of sonnets, although tte reviews at Amazon don’t really consume me (KP) with an urge to go out and buy it:

The Rush to Here — his fourth collection — features meditations on modern life rendered carefully in sonnet form, where echoes of Murray’s past as a teenage stoner with a Mohawk emerge beneath the voice of the contemplative adult in lines like, ‘The crushed grass evidence of collusion: / the animals fuck themselves to bleeding.'”

Ben Peek publishes one of his older short stories on his blog called The Souls of Dead Soldiers are for Blackbirds, Not Little Boys.  Highly recommended (KP).

Sport