- Aged by an extra second (01 Jan 09)
I discover that overnight on 31 December 2008 I aged by more than expected. The time it takes the Earth to rotate (a day) is getting longer by about 0.002 ...
- George unlamented (30 Dec 08)
After the death of King George IV on 26 June 1830 The Times famously commented on 15 July 1830:There never was an individual less regretted by his fellow-creatures than this ...
- Prosecuting the torturers (18 Dec 08)
In a lengthy editorial (17 Dec 08) NYT notes that a bipartisan report by the US Senate Armed Services Committee has made a strong case for bringing criminal charges against ...
- Kevin 24x7 . . . x52 (28 Nov 08)
It's reported that although Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's workaholic habits may be forcing some public servants to keep longer hours in the office they seem less stressed than when John ...
- The James Bond collect (22 Nov 08)
Tomorrow the Sunday next before Advent and the feast of Christ the King has long been known in the Anglican Church as 'Stir-up Sunday'. This comes from the opening words ...
- An answer fit for a Queen? (18 Nov 08)
Plainly not amused Her Majesty the Queen of Australia came up with a salient question during a briefing by academics at the LSE on the turmoil on the international markets. ...
- Awarding Matthew (18 Nov 08)
Is Matthew Mitcham begining to fill Ian Thorpe's size 17 shoes in the way he has caught the imagination of sporting journalists and award-givers? He has won or is in ...
- Voting for life (09 Nov 08)
In the run-up to the US elections I wrote that although I loathe abortion the single-issue politics surrounding it troubled me. It has been a worry that the choice of ...
- For this I am grateful (04 Nov 08)
By Garrison Keillor:Bravo Barack Mr. Steady who cheerfully did the rope lines made the phone calls answered the same questions fifteen thousand times bounded up the stairs delivered his lines ...
- Subjunctive hopes for Obama (03 Nov 08)
I have the same feeling as Martin Kettle describes about the American election (Guardian 3 Nov 08)I spent last week as part of a panel discussing the US election in ...
- Jessica Halloran's good work (27 Oct 08)
Jessica Halloran is one of two nominees in the sport news reporting category of the 2008 Walkely awards for Australian journalism. (Winners will be announced on 27 November.) She has ...
- The Bradley Effect (27 Oct 08)
Noting that Barack Obama has a large lead in the polls Jim McDermott SJ asks in Eureka Street (27 Oct 08) whether latent racism will affect the actual vote. In ...
- ACT : Red/Green fairer than Blue/Green (18 Oct 08)
After yesterday's vote. a Green-Labor ('Red/Green') coalition would better represent the will of the ACT's people than a Green/Liberal ('Green-Blue') coalition. Labor and the Greens together have over half the ...
- Immutable laws (12 Oct 08)
We've all heard of Murphy's law the Peter Principle Parkinson's law etc. There's a long list here. My contributions:McKinlay's law of leave: The amount of work still to be done ...
- Hairitage (12 Oct 08)
This is Charley Boorman motorbiker and adventure film maker photographed superbly by Adam Knott. I have had boring hair almost all my life but I do like Mr Boorman's. Maybe ...
- Keynes redux (09 Oct 08)
The Guardian (Editorial 9 Oct 08) is just one of many commentators to remind us that in the present financial mess we should be giving serious though once more to ...
- Sarah P. in 31 secs (09 Oct 08)
Save time! Here's all you need to know about Sarah Palin's policies in 31 seconds (h/t Scott Gunn). ...
- The race for power corrupts (08 Oct 08)
If power corrupts the race for power has corrupted John McCain. Despite the apparent civility of the Presidential debate yesterday Senator McCain's campaign is showing just how dangerous he would ...
- Her disdain for contemplative leadership (04 Oct 08)
The International Herald Tribune -- which I find to be excellent -- is of course the international edition of the New York Times. Both are highly critical of John McCain's ...
- What not to swim in (03 Oct 08)
If the recent Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week show in Miami is anything to go by the fashion industry have little idea of what the average bloke would want to wear at ...
- We cannot afford another Bush (01 Oct 08)
It is difficult for the lay person to understand what the problem with the financial markets now is but as The Economist explains with its usual clarity that credit markets ...
- Stormy weather (01 Oct 08)
I am not a great footy supporter as I have said and rugby league is not really 'football' (This and this are football.) but emboldened by the Hawk's victory last ...
- World Youth Day and the 'flu (01 Oct 08)
The press say that businesses are calling this year's flu season one of the worst with up to 25% of staff on sick leave. All of my team have been ...
- 43 teams, 4.5 places (13 Sep 08)
The road to the World Cup is a long road. After three preliminary rounds ten Asian teams are in the fourth round in two groups of five. The two stage ...
- A dangerous candidate (13 Sep 08)
The more I read about John McCain the more I am persuaded how dangerous he would be as US president. This from Joe Klien in Time (15 Sep 08)The Palin ...
- Episcopal candidates: is Mr Downie guessing? (08 Sep 08)
The Canberra Times has published a piece by its religion reporter Graham Downie purporting to give the names of the candidates for the upcoming election of the 10th Bishop of ...
- Taxpayers contribute $553 per pilgrim (21 Aug 08)
The courts have dismissed legal protests but it remains the case that the World Youth Day was very expensive for the taxpayers of New South Wales. Reported spending by the ...
- Is winning boring? (10 Aug 08)
"Go on admit it. Beijing is boring. Call off 2012" is the headline of a commentary by Barbara Ellen in The Observer (1 Aug 08). While "the occasional Olympic event ...
- The bishops behaved as such (03 Aug 08)
Bishop Gene Robinson of New Hampshire writes on leaving the Lambeth Conference for a preaching engagement in Scotland that:Lots of people including journalists were asking what I thought the Lambeth ...
- Great Firewall (02 Aug 08)
I have resolved to say as little about the Olympics as possible though I will be happy if a certain diver is successful. That said I am definitely grumpy about ...
- Enneagramed (30 Jul 08)
A friend said I might find the Enneagram interesting? Main TypeOverall Self Type 1Perfectionism||||||||||||||||||78%Type 2Helpfulness||||||||||||46%Type 3Image Focus||||||||||||||54%Type 4Hypersensitivity||10%Type 5Detachment||||||||||||||||||78%Type 6Anxiety||||||||||||||58%Type 7Adventurousness||||||||||||42%Type 8Aggressiveness||||||||||||46%Type 9Calmness||||18% ...
- On not following Lambeth and other games (25 Jul 08)
Anglicans Online offers wise advice which I intend to follow.The 2008 Lambeth Conference has begun. We do not recommend trying to follow it hour-by-hour but if you must let us ...
- Doing the Lambeth talk (12 Jul 08)
"At the Lambeth conference which meets once a decade bishops from the 38 provinces of the worldwide Anglican communion gather to think pray and talk about sex." -- Christopher Caldwell. ...
- AUS and KOR for RSA 2010 (15 Jun 08)
Round 1 of the Word Cup qualifiers conclude with many games in June. I am watching Australia and South Korea. Asia Group 3The two Koreas are set to qualify.06 Feb ...
- Justice 5 : Brutality 4 (15 Jun 08)
I hope you will forgive me gentle reader if I yet again quote the International Herald Tribune which is becoming my favourite international newspaper. On the recent Supreme Court ruling ...
- An eloquent exit (15 Jun 08)
American politicians do oratory better than Australians. Whatever one thinks of Hillary Clinton's views her concession speech exiting the primary contest was a finely crafted piece of wordsmithing. Senator Obama ...
- Fooled by a dancer (11 Jun 08)
The spinning dancer has been touted by some as a test of whether one is right-brained and creative or left-brained and logical. I was fooled but puzzled as the ‘test' ...
- The Roadrunner zooms to singularity (10 Jun 08)
Is the Singularity one step closer? The Roadrunner an American military supercomputer made by IBM and the Los Alamos National Laboratory at a cost of US$133 million has become the ...
- On being the boss of the APS (05 Jun 08)
Debate continues on whether Rudd PM is using the Australian Public Service wisely. Even in my quite humble role there have been some very long days spent trying to guess ...
- Paid to make babies (05 Jun 08)
Tony Windsor independent federal MP for New England has called the baby bonus "abominable" saying the Government is paying people to have sex adding that the its move to have ...
- Republic? Maybe, but other things first (04 Jun 08)
In most of Australia 9 June will be a public holiday in honour of the Queen's official birthday. John Warhurst Professor of Political Science at the Australian National University and ...
- 21st century book burning (28 May 08)
Ceremonies were held in Germany on 10 May 08 to mark the 75th anniversary of the burning of thousands of books organised by the Nazis three months after Adolf Hitler ...
- On serving the PM (28 May 08)
Whether or not Prime Minister Rudd has a 'butler' is being argued politically. Coalition senator Michael Ronaldson spotted that Mr Rudd's staff includes a "traveling assistant to the Prime Minister". ...
- Phoenix afar (26 May 08)
Phoenix has landed well on Mars. These days its easy to be blazé about such things. Yet it's impressive that a vehicle can be landed exactly as planned at ...
- Bold? (Or tacky, feeble, hideous?) (22 May 08)
Times Online lists Libby Purves' choice of the 'best' 20 reilgious t-shirts. To me most of them are either tacky feeble look hideous or all three. A few Christian thinkers ...
- The (large, soft, red) unworn undies (22 May 08)
Seems that Guinness have a record for everything. On 15 Nov 2007 aussieBum apparently broke the Guinness world record for the world's biggest underwear. And just in case it wasn't ...
- Peace be with who? (21 May 08)
The Global Peace Index uses a detailed and well founded methodology to compare the peacefulness of nations. Founded by Australian entrepreneur and philanthropist Steve Killelea it forms part of the ...
- An end to the hangings? (19 May 08)
In an official statement French Human Rights Minister Rama Yade has announced that France will press the UN to pursue universal decriminalisation of homosexual conduct. The statement and my rough ...
- Nessun dorma: Rudd's yawning of Canberra (18 May 08)
Nessun dorma! (None shall sleep). But in Canberra it is not Turandot or Pavaroti that keeps the city awake but Kevin Rudd. In a famous speech Paul Keating one described ...
- Obama's endurance (15 May 08)
This is a likeable picture of Senator Obama from the 19 May cover of Time. He is smiling and may be relaxed. To me he seems deeply tired. Tired to ...
- Budget good news and bad news (13 May 08)
The details of last night's federal budget (see summary below) that the federal Government is working on its promised removal of discrimination against same-sex couples. The portfolio budget statement (PBS) ...
- not too much vocabulary (13 May 08)
The indexing sub-routine says that this site has a vocabulary of a mere 12 149 distinct word forms (excluding non-indexed words like 'a' 'the' 'and' 'an' etc.). This is rather ...
- Human wave theory in Canberra streets (24 Apr 08)
Ian Thorpe is well protected as he completes the final leg of the 2008 Olympic torch relay in Canberra. Northbourne Avenue in the inner city of Canberra was dominated by ...
- Torch relay costs Canberrans $125 per metre (22 Apr 08)
The Olympic flame has in Canberra. The Beijing Olympic Torch Relay will cost Canberra's people the absurd amount of $125 per metre as the total has doubled to $2 million ...
- Give the games(s) away (21 Apr 08)
Buzz Bissinger has the best idea for the Olympics (IHT 13 Apr 08).Stop the Games In 1894 Baron Pierre de Coubertin . . . settled upon the revival of the ...
- Canberra's torch torture (21 Apr 08)
Security concerns have shortened still further--to 16km--the now farcical Canberra leg of the Beijing Olympic Games torch relay and will restrict it to wide main streets rather than weaving in ...
- Ignoring the torch (16 Apr 08)
The modern Olympic torch relay was propaganda when it was first invented by Hitler's Germany in 1936 and it is propaganda for another totalitarian regime in 2008. The presence of ...
- Excellency and expectations (15 Apr 08)
The selection of Her Excellency Ms Quentin Bryce AC as Australia's Governor-General designate has been widely applauded. By all accounts she is a person of great skill and outstanding public ...
- Rudd leads us to good international citizenship (11 Apr 08)
I am heartened by Tony Kevin's conclusion (Eureka Street 11 Apr 08) that Prime Minister Rudd's current trip is doing much to repair the damage done by the Howard government ...
- The cost of stupidity (10 Apr 08)
The social costs of tobacco alcohol and illicit drug abuse to Australian society have risen to $56.1 billion in 2004-05 according to a recent report commissioned by the Australian Government: ...
- Drop dead blogging (08 Apr 08)
Seem that bloggers who work 24/7 for pay are dying on the job or getting sick. (NYT 6 Apr 08).They work long hours often to exhaustion. Many are paid by ...
- Caffeinated cell phones (04 Apr 08)
Amid the usual lame April Fool stuff these made me smile. "Spazztroids! The hyper-caffeinated cereal from beyond!" Sounds like just what I need.Throughout the Universe one man has waged war ...
- Worth $50,000,000 or almost nothing (03 Apr 08)
Amidst all his other crimes this symbolises one reason why Mugabe must go and will not be remembered fondly: a 50 million dollar note issued by the Reserve Bank of ...
- And Australia takes part in this madness? (29 Mar 08)
A recent book The Three Trillion Dollar War: the true cost of the Iraq conflict by Nobel economist Joseph Stiglitz and colleague Linda Bilmes (Allen Lane 2007) shows that the ...
- 8,022 water barrels (21 Mar 08)
I mentioned 49 606 pork barrels of pork given out by the doomed Howard government. Perhaps some of them were water barrels. In the lead-up to the last election the ...
- 49,060 barrels of pork at $91,700 (19 Mar 08)
I have no compunction at all about continuing to mention some of the appalling behaviour of the now-defunct Howard government--ethically one of the worst government's Australia has had in 107 ...
- Nudity in a teacup (12 Mar 08)
A storm blew up in a very small teacup as a few days ago police in Virginia Beach VA dropped a misdemeanor obscenity charge against the manager of an Abercrombie ...
- Come not to praise Howard, but to bury him (08 Mar 08)
The American Enterprise Institute has given former Australian Prime Minister John Howard its Irving Kristol Award for 2008 for ". The award is for "individuals who have made exceptional intellectual ...
- Our condo (I wish!) (07 Mar 08)
Perhaps many of us dream of where we would live if we were billionaires. An apartment in NY in Paris or London (or all of them!) Maybe something like this ...
- India celebrates (05 Mar 08)
India won finals of the three nations international one-day cricket series 2-0 with a nine-run victory over Australia in last night’s match in Brisbane. Tendulkar scored 91 off 121 balls ...
- Howard's vertical competitive federalism (05 Mar 08)
We are still learning (as if we didn't know) just how disastrous the Howard Government was becoming for Australia. In an extraordinary Ian Little Memorial Lecture yesterday (reported for example ...
- Courage rewarded (20 Feb 08)
Eamon Sullivan has shown genuine courage to recover from repeated injury and may be poised to break one of swimming's most imposing world records the 100-metre freestyle mark of 47.84. ...
- Elections 101 (19 Feb 08)
Despite the horrors of Florida's 'hanging chads' our American cousins are still to learn how to run an election its seems. This in the New York Post of 15 Feb ...
- Leadership = taking responsibility (18 Feb 08)
Prime Minister Rudd was expected to come under fire in Parliament today as the Opposition pursued him concerning contacts between Mr Rudd and disgraced former Labor politican and power broker ...
- Tsunami Maxwell (11 Feb 08)
Australian swimming seems to have an ability to bring forward young men of determination and wisdom beyond their years. Ian Thorpe has been an example and there were some before ...
- Apology to commenters (04 Feb 08)
My apology to any who have made legitimate comments here recently. There were so many spam comments that the only way I could deal with them was to delete all ...
- A word to learn? deipnosophist (30 Jan 08)
Noting that "George Bush's final state of the union address was a hollow triumph: a polished delivery that barely concealed his impotence" Richard Adams says that "In his last big ...
- Fat Tuesday is early (25 Jan 08)
Pancake Day is early this year Tuesday 5th February. I take liberty to steal this 'Pancake Receipt' from Scotsman and priest Kelvin. Ingredients: 100g plain flour pinch of salt 2 ...
- Gaydar and the unscrutable (25 Jan 08)
ScienceNOW Daily News (18 Jan 2008) reports research that seems to validate the idea of "gaydar." I'm afraid mine doesn't work too well at all.In just a fraction of a ...
- A contest at last (21 Jan 08)
At last the international cricket competition has become interesting as after a narrow loss in Sydney India has broken Australia's long winning streak--Australia's first loss at since 2003. I have ...
- Henry George and Second Life (17 Jan 08)
As I think more about Second Life it occurs to me that its land-based economy would have appealed to Henry George. In SL virtual land is a proxy for access ...
- Choices of change (10 Jan 08)
Commenting for The Guardian (09 Jan 08) Daniel Koffler shows that differences between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are substantial not merely a matter of style. Koofler says that "there ...
- Red-green alliance warranted? (04 Jan 08)
An analysis of the recent election results shows how indebted the Labor Party is to the Greens for its win. This table shows the number of first preferences won by ...
- Good luck Zed (14 Dec 07)
The six ACT Liberals much bruised by in-fighting and the off-rubbings of Howard's illliberalism have unanimously chosen 30-year-old Mr Zdenko (Zed) Seselja as their new leader. The party has been ...
- Illiberal mess (11 Dec 07)
Mr Mulcahy's fulminations have done nothing but justify the ACT Liberals' decision to expel him from their party which now numbers but six parliamentary members. With Mr Mulcahy gone the ...
- A close run thing (08 Dec 07)
On election night I was not confident of a Labor win until well into the count as it's possible in Australia to get a majority of the votes and stull ...
- Just need to prune a bit (05 Dec 07)
If this right I need to prune bit -- a good thing to do in Advent. You Are 44% Burned Out You're fairly burned out and it shows. You probably ...
- Informal and relaxed (05 Dec 07)
The Cronulla folks in this election day pic from the Daily Telegraph and the gentleman from Bondi (below) lent a whole new meaning to the concept of an 'informal' vote. ...
- Double brained, evenly brained, or just half brained? (01 Dec 07)
I've been mulling over the right brain/left brain business some more. Allegedly the left brain dominant type suffers from limited perspective and narrow-mindedness (nope). The right brain dominant type suffers ...
- The reactionary wilderness (01 Dec 07)
Allegedly Malcolm Turnbull lost the close vote for the Liberal leadership because of a radio interview when he canvassed his views on Kyoto Work Choices gay rights and an apology ...
- Morality and public service independence (29 Nov 07)
Tony Harris former senior commonwealth officer and past auditor general of NSW writes in the AFR (27 Nov 07) that the test of Kevin Rudd's Labor government will be to ...
- Lodging at The Lodge (26 Nov 07)
Sic transit gloria mundi. A symbol of John Howard has been his daily walk around the shores of Kirribilli. I admire his self discipline if not his politics. But Howard's ...
- All we like sheep (23 Nov 07)
This morning we went through the long queue at the polling booth in the local primary school with its usual accompaniments of party workers how-to-vote cards and a sausage sizzle ...
- Labor second, but Liberals last (23 Nov 07)
As always on the day before a federal election the newspapers' editorials come out with their recommendations. As The Age says "The disappointing aspect of this campaign has been the ...
- Another predictable summer? (21 Nov 07)
With the election campaign becoming a repetitive noise its time to think about something really important. The only sports I follow with any interest are international cricket and football (soccer). ...
- Corrupt and incompetent (21 Nov 07)
Examples continue to multiply as to why Australia must get rid of the corrupt and incompetent Howard government. A few days ago there was the Auditor General's damning report about ...
- How should I vote? (16 Nov 07)
Australia's preferential voting system means that if one's candidate of first choice is eliminated from the count the vote can be transferred to the candidate of next choice. "How to ...
- The boredom of money politics (15 Nov 07)
The Labor Party's campaign launch yesterday was less boring than that of the Coalition two days before. Yet the ALP joins the Coalition in thinking that all that Australian voters ...
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