I came across excerpts from this piece while browsing Obsidian Wings. I assumed Hilzoy was summarising an exquisite bit of piss-taking but I was wrong; the piece in question is dead serious. Please go and read it if you can find time, it’s seriously funny and proves once again how pointless it is trying to […]

Both his music and his thoughts on the digital age.
I don’t require musicians I like to be rational, sane, compassionate, intelligent, thought provoking and in general good people. But it’s awfully nice when one of them turns out to be so. The superb singer/songwriter Richard Shindell has some thoughts here and more here on […]

Courtesy of Indonesia Matters:
President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s boring speeches put people to sleep.
While giving a speech to provincial leaders on 9th April president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono noticed that a number of attendees had fallen asleep. He complained:
Wake up! Get out if you want to sleep.
He then launched into a mini-lecture about […]

Here are two links to things which might not last. Get ‘em while they’re hot.
One of my favourite bloggers, Thirdcat, is blogging here while the Adelaide Festival’s on. An unexpected bounty of Thirdcatty writing! Go, read!*
Henry Farrell at Crooked Timber writes:

One of the more annoying aspects of academic publishing is that articles are usually behind […]

Well, I guess this is one way to tell someone it’s over (probably not work safe):

Via Evan at Splat.
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Photo from The Age today.
Quotes from Peggy McIntosh’s famous article, White Privilege: Unpacking the invisible knapsack:

18. I can swear, or dress in second hand clothes, or [sit around half-dressed necking fullsized bottles of VB*], without having people attribute these choices to the bad morals, the poverty or the illiteracy of my race.
33. I am not […]

Terrific piece by Don Watson in yesterday’s SMHerald. Sample:
The great objectives of the outstation movement were to protect the cultural traditions and pass on them on to future generations, and to keep the young people away from the chaos of the larger settlements where drugs, violence and despair devour them. Go to one of these […]

The … president impressed me as someone sincerely devout in his religious faith, yet rather superficial in his understanding and inclined to twist his faith tradition in ways to correspond with his pre-conceived ideological positions. He was rather evasive when it came to specific questions and was not terribly coherent, relying more on platitudes than […]

The US wingnuts are having apoplexy over the suggestion that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad visit the World Trade Centre site for the purpose of laying a wreath while he’s in New York. Politicians of all persuasions are falling over themselves to declare such an event would be anything from ‘unacceptable’ (onya Hilary) to ‘outrageous’ (boringly […]

Hat-tip to Crooks and Liars -
This insight into the origins of General Patraeus’s Iraq strategy is funny.
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