The Greens are communists! They want no ATM fees!
I probably shouldn’t pick on Peter Van Onselen, because I don’t think that he’s yet jumped on the Greens=Communist bandwagon kickstarted by that redoubtable Drum contributor The Honourable Kevin Andrews MP (unlike Greg Sheridan today). But he does have a [...]
Climate change and the Murray Darling Basin
With record rainfall in large parts of Australia in recent months there has been a bit of a tendency to think that normal service has been returned. But record rainfall is by definition exceptional. This is how the last three [...]
Radical Utility, Anti-Expertise and ‘Collaborative Consumption’
This is a (rather too lengthy) review essay of What’s Mine is Yours by Rachel Botsman and Roo Rogers. After seeing Botsman speak at TEDxSydney, I requested a review copy from the publisher.
I won’t add my condemn to your condemn XLIX
ZOMG! We haven’t condemned since the federal election, so it must be long past time to condemn again. Here’s a 49th open condemnation thread. What’s been worthy of condemnation this month parliamentary term so far? Which evil political, cultural, social, [...]
“Big Society” to take choice to its ludicrous extreme
Tony Blair’s big idea about public services was to “empower” the user, rebadged of course as a customer rather than as a citizen. Perhaps fortunately, the combination of Gordon Brown as an immovable object at the Treasury and the Labour [...]
Quick link: Live by the market, die by the market
Ireland is in dire financial straits. For those wanting the ins and outs, Yves Smith’s Naked Capitalism is a good starting point. At The Guardian, Deidre Duffy fingers the slash and burn deficit reduction strategy as a key contributor to [...]
Windleton: royal marriage mockery open thread
So Wills and Kate have decided to provide the British government with a welcome distraction and announced their engagement. Quentin Bryce, through must have been a particularly fixed smile, announced that this has warmed our nation’s heart. In honour of [...]
Quick link: Coalition’s empty powerline pledge
In the immediate aftermath of the release of the Victorian bushfire Royal Commission’s report, the Coalition laid into Victorian Labor for not immediately committing to implement every recommendation – for instance, a recommendation to spend billions of dollars on electricity [...]
Timbertop for all
Prince Charles apparently loved Timbertop, the bush boarding house to which Geelong Grammar sends its Year 9 students. John Brumby (and Ted Baillieu’s) old school, Melbourne Grammar, sends its Year 9s “crewing a square-rigged sailing ship off from Adelaide to [...]
Wednesday Whimsy
This week’s whimsy is brought to you by one of the hundreds of sculptures on display at this year’s Sculpture by the Sea on the cliff walk between Bondi and Tamarama (ended last weekend).
Naomi Oreskes Merchants of Doubt tour
Naomi Oreskes is touring her book Merchants of Doubt. She’s a rare breed of science communicator who is both trained in natural science and Science and Technology Studies/Sociology of Science. This means she can wipe the floor with any climate change [...]
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