OK I’m probably leading with my chin here but let me say that I find the horrifying stories of car bombs planted in the streets of London, ready to shred hundreds of innocent West End theatre-goers … unconvincing. Which suggests that I’m becoming a conspiracy theorist, much to my horror. I blame that Robert Redford […]

Get down to K-Mart today folks and stock up on cheap consumer goods, because their days are numbered. The People’s Republic of China has finally shown its true leftist colours and allowed the union bosses to take control. Mindless of the fact that Chinese employers have to compete against low-cost labour in places like Burma […]

The government’s indigenous … thing … becomes more farcical by the day.
All week we’ve had a media circus traipsing around the Northern Territory with some public servants and soldiers, holding meetings with indigenous community officials. Or something like that, the information about what they’ve been doing hasn’t been very precise. There seems to have been […]

Listening to: Chris Isaak. Don’t think he ever got near the quality of his first album again, and don’t think many songs (of the genre) come close to ‘Wicked Game’. This version is from a performance at the Opera House in 2004. It’s maybe a little fast:
You need to a flashplayer enabled […]

The EU has banned all Indonesian airlines from flying into Europe on safety grounds.
This raises two questions. The first and obvious one is whether Indonesian airlines like Garuda should still be allowed to fly into Australia. Are the EU’s safety standards unreasonably high or are there other considerations justifying a different decision here? Can we […]

Andrew McGregor has another informative piece, with updates on the ongoing conflict in Somalia. The entire article is well worth the read, and concise enough to invite consumption. Here are some excerpts that track with the themes that I have been focusing on with respect to my ongoing discussion.
First, the familiar use of […]

Reporting of events in Iraq has taken on an air of tired repetition, devoid of meaning and signifying nothing. It’s the international news equivalent of the local road toll. Stories are completely predictable and stereotyped; one imagines journos hitting macros on their keyboards to put together yet another combination of well-worn phrases. People blown apart, […]

The prime minister is doing his best father-of-the-nation act, reassuring indigenous Australians that all those police officers and troops are only coming to help them. I’m sure they find that very comforting. After all, why should they be worried? It’s only a national emergency for which we are prepared to recall parliament and for which […]

NSW has a new police commissioner. The retiring commissioner said at a press conference that his replacement would do a good job because he’s a ’strong Christian’.
Since when were a person’s religious beliefs considered relevant to their suitability for appointment to a public service position? Does this mean that atheists, Jews, Muslims etc need not […]

Brendan Nyhan takes note of Joshua Muravchik’s specious argument that opposition to the Iraq War is making war with Iran more likely, and then adds this at the end:

PS The sad thing is that the "next war" may be different than Iraq (ie actually necessary), but every indication is that it will play out […]