Club Troppo

"Tough, fearsomely intelligent, loyal, fast on her feet... a woman possessed of a withering wit" Fenella Souter's feature in the Good Weekend shows that Julia Gillard can be both entertaining and ferocious. Would she like a senior ministry? "I'd cheerfully kill several hundred...

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The death of Pope John Paul II was hardly unexpected, yet it is momentous. This was, I think, a Pope who was perhaps the most exceptionally talented and extraordinary man to fill St Peter's shoes in a long time; one of the great men of the twentieth century, and like all great...

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Sophie's Masson's compares the terrorism of 19th anarchists with that of Al-Qaeda today. Many of those sympathetic to anarchism object to this kind of comparison and I can understand why. But if you read her post carefully you'll see that Sophie is also making a more interesti...

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With election results expected to be released shortly I am not at all optimistic about the chances of free and fair elections in Zimbabwe. But hopefully I will be proven wrong and The Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) will succeed in overthrowing the ruling ZANU-PF governme...

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Moderating a group blog like Troppo, where both contributors and commenters possess a more diverse range of views than seems to be the norm in the blogosphere, is a challenging task. Sometimes (like now) it gets so tiresome I feel like walking away and leaving the zealots to t...

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My original post on anarchism and the cataclysms of the 20th century has certainly engendered some lively debate, and here's something to add to it. It's actually to draw the attention of Troppo Armadillians to the work of a man I've only just become aware of(in fact since yes...

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Mark Bahnisch publishes a letter from neo-communist Italian intellectual Antonio Negri, which seems fairly convincingly to debunk most if not all of Keith Windschuttle's attacks on him. The failure of basic research/fact-checking in Windschuttle's Negri letter appears consider...

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The future of Australian federalism has been a much discussed topic recently among the commentariat of both mainstream and blogosphere. It's hardly surprising given John Howard's extraordinarily hubristic statement that Australia would be better off without state governments....

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Tim Dunlop blogs about the influence of Howard government "black arts" gurus Lynton Crosby and Mark Textor on British Tory election campaigning: Sorry, but it's a crock. I mean, far be it from me to defend Lynton Crosby, and I'm sure he is organising such a campaign, but in so...

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Indonesia can't take a trick at the moment. The Prime Minister is sending medical teams back to Sumatra; hell, they only got home this month from the last earthquake. I mean, its just terrible. Two in three months...

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Today's ruling by the trial judge in the Michael Jackson child sexual abuse case, allowing the prosecution to lead evidence of other alleged incidents of abuse of young boys by Jackson, makes a conviction significantly more likely: Legal analysts say the admission of such expl...

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Funny the directions in which research for books can take you. As part of my research for my planned detective fiction series, I've been reading a lot of 'true-crime' books from the 1910's, 20's and 30's, and one of the authors I've been reading is a once-famous writer and cri...

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Tasmanian tiger spotted begging for food outside the Subway outlet in City Walk Canberra (it seems to like meatballs).

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I tried to post this on the most appropriate blog - our host at ubersportingpundit central - but couldn't log in - so you'll have to put up with me venting spleen here. Probably the best thing that's happened to Australian soccer took place during the third quarter of the AFL...

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Biodiesel is one of the most promising sources of renewable energy . Made from crops like soy beans, American supporters claim it can enhance national security , protect the environment, and reduce the trade deficit. Farmers , environmentalists , and opponents of the war in Ir...

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Biodiesel is safer for the environment because it produces lower emissions and is made from renewable sources, say supporters . But the snag for morally motivated vegetarians is that those renewable sources can include cows, pigs, and chickens. Biodiesel is an alternative to p...

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Having apparently defeated the Trackback spammers with the (unsought but still welcome) assistance of Scott's domain host, we now seem to be under concerted attack by a renewed and virulent form of comment spam. At the moment it appears that MT blacklist doesn't delete thes sp...

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A light and tasty post to leave you for Easter..and a happy Easter to all! Chez nous, it's ducks, ducks, ducks at the moment, as the 14-strong regiment of Muscovy ducklings we've reared have become big enough to well, become dinner. We've had duck 'a toutes les sauces', you mi...

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One of the reasons I thought I'd like to do some writing on Troppo is that I have recently become a columnist for the Courier Mail. I thought I would like to try out 'open sourcing' a column. So I proposed to Ken that I post forthcoming columns on Troppo a few days before they...

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One of Professor Bunyip's blogging obsessions is excessively intrusive traffic policing in his home State of Victoria. It's understandable if Bracks' henchmen are anything like NSW, with whose practices I'm much more familiar through annual holiday visits. Speed cameras prolif...

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