Saturday Salon
An open thread, where at your weekend leisure, you can discuss anything you like.
Two alternative hypotheses
Hypothesis 1 (from DFAT): Conditions in Afghanistan and Sri Lanka have improved so much nobody arriving from those countries could possibly have a legitimate claim to asylum. Hypothesis 2 (from Bernard Keane at Crikey): The Government was justifiably proud of [...]
The Prague Treaty
It may be the most substantial arms control treaty in two decades, but the Prague Treaty‘s cuts to the USA and Russia’s strategic nuclear weapons aren’t exactly earth-shattering. At Arms Control Wonk, Jeffrey Lewis notes describes the cuts as modest [...]
Population policy and political border control
As an addendum to Robert’s post on the Rudd government’s announcement of the appointment of Tony Burke as Population Minister, and the call for a national debate on population policy, I wanted to pick up on another aspect of Bernard [...]
Breaking the privatisation addiction: Search Foundation Forum
I’m speaking at a forum organised by the Search Foundation on Saturday: Breaking the Addiction: challenging Bligh’s privatisation push. There’s a great line up of speakers, including Professor John Quiggin, Peter Simpson of the Queensland ETU and Dr Patricia Ranald [...]
The significance of Malcolm Turnbull
There are at least two possible frames for understanding the significance of Malcolm Turnbull’s departure from politics. The first is the quotidian political view. His going, and the manner thereof, does or does not help Tony Abbott. In the land [...]
Black Saturday: What are state governments good for?
The latest controversy to emerge from the inquiry into the Victorian bushfires revolves around Christine Nixon going off for dinner in the middle of the conflagration. The usual partisan football stuff, you might think. Guy Rundle disagrees. In a powerful [...]
British election campaign underway
Deus Ex Macintosh and Skepticlawyer welcome the beginning of the UK election campaign, with a useful primer on some of the likely issues: As for the issues, these are many and varied. Britain’s participation in two unpopular wars is front [...]
U.S. military cover-ups exposed – civilians and journalists killed
Leaked video shows gunship killing journalists. The attack took place in Eastern Baghdad in 2007, the US military has always claimed that the civilians were insurgents. Some military whistleblowers leaked video and audio to Wikileaks.
Want a population policy? Give Barry a call
So, we’re going to have a population minister: Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has announced that Tony Burke will take on the new role of minister for population. Mr Rudd says over the next 12 months the Government will be developing [...]
Too hard for ordinary people to do? #nocleanfeed
While some of the 47 people attending the Chatswood workshop – which is not illegal but is expected to become so when the legislation comes into force – are still taking elementary computer lessons, others learnt in only a few minutes how to access any website through a proxy server to bypass the filter’s firewall.
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