Club Troppo

Cross posted from the Mandarin It is six years since Australia’s Artist Resale Royalty scheme (ARR) commenced and three years since submissions to its Post Implementation Review (PIR) closed, though the review itself has never been published. However, in the absence of a healt...

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After a very gruelling 11 rounds of classical chess which produced nine draws and one win for either side, Magnus Carlsen surprised most people by not trying very hard for a win in his final 'classical' game with challenger Sergey Karjakin. He was biding his time for the playo...

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The intimidatingly well informed Brad Delong used the following quote from Rosa Luxemburg to bid "good riddance" to Fidel Castro. I don't know enough to agree or disagree, but as I read Luxemburg's words, I wasn't thinking of communism. I was thinking of managerialism. I'm not...

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Minister Dutton says that 2/3 of people recently charged with terrorism in Australia have Lebanese Muslim backgrounds. However, the first rule when considering dramatic statistics should be to think “compared to what”. In this case, where else might we expect Islamic extremist...

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Ruthi, a young girl in internment: by Melinda Mockridge and Ruth Simon Ruth Simon, née Gottlieb, can still remember what it was like to live in an internment camp, behind barbed wire at Tatura during the Second World War. Ruth, now in her late 70s was transported aboard the Qu...

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Last Friday I attended a speech by the new ABC CEO Michelle Guthrie put on by the New News conference which is always good value and a tribute to the forward-looking energy of Margaret Simons - Melbourne Uni professor of Journalism and frequently practising journalism. Simons...

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Setting appointments I'll be attending in London next week on Google Calendar has reminded me of a problem that online calendars haven't sorted out - at least to my satisfaction (or perhaps knowledge); how to handle appointments when there are differences between time zones. I...

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I've just posted the first version of the introduction to this post on the first dispatch from the epistemic swamp, but I thought I'd open up the discussion again on a new thread. The tweet above surely highlights different ideas of truth and authenticity. Of course, Trump is...

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Festival Website | Films | Schedule Top Picks Denial (Opening Night) In the 1990s, an impassioned and articulate American Professor Deborah Lipstadt publishes a book titled 'Denying The Holocaust: The Growing Assault on Truth and Memory'. Soon after, a prominent 'denier' refer...

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Festival Website | Films | Schedule Top Picks Life and a Day (Opening Night) Somayeh is at a loss. Her only desire is to leave her family and take her destiny in hand, yet the love of her sick mother holds her back. Her elder brother, introduces her to an Afghan who wants to m...

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I gave a talk at the Lowy Institute last Wednesday to which I initially gave a long-winded title "Intellectual Property- Economics, Diplomacy and Australia’s strategic interests" but managed to get more cut-through under the pressure of Twitters 140 character limit "DFAT goes...

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[caption id="attachment_29556" align="alignright" width="300"] Yingiya Mark Guyula and other newly elected Independent NT MLAs[/caption] In contrast to the almost continual chaos and dysfunction that marked the former unlamented Giles CLP government, the period of almost 2 mon...

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Paul Krugman has popularised the notion of the Very Serious People. Very Serious People spend a lot of their time talking about strategy. After all, strategy is the most important, most serious thing you can talk about. After all, when you've got strategy worked out, the rest...

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TC9DhD0lxCo I expect I'm not the only one to be rather dazzled by Kellyanne Conway's ability to defend the indefensible Donald Trump with sweet reason itself. Here she is more coherent, more compelling, more forensic than pretty much anyone on m...

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B_tZ73VbqCQ&feature=youtu.be Just listen to the list of this guy's activities. Donate here should you wish.

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Festival Website | Films | Schedule Top Picks Chevalier Six average guys are on a private yacht in the Aegean Sea for who-really-knows-what reason. When a mechanical hiccup leaves them marooned at sea, they choose to wile away the time playing a game of one-upmanship called ‘C...

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Black to play N Batsiashvili vs N Zhukova 22. ...? See game for solution. This may be a two star puzzle, but I couldn't get it out. Can you? Click through to the game for the answer.

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Valuing Alternative Work Arrangements by Alexandre Mas, Amanda Pallais - #22708 (LS) Abstract: We use a field experiment to study how workers value alternative work arrangements. During the application process to staff a national call center, we randomly offered applicants cho...

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This essay is the third of three starting with my essay on the Evaluator General in two parts followed by an essay responding to the Productivity Commission's inquiry into competition in human services. Part One A couple of days ago I came upon care ethics via Virginia Held's...

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Part One Note: this post has been superseded by the full essay . A couple of days ago I came upon care ethics via Virginia Held's book The Ethics of Care (2006) with some excitement. The ethics of care grew out of feminism, but I think the issues it raises transcend feminism a...

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