Club Troppo

The sight of the raw institutional dysfunction in the US government at the moment provides a useful reminder to Australians that we should both treasure and encourage the respect that Australians have for our federal government institutions. By "government institutions", I'm p...

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I was looking for evidence recently that tradies in Australia have become amongst the highest paid groups, which would means a profound change in relative rewards in that it would mean that smart young men could then rationally choose not to bother with university but simply b...

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Well this joke probably doesn't really qualify as one such joke about which I've spoken in the past , but anyway I came upon it today and it made me laugh much more than when I first ran into it - though who knows why. Last American Who Knew What The Fuck He Was Doing Dies Ste...

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From the ever-wonderful XKCD , seeming to comment on current US governance: [caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="381"] XKCD: world's sharpest comic?[/caption]

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Dear Nokia, I hear you have fallen on hard times. I have two product suggestions: 1. Make a mobile that is purely a telephone 2. Make a phone in the shape of a pen The two could well be combined. 1. Pure phone There are countless millions of older people who would appreciate a...

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I love accents. I love pretty much everything about them. I love the way in which they actually convey things - sincerity, guile, sneering, superiority and their opposites and complements - all surreptitiously; all in a way that is at the same time so compelling to our intuiti...

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I don't often agree with Greg Sheridan, and I certainly don't agree with the whole of his article on asylum seeker policy in today's Weekend Australian . But he certainly says a lot that is worth thinking about and makes numerous points similar to things that I've been saying...

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Is there a health-status race in Australia whereby people get joy from being healthier and fitter than others? And what are the general implications for public policy if there is? My PhD student Redzo Mujcic and myself brought out a new working paper recently on how a health s...

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Seems Tony Abbott finally headed off to Indonesia today to have some talks. Not about the boats – he wants the focus to be on building a constructive relationship and of course building trade opportunities. Well good luck with that one mate. For the past three years you’ve spe...

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http://vimeo.com/75482401 Here's a presentation I gave to a conference called - unhelpfully - Art for Art's Sake. It was actually about new approaches to participation in the arts, about finding ways of connecting people to the arts - and the arts to people - which go beyond t...

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Annabel Crabb wants us to get real about women in politics. The current carry-on is "all very interesting and thought-provoking and no doubt useful to a certain degree" but there's an elephant in the room: [F]or chicks, you can choose politics or you can choose having children...

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Kevin Rudd got elected in 2007 by convincing people that he was a slightly younger and more vigorous version of nerdy John Howard, with similar conservative policies except that he would abolish that nasty Work Choices legislation and introduce some fairly meaningless warm and...

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Suppose you wanted to believe, as I do, that intelligence and vague ‘racial groups’ are, on the whole, unrelated from a long-run perspective. What would you then have to believe about genetics and IQ, as well as the long-run effects of socio-economic circumstances on IQ to rat...

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According to Mike Seccombe, at the Global Mail , under the Abbott government, Australia will be open not just for business, but open to costly multi-national law-suits: On the eve of the election, the Coalition released its trade policy , which includes a commitment to “remain...

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AKA "Intellectual vanity and policy poseurs" AKA "Contorting sophistry in favour of contractionary monetary policy" AKA "The global Serious id hrumphs again". Part 3 of a series ( 1 , 2 ). Via Matt Cowgill I see weak corporate governance beneficiary [1] Richard Goyder humphs a...

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It was around six thirty on a cold wet Melbourne Day. A long day for me, including a mid-morning appointment with a new psychologist. First appointments are all about background – what your condition is, personal and family history and all that other stuff that they need to kn...

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I learnt something interesting today, while I was writing up notes on legal history: Australia didn't formally achieve complete judicial and legislative independence from Old Blighty until 5.00am, Greenwich Mean Time on March 31 st 3 rd 1986. That's the precise time that the A...

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High profile climate un-changer Professor Andrew Bolt of the Herald Sun School of Thought Homogeneity, is well known for his contention that the temperature rise of the planet has stopped. He’s been saying it for years. Today, Professor Bolt wrote that a leaked IPCC report con...

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by David N. Figlio, Morton O. Schapiro, Kevin B. Soter - #19406 (CH ED LS) Abstract: This study makes use of detailed student-level data from eight cohorts of first-year students at Northwestern University to investigate the relative effects of tenure track/tenured versus non-...

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The excitement is palpable, the atmosphere is electric, the game is in motion as media attention quickly turns away from the dull low-wattage reality of the Coalition win, to the contest that really matters – The leadership of Labor in opposition. Bill “Spud” Shorten has alrea...

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