Domestic aviation and a carbon price
Carbon pricing and rising fuel costs might make domestic air travel more expensive, but by how much?
Weekly Whimsy
This week’s whimsy is brought to you by this Job Review for Mary Poppins. Please share any bits and pieces you have come across recently that have surprised, delighted, intrigued or otherwise positively engaged you.
London burning II: The sociology of civil disorder
It’s time for another thread on the English riots, since the last one is now rather long.
To update on some of the analysis, the prediction that a number of the usual suspects would turn the events into a partisan football has unsurprisingly been borne out. So let’s ignore that, and have a look at what we know about what’s happened and what it means.
More distortions on the BER
The front-page article in The Australian on Saturday, July 9 under the headline “BER waste blows out to $1.1bn” is an example of the crap mentioned by Prime Minister Julia Gillard at the National Press Club on Thursday, July 14.
Assumptions underlying the CEF package
In case the acronym hasn’t stuck yet, CEF means Clean Energy Future. If I’d said “carbon tax”, no problems. In my 2009 submission to the Senate Select Committee on Climate Policy I ripped into the Rudd Government for commissioning Ross [...]
London burning: Why here, why now? The sociology of civil disorder
Underlying all this is deep inequality, which creates the subcultures where setting the town alight can be perceived as a rational action. Addressing those causes would require a different form of society altogether, and a politics which would take us there.
Border fantasies out of control
Peter Lewis, of Essential Media Communications, has a good take on the latest Essential poll, which found that the number of respondents concerned about asylum seeker arrivals on boats dropped significantly when informed that total numbers of arrivals were actually [...]
The limits of market rationality
On one hand, this whole global financial crisis (is that what we’re having again?) thing is horrendously complex. On the other, it’s quite simple. Let’s focus on the simple. The meltdown that followed the end of the credit and housing [...]
Towards realistic utopias I
I intend to write on Erik Olin Wright’s important book Envisioning Real Utopias, but I thought it might be useful to make it a five part series, rather than the world’s longest blog post. I’d also like to have a [...]
Nancy Wake, RIP
New Zealand born, Australian raised Nancy Wake, awarded just about every decoration under the sun for her work with the French resistance in the Second World War, has died of a chest infection. Her wartime exploits were widely recounted, for [...]
Spotlight the Spin
Is it a puff piece or deserved recognition? Is it dirty tricks or uncovering dirty dealings? Is it a smear campaign or exposing corruption? Is it a cynical ramping up of FUD or is it a rational analysis of a disturbing trend? How do we tell the difference? Ooh look! A Big Distracting Thing!
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