Club Troppo

As you'll notice from the entry immediately below, Christopher Sheil has joined the co-blogger team at Troppo Armadillo . As many readers will be aware, Chris has been a frequent and valued comment box contributor to numerous blogs over the last couple of months, and I thought...

Continue reading →

What do you do if you're a university student and you've just finished 2 poorly researched, sloppily written undergraduate essays, neither of which contains even a modicum of critical or analytical thought? Go to the pub and drown your sorrows? Hit the books and start studying...

Continue reading →

Mike Steketee has an article in today's Australian which carries forward the debate about constitutional reform we've been having in the blogosphere since John Howard announced his patently cynical proposal for reforming the Constitution's deadlock/joint sitting provisions as...

Continue reading →

Watching the 7.30 report the other night I was interested to see a segment on Human Growth Hormone. The pharmaceutical benefits advisory committee (PBAC) has restricted subsidy to children, thus causing anyone over 14 that reckons they need the drug to pay full price if they w...

Continue reading →

Alex Petridis is an eloquently acerbic Arts critic for the Guardian. Check out this wicked little critique of the Stones' concert at Olympiahalle in Munich an out-take from which I append as a teaser: When the Rolling Stones play badly, you are left with a pantomime of leather...

Continue reading →

Since I recently published my conclusion that historian Lyndall Ryan apparently didn't have an answer to Keith Winschuttle's accusation of fabrication of Aboriginal massacres statistics in Tasmania, I should also link to Ken Miles' recounting of a recent meeting he attended wh...

Continue reading →

George Williams proposes a reform measure for the Senate that strikes me as vastly preferable to John Howard's cynical proposal. Williams' idea involves fixed 4 year terms for Federal Parliament, along with a somewhat liberalised joint sitting mechanism for twice-rejected bill...

Continue reading →

( *Warning - long blog ahead) Longer term readers of Troppo Armadillo will know that one of my pet hobbyhorses has been the global warming debate. However, I've been a bit remiss of late. Ken Miles (the UnAustralian) has been blogging away for weeks, undertaking an admirably d...

Continue reading →

Bazza Jones was assuring us this morning that ALP leadership was not about beauty, it was about policy. Well, perhaps. But if he comes near you with a Knowledge Nation policy proposal, you'd be well-advised to run like fuck. Given that this wisdom echoes Simon Crean's "this is...

Continue reading →

Professor Bunyip is at his sardonic best this morning.

Continue reading →

Further to the post immediately below on Howard's "gut the Senate" referendum scam, I see both Paddy McGuinness and Alan Wood have come out in predictable lockstep support of the Dark Lord's proposal. Expect the other Wringwraiths to follow suit: Janet Albrechtsen, Miranda Dev...

Continue reading →

"Fresh" from an exhilarating weekend of high pressure renovation, I see John Howard has been floating a trial balloon for constitutional "reform" of the Senate to allow governments to to put twice-rejected Bills before a joint sitting of Parliament without the inconvenience (n...

Continue reading →

I've just completed an agribusiness project for my brother to offer to a couple of his friends who have expressed an interest in raising cattle. One is a lawyer, another an architect, both of whom have been moaning about changes to the tax laws that prohibit them from 'hobby f...

Continue reading →

Darwin has more than its fair share of halfwitted revhead dickheads whose idea of fun is spending all Friday and Saturday nights doing donuts, wheelies and burnouts around otherwise quiet suburban streets. The cops are never in evidence. As I lie awake for hours listening to t...

Continue reading →

Meika the dolebludger on belonging, alienation and "the system": To refuse to blame the system is to assume a certain power, the way a pretender assumes a royal title or titular duchy or two. Curiously you are more likely to gain employment in the system if you lie about this...

Continue reading →

Go to Tim Blair's blog , take the "dodginess" quiz and post your score in Tim's comment box. I was only moderately dodgy, as befits a centrist, at 7 years prison and a 7,500 pound fine. Of course, they were mostly committed when I was young and silly (as opposed to middle-aged...

Continue reading →

This wicked little Daily Telegraph Op Ed, by Tom Uttley , asserts that all Australian men are homosexuals and that Prince William should be appointed our next GG to "cheer up the Sheilas" and to put our nation "on the map." The opportunities for offence to be taken here, are u...

Continue reading →

You might notice that I've deleted the hit counter Scott stuck in my new template. It was irritating me. Nevertheless, we seemed to be running at around 400 hits per day, which is quite respectable in all the circumstances. many thanks to all the bloggers who plugged Troppo Ar...

Continue reading →

Emma Tom is in Darwin. Who else could visit Crocodylus Park and then write a column about croc penises (and croc sex in general)?

Continue reading →

Ross Gittins has a typically excellent review of Clive Hamilton's book Growth Fetish in today's SMH. I blogged on aspects of the book dealing with happiness studies some time ago, as did other bloggers including John Quiggin here and here . Gittins discusses a range of other i...

Continue reading →