Club Troppo

I see that both Scott Wickstein and Bernard Slattery have already blogged on yesterday's Cattanach v Melchior decision, where the High Court dismissed an appeal from a Queensland judgment where substantial damages had been awarded to a couple (the Melchiors) who ended up with...

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You'll see from a glance at the sidebar that I've implemented a "Most recently commented posts" category, using code kindly supplied by John Quiggin . Like John, I'm hoping that this innovation will tend to promote more considered, reflective comment box debate over an extende...

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24601 has a useful post over at Australian Libertarians blog. It links pretty well all the recent blog posts about the nature of libertarianism and the merits and otherwise of its various sub-cults. The principal features of the sub-cults themselves are also succinctly summari...

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I see rightie Australian newspaper columnist Janet Albrechtsen reckons politicians are tricky and greedy for continuing to award themselves what she sees as over-generous (and unfunded) superannuation benefits. Leftie blogger Stewart Kelly agrees. We have a rare cross-ideologi...

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It's estimated that as much as half of the world's wealth is tied up in real estate. The value of the world's real estate far exceeds the market capitalisation of all the world's stock markets, futures markets and bond markets. Vast fortunes have been made and lost in real est...

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Peripatetic blog commenter Norman Hanscombe fires the latest shot in the "culture wars" , with a guest article on Tim Dunlop's blog detailing inaccuracies in Lyndall Ryan's work uncovered by Keith Windschuttle. Having digested Windschuttle's book in a rather hasty scanning ses...

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Suzy Kruhse cultivates female friends even more eccentric than herself. I suspect she finds the comparison reassuring. Billie-Jean is a prime example. Middle-aged grand-daughter of a well-known pioneering pastoral family, Billie-Jean has a torrid relationship with her long-tim...

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I don't know about you, but I've just about had a gutful of these whinging lefties rabbiting on about whether the PM knew about doubts over the reliability of intelligence about Saddam seeking uranium in Africa, and why assorted spy outfits failed to tell him despite the fact...

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Miranda Devine doesn't pretend to be much more than she is: a once-over-lightly agent provocateur for the Fairfax stable. One of her few redeeming qualities, in fact, is her tongue-in-cheek self-awareness of the brief. She rarely strays down the path of ponderous self-importan...

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The Guardian publishes it's annual Media 100 List . The top movers and shakers across UK publishing, advertising, TV and Radio are ranked 1-100 with ex-Australian and Left-wing dartboard pin-up, Rupert Murdoch, coming in at number 2. Less predictably, 'A blogger' sneaks in to...

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The just-released independent evaluation report on the 18 month safe injecting room trial in Sydney, is positive on the benefits the facility offers in terms of ongoing harm reduction benefit accrual. John Della Bosca, the Minister for Miscellaneous Political Fixes, indicated...

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Tim Blair blogs an item about Australian gun laws and crime rates: Despite Australia having "the most up-to-date" gun laws, gun crimes still happen somehow: From 1999 to 2002 the number of robberies involving firearms in Sydney's most populated areas rose by 34 per cent, whil...

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Jennifer Lopez has breakfast in the nude according to the funky side of the Sydney Morning Herald website. In the third most accessed SMH article since midnight AEST, the extraordinary talent who the New York Daily News has ungallantly dubbed "the broad-beamed Bronx bombshell"...

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You'd have to be very unobservant not to have noticed that there are an awful lot of bloggers with an avowedly (and sometimes aggressively) libertarian political philosophy. There's even an Australian Libertarians group blog, and a British equivalent called Samizdata (whose ti...

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As readers may have noticed, I haven't been posting much over the last week or so. I apologise belatedly for the hiatus. I've been flat out marking exams and essays, and cranking up the systems for NTU/CDU's external law degree program. It's being delivered solely via the Inte...

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I thought Crean did a useful job with the Shadow Cabinet reshuffle. Gilllard and Roxon are definite assets and - pragmatically - the across-his-brief Kevin Rudd is still in place, despite less then total support for Simon. Craig Emerson, well.. let's wait and see and Mark Lath...

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We all know that talking on a mobile phone while driving (except with a hands-free setup) is an offence. However, having sex while driving apparently isn't , at least in Germany. Can anyone offer an opinion on which kama sutra position would be most consistent with road safety?

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My thanks to my co-blogger on Armadillo des Tropiques, Christopher Sheil, for inspiring the brilliant header. If there's a God, the evidence for Her existence is unconvincing. Nevertheless, if you have to have one, the traditional Anglican version has always had appeal. Sort o...

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From the Weekly Standard : PJ O'Rourke trashes the Rodham-Clinton memoir in the funniest book review I've read this year. He's way good! I'd offer some excerpts but I'm crying too much to do it. Go there - and enjoy.

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I was searching a reference and somehow got here.

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