Club Troppo

The weather's horrible at the moment here in Brisbane. Sticky, humid, and it's hard to sleep. The other day I was talking about the political climate in the Joh era , and suggesting a bit of a link (other tropical cities - like New Orleans - have shared loopy, extravagant and...

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John Howard must be getting a little irritated by Sophie Panopolous. The co-convenor of the backbench tax and welfare reform group doesn't seem to spend too much time developing ideas, as the economic rationalist ginger group of the Fraser years did, but rather constantly sing...

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It used to be socialists who wanted to radically reorganize society In our society relationships between individuals are governed by a number of separate institutions with separate norms. The market is just one institution among many. For decades socialists like William Lane a...

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"The fact that the left did not make use of the lash does not stop the right from resorting to the backlash." Tim Dunlop over at Road to Surfdom is steamed up : God, if I click on one more left-leaning blog that has a post about how bloody wonderful it is that Andrew Sullivan...

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I really will have to get moving on that promised post reviewing Julia Baird's book Media Tarts: How The Australian Press Frames Female Politicians . Kerry-Anne Walsh writes this about Julia Gillard : The Victorian MP has been at Mr Latham's elbow for his roller-coaster 12 mon...

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At Catallaxy Jason Soon argues that "Criminal conduct is just an externality like pollution. It should be properly ‘priced’" On this view the community should decide on the optimal level of criminal conduct and set the price accordingly. There is a huge gulf between right-wing...

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John Quiggin is offering to donate one Australian dollar for every comment on this post at his site until midnight tonight to the Australian Red Cross tsunami appeal ... Click on the hyperlink, go over there and post a comment now! At the time of writing, John has received 209...

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While Troppo Armadillo has pioneered a new form of direct democracy through its advice to the Labor Party to pick either 1. Julia 2. Rudd for Rudder (thanks, FXH) or the other way round, the blogosphere primary is now well and truly off and running. Staying at home first, blog...

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I had some hopes that the election of Mahmoud Abbas as President of the Palestinian National Authority would lead to a breaking of the deadlock between Israel and Palestine. These hopes were bolstered by the entry into the Israeli government of Shimon Peres and Labour . Howeve...

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Many of us will always remember the election campaign of 04 through the lens of frequent late night visits to BackPages . So, this tidbit from an article on the internet and democracy is interesting indeed: Most blogs languish in obscurity but some give rise to new media perso...

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ALP Caucus members are reported to be having meetings to work out who the next leader should be. Latho might also be better advised to pick his mates for their communication skills next time: Labor frontbencher and a close supporter of Mr Latham, Joel Fitzgibbon, said while he...

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The Oxford tortured faith research is not, it seems, the only bright research idea to come from the land of the free: A US plan to develop a bad breath bomb and a chemical weapon to make enemy soldiers sexually irresistible to each other has been revealed in newly declassified...

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Back in December Scott wrote about Internet dating . Yellowvinyl has been a participant in the cyberdating game, and has some interesting (and sharp!) reflections on the vicissitudes of finding a partner online . Unfortunately Livejournal doesn't support trackback, but Troppo...

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All the discussion of communist t-shirts overlooked, as far as I can tell, the use of fashion to make a statement about a political or a social issue, as opposed to being an aspect of the commodification of dissent. The photo of Naomi Campbell above is from British designer Ka...

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Latho has made his statement . Reaction seems, largely, well, confused. The SMH ponders whether the Party will go back to the Beazer or plunge into the unknown. Senior MPs, this time identified as frontbenchers, are said to be confused and angy : Far from soothing his party, M...

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It was Joh's 94th birthday today . Time to revisit the Dispatches from Johburg and share some random memories of my teenage years under the reign of Bjelke: - as a young public service clerk, going up to the third floor of the Treasury Building with some friends and sitting in...

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Alex White at Psephological Catechism has published an article on his blog about Labor's need to articulate a different vision of Australia . I couldn't agree with him more. John Howard's "ordinariness" and his identification as the quintessential avuncular Aussie have been a...

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I'm more and more convinced the world morphed into postmodern weirdness when I wasn't looking. Or there's been some sort of Gwyneth Paltrow like time distortion parallel universe thing happening. This just in : People are to be tortured in laboratories at Oxford University in...

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Christopher Sheil of late lamented BackPages fame , threw a cat among the pigeons in the thread on Che t-shirts . Chris coined the neat new theoretical concept "conspicuous indignation" to explain why right wing pundits and pollies get all steamed up without actually doing any...

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Troppo Armadillos have been sceptical about Latho's leadership future since the election. In November, I asked if Latho would be home by Christmas, or at the latest by February . Chief Armadillo Ken Parish (presently on walkabout somewhere in the Deep South according to dispat...

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