World Idol last night (be prepared to wait if you click on their link, it’s one of the worst professionally designed sites you’re likely to ever use). It’s not as good as the regional competitions. It is a one-off Eisteddfod style competition…

One Christmas I remember being given a game of “Pick up sticks” where the aim was to gradually extract tiny straws from a tangle without moving any of the others. It is an entirely opportunistic exercise where you take relationships between sticks as they come. I’m finding writing about Christmas like that. One definition of […]

Whenever Christmas rolls around and there is the usual debate about how commercial it all is these days, it just brings into stark relief how much we need to have a sense of moral direction in our lives. Our new religion, it would seem, is faith in a volatile mix of technology and markets. Not […]

That’s the time it takes to get a response from the National Party’s dobber site www.GovernmentWaste.com.au based on an entirely unrepresentative sample of one. Given that the two days were the weekend, I think that’s more than satisfactory. [In fact, since originally posting I found a message on my work message bank from Andrew Bibb […]

If only because of the way Saddam Hussein has been compared to Hitler, the process of ending his rule reminds us of the Nuremberg trials held after WWII. Running from 1945 to 1949, ten Nazi leaders were eventually executed, and Goering killed himself before sentence was carried out. Others were imprisoned for various periods. No […]

Brutal dictators like Saddam Hussein often have a history of being physically abused as children. In such cases, the personal tragedy is translated into a social one. So the costs of ignoring this connection can be enormous. We are regularly horrified by the crimes that people (all too often, let’s be frank, men) commit. The […]

SBS recently showed another interesting documentary on US intelligence failures before September 11, 2001. I know they have their problems at the moment, but SBS continues to make the ABC look staid and timid, especially because they regularly air docos not sourced in either the US or Britain. But back to September 11. One of […]

National Party leader Lawrence Springborg has taken an early lead in the Queensland election cyber race with a “dobber” site. While the major parties have their own slick campaigning sites, Springborg’s is the first, to my knowledge, to venture where the ’net demands you go: the frightening (to political minders especially) world of interactivity. Springborg’s […]

The UN and Britain have both come out against the death penalty for Saddam, and so should have Australia. I suspect Saddam’s fate may become one of those defining moments of civilisation, like the Nuhremburg trials after WWII. Terrible things have happened, and there is a chance to reflect and act with a mind to […]

John Howard has copped some flack over his hardline stand over Zimbabwe and the Commonwealth, including claims emanating from parts African of racism. Considering that two of Howard’s most controversial stances involve race (Aboriginals and refugees), is he open to such accusations? Racism is an easy thing to assert, and we see it being used […]