Club Troppo

Well, the bloggers' vote on the Great Debate is tiresomely predictable. The lefties at Chris Sheil's place scored it a smashing victory for Latham, while the RWDBs at Tim Blair's joint thought exactly the opposite (and reckoned the "worm" audience was rigged). This particular...

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My initial thought this morning was that there was no point in writing a federal election post in advance of tonight's Great Debate. But pondering a little further, I wonder whether the debate is likely to have a great effect anyway. In light of the Jakarta bombing, I suspect...

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I can't help musing about Paul Watson's tacky but amusing take on the Seven Network's newest "reality" TV show Playing it Straight , featuring Darwin barmaid Rebecca Olds trying to pick straight potential suitors from gay ones for a purse of $200,000. I won't be watching this...

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It still has quite an impact to suddenly notice that date "September 11" over in the left column, doesn't it? On this day three years ago I (along with just about everyone else in Australia and the world) was sitting in my loungeroom numb and transfixed, watching those planes...

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Some rather foolish people are suggesting that Australia should 'negotiate' with the rag-tag terrorist outfit Jemaah Islamiyah (JI). I would not normally comment on such a suggestion, but 29% of SMH readers seem to think it is a good idea. It should of course be dismissed out...

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Graham Young, who operates the group blog Ambit Gambit and prominent Australian e-journal Online Opinion , is a classical liberal in the finest sense. One of the manifestations of his studious liberalism is enlisting co-bloggers whose opinions differ markedly from his own. Jef...

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A wise man would leave well enough alone, and let the dust settle before venturing back into provocative blogging. But the combination of Bush, Blair, and sado-masochism is too tempting to resist. As this News Online story notes: For its 10th anniversary, upmarket London corse...

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In the wake of yesterday's tragedy in Jakarta, terrorism is back on the electoral agenda, whether we like it or not. It has not really gone away of course, but the political parties in Australia seem to have had a mutual non-aggression pact to not discuss the issue. That could...

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I can't help comparing the university where I work with St. Edward's hospital, the apocryphal institution in Yes Minister which won an award as Britain's most hygienic hospital because it had no patients to get the place dirty. I've just come back to my office with an armful o...

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It's probably an unworthy thought given that at least 5 people (presumably all Indonesian Muslims) have been killed, but I can't help wondering whether Abu Bakr Bashir is a closet member of the Liberal Party. National security and the War against Terror front and centre. Updat...

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Carolinkus is convinced that Satan is making her blog . It's taking up so much time that could be devoted to more worthwhile things, like spiritual contemplation. It's a familiar feeling for most bloggers, though most of us probably wouldn't put it in quite those terms. Bloggi...

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Online Opinion e-journal (run by Graham Young and Hugh Brown) has recently implemented a feature called The Domain , which provides a one-stop shop page displaying excerpts from and links to new posts on a range of prominent Australian political blogs including Troppo . It app...

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The Australian newspaper's evaluation of Labor's tax and family benefits package is surprisingly upbeat for a rag many lefties dismiss as blatantly pro-Coalition: Typically for Latham, the broad sweep of the policy vision is more attractive than some of the details buried with...

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Well, Labor's tax package has been released, and it looks very attractive, as Chris Sheil discusses here . Will it be enough to get Latham's campaign back on track? Certainly, Howard is doing his level best to keep derailing Latham's loco, with a pre-emptive medical care subsi...

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Insomnia strikes again. Surfing round the blogs, I finally noticed that Don Arthur has finally upgraded his computer from a dodgy Apple Mac (though I suspect he's only upgraded to another dodgy Apple Mac), and has been hard at work. But he keeps linking to Clive Hamilton . Cli...

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I haven't blogged about the appalling terrorist atrocity in Russia until now. The immensity, horror and pointlessness of the calculated slaughter of so many children is almost beyond comprehension let alone words. Several bloggers, including Darp Hau , John Quiggin and Rob Sch...

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Today's Sydney Morning Herald has an alarming article and a longer feature on the emerging practice of trial lawyers using expert witnesses (doctors, accountants, psychologists etc.) retained on a "no win no fee" contingent basis. It shows just how closeted one can get in the...

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Stan from South Pacific Federation Project has emailed me with a query about copyright and use of other people's material on blogs. Copyright isn't my specialist area (see Kim Weatherall's blog if you want someone who really knows about this area), but I have a basic working k...

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They're both simply engaging in the sort of expedient lying that is a working politician's everyday lot. Politics isn't a profession for saints. No, perhaps politics is not the career for the scrupulously honest, but that doesn't mean that we should be happy about our elected...

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The patent absurdity of Labor's " 27 Howard lies " document is underlined by a lie told by Mark Latham , reported in today's SMH, about the basis and effect of Thursday's High Court decision in Electrolux Home Products Pty Ltd v Australian Workers' Union (which I blogged about...

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