The West Antarctic ice sheet really can collapse and regrow
The Australian has carried its war on science another step, step 35 according to Deltoid. This time they have published an article Revealed: Antarctic ice growing, not shrinking by Greg Roberts, plus another Change is a cold certainty. If you’ve [...]
2020 response open thread
Well, here it is – the government’s response to the 2020 summit, all 262 pages of it. Judging from my quick perusal of the sustainability section, prepare to be underwhelmed. For instance, the fairly uncontroversial proposals on public transport on [...]
So what is this thing called 'neo-liberalism'?
One of the rhetorical strategies employed by people wanting to take potshots at those who sought to blame neo-liberalism for some of the structural and attitudinal causes of the Global Financial Crisis has been to either deny that there is [...]
"the conclusions are only as good as the original assumptions"
So concludes Andrew Norton’s latest post, critiquing a study commissioned by Universities Australia from KPMG on the economics of investment in higher education funding. Norton’s post includes the following passage: This implicit assumption that students are homogenous pervades the report, [...]
Remember GroceryChoice?
If you remember GroceryChoice, it was, to be honest, not a huge success. The idea was simple – provide information about supermarket prices, and people will able to shop at the cheapest supermarket in their area. However, the usefulness of [...]
Liliputian laptops
Wandering around a university campus these days, you see more and more of the teeny-tiny laptop computers known as “netbooks”. For somewhere around 5 or 6 hundred dollars, you get a computer with specs approximately equivalent to notebook computer from [...]
What should get canned in the Budget?
Joni at Blogocrats has an anecdote about the ridiculous FBT exemption for company cars which actually encourages driving. It’s been discussed quite a lot in the media and the blogosphere – for instance, Peter Martin reproduced a Deloitte press release [...]
Projection; secrets and lies
The common thread running through the political attacks the Liberals have been making lately on the Rudd government is projection. Just because the Howard government covered up what happened on a boat full of asylum seekers, the Rudd government must [...]
Accent, affectation and authenticity
How much does accent matter to Aussie voters? I’m not talking about ‘foreign sounding’ accents, but rather the handful of class denoters that exist in Strine. If you listen to the PMs of the last few decades, Whitlam, Fraser and [...]
Troubled waters; Turnbull's dissatisfaction hits 46%
Is his leadership terminal? It seems the combination of raving about a cover up with regard to the tragedy of the asylum seekers (in a bizarre echo of the Howard ‘children overboard’ lies – perhaps the assumption is that governments [...]
Return to Agincourt
How would you react if I told you in all seriousness that Peter Costello will win the 2013 election because of the sudden popularity of a contestant on a British TV talent quest? I hope you’d slap me in the [...]
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