Club Troppo

Shaun Cronin post on The Biggest Loser raises issues that I've been thinking about for some time, and found difficult to get very far with. Sean raises the issue of the way in which the program, which is a 'reality' slimming program for those who don't know raises the issue of...

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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. DING DONG Darwin military police are hunting for a serial flasher who is t...

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We think it's the best system in the world quite frankly (Then) AWB CEO Andrew Lindberg in 2001 on the set up the AWB had as a private company with a government endorsed monopoly. A column on the AWB was inevitable n'est pas? As I worked on this column it occured to me that at...

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The SMH reports that Macquarie Bank and Linfox are very keen to help the disabled. They're very concerned that the disabled must often wait for twenty minutes for a cab. So they're stepping into the breach with a veritable fleet of wheelchair enabled taxis. Their angle? Taxis...

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[photopress:Rollins_bomb.jpg,full,pp_empty] Henry Rollins says he was reported to the Australian government's National Security hotline for reading a book about jihad. Is this for real? On Thursday the Daily Telegraph reported that "US rocker and writer Henry Rollins was repor...

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Should op-ed writers be forced to tell readers if they're taking money in return for supporting a cause or interest? The Competitive Enterprise Institute's Iain Murray says no. In an article for the American Spectator , Iain Murray argues that readers should focus on the quali...

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Writers should keep it short and get to the point, says Julia Baird. Text messaging shows that the Sesame Street generation and generation Y get this . That's the gist of Julia Baird's latest Good Weekend column -- 'Brief Encounters'. What a pity there was so much space on the...

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The Sydney Morning Herald has an odd story about a woman with a worm in her eye . Doctors at a clinic in Kragujevac, central Serbia, have removed an 11 centimetre-long intestinal worm from a woman's eye socket. According to preliminary results, the worm taken from the 37-year-...

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The drive on Troppo, LP and Catallaxy brought forth 28 requests for subscriptions - to accompany my own. If you sent me an email or posted your email address in suitably robot proof fashion your details have been sent to Crikey which should be in touch shortly. If you didn't b...

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A while back I made a note to do a brief review of Bill Easterly's The Elusive Quest for Growth after finishing reading it. I've not got round to it, but here goes. It's quite a good book but it's also fairly quirky and peculiar. It's nicely arranged into major parts each with...

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Massachusetts Board of Pharmacy orders Wal-Mart to stock morning after pills Last year the Washington Post reported that "pharmacists across the country are refusing to fill prescriptions for birth control and morning-after pills, saying that dispensing the medications violate...

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I am running a surrepticious campaign to introduce the open source ways of the internet to the ABC. Being stacked with salaried people, the ABC is poorly in touch with the resources of the voluntary sector - the sector that produces Club Troppo and comments on it day in day ou...

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[photopress:Rollins.jpg,full,pp_empty] Calls to the government's National Security hotline are confidential aren't they? Well... maybe not . Performer Henry Rollins says that he's been reported to the hotline for reading a suspicious book . But if the service is confidential t...

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I've been looking at a recently published paper by Allen Consulting on tax reform. Tax reform has become the New Thing To Do. The paper was commissioned by the Victorian Government and, given that I don't know what the brief was, I'm not being critical of the consultants. The...

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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. SUPER TOAD Cane toads on the rampage across the Top End are evolving rapid...

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I wonder which supporters of George W Bush have the shame to read this New York Times editorial on its merits. We can't think of a president who has gone to the American people more often than George W. Bush has to ask them to forget about things like democracy, judicial proce...

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It's not just western cartoons causing protests abroad. In India Hindu activists are protesting against Valentine's Day. According to Asian News International Valentine's Day has become increasingly popular in India in recent years with retailers doing a brisk trade in heart-s...

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The Catholic Church say 'give me a child until he is seven'. Adam Smith thought the age was around eight. Xavier Herbert said to a lecture theatre full of first years in my first year at uni that by the time you're thirty five you're an 'old bastard' and won't change no matter...

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