By Mark Bahnisch on October 14, 2009
As the detention centre on Christmas Island reaches capacity, and Kevin Rudd dashes to Indonesia, you’d be forgiven for thinking some things never change. Reading over a piece from Amnesty International’s Claire Mallinson in The Punch, it would appear that [...]
Posted in Immigration, Politics | Tagged Amnesty International, asylum seekers, boat people, Christmas Island, detention, Immigration, indonesia, John Howard, Kevin Rudd, Malaysia, mandatory detention, migration, pacific solution, Phillip Ruddock, refugees, Rudd government |
By Mark Bahnisch on October 13, 2009
For the first time ever, the Nobel Prize for Economics has been awarded to a woman, Elinor Ostrom (jointly with Oliver E. Williamson). John Quiggin, writing in Crikey today [where incidentally, he throws a sop to the pedants by pointing [...]
Posted in Economics, Markets | Tagged commons, economic policy, economic theory, Economics, Economics Nobel, Elinor Ostrom, empiricism, John Quiggin, Markets, mixed economy, nobel prize, Oliver Williamson |
By Mark Bahnisch on October 13, 2009
I haven’t had a chance to look at the amendments The Greens are putting forward to the emissions trading scheme bills. But Ben Eltham has, and his verdict has been published at New Matilda: As the climate change debate rumbles [...]
Posted in Climate change | Tagged amendments, Australian Greens, Ben Eltham, Bob Brown, Climate change, climate change policy, cprs, Emissions trading scheme, Kevin Rudd, New Matilda, Penny Wong, Policy, Senate, The Greens |
By Mark Bahnisch on October 13, 2009
Well, we haven’t condemned for ages, so it must be long past time again to condemn. Here’s a 40th open condemnation thread. What’s getting up your goat? Which evil political, cultural, social, musical, religious, and other phenomena need condemnation? (Or [...]
Posted in Film, TV, Video etc, Levity, Music | Tagged Bauhaus, Bela Lugosi's Dead, condemn, Condemn it!, Music, soundtrack, The Hunger, Video, youtube |
By Guest Poster on October 13, 2009
The latest installment in an occasional series on speculative fiction by guest poster patrickg: Distant Suns: Nuncupatory questions. Any other writer with Jack Vance’s bibliography (well over fifty novels), and his years of activity, would be a legend in the [...]
Posted in Books, Writers & Writing | Tagged Book review, fantasy, Jack Vance, Lyonesse, science fiction, sf, speculative fiction |
By dk.au on October 12, 2009
Update: Andrew Hunter from NineMSN has responded below, stating that the image was not sourced from my site and removed it from the original article in response to my assertion of copyright. I think it’s great that your organisation has [...]
Posted in Levity, Media, Photography |
By Mark Bahnisch on October 12, 2009
SocProf links to a really fascinating piece on Obama’s Nobel Prize [previous LP discussion here] by Don Waisanen at ThickCulture, riffing on Weber’s characterisation of modernity as disenchantment of the world. It would appear that the Nobel committee at least [...]
Posted in Culture, Imperialism, International, Politics, Sociology, USA, War | Tagged barack obama, Bush administration, disenchantment, George W. Bush, Max Weber, modernity, Nobel Peace Prize, Politics, postmodernism, postmodernity, reenchantment, rhetoric, Sociology |
By Mark Bahnisch on October 12, 2009
The Australian Democrats lost their last sitting MP last week, when South Australian Upper House MP David Winderlich resigned from the party. Andrew Bartlett wrote about this milestone at Crikey’s The Stump, and on his own blog. Now it appears [...]
Posted in Politics, Sociology | Tagged AEC, andrew bartlett, Australian Democrats, David Winderlich, deregistration, electoral commission, One Nation, Pauline Hanson, political culture, political parties, political sociology, Queensland, Sociology, South Australia |
By Robert Merkel on October 12, 2009
Joe Romm at Climate Progress features a guest post on the economics of a 350 ppm CO2e greenhouse gas stablization target. The actual study is here. The bottom line? At least four research groups have modeled global scenarios that lead [...]
Posted in Climate change, Economics, Environment |
By Robert Merkel on October 11, 2009
Well, chalk one up for spin. If you believe the headlines, the “stay or go” policy is being scrapped for days of “catastrophic” fire danger, the highest level in a revised fire danger scale. On those days, and it is [...]
Posted in Disasters, Melbourne, Victoria |
For whom the poll tolls
By Mark Bahnisch on October 12, 2009
There are three Liberal leadership polls out this morning with inconsistent results – Nielsen and Morgan showing Joe Hockey as preferred leader, with Newspoll showing Malcolm Turnbull in the lead. Inconsistent polling also produces inconsistent commentary in The Australian (“Turnbull [...]
Posted in Media, Polls | Tagged commentariat, fairfax, Joe Hockey, liberal leadership, Malcolm Turnbull, Morgan, Newspoll, Nielsen, Polls, The Australian | 22 Responses