National history is the story that binds ‘us who make up the nation’ into a single entity with a collective memory . It has a purpose and as such we can choose what historical events and realities to put into that story, whilst forgetting the rest. Of the four main current con...
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Posted in Politics - national, Life, History, Humour, Society, Geeky Musings, Social, Race and indigenous, Ethics, Cultural Critique, Death and taxes, Democracy, Indigenous
Festival Website | Films | Schedule Top Picks You're Killing Me Susana (Opening Night) You’re Killing Me Susana tells the story of Eligio, a man who wakes up one day to find out that his wife Susana has left him without warning. What follows is Eligio’s earnest quest to win hi...
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[expanded from the post on JohnMenadue] When Bitcoin went public in 2009 it introduced to the world of finance and economics the technology of blockchain. Even the many who thought Bitcoin would never make it as a major currency were intrigued by the BlockChain technology and...
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Posted in Politics - national, History, IT and Internet, Science, Climate Change, Political theory, Business, Information, bubble, Innovation, Social Policy
https://youtu.be/uP8juIWScH0
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Sometimes, it feels like 1910 all over again. Then, a confident Germany was the up-and-coming industrial power house, fearing an even more up-and-coming Russia, with the UK and France desperately holding on to their colonial empires. Now, a confident China is the up-and-coming...
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Posted in Politics - national, Politics - international, Philosophy, Environment, History, Miscellaneous, Humour, Society, Religion, Sport-general, Theatre, Music, Economics and public policy, Science, regulation, Gender, Journalism, Media, Geeky Musings, Climate Change, Political theory, Business, Travel, Immigration and refugees, Information, Intellectual Monopoly Privileges, Innovation, Social, Race and indigenous, Ethics, Cultural Critique, Public and Private Goods, Death and taxes, Inequality, Social Policy, Democracy, Bullshit, Indigenous, Employment
The following is a guest post by RHONDA PRYOR , a recently retired senior manager in the Australian aged care sector. We are hoping Rhonda may become a regular contributor to Troppo. If you woke up to read the Government had announced that they have a totally new approach to S...
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The #MeToo flood of stories of women who feel abused by men – ranging from lurid stares to straightforward rape – seems like a disaster to me for the Democrats. Not because of the stories themselves, but because of how the progressive media and commentators have reacted to it....
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Posted in Life, Philosophy, Miscellaneous, Humour, Religion, IT and Internet, Gender, Media, Libertarian Musings, Health, Law, Information, bubble, Social, Cultural Critique, Bullshit
As readers of my Twitter feed will know, I'm heading to London to give some seminars. One on the use and abuse of wellbeing to target policy at LSE , one on evidence-based policy at King's College London Policy Institute and a public lecture titled "Detoxing democracy: Brexit...
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Festival Website | Films | Schedule Top Picks Subdued (Opening Night) Mina, recently divorced from her husband, struggles to maintain an independent life with no supportive family. She eventually finds a job in a restaurant. A friendship between her and the manager gradually b...
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Various people like Margaret Court are stroppy that private companies like Qantas are supporting same sex marriage. I'm not too sure I can see a problem. This is largely self-interested behaviour from our corporates and the pursuit of that self-interest – sociopathic or otherw...
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There seem to be more and more claims that "hate speech" should not be entitled to the normal privileges of free speech. To my surprise, one of them is George Lakoff - famed cognitive scientist, philosopher and metaphor expert. Here’s the admirably clear Lakoff writing a blog...
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0A7Ef4SIQUo I wrote the following comment on Gene Tunny's blogpost on a piece documenting the last car rolling off an Australian mass production line. (We still make specialty cars in runs of a hundred or so a month). The history of automotive i...
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Cross posted at The Mandarin . "Principles are good and worth the effort only when they develop into deeds" -- Vincent Van Gogh I’ve previously critiqued the process by which a lot of organisations do strategic thinking and planning and proposed an alternative . In this series...
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I've previously commented that Brian Howe was the great, quiet achiever of the Hawke/Keating years, who then turned around out of office and, rather than burnish his own reputation, got right on with the business playing a major role in getting up the NDIS. In any event I was...
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I wrote this piece in the Guardian to keep stirring the pot on post-ideological reform, unaware that I would be outflanked and outgunned on my left by Peter Costello who wants to socialise compulsory super. #Srsly. Which bank could give Australians a better bang for their buck...
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Here at Troppo, we're not that big on inspirational videos. But, to use the immortal words of Groucho Marx, in this case the entire Troppo collective (which in this case includes me) is making an exception. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZoNfszh7NxU
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[cross-posted, slightly updated, from Pearls and Limitations] Observations: About 40% of the population of Catalonia and its capital Barcelona was not born there, but largely comes from the rest of Spain. Internal migration is high , with about 0.4% of the population moving fr...
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Posted in Politics - international, Life, History, Education, Society, Theatre, Economics and public policy, Media, Immigration and refugees, Ethics, Inequality, Social Policy, Democracy
Taxation is the potential downfall of the EU as an institution. The reason is that within the EU, several member states are making money from the tax evasion in other member states, a situation akin to having a wife slowly murdering her husband with poison. Unless this stops,...
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Festival Website | Films | Schedule Top Picks Roza Of Smyrna (Opening Night) Preparing for an exhibition in the Turkish city of Izmir (formerly known as Smyrna), a collector of historic objects and curiosities, Dimitris, finds an untold story waiting in the depths of a small a...
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[caption id="attachment_31407" align="aligncenter" width="1035"] It's pretty obvious why this picture came up forth in a Google Image Search of the expression "competitive neutrality" but if you can't figure it out for yourself frankly the Troppo collective are disgusted. We'r...
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