Club Troppo

T1 and T2 have both been quick off the mark in blogging about the just-announced Australia/US Free Trade Agreement. T1 is predictably laudatory (" It ain't perfect, but it's an improvement "), and merely copies and pastes the Australian's dot point summary of the main features...

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A report in today's Oz about the treatment meted out to 12 year old intellectually disabled (and autistic) child Neil Simons by his WA school: A PERTH grandmother is waging a fierce battle with the state Education Department after discovering her 12-year-old intellectually dis...

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Gerard Henderson has a rather turgid opinion piece in today's SMH analysing Labor leader Mark Latham's honeymoon period with the media. Most of it is fairly unremarkable stuff, but the following passage struck me as worthy of discussion: Elections in Australia are invariably d...

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Although the left has lost no time in dismissing the Hutton report as a pathetic whitewash, while simultaneously demanding to know why Lord Hutton didn't enquire into questions totally outside his terms of reference (like why US/UK intelligence on Iraqi WMD capabilities was so...

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Here's a Suzy email, almost certainly more locally representative than her tantric poem immediately below: NORTHERN TERRITORY ETIQUETTE General Rules Never take a beer to a job interview. Always identify people in your yard before shooting them. It's tacky to take an esky to c...

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Gummo Trotsky has a delightful recollection of a particularly teacher who we have probably all encountered in some form, in some class, which has sent memories flooding back to the daze of secondary school. One such teacher I can recall was a science teacher who used to swing...

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Wendy James' post What the Left Doesn't See has provoked quite a bit of comment box activity, mostly (it appears) because the quoted author Paul Berman seems to have done a classic job of creating a straw man leftie with patently stupid ideas about the Iraq situation and the B...

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Mona, partner of Meika the Dolebludger , has had her 21 year old Subaru (named Henka) stolen and burned . I'm envious. I've got a 20 year old Mazda 323 hatchback that's fairly generously insured. Despite frequently parking it around town with windows carelessly left open, Darw...

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How bizarre that self-styled Labor movement intellectual Peter Botsman should be advocating rank and file popular election of ALP parliamentary leaders on the very day that Australian Dimocrats leader Andrew Bartlett returned to official duties after (presumably) drying out an...

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They say writing letters to the editor of the local paper is a sure sign of the onset of senility, along with talking to yourself and playing bingo or lawn bowls. However, I just couldn't help myself after today's experience with the Northern Territory's pool fencing regulator...

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It seems that cricketing legend and Victorian coach David Hookes' alleged killer, 21 year old hotel bouncer Zdravco Micevic, has so far only been charged with common assault. Although, like the rest of the public, I don't know the detailed facts, and I'm not a criminal law spe...

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Suzy Kruhse often sends group email jokes and vaguely humorous messages. They're invariably the same ones that public servants spend all day emailing to each other (in between swapping copies of the Paris Hilton sex video) to avoid having to do any actual work. The following i...

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Perhaps I was a little hasty in recording a less than favourable impression of Chile; - after all, our first day was marred by the only example in 2 months of an accomodation provider cheating us, followed by two long bus trips through the centre of Chile, from the sterile des...

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According to the Guardian Football's most senior administrator attracted the wrath of the women's game last night by suggesting female players wear tighter shorts to promote "a more female aesthetic". Sepp Blatter, the president of the world governing body Fifa, said women sho...

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You're Bhutan! With the body of a gnat and the mind of a dragon, you are a bundle of energy. You enjoy mountain-climbing, rock-climbing, stair-climbing, pretty much any kind of climbing you can manage. This has lifted you into the clouds in more than one way, helping you achie...

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The year is hardly underway, but those who like compiling annual "you wouldn't believe it" lists, should note the ambitious, early bid for inclusion that Piers Akerman makes in today's Tele . I quote from midway down his fevered - though strangely familiar - expose on the the...

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I see the blog spammers are busily attacking TA yet again (and other bloggers as well e.g. John Quiggin). I've deleted most (but not quite all) of the spam comments, but unfortunately had to delete a couple of genuine ones as well to shorten the process. I have no idea how to...

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We recently dropped into the Broadway Multiplex - proudly serving the residents of Glebe, Ultimo and Camperdown since 2001 - to catch Master and Commander - The Far Side Of The World . More about the movie later. Right now - perhaps surprisingly - I want to discuss obesity. I...

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I note - via the SMH - that Qantas will no longer permit people to 'congregate' on long haul flights, with particular reference to hanging around outside the loos. The directive was apparently issued late yesterday by the US Transport and Security Administration, which is dema...

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Indeed, do bloggers holiday? Most people - certainly in our part of the real world - seem to feel obliged to at least pay lip service to the notion of "the break" at this time of the year. There's something a bit suspicious - even tragic - about being seen to pass up the commu...

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