Club Troppo

Or, Should Columnists Condemn Puppet Porn? Some denizens of the leftish Oz blogosphere heart conservative columnist Andrew Bolt - in a big way . He's MsFits' "one true love" . Darlene Taylor has a post entitled "A Quickie with Bolt" . Jess at Ausculture addresses Andrew thusly...

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The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters, Francisco de Goya, 1746-1828 One of the nice things about blogging is the feeling of camaraderie and collegiality that you get. One of the not so nice things about writing a thesis is that you feel almost necessarily isolated. So I was ab...

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Alan Wolfe argues that while the left has adopted Carl Schmitt 's theoretical anti-liberalism , it is the American right that is putting theory into practice. According to Wolfe's article in the The Chronicle of Higher Education : Liberals think of politics as a means; conserv...

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Paul Keating famously educated the media and himself about the art of "pulling the levers" of the national economy. For a few years, the J-Curve was the subject of water-cooler discussion, the "twin deficits" theory was widely bandied about, and everyone had an opinion on micr...

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Just popping my head up briefly from festive celebrations and heinous manuscript revisions to urge you all to take part in Norm Geras' poll, re your selections for the greatest ten pop and rock songs of all time. Email Norm, normblog@yahoo.co.uk and give him your list now(entr...

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Immanuel Wallerstein On One More Year Taking another leaf out of The Currency Lad 's book, I've updated my New Year's Eve report and will now proceed to a brief post on politics (note - it's thesis related! ). But rather than excoriate Gough Whitlam like C.L., I'd like to brin...

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"And if you can't be with the one you love" sang Stephen Stills , "Love the one you're with." As 2004 ended Andrew Norton and Mark Bahnisch wrote about desire. Andrew wrote about the link between happiness and the desire for consumer goods while Mark compared disappointed Labo...

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Or, The Thesis That Ate January Just a quick entry to let people know that my blogging activity will be a bit sparse for a while while I bring my PhD thesis to a state warranting submission. Rejigged bits of the thesis may pop up from time to time, and I'm really grateful for...

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Australians aren't very good at donating their organs. A comparison ORGAN DONATION RATE FOR SELECTED COUNTRIES with other countries puts us at the bottom of the list. Why this is so is uncertain. I don't think that we shy away from giving our body parts on moral grounds, indee...

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I hope all Troppo writers and readers have a wonderful 2005. May all your resolutions be kept and all your hopes be fulfilled. No doubt it will be a good year for the Australian blogosphere. It's nice to be able to welcome back Georg , formerly of Psephite , who's returned wit...

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The Currency Lad challenges "Laborite bloggers and columnists" to discuss the AWU's opposition to Chinese workers as guest workers in the fruit picking industry . I'm happy to take him up on it. The Labor Party was rightly condemned for some marginal seat campaigning in the el...

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2004 has been a political year par excellence , with elections in the US and Australia. As the turning of the year is always a good time to reflect, it's interesting to note some thoughtful posts appearing in the blogosphere of late. Don has posted a stimulating piece on the p...

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They've always been an entrepreneurial lot in the West, especially gifted at separating the fool and his money. This perception has been reinforced by Pierpont's dubious distinction awards for 2004. Following in the footsteps of the fellow who successfully claimed the stolen p...

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Charly Harpole went to Andaman Island to pursue his hobby. He found himself in the middle of a crisis. The Andaman and Nicobar Islands are among the most sought after contacts for amateur radio operators. So when the National Institute of Amateur Radio-sponsored DXpedition to...

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In the comments to this post , Geoff Honnor got a bit cranky, and it provoked the following exchange: At this time of year, I think the probable deaths of upwards of 50,000 people in an horrific natural disaster might rank higher than what Gerald Henderson - or even someone ot...

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John Quiggin's left wing conservatism Environmentalism has changed the way leftists think about government led social change. Like the natural environment, the social environment is complex and poorly understood. With their oversimplified models, reformers accept serious risk...

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'The Soothsayer', Giovanni Batista Piazetta (1683-1754) Or, The Tiny Hendo Hendo doesn't seem to have taken a break for the Christmas season, turning his talents rather in an increasingly mystical direction . In other media news, I've already complained about the tired trope o...

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I concur wholeheartedly with Scott's condolences for those affected by the terrible tsunamis. I've posted the links for readers in Scott's thread, but I'll repeat the post here of some links to bloggers advising of appeals which can be accessed online as well, as it's easier t...

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Via Suzoz at Personal Political , I've just discovered and read this interesting column about raising kids without any religion by Adele Horin in the SMH . Some time ago, the British sociologist Anthony Giddens , until recently Director of the LSE, noted that one marker of a p...

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Terrible earthquake in Indonesia has claimed an estimated 14,000 lives although it is quite possible that this number could climb much higher. See Tim Blair for many links about what is going on. There are estimated to be close to 6,000 Australians in the affected areas. If yo...

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