I went to a circus and a science debate broke out
Today I attended the debate between UNSW computer scientist Dr Tim Lambert (author of Deltoid blog) and Lord Viscount Christopher Monckton of Brenchley. The venue was the Hilton Hotel Grand Ballroom,...
View ArticleAll coppers are…
Be careful what word you use to complete the title if you live in New South Wales, because the State’s Police Commissioner wants the Director of Public Prosecution to re-open an offensive language case...
View ArticleBike paths for the beancounters
Sydney City Council, along with other inner-suburban Sydney councils, wants to spend 180 million dollars on a bike path network, and they’re seeking federal and state money to do it. The federal...
View ArticleThe Twitter #penrithdebate assessed
There’s been a flurry of chat around the place about the Twitter debate ahead of Saturday’s Penrith by-election for the NSW Parliament, which it’s been claimed is a world first (wrongly, because The...
View ArticleReality check: Is Sydney actually “full”?
Ever since the Penrith by-election, we’ve been hearing endlessly about Western Sydney as the epicentre of the Australian political nation. The population “debate” proclaims that we need to “pause” as...
View ArticleVictorian government’s climate change package
It will take a while to go through Victorian Government’s climate change white paper, so I won’t try to pronounce judgement the quality of the individual actions proposed. At first glance, shutting...
View Article“Great” cities and European irrelevance
From a political perspective, the great success of the monarchists in the republic referendum of the nineties was transforming the issue into one of giving the “politicians” a good kicking. Canny...
View ArticleAre the Humanities dying? II
I closed my last post on the current state of the Humanities with this observation: Left undebated, or perhaps just lightly sketched, is the question of whether humanistic scholarship has been its own...
View ArticleNSW election: What is the way forward for progressive parties?
Some quick observations on the New South Wales election result: The really useful guide to what occurred is The Poll Bludger’s breakdown of votes and swings by region. 1. Labor Barry O’Farrell was...
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Hairspray the Musical: Cultural politics of the 60s, now, and race
I hadn’t had a holiday for a year, so after having finished a big research project at the end of June, I eagerly seized a friend’s invitation to go to Sydney for a few days. On our itinerary was...
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