Club Troppo

Remarkable article about how our social experience and the way we come to frame our lives influences gene-expression. I would’ve bet my eyeteeth that we’d get a lot of noisy results that are inconsistent from one realm to another. And at the level of individual genes that’s ki...

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ihi0MnK0Q4 The Liberal Democrats look set to take a Senate seat in NSW after the party scored the best spot on the ballot paper . A libertarian party, the LDP's website describes it as a "a serious, progressive, small-government alternative." Th...

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QaqpoeVgr8U One of the numerous downsides of the rise of feminism is the demise of righteous masculine anger. For the record I'm strongly supportive of the great achievements of first and second wave feminism. But just as with other great changes...

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According to the ABC's Senate Election calculator , these are the seven 'others' who will be joining the Greens and Senator John Madigan of the DLP on the Senate cross-benches in the new parliament . Party Candidate & State 1st Preferences (%) Quotas i Counts ii Australian Mot...

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=03l8VcSvyBU A nice visual illustration of the idea of institutions as public goods. Note the word 'institution' is here used to mean more than formal organisations. The Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy provides this...

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I am taking this opportunity to launch me own website : johnrwalker.com.au. Hope you enjoy. I would like to thank Andrew Hunter of KeyChange Solutions for his patience and terrific design input.

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NluKzkEuo3A As part of its Gruen Nation show, an ad was produced which Clive Palmer wanted to use in his campaign. Well it was public money that produced it, so why shouldn't he be able to use it? Now in fact there may be complications. Gruen Nat...

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In previous elections, I either gave a list of mistakes I wanted the next government to avoid , or policies they could follow . Some of the mistakes I flagged in 2007 were indeed made, and about half of a preferred policy was implemented, no doubt entirely unrelated to my advi...

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MEMORANDUM FOR: General Martin Dempsey, Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff FROM: Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity [1] SUBJECT: Syria and Our Oath to Defend the Constitution Dear Gen. Dempsey: Summary: We refer to your acknowledgment, in your letter of July 19 to Sen....

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Simply bombing Damascus or Aleppo to assuage the conscience of the West that they 'did something' seems like the worst form of symbolic politics. It's not the only sensible thing Matthew Fitzpatrick had to say in an article at The Drum today. He also argued the appropriate for...

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I recall about twenty years ago now, I was taking a law tute in Legal Theory. The lecturer was pretty awful and spent huge amounts of time in his lectures explaining why his side of a particular debate - with H.L.A Hart the opponent as I recall - was the right side of the deba...

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With the coalition now promising a paid maternity leave scheme that once was championed by the Greens and the Democrats, it seems opportune to recycle a post on this topic here at troppo of 2007 called ' Should we have paid maternity leave '? All the arguments made for or agai...

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“This is not an equity argument” said Tony Abbott on this morning’s Chat n’ Chew with Fran . “Its’ a watershed social reform, it’s an idea whose time has come?” This was in answer to the first ever half-serious line of questioning on his justification the Coalition’s controver...

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Investigative journalism and the secret state are natural enemies. Even with an enlightened government and relatively untroubled times, their relationship will be uneasy at best. Today, they're in a state of undeclared war. Surveillance states and most of their fellow travelle...

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Malware is slowing down my Mac :( For a month or so I had a small Bing sponsored magnifying glass appear over all graphics. Then it went. But now, whenever I'm on a news-site I get a 'Discovery Bar' appearing at the bottom of my screen. It only appears in Chrome which I use as...

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Just as the Coalition surges ahead to the lead in this election and Mr. Rudd's increasing signs of rude ill-health are threatening to burst out from his rapidly expanding jowls, fitness freakoid and PM apparent Tony Abbott, who has been restraining his normally excessive over-...

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This TED talk from 2008 was recommended to me by my piano teacher. If you haven't already seen it it's well worth taking a look. If you have seen it, a second look wouldn't be wasted. [ted id=286] After watching it I realised I had a considerable challenge in front of me - to...

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Krugman periodically goes into bat for maths in economics and invariably trivialises the concerns of critics. He says that maths helps focus arguments and weed out error. Too right it does. And so do words. So shouldn't we be using each to their best effect and not give oursel...

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To an even greater extent than previous election campaigns, this one seems to consist almost entirely of lies and grossly misleading mischaracterisations of opponents' policies and performance. Kevin Rudd's claim of a $70 billion Coalition black hole, his claim that Abbott has...

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The tragic situation in Egypt is so complex and unpredictable that one can find many opinions on what various groups and people in Egypt should do, but precious few predictions by ‘experts’ on what is actually going to happen. You can rest assured that whatever does actually h...

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