Club Troppo

I liked Andrew Sullivan's article today on the current barney between some celebrity scientologists and South Park creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker. As others have commented, there are echoes of the issue of freedom of speech versus respect for the beliefs of others raised...

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Thank God the Commonwealth Games are almost over. I can easily avoid Nine's tedious TV coverage, because I rarely watch that channel's offerings anyway. But having the local ABC radio station dominated by frenetic commentary about third rate sporting events is extremely irrita...

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This nut cutlet reckons a meat industry commercial claiming that humans have evolved to thrive on red meat is misleading. But we humans are omnivorous creatures, and our metabolisms have indeed evolved over millions of years so that a daily menu including meat is the simplest...

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In view of Tim Blair's exhaustively exemplary coverage of recent ALP in-fighting, I'm waiting with bated breath for TB's equally thorough run-down on the current wave of Liberal Party feuding in 3 separate states. I'm sure he'll be posting the first instalment any moment now....

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Sports blogging has been a tad deficient in the Australian blogosphere since Scott Wickstein's Ubersportingpundit site went belly up a few months ago. So I'm pleased to see our very own Rafe Champion is trying to revive the genre with his AFL blog The Real Game . Moreover, and...

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I've been remiss in my non-coverage of the developing AWB scandal. Fortunately, GetUp! has a succinct and very funny spoof AWB commercial that gets you right up to date with everything you need to know. For much more detail, however, you can't go past Tim Dunlop , who has too...

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The federal Grants Commission system for sharing Commonwealth revenue between larger and smaller states and territories seldom attracts good press in southern states, and appears to be little understood even by quite knowledgeable observers. When I raised the issue obliquely i...

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I've suggested that policy makers think about trying to engineer a situation where 'defaults' - what happens when we do nothing - are considered and set to optimise outcomes rather than just be allowed to happen. Thus without infringing anyone's freedom of choice we could spec...

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Clare Martin's NT government appears to be about to sign its very own slow-moving but certain political death warrant. Well, that might be slightly hyperbolic given that the CLP opposition here has been reduced to a rump of 4. But there are 4 or 5 Labor MLAs who unexpectedly w...

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Ken's excellent post below on Sydney water contains this statement. Bad governments exist in part because of even worse oppositions, and New South Wales is currently very poorly served by both major parties. I think we're seeing a new age of incumbency. Its produced to a large...

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Darwin doesn't have a water shortage. Quite the opposite in some ways. I think I'm just about ready for the wet season to end. Travelling to Sydney at Christmas was quite a strange experience in that context. There people can't even hose down their cars and can only water thei...

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Tony Harris's column from Tuesday's Fin Review. Don't you feel sorry for chief executives board members in the private sector? The community and the regulators still expect that their signatures mean something. They can even be jailed for misleading the market. By comparison,...

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[photopress:triviaman.jpg,full,pp_empty] A weekly wrap of what's been happening across the Top End news-wise, which might be handy for former residents who really miss reading about this sort of thing. May contain cane toads and/or crocodiles. Brokeback Territory Territorians...

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Sometimes when under pressure Kim Beazley succumbs to a bout of unintentional candour: I'll tell you something else, too, because sometimes our opponents kid themselves on this. I did spend last week in Queensland trying to sell the policy we put forward on climate change, whi...

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From Paul Barratt's recent piece for New Matilda - reproduced in Crikey. In late 1998 I was directed by the then Defence Minister to give him a comprehensive report on the history of the Collins Class submarine and the matters that remained to be dealt with in order to bring t...

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I've long been a close observer of the developing contest between IT titans Microsoft and Google. That's why I was especially interested by this announcement a couple of days ago: Internet search leader Google has acquired Upstartle, a small startup that runs a collaborative w...

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Having read Morag Fraser's review of John Hirst's collection of essays I went hunting for the essays mentioned in the review. I found only " The Distinctiveness of Australian Democracy " which I'd put on my 'must read' list. A really interesting and in various respects contrar...

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The recent revival of popular books on philosophy is a Good Thing in my opinion. Two friends, Alain de Botton and John Armstrong are hard at it publishing a book or two every few years. I've just finished reading The Secret Power of Beauty which I enjoyed. If you're well read...

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[photopress:full.jpg,full,pp_empty] A weekly wrap of what's been happening across the Top End news-wise, which might be handy for former residents who really miss reading about this sort of thing. May contain cane toads and/or crocodiles. SCAREDY CROCS The Top End's crocodiles...

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Paul Krugman had a powerful column on income inequality in America recently. Here are some extracts. What we're seeing isn't the rise of a fairly broad class of knowledge workers. Instead, we're seeing the rise of a narrow oligarchy: income and wealth are becoming increasingly...

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