Club Troppo

Speaking of that fine subject, this proposal is not exactly audacious ( HT Kathy G ), just a illustration of how Obama might go on the front foot on behalf of issues based politics (as opposed to lipstick based politics) - an illustration of how propitous the times could be fo...

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Nicholas disapproved of Charlie Gibson's 'trick question' to Sarah Palin about the Bush Doctrine. He was especially struck that the question 'was asked by an interviewer who then went on to demonstrate that he didnt know what it was'. The question was only a trick insofar as i...

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Today's column from the Fin. The High Court once declared that governments had only limited powers to withhold information from voters. But a recent judgement effectively means that ministers face no constitutional impediment to keeping government documents from the public eye...

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They look like banks (as they borrow short, are highly leveraged and lend and invest long and in illiquid ways) and thus are highly vulnerable to bank like runs. But unlike banks, they are not properly regulated or supervised and dont have access to deposit insurance or the le...

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The whole of Sept 08 Quadrant . And you have to be a subscriber to look at a limited number of back numbers. Not long ago only selected items were on line in the current edition and there was open access to back numbers extended as far as 2002 or further. WTF? Check out John S...

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There's been a lot of excitement about how terrible the Democrats are being to Sarah Palin and how it's hurting them etc etc. It's all a bit strange. What's strange is that the main guy - Obama - reacted to her appointment in a dignified way. So did Hilary Clinton. But Democra...

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I'm gonna have to cut Obama some slack on that one. I do not think he was referring to Sarah Palin, he didn't reference her. Mike Huckabee McCain's ads have gone one step too far in sort of attributing to Obama things that are, you know, beyond the 100% truth test. Karl Rove I...

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[ republished from today's Northern Territory News ] The political wash-up from the recent coronial inquest into the death of Margaret Winter at Royal Darwin Hospital in December 2006 is proving messy indeed. Claims this week by Health Minister Chris Burns that he was lied to...

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I suppose it isn't surprising that sentiment among media professionals about the future of newspapers is so negative. Fairfax's recent culling of several hundred journos in the face of a collapsing revenue bottom line has brought the whole issue into sharp focus, as have simil...

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Shopping for Christmas? New books from artist and author Kilmeny Niland. Other artworks from the same source - portraits, miniatures, haiga , wildlife, cards. A prolific source of links on every topic under the sun. Australiana , war , the US , queer issues , etc. Peter Klein...

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Congratulations to Andrew Leigh who has scraped onto the list of the top 50 economics blogs. This came as a feed from The Austrian Economists where one of the five bloggers was excited to come in at 38. Marginal Revolution was on the top, followed by Econbrowser and then Paul...

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On reading Margaret Simons classification of blogs I wonder what kind of blog Troppo is. No doubt others have joined in on other blogs. Anyway, she puts Catallaxy, LP and Andrew Norton's blogs in the category of 'pamphleteering' blog. That's interesting because although I woul...

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We already use the opportunities that the web 2.0 world offers a bit, but we could be doing a lot more . For those who haven't seen it yet here is Lindsay Tanner's blog. Worth keeping an eye on I'd say. He's posed a bunch of questions - as follows. Hightail it over there and a...

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The other day I emailed Don Arthur the url to a terrific essay by Martha Nussbaum on Roger Williams . Who is Roger Williams I hear you cry. He was an amazing and wonderful man who founded Rhode Island and who was the first to theorise the merits of radical religious tolerance....

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I find little evidence of any RBA remorse or regret for what it has done to our economy. Although contributing to a very low GDP growth, a shocking malaise in the housing, retail and low-leverage business credit and rises in unemployment, the RBA remains almost complacent. Nor...

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Herewith today's column in the Fin - on a subject as you may gather on reading the column that gets me fired up. Borrowing to invest could be a perfect issue for Labor Governments - suited to their ideology and a battle they could have with their opponents in which they were r...

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Bob Gould on the evolution of revolutionary thought since 1905. Proving that old lefties don't die, they just write a lot. Bob Gould is the sixty-something proprietor of a series of alternative bookshops, starting in Goulburn St (Sydney) and now located in King St, Newtown. He...

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It was just how Don Watson said it should be -- an act of seduction. "A good speech is a lover's embrace," he wrote. "You want to sit on the metaphorical mountain and with an arm sneaking round their shoulder speak of things you have in common -- your love of trees or cows, th...

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Andrew Leigh writes to me and through to me to you gentle Troppodillians: With my ANU colleague Alison Booth, I'm presently doing some research on racial attitudes in Australia. As part of that, Alison and I are hoping to get a sample of Australians to do an Implicit Associati...

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