Club Troppo

Robert Corr has a couple of interesting posts about the current furore over federal Liberal MP Trish Draper's apparently dodgy claim for travel allowance for an overseas trip with her "spouse", and an injunction she obtained to preent screening of a TV story about the controve...

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The Charles Darwin Symposium Series is one of several initiatives suggested by highly-paid consultants to resuscitate the somewhat tattered reputation of the Northern Territory's only university, which Paddy McGuinness famously dismissed as " a so-called university which has n...

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A couple of weeks ago I received an email from a friend in NSW publicising the effort to find Daniel Morcombe. As a rule I don't do anything about pleas such as this because I have been hoaxed in the past, but in this case I made an exception and forwarded the email to my addr...

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Manly Council, the local authority for the beachside area in Sydney where I spent the first 29 years of my life, has just banned smoking on its beaches . Mayor Peter MacDonald (a local doctor and former left-leaning Independent State MP) is quoted as saying: "I guess this is a...

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I'm getting increasingly pissed off by the spam porn "comments" appearing on Troppo Armadillo , especially because it seems the spammers have now decided to target us every day, and with a particularly nasty type of spam (beastiality, incest etc). We're now getting 10 or more...

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I've just updated Darwin travellers exploits in a kibbutz and the Golan Heights and their experience with the Maasai.

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I forgot to mention that we went to hear John Butler Trio on Friday night. Freeloading on the beach adjacent to the Casino Lawns, along with several thousand others. I had a great time; in fact it would have been almost perfect if "B" hadn't locked her keys in the car at Mindi...

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Up early this morning to buy a second-hand washing machine for Casa Armadillo. Had to leave the last one at the Nightcliff Road house when Jenny P rented it fully furnished. Drove out to a newly-opened reconditioned whitegoods warehouse at Berrimah. Middle-aged bloke, crewcut....

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As longer-term readers of this blog will be aware, in a general sense I accept the practical necessity of the Howard government's offshore processing system for asylum seekers, sometimes referred to as the "Pacific solution". That isn't to say, however, that I see no legal or...

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For the parents of teenage girls. Letter to a Mother: A mother enters her daughter's bedroom and sees a letter on the bed. With the worst premonition and trembling hands, she reads it: Dear Mom, It is with great regret and sorrow that I'm telling you that I have eloped with my...

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After posting the item immediately below about Timor Leste Foreign Minister Jose Ramos-Horta's pronouncements on Iraq, it occurred to me (without detracting from Horta's sincerity) that he may be motivated in part by a desire to build up international reserves of goodwill for...

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Over the last decade or so, the Nobel Peace Prize has thrown up some dubiously worthy (at best) Laureates, including former US President Jimmy Carter, South Korean President Kim Dae-jung and, of all people, Yasser Arafat. I suppose at least they didn't present the Nobel to Osa...

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I just came across this site. I know quite a few people from overseas look at this blog and thought some of you might like to catch a glimpse of how we see ourselves. You know what a sucker I am about Dads writing poetry for their sons, so, if similarly inclined look here .

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While we were hiking in the glorious Argentinian Glaciers National Park were overheard some other hikers speaking strine and started to walk with them back to El Chalten where they had a camp. Along the way we found that they too lived in Darwin and indeed that Dan is the son...

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Not before time, the zeitgeist has begun generating discussion about the future role of the United Nations, notions of national sovereignty on which the existing international order is based, and principles that might underpin future humanitarian interventions that challenge e...

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I began reading newspapers - well one newspaper, The Weekend Australian about a month ago. The world is just as interesting now as it was when I stopped thinking around 1998. (Really it is, I'm loving it.) To my joy the Australian last Saturday has begun talking to me and abou...

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I posted a couple of days ago about income tax rates and an intriguing tax cut proposal by the Centre for Independent Studies' Peter Saunders. As promised in my comment box, John Quiggin has now responded and sought to prove that Saunders has exaggerated the extent to which Au...

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I've fulminated against the iniquities of racial vilification laws on more than one occasion ( here , here and here ). ABC Radio National Law Report also covered the issue back in 2002. What I hadn't known until now is that a couple of State governments have gone even further...

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(Via David Tiley ) It had to happen I suppose : First, there was the novel written without using the letter "e". Now a French author has produced what he claims is the first book with no verbs. Perhaps inevitably, critics have commented unfavourably on the lack of action in Mi...

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The old truism about lies, damn lies and statistics is graphically demonstrated today by two equally dodgy ideological warriors from opposite sides of the barbed wire fence. Writing in today's Australian , the Right's Janet Albrechtsen predictably joins the Bush/Howard push ag...

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