At considerable risk to my mental health I watched Waleed Aly’s interview of Scott Morrison on The Project, and then against professional advice watched it again so that I could transcribe it. What follows is that transcription, as accurate as possible inasmuch as I had to stop listening when my ears started to bleed and […]
You don’t reason with a tornado. It’s not a sentient being. You don’t reason with toddlers. They haven’t developed the capacity for logical thought. Even in adults, reason is pointless against grief, rage or belief, because they’re not based on logic or rational thought. They’re supported by emotions and values, not logic and facts. Which […]
There is a blot on our escutcheon! A stain on our reputation! Our name is mud! Oh, the ignominy of it all. Our politicians happily lie, cheat, and steal openly from the public purse, and then lie about cheating and stealing from the public purse. But we don’t cheat at ball games. We happily incarcerate children, even […]
For some time now I’ve watched with growing dismay as our once superlative public broadcaster is slowly gutted and made over as a cheap copy of commercial stations. There are many lies told as the rationale for this slow bleeding out of Aunty, and probably the biggest and simplest is that the ABC should, or […]
Death of Pauline Hanson’s One Nation greatly exaggerated. Writing about the Queensland election results I am struck by the similarities with the press coverage of the 45th Presidential elections in the U.S.A. which I wrote about previously. Here, as there, there have been multiple, almost 180 degree shifts in predictions about the election result. Here, as […]
MP John Alexander resigned his seat in parliament on Saturday, five days after Fairfax Media revealed that it was highly likely he was a dual citizen, and nearly four months after the issue of dual citizenship became front page news with Scott Ludlam’s surprise resignation. While I’m not John Alexander, here’s my attempt at what […]
Everybody knows the proverb “The enemy of my enemy is my friend”. I don’t think so. Quite apart from the simplistic, black-and-white division of the world into friends and enemies, I think it’s a morally dangerous idea. It might encapsulate a frequent truth about expedient political alliances, but more often than not I think it […]
Poor George. All his life he has aspired to gravitas but has never advanced beyond turgid, pompous and, in this case, petulant. You would think that after a 7-0 thrashing in the High Court a responsible Attorney-General would bow graciously to the collective and unanimous wisdom of the highest court in the land, say a […]
This essay is addressed to men because we are the problem and we are the solution. Women are of course welcome and invited to read, and criticise, but the audience is unashamedly and deliberately men. I wrote parts of this quite a few times in my head and I decided, quite a few times, definitely […]
What’s wrong with this sentence: “This is how evolution stops bad mutations building up to dangerously high levels in a species”? I count at least four things wrong… This musing was prompted by the following snippet: When we reproduce, our children inherit a shuffled bag of mutations, and those with a collection of particularly bad ones are […]
Senator Sinodinos – the Minister for Industry, Innovation, and … whatsitsname? Oh yes, Science – said in a recent speech to the Press Club: [I]ncreasingly, there has emerged a lack of respect for the scientific method in some quarters. We see the conclusions of experts being cast aside, in favour of ideological positions and selective use of […]
Can a florist refuse to sell flowers for a couple’s wedding because the wedding is against the florist’s religious beliefs? The answer to that question took me on an interesting journey through the Australian Constitution, the High Court, Australian Standard 1266.0 (2011), the language of flowers, the Australian Human Rights Commission Act and the Sex Discrimination […]
Suddenly all of the jokes about economists aren’t funny. Here is an economist, Tim Harford, writing about applied psychology, AI, and control systems in the article https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/oct/11/crash-how-computers-are-setting-us-up-disaster Being likewise an expert in none of these disciplines, but with that little knowledge that makes me dangerous I am disturbed by what seems to be the basic […]
I have read quite a few opinion and analysis pieces about the presidential race in the U.S.A, which chronologically could be grouped into three phases: Phase 1 “Why Trump can’t win”; Phase 2 “Why Trump is winning”; and Phase 3 “Why Trump won’t win”. I find these pieces fascinating. Not because of their patent inaccuracy, […]
How appropriate. I doubt anything else will change – the destruction of R&D, the tearing down of renewable energy, the attempted removal of the CCA, the homeopath’s NBN – half the network for twice the price,the attempt to create a two-tier education system, a two-tier health system, the wholesale defunding of women’s shelters, aboriginal support […]
