Club Troppo

This was the theme of a talk by Andrew Moore at the Blackheath History Forum yesterday. Blackheath is in the Blue Mountains out of Sydney and it has a lot of semi-retired academics and the like who support a thriving intellectual subculture of bookshops, galleries and action g...

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I've thought this for yonks: Few mainstream therapists would contemplate trying to persuade a gay man or lesbian to "grow up, get real, and stop being gay." But most insist that long-term sexual monogamy is "normal". This doesn't mean I'm throwing the switch to polygamy or wif...

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I went to see this movie owing to a misunderstanding. I heard that the director had directed Love Serenade and having enjoyed that, and hearing that this movie was good, and wanting to see a movie, I went along. The premise is, well, dull. A woman and her uncle settle into a b...

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subito constitit ante eltum tegumentum ferreum corporis tam occupatus fuerat in effugiendo e biblioghecca ut non animadvertisset quo iret. fortisan quod tenedbrae erant, haudquaquam agnovit ubi esset sciebat tegumentum ferreum corporis esse prope culina, sed debebat eesse quin...

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Well I can complain about the media till I'm blue in the face, they're after ratings, entertainment and so on. Anyway, I said to one journalist that it was 'crazy' that public servants who I knew read Troppo didn't comment, not because I don't understand that they don't want t...

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Economist Paul Frijters discusses whether the Western world will try to stop China and India's rise as the next economic super powers.

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It's pretty obvious that if science involves standing on the shoulders of giants (and the odd pygmy) then exclusive rights to ideas can slow down innovation. Still it's quite hard to demonstrate this. Some econometric studies are persuasive that it does. But there are presumab...

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Vietnam is the site of a rapidly emerging and evolving capitalism, something we may as well date to the introduction of Doi Moi (fn1) in the mid 80s.. Given my own interests , and continuing exposure to discussions about Adam Smith's ideas on the marketplace and sympathy , it'...

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Iris Murdoch and her very literary husband John Bayley had a term for going to literary festivals and talking on panels with names like "whither the novel". They called it 'whithering'. The Sydney Morning Herald asked for 1,500 words of withering on the tax system, which I str...

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Yes Troppodillians, you know what I think about this. So you may want to skip it, but I thought it worth putting my oar in on the subject. It seems so sad, with all the elements in place to blow the idiocy of fiscal populism away - to the enduring advantage of the ALP Governme...

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I have it under control. I flatter myself I can judge a film from the trailer, but I got it wrong in this case. It looked like a bunch of fancy special effects strung together with some half-baked premise about hacking people's dreams. I expected tedious chase scenes, endless...

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Popper is often perceived as an eccentric kind of positivist who adopted a slightly different take on the demarcation of science with the criterion of falsification in place of verification. People like Habermas and the late Richard Rorty regarded Popper as a positivist for al...

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Dear editor I wonder how many of the 84% of NT News respondents who think NT courts are too soft on criminals are aware of any of the following indisputable facts: NT judges and magistrates are tougher on crime than other states and territories. The NT has an imprisonment rate...

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I have just returned from a two week holiday in Vietnam expectedly with a wide range of observations with which to tire friends and relatives. There are a few though that relate heavily to economics and the sociology of markets and capitalism which are probably more of interes...

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Evidence-based policy is a buzzword that conjures up images of responsible government: difficult decisions taken after a careful examination of the evidence, tailored local experiments, and then implemented using the best advice available. Sounds good, no? As a buzzword, it is...

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White to play A Volokitin vs Rublevsky 16. ? See game for solution. about our puzzles

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Shrinking suburbs in growing cities "Lunchtime midweek in Campbelltown's main street in the heart of western Sydney is a slow-moving affair", writes the Australian's Jennifer Hewet t. "Cars drive in and out of the one-way street at a leisurely pace. Business is not exactly boo...

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The centrist and left-leaning commentariat have unanimously condemned Julia Gillard's (non) stance on climate change policy, an exercise in groupthink that would be stunning if it wasn't so predictable. Ben Cubby , Peter Hartcher , Lenore Taylor and Shaun Carne y all think Gil...

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