Club Troppo

But if it is true that in subjects of great complexity we must rely to a large extent on such mere explanations of the principle, we must not overlook some disadvantages connected with this technique. Because such theories are difficult to disprove, the elimination of inferior...

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I was disappointed by this op ed from fellow second generation Dunera Boy Sir Nicholas Stern. As we know, Sir Nicholas threw the switch to Vaudeville in his report on the economics of climate change. I don't have too much problem with that given the seriousness of the issue an...

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Who said this? Historically the concept of the 'real' has been formed in contradistinction to mere 'illusions' based on sense deceptions or on other experiences of purely mental origin. There is, however, no fundamental difference between such corrections of one sense experien...

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1. News and Politics Stuff 2. Life and Other Serious Stuff 3. The Yartz 4. T.S.S 5. Mad, Bad, Sad and Glad I was expecting the blogosphere to sink into a post-election/pre-Christmas exhausted torpor this week. On the contrary, almost everyone is firing on all cylinders, albeit...

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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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Bryan "Ozpolitics" Palmer on the state of play with counting in doubtful seats as at 8:24 this morning: The ABC Computer now has Robertson on the doubtful list (previously a Labor gain) after the pre-poll votes went in the Coalitions favour 53.3 to 46.7. It also has Solomon on...

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Miss Haversham refuses a proposal from Terry Sedgwick 1. News and Politics Stuff 2. Life and Other Serious Stuff 3. The Yartz 4. T.S.S 5. Mad, Bad, Sad and Glad I was nearly going to call this the Year Zero edition of Missing Link, but it would give people the wrong idea. I'm...

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If John Howard were to summarise his legacy, he would emphasise economics. As he claimed in the election, Australia has a strong economy with low inflation and low rates of unemployment. With the benefit of asset sales and budget surpluses, the commonwealth has the financial c...

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Here's the column foreshadowed in a previous post as published today in the Fin . I was only given 500 words, so whether or not you find it sweet, I had to keep it short. Fiscal Problem - what Problem? Its the alarm du jour. Going into the election with an overheating economy,...

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From today's Crikey! Brough, Pearson, Yunupingu rejected by Aboriginal voters Editor of the National Indigenous Times, Chris Graham, writes : I never quite understood how Mal Brough managed to escape genuine mainstream media scrutiny so often during his brief but, shall we say...

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Well, it's not standard Troppo fare I know - though aficionados may recall similar departures from me in the past , but Natalie Gauci won Australian Idol on Sunday night. Idol is quite a show - for the few who are uninitiated it's a kind of souped up talent quest in the age of...

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Peter Costello battles his emotions on election night Is it conceivable that the government would have scraped back in with Costello as PM? Nick Minchin thinks so, if his comments to Virgina Trioli on Sydney radio this morning are any guide. The Senator obviously would have pr...

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I've just read this piece by Judith Brett on why Howard will lose (it was written at the beginning of the campaign). I don't agree with it all, (why do people go on about that handshake? Even if it wasn't a good look, it just seems amazing that it would have tipped too many vo...

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From today's AFR Bob Hawkes election victory in 1983 was so sure that he and his treasurer-designate, Paul Keating, were able to meet treasury and finance officers within 72 hours of election day. The 1983-84 budget, was the agenda item because the Fraser government - with Joh...

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As I argued in a recent column , the Coalition has been a policy free zone for some time. Of course it's been in government, so of necessity it's had lots of policies. But it's heart has not been in them - it's jadedly presided over a jaded bureaucracy. This spilled over into...

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I don't have much to add to Rex's overall post-election rant , except to suggest that this is in many respects the result that might well have occurred in 2004 had John Howard's dishonest interest rate scare not been so successful and had Mark Latham not been a victim of his o...

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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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Honorable mention? Could this curdle milk at five hundred paces? Congratulations to reader Doug, the clear winner of Missing Link's prediction competition . I use the word 'clear' advisedly: I was intrigued when I tabulated the predictions to find that there was a very large g...

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Yesterday I started classifying the questions that Kerry O'Brien asked the candidates in his final interview with them. Kerry's got a well deserved reputation as a pretty tough interviewer - I've seen him do a good job. But all his hard questions were really driven by the way...

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