Club Troppo

An apt cartoon from NT News cartoonist and Troppo blogger Colin Wicking As Colin Wicking acutely observes, the debate about responsibility for appalling conditions in remote indigenous communities has degenerated into a predictable federal/NT slanging match A similar divide is...

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Hail to the Chief? There are garbled reports of a stand-off for control of East Timorese military forces between President Xanana Gusmao and Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri. It's suggested that Xanana has taken full control of all military forces but that Alkatiri is disputing it...

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An obvious and powerful way for closed source shops to compete with open source software is to strategically open source. That is they can release bits of code and ask those people who are prepared to, to contribute code either to the software owners' specs or as they wish. Th...

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What a game! The amazing thing about State of Origin football is that so often lives up to the hype. NSW won 17-16 over QLD but with the Maroons all at sea during the first half you could have been forgiven thinking the 2nd was going to blow open and NSW romp home. The NSW for...

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I came across this review of a new book called The Economics of Attention courtesy of Economic Principles . It sounds like fun. Written by a English academic specialising in style and rhetoric (when he's not being an expert witness in legal plaigiarism cases), it's based on th...

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As frequent Troppo readers will know, I've been banging on about Aboriginal affairs issues for a very long time. I'm pleased that my obsession has at least momentarily been picked up by the mainstream media in the wake of NT prosecutor Dr Nanette Rogers' recent decisive (and c...

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Speaking of how to cut tax to maximise economic growth, how do you design shopping areas to keep everyone shopping? As some Troppodillians will know, the Viennese architect Victor Gruen gave us the shopping mall. My Dad thought he may have been a relative. But I don't think he...

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CEDA commissioned a paper from Lateral Economics on how you would cut personal taxes to maximise economic growth by increasing labour supply. A survey of the existing literature suggested 1) Cutting tax to low and middle income earners either with reduced tax rates at the lowe...

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Time permitting, I intend writing a post on the current controversy about endemic child sexual abuse and extreme violence in Aboriginal communities. In the meantime, one of the most eloquent testimonies I've yet heard about the virtual civil war situation in the troubled commu...

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I've never subscribed to the rule of ettiquette that claims one should not speak or write ill of the newly deceased. Ignoring it might cause a degree of distress to grieving close friends and family if they happen to hear or read disparaging comments, and that might well milit...

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Rafe Champion asks, apropos of nothing in particular, whether 'well-meaning socialists and big government interventionists learned anything from the failures of local policy and foreign aid to the poor states of the world?' Of course, it's a rhetorical question, because - as a...

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John Quiggin is concerned about the uncoolness of his genuine affection for ducks flying across the wall . As I commented on his post. I like the Sound of Music - the movie. Partly because of associations with my Austrian Dad who could have been one of the kids (and his sister...

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Emailed by Scott Wickstein. ...

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Ian Holm as Bilbo - not my mental image of the old hobbit, but still ... Someone needs to launch an independent enquiry into whether Dr Bob Martin is being secretly funded by Sauron, Dark Lord of Mordor: Scientists who argue the "hobbit" is really just a modern human with a sm...

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[photopress:inflate_a_man.jpg,full,pp_empty] We have a lot of sex shops here in Darwin for some reason...

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Eels in Crisis Coach resigns midway through the season, players fined and demoted for disciplinary reasons and any chance for the finals are gorn not even half-way through the season. This is what life is usually like for a South's supporter but alas it is the Eels who are hav...

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As I hawked my father from one oncologist to another I invented the Gruen tender and published details of it in a much more general article here (pdf) in the Australian Journal of Public Administration in 2002. I have subsequently outlined it at greater length in this paper (p...

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Wendell. No, it's not a mug shot though it might as well be Yes, I know Wendell Sailor is a brainless dickhead , having apparently been caught with coke in his bloodstream after previously running foul of ARU rules on more than one occasion for alcohol-related behavioural infr...

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One of the themes of the ALP spin on the budget is that the tax cuts don't make up for the 'triple whammy' of higher fuel prices, interest rates and lower wages from the new IR legislation. There's another triple whammy (silly expression isn't it?). In fact, in the spirit of t...

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Mick Cronin. An Eels and Country Legend. No, we are not related Over the fold some thoughts on the bond between a person and their football club, on the importance of tonight's City v Country game and a pointer to a good summary of the Gasnier debacle. A Supporter's Lament The...

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