Opinion on politics and social policy
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One of my hobbies is photographing ladies’ loos from around he world. I’ve got some doosies from India, both beautiful and horrible.
Another of my globalised frivolities is the observation of ‘good hats’, mostly associated with religious masters. Notably, there are few really great hats for female religious leaders. If […] Continue Reading…
Lunatics with guns is not the kind of democracy the founding fathers of the US had in mind. The number of militias has increased in recent years, and probably the number of serious death threats to elected officials as well.
One man convicted of murdering an abortion doctor was unrepentant […] Continue Reading…
Piers Akerman has been testing his vast capacity for self-parody. His piece in Monday’s Telegraph on asylum seekers reads as if written on a bet or a dare. The frenzy whipped up over asylum seekers after the Tampa’s arrival was a tragedy for this country. Akerman seems determined to repeat it […] Continue Reading…
It was confusing. The India I saw before my eyes had little in common with the India that I’ve been reading about or the India on Indian TV. Even the faces were paler, and the ads showed westernised, middle class situations and settings.
Outside my tour bus, rubbish along the […] Continue Reading…
A few years back playwright David Williamson wrote about Cruise Ship Australia. He found his fellow travellers somewhat pompous and demanding, preoccupied with their status and consumerism.
I think I’m pleased to report that on a recent bus tour of India my impressions of my compatriots were rather more positive. […] Continue Reading…
Some campaigns have their iconic moments. In the 2004 federal campaign it was Mark Latham’s overly muscular handshake with John Howard. It summed up all the risk inherent in Latham.
For the South Australian election it was probably Liberal shadow treasurer Steven Griffiths’ claim that his own figures for savings […] Continue Reading…
Many of the commentators have been speculating that health will be the issue of the next election. I don’t think so. The health policy doesn’t blow the pink batts affair off the agenda, it reinstates it at the centre.
From what I can tell from the morning’s newspapers the proposal […] Continue Reading…
It’s couched in neutral language, but the Institute of Physics, with an international membership of 36,000 physicists has expressed serious doubts about the objectivity, methods and outcomes of the published results and staff from the Hadley Centre for Climate Research Unit.
This is significant, because in the corrupted world of […] Continue Reading…
If Kevin Rudd doesn’t sort himself out pretty quickly he won’t be Prime Minister come Christmas. Either Tony Abbott will have done for him, or Julia Gillard. […] Continue Reading…
It is apparently much easier to show sympathy to abstract stolen generations when you bear no responsibility than it is to those for whose hurt you share corporate and personal responsibility. […] Continue Reading…