Club Troppo

One of the oddest stories to emerge from the 15th International AIDS Conference in Bangkok is that James Glassman of the American Enterprise Institute found - to his considerable shock - that the American delegation booth didn't have a photo of George W. Bush displayed. It see...

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I've decided to take on board Terry Sedgwick's wise words and follow the advice of Kingsley Amis: "If you can't annoy somebody, there's little point in writing." ALP barrackers Tim Dunlop and Christopher Sheil have both gone into bravura foot-stamping mode in the wake of the p...

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My attention was taken by this piece from The Weekend Australian (not available online as far as I can see): The world may be about to watch one of its last Olympic Games without genetically enhanced athletes. With the first genetic treatments to regenerate muscle, enhance its...

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Don Arthur's recent blogging comeback has stimulated a flowering of creativity, at least on the left of the blogosphere. As Tim Dunlop's Blogjam roundup seems to be on holiday while Margo promotes her new anti-Howard book (which I haven't been tempted to buy or read), I though...

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I always feel unaccountably nervous when I find myself agreeing (as I often do) with Paul Watson . Maybe I'm subconsciously fearful of becoming infected by the conviction that all the woes of the world are caused by my parents' generation, and that it's too late to get any sat...

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Kept out of bed by rampant insomnia, I've finally finished my long-delayed project of adding description tags to all the blogroll links in the right column. I was more or less shamed into it by John Quiggin's generous mention of TA on last night's Sandy McCutcheon Australia Ta...

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My recent post , about the resumed History Wars and the status of the doctrine of terra nullius , continues to attract comment box debate. Two of the more interesting comments ( here and here ) have been from historian Brian Spittles. The bottom line is that Brian has undertak...

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(Via John Quiggin) Oh for joy! Don Arthur has finally made a comeback to blogging, presumably having finally finished his doctoral thesis. I wonder if ruminating on Don's admirable self-discipline might help this armadillo to do likewise and get back to the PhD slog after the...

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Back from a few days in Kakadu. I see that my sincere flattery of Geoff and Wendy failed to flush either of them out of the blogging woodwork. Maybe it might do the trick if more of you mob were to say really really nice things about them in the comment box. I had intended to...

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Jen and I are going away for a few days into the tourist-infested wilds of Kakadu. Not all that wild, actually; we're staying in four star comfort at the Gagudju Crocodile Hotel at Jabiru. It seems that our roughing it in a swag days are over. We'll be back Thursday night, but...

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Tarun and Dan have emailed more details of their African Odyssey: read it here.

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Future developments in this story from ABC Online will bear watching. I've heard such stories from several separate sources over the years, so I can't say I'm utterly astounded. Nevertheless, it's quite a weird feeling, watching a story of this sort unfold about someone you've...

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This post at The Spin Starts Here would be a worthy recipient of a Blog Bile Award next time it's up for adjudication. It's also a fairly convincing demonstration of the decline of civility (a phenomenon never evident here at Troppo , where the worst social sin we ever commit...

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I've been relying on historian blogger Christopher Sheil to keep us all informed about any new shots in The History Wars . But he's let me down, possibly too busy perfecting his own unique brand of black is the new white sophistry . Instead I stumbled on the fact that a new "H...

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I have an investment in a little cashbox that raises finance to invest in biotechnology companies. It's had a couple of successes (e.g. C3 and Starpharma) and I'm hopeful that some of it's current investments will pay off in the future. I received an email alerting me to a new...

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Yesterday I said I'd post about national politics if anything happened to change my tentative intention to vote Labor at the forthcoming federal election. But I didn't expect that to happen within 24 hours. Last Sunday I watched Laurie Oakes interview Health Minister Tony Abbo...

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I've added a couple more blogs to the Troppo blogroll: Ambit Gambit , a blog associated with Graham Young's Online Opinion ezine (sorry Gianna), and Andjam . I'll be keeping a very regular eye on Ambit Gambit , because I have a high regard for Graham Young's qualities as a pol...

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This article by Peter Hartcher in the SMH and this one by Michael Costello in the Oz both seem to me to offer incisive analyses of the state of play for the forthcoming federal election. Both suggest Howard may have the inside running (though offering slightly differing ration...

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I don't know whether others have noticed it, but there seems to be a developing meme on the conservative side of politics lamenting the "decline of manners", musing about its causes and what might be done about it. Of course, it might in part be a deliberate Tory response to M...

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Shock! Horror! Mary-Kate has anorexia . But have a look for yourself . I reckon Ashley's even skinnier. I blame that prick Morgan Spurlock . These girls need to get biggest mobs of Maccas into them without delay.

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