Blogs
Smearing Steve McIntyre
March 13, 2010
John Quiggin: “Looking over the evidence that is now available, I think there is enough to point to Steven McIntyre as the person, along with the actual hacker or leaker, who bears primary moral responsibility for the crime.”
Read more...Chavez good for murder
March 12, 2010
Reuters: “Homicides in Venezuela have quadrupled during President Hugo Chavez's 11 years in power, with two people murdered every hour, according to new figures from a non-governmental organization.”
Read more...Prescription for chaos
March 11, 2010
The Rudd hospital plan was clearly not shown to constitutional experts before it was announced, which suggests that, like so many others, it is just another poorly conceived back-of-the-envelope proposal.
Read more...Profligacy, incompetence, and panic
February 23, 2010
The danger for the government is that its distinguishing features seem to be captured by the acronym PIP - Profligacy, Incompetence, and Panic. If the Howard battlers agree, a second term is no longer assured.
Sell the ABC
March 11, 2010
If Tony Abbot announced today, that a re-elected Liberal National Party Government would sell the ABC and SBS within three months of taking government, would they lose votes or gain votes?
Read more...Waking up the Liberals
March 11, 2010
In the culture wars, what some Liberals would prefer to see as an ideological de-militarised zone is actually the ideological high ground. And we as a Party have allowed the radical left to map it out and occupy it by default.
Read more...AUDIO: Andrew Bolt on the Stolen Generations
March 8, 2010
Audio of Andrew Bolt launching Keith Windschuttle’s The Stolen Generations: “How could a university keep employing a Robert Manne, or a Peter Read or a Sally Morgan? I think this is a scandal, an utter scandal.”
Read more...Culture catcher: 22
March 8, 2010
Larvatus Prodeo: “These guys are just implacably and ideologically opposed to the factual findings of AGW science, thus it is pointless to engage with them. They can howl and hurl faeces to their heart’s content, but all that demonstrates is that they’re a bunch of monkeys.”
Read more...Wild Strawberries road movie
March 8, 2010
Wild Strawberries is the kind of film that makes today’s leftwing Hollywood culture look passé - and it’s a relief to hear people talking about real-life issues on the screen.
Read more...Paris postcard
March 8, 2010
It is also a city where things, despite the grandiose scale of the public buildings and sweeping boulevards and windswept quays, are still lived on a small, intimate and human scale, in the back streets and neighbourhoods where Parisians actually live.
Read more...Speaking of Say's Law
March 8, 2010
To accept that Say’s Law is valid is the equivalent amongst economists to the denial of global warming amongst those who believe climate change is taking place.
Read more...Obsession with genocide
March 8, 2010
It is difficult to imagine a more horrendous accusation that could be made against a country than that its history is rooted in genocide and that every generation - past, present, and future - are forever and irredeemably complicit in this primal atrocity.
Read more...The Saved Generations
March 8, 2010
Keith Windschuttle continues the battle to save the soul of the nation’s history in what can only be described as a tour de force in both academic research and masterful writing.
Read more...The holes in the rabbit-proof fence
March 8, 2010
The real Australia would never have stooped so low as to try to eliminate the Aboriginal race by stealing its children. The fact that the film has been a popular success is telling. It shows that despite the best efforts of academics and schoolteachers to persuade us otherwise, Australia is not and never has been a country whose people would condone such practices.
Read more...Melbourne's nuclear non-debate
March 8, 2010
The best response came from Dr James Hansen who quietly said that more people had been killed by ice flying off wind turbine blades than from nuclear accidents.
Read more...Turning Heterosexual Children into Criminals
March 5, 2010
We may in fact be actually living through a transition from democracy to a police state. It may be happening incrementally, but it is happening nonetheless.
Read more...Where to from here?
March 4, 2010
The role of the scientist in this debate, is as it has been: to continue to diligently report the facts, test the theories, to be honest, to be skeptical, to avoid hyperbole, to properly outline the errors and uncertainties, to avoid activism.
Read more...Green loans "hijacked"
March 5, 2010
“The $175 million green loans scheme was "hijacked" by opportunists, overseas call centres and companies that specialised in making homes environmentally friendly, leading to a raft of dubious assessments.”
Read more...Sceptics in from the cold?
February 28, 2010
UPDATE: A story that changed completely when the ABC's The Drum rejected essays it had commissioned.
Read more...ABC's iron curtain descends
March 4, 2010
The ABC has again banned climate sceptics from taking part in public debate. This time the victim of censorship by The Drum is Marc Hendrickx.
Read more...Lysenkoism and James Hansen
March 3, 2010
Hansenist climate alarmism has also damaged the standing of many leading science journals and science organizations, which have replaced their formerly careful editorial and organizational balance with environmental alarmism and naked global warming advocacy.
Read more...ABC gags Bob Carter
March 3, 2010
After inviting professor Bob Carter to contribute to an online debate The Drum has backed down and rejected his essay - a criticism of visiting climate alarmist James Hansen.
Read more...Profiling
March 3, 2010
The fact is that our underwear bomber had bought a one-way ticket with cash; that he had not checked in any luggage for a journey taking him near-on half-way around the world; that his ultimate destination was the United States, target number one for al-Qaeda; and that he came from a half muslim country not entirely free of fundamentalists.
Read more...The Fabrication-Deniers
May 1, 2009
After analysing this case in detail in Washout, I concluded that: “Ryan’s instinct for self-exoneration is never too shy to spin her own failings off as her adversary’s culpability.” It is disturbing to discover that she is not the only professor willing to employ this extraordinary strategy.
Read more...Historical Revision versus Holocaust Denial
December 1, 2008
Holocaust deniers, apologists for the gulags and for Japanese atrocities—these are but minor demons compared with His Satanic Majesty, Keith Windschuttle, who is repeatedly compared by Tony Taylor, in all seriousness, to David Irving, a characterisation both absurd and defamatory.
Read more...Inventing white Aborigines
June 22, 2009
By changing the text of her PhD thesis for her best-selling book on the Tasmanian Aborigines Lyndall Ryan turned modern "part-Aborigines" into "Tasmanian Aborigines".
Read more...Stuart Macintyre rewrites the past
July 20, 2009
Stuart Macintyre tells it like it wasn’t: “There were no mandarin agents of the KGB here, no moles burrowing deep into the establishment, just fervent men and women recruited when the Soviet Union was an Australian ally to provide it with their limited knowledge of Cold War plans.”
Read more...Myths of frontier massacres
October 1, 2000
In October, November and December 2000 Quadrant published the three parts of a long essay by Keith Windschuttle which heralded a new beginning to the writing of Australian history, prepared the way for the first volume in his Fabrication of Aboriginal History series of books, and set in motion what became known as the History Wars.
Read more...Offending Nowra, defending Greer
March 2, 2010
It only took Greer twenty years to work out what it’s taken Louis Nowra forty years, which proves conclusively that women are at least twice as smart as men.
Read more...Abbott urged to stay true
March 2, 2010
Sadly most politicians, even those on the right, no longer think in terms of the big picture or in terms of worldview. They can only think as far as tomorrow’s press conference or next week’s members’ meeting.
Read more...Stuart Macintyre and the Blainey Affair
October 1, 2008
This political caricature of the Australian experience is the curriculum we can expect Macintyre to deliver to the Rudd government. It is no wonder that schoolchildren who have tasted earlier offerings from the same left-wing menu regard Australian history as dreary and uninspiring.
Read more...Welcome to History Wars
February 28, 2010
Introducing Quadrant Online's new History Wars page. A selection of essays that made headlines.
Read more...Robert Manne's "Hogwash"
March 16, 2009
At the time Robert Manne reviewed a book critical of himself in the Australian Book Review he was the Chair of its management committee. He was a politics professor at La Trobe University. La Trobe University was the chief financial sponsor of the Australian Book Review.
Read more...Bombs, Away
March 1, 2010
There is a staggering gulf between Western good intentions, albeit ham-fisted, and a local world view of fatalism, neglect and corruption which has pervaded an entire region for centuries. The Hurt Locker manages to show this without a single word of pontification.
Read more...Against the bullies
December 6, 2004
It did occur to me from time to time that attacking a score of the most renowned academics of the country may not be the smartest thing I have ever done. But whenever that thought struck me, I would re-read a Whitewash essay, and the pounding of another thought would start up again – if academics of such renown can get away with what they do in that book, then honest intellectual enquiry is finished in academia.
Read more...The case for carbon dioxide
February 28, 2010
Putting the climate debate into perspective. The release of carbon dioxide will not cause dangerous global warming. An ETS would impose a severe cost penalty for agriculture and for the economy overall is not required.
Read more...The Invention of Terra Nullius
December 8, 2005
It took less than thirty minutes in the Law Library at the University of Tasmania to suggest that the definitions of terra nullius given by historian Henry Reynolds, which I had been trying to understand, did not make sense and were not supported by the references he gave.
Read more...Robert Manne: a case to answer
January 31, 2010
For a professor of politics at an Australian university to write about a policy of the Commonwealth Government and to omit its most telling decisions is a serious dereliction of his public duty.
Read more...The extinction of the Australian pygmies
June 1, 2002
From the 1940s until the 1960s, it was fairly widely known there were pygmies in Australia. They lived in North Queensland and had come in from the wild of the tropical rainforests to live on missions in the region.
Read more..."There were no Stolen Generations"
December 1, 2009
“No state or territory in Australia ever wanted to steal Aboriginal children from their parents in order to eliminate the race or put an end to Aboriginality. No Aboriginal children were removed as part of an agenda driven by racism or genocide. There were no Stolen Generations.”
Read more...Gallipoli: Second Front in the History Wars
June 1, 2009
As 2014 approaches there will be a resurgence, intensification and expansion of the already vigorous debates about the war as historians, intellectuals, ideologues, politicians, veterans’ organisations, community groups and laypersons continue to come to grips with the meaning of this titanic struggle.
Read more...Postmodernism in Aboriginal History - Part 2
April 1, 2006
Bain Attwood has spent a lot of time, and a good deal of university money, in an obsessive pursuit of my past. For this project, he had two research assistants and funding from the School of Historical Studies at Monash University.
Read more...Postmodernism in Aboriginal History - Part 1
April 1, 2006
In this article, I want to show how the two postmodernist tactics of language games and character assassination have been deployed in this debate.
Read more...The Assault on Anzac
July 1, 2009
In a previous article I discussed the revisionist attack on the history of Gallipoli and the role it has played as the central component of the Anzac tradition in Australia. I pointed out that this campaign is explicitly being undertaken by the intelligentsia and the Left as we approach the twin centennials commemorating the outbreak of the Great War in 2014 and the Gallipoli landing in 2015.
Read more...History Wars and the Holocaust
October 1, 2009
Why would Australian historians travel to Germany to expound their dark and self-lacerating version of Australian history, likening the tragic situation of our indigenous people to a genocide or holocaust?
Read more...Midnight Batts
February 28, 2010
Peter Garrett was neither at fault nor accountable apparently. Well of course now Kevin Rudd, having briefly and manfully accepted the blame himself, has now thought better of that and demoted Mr Garrett. But should he be singled out for blame?
Read more...Kevin in Wonderland
February 28, 2010
Why does John Howard’s famous cry “We will decide who comes to this country and the circumstances in which they come” suddenly sound so sensible?
Read more...The politics of apology
February 28, 2010
Rudd said sorry again. We are, therefore, back in the realm of apology – a new phenomenon which has enveloped left wing governments of the entire western world over the past few years.
Read more...Great book, great launch
February 26, 2010
“Asking around, it turned out we were all at Keith Windschuttle’s book launch because we admired the work of Keith Windschuttle. As the Americans would say – go figure.”
Read more...The culture gap
February 26, 2010
“The demonization of Tony Abbott is no surprise and reflects a larger trend to marginalise and exclude social conservatives from the public sphere. In modern political discourse, they come in only one of two flavours – evil, or stupid.”
Read more...Robert Manne: a case to answer
January 31, 2010
For a professor of politics at an Australian university to write about a policy of the Commonwealth Government and to omit its most telling decisions is a serious dereliction of his public duty.
Read more...Emission Reduction for Dummies
February 22, 2010
Kevin Rudd has called climate change the greatest moral challenge of our time, and he has made no apology for that. Tony Abbott is more succinct, he calls it “crap”.
Read more...Ministry of Silly Speeches
February 24, 2010
Cate Blanchett: “We change countries, governments, history, gravity. After gravity, culture is the thing that holds humanity in place, in an otherwise constantly shifting and, let's face it, tiny outcrop in the middle of an infinity of nowhere.”
Read more...Monckton on the IPCC
February 22, 2010
Lord Monckton interviewed by Tom Minchin: “The IPCC should be disbanded. It is corrupt from top to bottom, its pseudo-science has been exposed for the scam it is.”
Read more...Australia's Hollow Men
February 22, 2010
In this crucial election year, what should have been one of the highlight of the ABC’s schedule, The Hollowmen, has apparently gone down the gurgler.
Read more...Leave it to Beaver?
February 22, 2010
John Howard understood that family values were like good wines. They age well.
Read more...Please save us from the IMF
February 22, 2010
Milton Friedman once observed that governments inevitably get their timing wrong leading to more pronounced economic cycles than would otherwise be the case. Once they start fiddling with monetary, fiscal and regulatory levers, in the way canvassed in the IMF paper, who knows what further damage they would do.
Read more...Not rape-rape
February 22, 2010
The truth is that Yale University Press were afraid of violence, in a way they are never afraid when it comes to saying just about anything at all, however derogatory, about Christians or Christian beliefs.
Read more...Christopher Pearson: Favourite Poems
February 22, 2010
Christopher Pearson has chosen two favourite poems. Little Gidding by T.S. Eliot and Sailing to Byzantium by W.B. Yeats. Both poems are read by Lionel Farrell.
Read more...Poets' Pub readings: Alana Kelsall
February 22, 2010
Poems written and read by Alana Kelsall.
Read more...Two fresh poems
February 22, 2010
Two topical new poems read by the author - “The Last Apology” and “Anthropogenic Global Warming”.
Read more...Assault on reason
February 21, 2010
The Age: “Australia green groups have called a strategy meeting to devise ways to hit back at the climate sceptics movement, amid fears they are losing the PR war.”
Read more...Killing fathers
February 17, 2010
The children stolen from their fathers since the introduction of the Family Law Act are in fact the real stolen generations. And they have been stolen by a fear and hatred of maleness that permeates our whole society.
Read more...The perils of fatherlessness
February 16, 2010
Yes, kids suffer when there are no male role models around, and a lack of male teachers is indeed a worry. But this analysis simply does not go far enough. The real problem is boys lack fathers.
Read more...Rethinking the Greens
February 16, 2010
If this were merely a bunch of tree-loving folks who want to help us have a nice environment and such things, there may be a case for preferring them. But the Greens of course are far more than that. Indeed, they are involved in a whole range of radical politics and social engineering policies.
Read more...Climate - everyone is wrong
February 15, 2010
The weight of evidence is such that modellers are frantically revising their strategies. They are asking for an international climate computing centre and $5 billion (for 2000 times more computing power) to solve this new problem in climate forecasting.
Read more...Sarah, Sarah, Sarah
February 15, 2010
If Obama experienced one tenth of the pressure Palin was under, he’d be on free market meds.
Read more...Climategate in the Twilight Zone
February 11, 2010
John Quiggin: ‘All the same elements were there – supposedly disinterested citizen researchers who were in fact paid rightwing operatives, misuse of accountability procedures, and exceptional gullibility on the part of the “sceptical” mass audience.’
Read more...Inflation must follow
February 15, 2010
Combining the useless unproductive public spending we have inflicted on ourselves with a loosening of our inflationary restraints will seriously undermine our future rates of growth and reduce our living standards for years to come.
Read more...Stolen Generations discussion
February 14, 2010
Keith Windschuttletook part in a Radio National panel discussion of the Stolen Generations to mark the second anniversary of the national apology.
Read more...The Orwell scenario
February 14, 2010
Most sceptics find appalling the Orwellian Animal Farm structure that represents the way global warming theorists and the IPCC have actively gone about promoting their theory.
Read more...The people like Barnaby
February 14, 2010
Those in the media who say get rid of Barnarby are out of touch. Barnaby and Tony are just the sort of people the public want.
Read more...Bolt on the Monckton debate
February 14, 2010
“This is how debate should be, and just to read even Lambert’s admittedly partisan account is to see how much faster we are likely to arrive at truths, or at least save ourselves from error, if we promote debate and insist it be held in good faith.”
Read more...Read it for yourself
February 14, 2010
The Australian’s Stephen Romei: I have just caught up with David Free’s recent piece in Quadrant, titled What’s Wrong With Australian Fiction? What ensues is a catty and funny piece. I confess to being a sucker for this sort of writing, though I’m sure others will think it’s as sophisticated as a toddler pointing out the cripple in the room.
Read more...Down and out in Paris, 2010
February 14, 2010
These are the handicapped beggars, most with limbs missing, some displaying bare feet so deformed they couldn’t possibly walk on them, some with arms that end at the shoulder with vestigial hands, some with no legs below the knee.
Read more...Taxing superannuation
February 14, 2010
One of the potential problems of getting divorced – particularly relatively late in life - is finding that your net worth is not only to be halved but that it is much less than you thought it was.
Read more...Corrupting history
February 8, 2010
History is experienced as a psychological assault, as young people plead despairingly: “OK, we get it! Just how many times do we have to watch Rabbit-Proof Fence?” History as crass propaganda - such is the legacy of Zinn and his Australian acolytes.
Read more...Remember this? December 2009
February 10, 2010
Mike Carlton on climate sceptics: “These people are not merely deluded. They are downright dangerous.”
Read more...After the "Apology"
February 10, 2010
“Beside me is a child with nowhere to go because his family members are blind drunk. The parade of the bleeding and bashed has begun. Hanging in the night air is the sickly sweet stench of blood and alcohol, cut by the plaintive wails of beaten humanity.”
Read more...Law Abiding Citizen
February 10, 2010
This isn’t a simple eye-for-an-eye revenge flick, but a movie with an eye on the bigger picture concerning the victims of crime, and it highlights controversial theological differences between soft hearts and soft minds. It basically asks: Who is really going too far?
Read more..."Unscientific behaviour"
February 10, 2010
Watching the UK Guardian catch up with the blog world is a lot of fun. Here’s a new treat.
Read more...Libertarian economics
February 8, 2010
Thomas Woods advocates a return to a gold standard or better still, as Hayek proposed, the replacement of government-issued money with private money. Banks, say, would issue their own money. Good money (with adequate backing, issued by disciplined institutions) would drive out the bad, which no-one would want to hold (to turn Gresham’s law on its head).
Read more...John Howard and the media
February 8, 2010
He was called a “fool” (Michael Leunig), an “unflushable turd” (Mungo MacCallum), a “scheming, mendacious little man” (Alan Ramsey), who silenced dissent (Clive Hamilton), corrupted the public debate (David Marr) and used right-wing religious activists to indoctrinate the nation (Marion Maddox). He was also “far and away the worst prime minister in living memory” (Phillip Adams).
Read more...Culture catcher: 21
February 8, 2010
Jeff Sparrow, the editor of Overland: “Lunacy squared: A deranged Quadrant forum about the Oz's deranged forum on the Left.”
Read more...Monckton at the ABC
February 8, 2010
Jon Faine, ABC Melbourne radio announcer, had Lord Christopher Monckton on his show to debate Rupert Posner. This is what happened.
Read more...Pachauri's voodoo science
February 8, 2010
There they were sitting on fabulous, unassailable scientific arguments like disappearing glaciers in the Himalayas; the snow, melting ice-cream-like atop Mt Kilimanjaro; rain-forests shrivelling in the Amazon, visions of Venice, only viewable via an aqualung and goggles and the poor old Great Barrier Reef turning into a barbecue-burnt-chop when suddenly their cosy little world changed.
Read more...Sophie Masson - Favourite Poems
February 8, 2010
Sophie Masson has chosen two favourite poems by Shakespeare and Yeats. Both poems are read by Lionel Farrell.
Read more...As Cory sees it
February 8, 2010
Alan Jones: “Cory Bernardi brings significant intellectual and philosophical resources to the Liberal Party at a time when many of its supporters felt the Party was losing its way.”
Read more...Alice's Adventures in Warmerland (Part 3)
February 8, 2010
“Warmerland’s had a huge increase in acne, acronyms, acts of God, algae, alligator allergies, anthropogenic interference, antibody deficiencies, anxiety, argy-bargy, astrology, asylum seekers, atmospheric anomalies, barmy armies, bats, beatifications, bee stings, big steps forward, black dogs, blizzards, blue mussels, boredom, bozonorexia nervosa, brain-eating bacteria, broken jaws, bubble blowing, bubonic plague, bunnies.....”
Read more...Oz media ‘debate’ Monckton
February 4, 2010
Monckton is given only seconds of air time, while his many attackers are given all sorts of time to abuse and vilify him. And abuse and vilification is exactly what he has been getting. Instead of dealing with his actual arguments and the mountains of evidence he provides, they simply attack his person and cast aspersions on his character.
Read more...Gimme a little respect
February 4, 2010
In something straight out of a George Orwell novel, the Victorian government has recently appointed an MP to become ‘Minister for Respect’. With all due respect – pun intended – this has to be a national first, perhaps a world first.
Read more...Manne on ABC radio
February 4, 2010
Robert Manne said he had a document that proved my accusations wrong. The document he read out was nothing more than one he had used in 2001 in his Quarterly Essay, In Denial. It did not have the meaning Manne attributed to it in his 2001 essay or in his ABC radio interview.
Read more...Monckton in Melbourne - report
February 3, 2010
Monckton's time was cut short by the insistence of The Age newspaper environmental writer on a one on one interview. The article that followed in The Age on Tuesday said next to nothing about the arguments raised and the tone of the article could best be described as “atmospheric”!
Read more...Monckton in Melbourne - photos
February 2, 2010
Lord Monckton lectured yesterday in packed to the rafters venues in Melbourne. The photos tell the story.
Read more...Puritans and speed cameras
February 3, 2010
This puritanical streak is reinforced by a growing trend towards the politically correct.
Read more...The Guardian (!!) on Climategate
February 2, 2010
Guardian headlines:“Leaked climate change emails scientist ‘hid’ data flaws. Exclusive: Key study by East Anglia professor Phil Jones was based on suspect figures.”
Read more...Discovering Maurice Strong
January 31, 2010
The man who managed to get the climate industry to where it is today is a mild mannered character by the name of Maurice Strong. The whole climate change business, and it is a business, started with Mr Strong.
Read more...Marianne et moi
January 31, 2010
Marianne Faithfull is the most amazing woman. I was backstage at the Sydney Festival, of course, catching up with old friends, and I am just so at home in that milieu, so I thought I’d pop along and see if she was anywhere about.
Read more...Islam, academia, and freedom
January 31, 2010
It is a strange paradox of the post-9/11 era that such a dastardly and devastating declaration of war by Islamism against the Western world led not to a hardening of resolve by the victims but to a widespread capitulation to Muslim demands across the globe.
Read more...Art goes square
January 31, 2010
Cubism and Australian Art is a demonstration of how an idea works its way through a community at the public or official level and at the practitioner’s level.
Read more...Abbott and the Bible
January 31, 2010
Don’t teach the New Testament – and the next thing you know Jesus is a vegetarian feminist, driving a hybrid with a pro-gay marriage sticker.
Read more...Alice's Adventures in Warmerland (Part 2)
January 31, 2010
Alice’s misadventures continue in the second part of Michael Kile’s new climate fantasy.
Read more...The IPCC's flawed data
January 31, 2010
A major new analysis by two Australian scientists shows that the temperature data published by the IPCC and other organisations has been manipulated to give the appearance of a warming trend - but not one that has actually occurred. This analysis has major international implications in regard to the policies to be adopted by countries on emissions reductions.
Read more...Advertising abortion truthfully
January 30, 2010
If the MSM can push along social agendas by its use of imagery, it can do the same by not using certain images. When was the last time you saw a graphic image of the “product of abortion” in the MSM?
Read more...Tony Abbott and media hysteria
January 30, 2010
It is perfectly predictable: have a politician from the conservative side of politics make a quite sensible remark about family issues, and the secular left goes absolutely ballistic.
Read more...Abbott beat-up backfires
January 30, 2010
John Styles: “If Australian parents were to choose anyone other than themselves to give advice to their children about pre-marital sex, Tony Abbott would be preferred by far to Catharine Lumby.”
Read more...Fair and balanced
January 30, 2010
Conservatives (those on the right) believe that they are more wedded to the truth than are those on the left. What I would like to do is to explain why this is might well be true.
Read more...Menzies House has opened
January 30, 2010
Menzies House, a shiny new and wildly enthusiastic website for “conservative, libertarian and centre-right thinkers” has just opened its doors. A welcome addition to the Australian internet world.
Read more...Monckton wins debate
January 29, 2010
“Lord Christopher Monckton, imperious and articulate, won yesterday's climate change debate in straight sets.”
Read more...1400 hear Monckton
January 28, 2010
The Australian Climate Science Coalition reports that on the first day of his Australian tour Lord Monckton spoke to 1400 people at two Sydney functions.
Read more...Australian of the Year
January 28, 2010
Seeing how hopeless they are at choosing an Australian of the Year, Gavin Atkins offers a short list with some good thoughts, and a familiar name that would give the MSM and Left bloggers hiccups.
Read more...Left book burning
January 28, 2010
Two years after its publication Jonah Goldberg’s Liberal Fascism has been attacked by US liberal historians.
Read more...Climategate on Kindle
January 27, 2010
Only published in the US last week the very first book on the Climategate scandal is now available in Australia on Amazon’s Kindle.
Read more...Australia Day Poem 2010
January 25, 2010
Patrick McCauley reads his Australia Day Poem 2010.
Read more...Tony Abbott - Favourite Poems
January 24, 2010
Tony Abbott has chosen two favourite poems for Australia Day. Both poems are read by Lionel Farrell.
Read more...Poets' Pub readings: Peter Tiernan
January 25, 2010
Poem written and read by Peter Tiernan.
Read more...Poets' Pub readings: Vivian Hopkirk
January 25, 2010
Poems written and read by Vivian Whiteley Hopkirk.
Read more...Bill Hayden - Favourite Poems
January 25, 2010
Bill Hayden has chosen two favourite poems for Australia Day. Both poems are read by Lionel Farrell.
Read more...Monckton in Australia
January 24, 2010
The Australian has performed best in giving space to sceptics and dissenters but has stuck to the save the planet line in its editorials, some say because Rupert Murdoch said so publicly. Yet in a personal communication with Murdoch he indicated his scepticism to me.
Read more...Australia Day Hate List: 2010
January 24, 2010
In the MSM, and on the totalitarian side of the internet, the approach of Australia Day always sets off a dismal moan-a-thon about Australia. To be helpful we have republished our Left Hate List from last year - with updates for 2010.
Read more...Alice's Adventures in Warmerland
January 24, 2010
The Rabbit then ran off towards the wood. Alice noticed something printed in big letters on the back of his jacket: “Save Our Planet! Climate Action NOW!” How odd, she thought. Why was everyone so worried about saving the planet?
Read more...The lie of genocide
January 24, 2010
Supporters of the “Stolen Generations” story have a case they should answer. In his new book Keith Windschuttle makes nearly 656 pages of well supported charges against the whole story, little of which can be easily dismissed.
Read more...The rise of eco-extremism
January 24, 2010
It is a great tragedy that the vital debate about environmental issues should have been so effectively hijacked by the radical left and ideologues channeling the latest version of the irrationalism and totalitarianism that deformed the 20th century.
Read more...Demanding the truth
January 24, 2010
The scientists, and the politicians and media types, who have totally embraced the dogma of human-induced climate change, have gambled heavily with their reputations. They have nowhere to run.
Read more...A simple calculation
January 24, 2010
A doubling of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is always claimed to be where we are heading. Lord Kelvin, in 1895, calculated that so much coal was being burnt that all the free oxygen in the atmosphere would be gone in some three hundred years. This calculation caused some distress at the time.
Read more...Geert Wilders speaks for freedom
January 21, 2010
In a Dutch courtroom, where he is to be tried for inciting hatred and discrimination, Geert Wilders made a speech that will be heard around the world.
Read more...Rudd science based on a lie
January 20, 2010
Sinclair Davidson reveals that both the Rudd government’s White Paper into the CPRS and the Garnaut Report used the false Himalayan glacier story.
Read more...Climategate reviewed
January 22, 2010
“The Climategate files opened up what was happening behind the scenes, and it turned out there was no paranoid fantasy: they really were out to get you.”
Read more...Scandal between the covers
January 19, 2010
It’s out. The first book on the Climategate scandal: “For those who have heard that the emails were taken out of context - we provide that context and show it is worse when context is provided.”
Read more...Favourite poems: John Izzard
January 17, 2010
John Izzard has selected two favourite poems “Bright Star” by John Keats, and “No Man is an Island” by John Donne. Both poems are read by Lionel Farrell.
Read more...Rudd's China Day speech
January 19, 2010
Breaking with tradition, Kevin Rudd (the Little Helmsman) delivered his China Day remarks, on the state of the Australian colony, in English.
Read more...Open letter on climate change
January 19, 2010
Lawyer Val Majkus has written to Australian MPs asking for a royal commission into man-made climate change claims and protesting that information on a government website "is misleading and deceptive and displays a lack of due diligence by the Government in the wake of Climategate."
Read more...Kids gone wild
January 19, 2010
“Rather than being accused, suspected bullies are merely spoken to and encouraged to think of ways to help a bullied student cope.” Well, that should certainly make the bullies think twice, shouldn’t it?
Read more...Closed pages
January 18, 2010
How Not To Sell A Conservative Book: A Guide. The golden rules for turning a dissident book into an unread remainder quicker than you can say “Melbourne University Press.”
Read more...Haiti - Island of Sorrow
January 17, 2010
A little over 100 kilometres north of where the 97,000 ton aircraft-carrier, the USS Carl Vinson, is disgorging food, water and medical aid to the victims of the Haitian earthquake, lies the site of the wreck of Christopher Columbus’s flag ship, the Santa Maria.
Read more...Abbott's 'Green Army'
January 17, 2010
Tony Abbott’s initiative promises not only to produce practical benefits for the environment, but also provides an opportunity to reassert the conservative heritage of environmental thought, while challenging the hegemony of the left-green statist ideology.
Read more...Munching in the Blue Zones
January 16, 2010
Soon after finishing Blue Zones, a generous neighbour left some garden zucchinis on my veranda. I’m eating them tonight. I plan to drive up the road to the winery and pick up some Catholic-friendly reds. But is my stomach really ready for sheep’s cheese?
Read more...Has China murdered Gao Zhisheng?
January 16, 2010
Chinese authorities claim that civil rights lawyer Gao Zhisheng has gone “missing”. The lawyer, who had previously been tortured, has been imprisoned by the Beijing Public Security Bureau since February 2009. Is this a euphemism for murder?
Read more...Police, Civilisation & Culture
January 14, 2010
Gregory Melleuish reads “Police, Civilisation and Culture” from his new book of essays The Power of Ideas.
Read more...Inside the Howard Cabinet
January 13, 2010
With Howard, “what you saw was what you got”. In this important respect, he was refreshingly different from the multitude of politicians who aren’t quite what they seem. Kevin Rudd, for instance, sometimes lets his choirboy mask slip.
Read more..."There were no Stolen Generations"
January 12, 2010
“No state or territory in Australia ever wanted to steal Aboriginal children from their parents in order to eliminate the race or put an end to Aboriginality. No Aboriginal children were removed as part of an agenda driven by racism or genocide. There were no Stolen Generations.”
Read more...Howard and the Left
January 11, 2010
With climate change, John Howard decided to challenge the notion that it should be elevated to the “moral challenge of our time”, recognising that the same crowd who ran this line would have spoken about indigenous disadvantage in the same terms the week before.
Read more...Ecology and compulsion
January 10, 2010
Even assuming that ecological viability itself were in issue, it is still entirely unjustified and unjustifiable to jump to a conclusion that government is able to centrally plan the ecology and the economy, by bureaucratic command-and-control.
Read more...Scam of the century
December 14, 2009
The Climategate files have demonstrated the scientific malfeasance of an influential and internationally well networked segment of the climate research community.
Read more...Peter Spencer
December 21, 2009
Peter Spencer is demanding the Australian government pay fair compensation to him and all Australian property-holders whose property rights were taken without compensation pursuant to the Kyoto Protocol.
Read more...Why Barry Jones is wrong
December 21, 2009
In so far as bias can be detected in press coverage of global warming it operates in favour of the alarmist message, which is, of course, no surprise to those familiar with the ways of the media.
Read more...Politics of green unreality
December 21, 2009
In Sydney, Greenpeace (who are apparently completely above the law) once again assaulted the Opera House to unfurl a banner demanding a ‘climate treaty now’, as if such a predictable and platitudinous stunt contributed anything meaningful.
Read more...Seeking untainted science
December 26, 2009
The opinion of economists on the science is superfluous to their role and simply gets in the way of informed debate.
Read more...Elders at war
December 27, 2009
Watching last Monday’s ABC “Elders” programme was like experiencing a mongoose and a cobra shape up. The celebrity-atheist Richard Dawkins was quietly circled by celebrity-atheist Andrew Denton.
Read more...Guinness reviewed
December 27, 2009
Countess Elizabeth Báthory’s 399-year-old record still stands. She was the world’s most prolific murderess. Apparently, the Hungarian monster killed 600 virgins.
Read more...Indignant bears protest
December 24, 2009
“The ABC [state controlled media] acknowledges that polar bears are not necessarily driven towards cannibalism because of climate change; this claim should have been attributed to conservationists.”
Read more...The Australian way
December 21, 2009
It would be nice if at least a few proponents of a statutory bill of rights here in Australia fessed up and called this Consultative Committee process what it really is and urged that the question be put to all of us voters.
Read more...ABC beats own Drum
December 21, 2009
Chris Masters worries that the ABC is replacing time consuming investigative journalism with quick and cheap opinion-based journalism, of which there is an endless supply. He’s not wrong.
Read more...Avatar reviewed
December 27, 2009
With these bald caricatures wearing black and white hats, it’s a good thing the film is lovely to look at, because otherwise it would stink to high heaven.
Read more...The Very Worst Secret
December 26, 2009
Michael Connor reads his short story “The Very Worst Secret”.
Read more...Agatha Christie on acid
January 8, 2010
It’s the season for Midsomer Murders. In our own bleached midsummer, that mythical corner of England that’s forever sunny, green Midsomershire is one of the great pleasures of my slowed-down writing life.
Read more...Monckton luncheon
January 8, 2010
Lord Christopher Monckton will present a luncheon lecture in Melbourne on February 1: “Apocalypse? NO! ‘Global Warming’ is not a Global Crisis”.
Read more...The sceptical poet
December 7, 2009
AUDIO: Patrick McCauley reads two poems about modern Australia.
Read more...Thought Police and Big Brother
January 6, 2010
Even by French standards, this proposed new law is really quite bizarre. A bill may soon be passed by the French parliament in which “psychological violence” will be made a crime. Really folks, I am not making this up.
Read more...Garrett performance falls flat
January 6, 2010
The environment minister should stick to saving whales and doing what he does best - gyrating wildly across a stage whilst making bold political statements that he will never be held accountable for.
Read more...The US will be damned - again
January 5, 2010
The Blackwater case will be seen around the world as an imperialist US protecting the killers of innocent Iraqis. In fact it is the result of a criminal justice system more concerned with the perpetrators of crime than its victims.
The King Has Got No Clothes
January 5, 2010
Dennis Boothby rocks away the climate blues.
Read more...The Pachauri affair
January 5, 2010
Largely ignored in the local Australian media was an extraordinary story published in London’s Daily Telegraph two weeks ago which accused the Chairman of the International Panel on Climate Change, Dr Rajendra Pachauri, ‘of making a fortune from his links with “carbon trading” companies.’
Read more...Kevin's Copenhagen Carol
January 4, 2010
On the last day of Copenhagen my Minister said to me “The Departmental Secretary is out of his tree”.
Read more...Climate crisis or energy crisis?
January 4, 2010
New tariffs are now prohibited by the WTO, and both the CAP and VAT are unpopular with voters. Enter “Climate Change” - and an indirect tariff via a carbon tax, an ETS.
Read more...Saint-Simon and the Stranger
December 26, 2009
AUDIO: Sophie Masson reads her short story “Saint-Simon and the Stranger”.
Read more...Robert Hughes: The Australian Years
December 26, 2009
AUDIO: Patricia Anderson on her new book Robert Hughes: The Australian Years.
Read more...Christmas reading
December 21, 2009
A few of our Quadrant readers and contributors have listed some of their favourite books, and some that they intend to read over Christmas.
Read more...Hiding the Crown
December 21, 2009
The Victorian Attorney-General’s word changes do not address the real problems of declining law and order and an effectively inaccessible civil law system.
Read more...Parks and Recreation
December 21, 2009
If you haven’t heard of this comedy, then you’re probably not alone. Thanks to the lack of publicity, few Australians will (a) know that Parks and Recreation is here and (b) that it beats Australia’s sterile politically correct comedies hands down.
Read more...Spend, spend, spend
December 21, 2009
Why can most people count their own money and work out how much they can spend and then lose that ability and become delusional once they are in company?
Read more...Muddle in the middle
December 21, 2009
Pity the politician in 2010. Climate change policies pose an unknown, but potentially strong, temptation to cross party lines.
Read more...How Kevin saved Christmas
December 21, 2009
A central issue for the debate was whether to limit temperature rises to 1.5 or 2 degrees centigrade. The former apparently insured the survival of the Pacific island states while the latter would do them and some of Bangladesh irreparable damage.
Read more...COP15: Day 12
December 19, 2009
Obama’s short speech to the conference plenary was probably the most insulting and patronising speech delivered by a US President in a long time.
Read more...COP15: Day 11
December 18, 2009
It’s hard to stand between developing country governments and a pot of gold especially when the obligations that come with it will fall onto their successors.
Read more...COP15: Day 10
December 17, 2009
Government indifference to serious emissions reduction is driven by political greed because they don’t want to be exposed to the voter policy backlash from actually cutting emissions.
Read more...COP15: Day 9
December 16, 2009
NGOs don’t actually like being called NGOs. They prefer being referred to as “civil society”.
Read more...Prove it, Prime Minister
December 14, 2009
It is bad enough when politicians refer to "the" science, but the Prime Minister of Australia demeaned his high office when he not only called those who question his infallibility “dangerous”, he went on to libel them with a totally unjustified smear.
Read more...COP15: Day 7
December 14, 2009
Considering the religious fervour that many climate evangelists bring to the issue Sunday is, appropriately, an official day of rest.
Read more...COP15: Day 6
December 13, 2009
What was surprising was that the topic of the leaked emails and documents that has prompted ‘Climategate’ didn’t come up in the questions and answers section.
Read more...COP15: Day 5
December 12, 2009
To make themselves feel important most delegates at international negotiating conferences always talk in acronyms, but at Copenhagen they’re in overdrive.
Read more...COP15: Day 4
December 11, 2009
Like the debate about climate change in Australia, symbolism over substance is triumphing in Copenhagen and the pledge to make the conference carbon neutral is looking decidedly hard to deliver.
Read more...COP 15: Day 3
December 10, 2009
The Australian government alone has more than one hundred registered delegates.
Read more...COP15: Day 8
December 15, 2009
Rumours around the conference are that a group of NGOs will try and storm the conference centre to try and get access to political leaders.
Read more...COP15: Day 2
December 9, 2009
The best entertainment was at a side-event with a speaker who dared decry the NGO group think that prevails over the conference.
Read more...On Paul Samuelson
December 14, 2009
Paul Samuelson understood the importance of ideas in shaping the world. It is his ideas as a disciple of Keynes that, for better or worse, now shape policy decisions across the entire world.
Read more...The real Copenhagen conference
December 14, 2009
I attended the Copenhagen Climate Challenge Conference. It was about the science of climate. Speakers were scientists, lawyers and environmentalists.
Read more...AFI AWARDS: The Nite of Nites
December 14, 2009
The real surprise at the AFI Awards was that Cate wasn’t nominated for anything. I mean, this is Cate we’re talking about.
Read more...Fine tuning the ABC
December 14, 2009
Our “ABC acknowledged that the American War of Independence took place between 1775 and 1783.” Or to put it another way: Oops!
Read more...The Adam Smith antidote
December 14, 2009
It is interesting to speculate on whether, if Justice Higgins had emigrated to India rather than Australia, working class Indians would all be enjoying a “fair and reasonable wage”.
Read more...On Quadrant
December 14, 2009
The knockers of Quadrant have yet to understand or admit that during the Cold War the friends of Quadrant were on the honourable and humanitarian side while the communists and their fellow travellers were not.
Read more...What's in a name?
December 14, 2009
Almost all of the disagreements between people take place down in the quagmire of detail and of what precisely the role of government should be.
Read more...The Climate Games - 2009
December 14, 2009
Gold, Silver and Bronze medals are falling out of the sky in the first week of the Climate Games in Copenhagen.
Read more...Give us honesty
December 14, 2009
Leaked emails and computer code reveal manipulation of data to serve political ends, attempted perversion of the peer review process, collusion, destruction of data and worse.
Read more...Brave New Green World
December 14, 2009
As the Copenhagen conference unfolds it is possible to detect the outlines of the grim future dystopia that will emerge if the stealthy and remorseless proponents of global eco-fascism are allowed to remake our world in their image.
Read more...Scaring Our Kids to Death (To Save the Planet)
December 9, 2009
The four-minute opening video at the Copenhagen Summit was a propaganda piece which would have made Goebbels proud. Entitled “Please Help the World,” it has all the hallmarks of a Hollywood end-of-the-world blockbuster. Loaded with emotional hysteria, moving imagery, and screaming children, it is indoctrination at its finest.
Read more...ABC misses Climategate, finds Lesotho
December 10, 2009
The credibility of this segment of so-called news was zero to any intelligent person; even, I would hope, to those wedded to the conventional wisdom of man-made global warming.
Read more...COP15 and Climategate
December 9, 2009
Is any one actually in favour of pollution? Are people really organized and paid to encourage more pollution? Does this make any sense at all?
Read more...Sceptics in Wonderland
December 7, 2009
A milestone in this mess can be said to be when John Houghton of the IPCC said it was the IPCC’s job to “orchestrate” the views of science. Everything that has happened flows as an inevitable consequence of that.
Read more...COP15 Opening Ceremony
December 8, 2009
Anyone sceptical of the UN system or the science of climate change never made it into the opening ceremony under the gaze of the world’s media. Instead their voices were sent to the other end of the conference centre out of sight, and out of mind.
Read more...The Howard Era - book launch
December 7, 2009
A collection of essays analysing the Howard Government was launched at a Quadrant dinner tonight.
Read more...Don't ask, don't tell
December 7, 2009
Trouble is, I can’t write about this film without introducing spoilers, and this is a film which is best seen without knowing too much about it.
Read more...China and Dubai
December 7, 2009
Badly directed public spending is a curse that has brought down many an economy in the past. The example of Dubai, whose expenditures began well before the Global Financial Crisis set in, ought to make governments think about their own expenditure programs.
Read more...Biff me, Kate
December 7, 2009
Kate Grenville started by saying that “I don’t like being bullied” then went on to say that she recently “nearly clocked” a climate sceptic in the National Library coffee shop.
Read more...Rudd's Chamberlain moment
December 7, 2009
Rudd could come back from Copenhagen waving an agreement like Neville Chamberlain returning from Munich.
Read more...The writing life: 4
December 7, 2009
In our modern society, to be left bereft of the magic and beauty, the robust humour and deep wisdom of fairytales and their older cousins, myths and legends, is to be open to every withering blast of nihilism.
Read more...DIY ocean heating
December 7, 2009
Why on earth do we attribute any heating of the oceans to carbon dioxide, when there is a far more obvious culprit, and when such a straightforward examination of the thermodynamics render it impossible.
Read more...Undoing knotted minds
December 7, 2009
Suppose a conventional wisdom is substantially astray from the truth (the way the world really is) and its impact is adverse. Never mind how it started, the important question is when and under what circumstances will it go away.
Read more...Abbott and media duplicity
December 7, 2009
The commentariat wrote off Tony Abbott but now they have egg on their faces over the weekend by-elections. In just a few days he has changed the debate. And the electors like what they see.
Read more...Climategate at the Movies
November 30, 2009
A selection of videos about climate change and Climategate. Bring your own popcorn.
Read more...A crime against humanity
November 30, 2009
That the utter disregard for truth exhibited in the CRU emails can be either invisible or insignificant to AGW defenders is indicative of the vast chasm between their faith and the open rational empirical world of real science.
Read more...Climategate Pty Ltd
December 2, 2009
What should we make of the near-unanimity of opinion among a cohort of scientists in such a complex and dynamic field?
Read more...Abbott wins - media loses
December 1, 2009
The choice of Tony Abbott as leader is a victory for common sense. He showed that in his first decision, which was to hold a secret ballot. The party then sensibly decided not to accept the government ultimatum to pass the ETS for the sole purpose of allowing Kevin Rudd to boast about it at Copenhagen.
Read more...John L. Daly
November 30, 2009
Yesterday I visited John L. Daly’s tiny office where he lived on the outskirts of Launceston. It is about the size of two telephone boxes.
Read more...The New Road to Serfdom
November 30, 2009
Why do real people in the real world matter less than those in some speculative, increasingly unlikely, science-fiction vision of the future?
Read more...The Office does "Weight Loss"
November 30, 2009
The American documentary-style comedy, The Office, is the cleverest show around. Even sharper than the BBC’s version.
Read more...Watch on the Left
November 30, 2009
Wikileaks justified the publication of Sarah Palin's stolen emails as in the public interest. There was no outcry from the Left condemning the theft of the emails or questioning the possibly unethical publishing of personal material.
Read more...Peer review locks gate
November 30, 2009
As the Climategate emails show, the warmers captured the whole system – all the journals, all their editors and the journals’ boards.
Read more...Kiwi Climategate
November 30, 2009
Last Wednesday the New Zealand Climate Science Coalition released a document showing that New Zealand’s average temperature had not risen by as much as its National Institute for Water and Atmosphere claims.
Read more...Once upon a Climategate
November 30, 2009
In order to distract the people from massive government debt and invasion, the Prime Minister had the public servants construct a carbon horse.
Read more...Emissions Trading Scheme Forum - Home page
August 8, 2009
The government’s emissions trading legislation is to be considered again by the Senate on 13 August. The vote that Senators deliver then, and again later should the bill be defeated and resubmitted, is the biggest decision that they will make in their political careers. For the passage or not of this bill will determine the fate of the Australian economy, and the standard of living of average Australians, for decades to come.
Read more...ETS support is turning
November 28, 2009
Opinion is never set in aspic, as Fightback, Cheryl Kernot’s defection and the initial reaction to referendum proposals demonstrate. Scientific fraud, predictions not coming true and a strong and principled Liberal leader- not Joe Hockey - will see to this.
Read more...Rudd-Turnbull Coalition collapses
November 27, 2009
With the collapse of the Rudd-Turnbull coalition, the Liberal Party must choose a new leader from Liberals of principle, not another deputy to Kevin Rudd.
Read more...Climategate: Shutting out dissent
November 24, 2009
Science is supposedly open with data, methods, conclusions and hypotheses all made available to other scientists so that they might confirm the processing and then apply further tests to the hypotheses. The CRU emails reveal the antithesis of this.
Read more...Where does it all end?
November 24, 2009
Our success relative to others is built not on our own increases in public spending, which are now a debt weight cost to the economy, but on the stimulus package introduced in China.
Read more...Working Toward Religious Freedom in Islam
November 23, 2009
Religious freedom is not exactly a hallmark of Muslim-majority countries. One of the most disconcerting features of Islam is the way “apostates” are treated. In Islam those who choose to leave the faith are regarded as traitors, and death is often the penalty.
Read more...The long and short arm of the law
November 23, 2009
2009 In Western Australia a 12 year old Aboriginal boy was charged by police with receiving a stolen Freddo frog worth 70 cents. In South Australia a man was charged by police with driving without a licence (he didn’t have one), when he lent over to steer a runaway car, to avoid the car crashing into a structure.
Read more...Shopping trolley economics
November 23, 2009
Economic recovery, when set against the wasteful government expenditure we are having and the winding back of labour market flexibility by Julia Gillard, sets the scene for inflation. But it isn’t happening yet and is unlikely to break out in the immediate future.
Read more...The writing life: 3
November 23, 2009
You sometimes hear writers say they never read the work of other authors. Underlying this is a deeper fear: that you may discover that those other writers' books are actually vastly better than yours, leading to a major paralysis in imagination and the feeling that as they've said it all anyway, why bother?
Read more...2012
November 23, 2009
The nice thing about disaster movies is that you can show things that could never happen in real life, like having the US government take the heads of European nations seriously.
Read more...When are we going to wake up?
November 23, 2009
Threats to the environment and the climate change “crisis” are hypothetical arguments presided over by people who have never built, grown, manufactured or produced anything and whose practical ability is challenged by changing a light bulb.
Read more...Flawed research revealed
November 23, 2009
“A key concern is that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change - which advises governments around the world - has used the Murray Darling Basin and incorrect science as an example of CO2 induced climate change.”
Read more...Klive's Kampf
November 23, 2009
Clive Hamilton has now compared climate change skeptics to Holocaust deniers, and predicted that the effects of climate change would be a hundred or even two hundred times worse than the Nazi Holocaust.
Read more...Ending Climatemania
November 23, 2009
Recent statements from leading politicians concentrate on suppressing debate and ridiculing sceptics of dangerous global warming. Yet anyone who studies the evidence will realize that the science is most uncertain. Objective, unimpassioned debate is desperately needed.
Read more...Time to stand up
November 23, 2009
Voters are crying out for a leader to expose the useless and damaging Rudd-Wong ETS and to provide strong border protection. Tony Abbott’s time is coming.
Read more...Not happy, Clive!
November 18, 2009
There is some irony in being accused of personal aggrandisement by a Canberra based “public intellectual” who seems to be using the Higgins by-election as little more than a promotional vehicle for his next book.
Read more...Political insurgency in Higgins
November 15, 2009
It may well be that Rudd regards Turnbull as close to a best friend who needs to be kept as Opposition leader.
Read more...Why Monbiot ran
November 15, 2009
Initially, George Monbiot agreed to debate Ian Plimer, but someone reasoned that it was a high-risk venture - a debate between a froth and bubble, blog-obsessed journalist and a leading academic with impeccable credentials in earth sciences.
Read more...The Monbiot Affair
November 12, 2009
Ian Plimer and George Monbiot were to meet in London to debate climate change on 12 November. Monbiot chickened out. Here are two emails they exchanged.
Read more...Whitlam Redux
November 13, 2009
Terry McCrann points out the Rudd government is on the way to, or has already become, worse than Whitlam’s. For more than 30 years he says, the Whitlam government has been “the -- unsurpassable -- benchmark for bad government in Australia.”
Read more...Failure of Afghan reconciliation
November 15, 2009
Afghanistan’s security forces lack the leaders to make additional Afghan-led units anything better than brigands in uniform.
Read more...Australia: State of Intolerance
November 15, 2009
Do we have the politicians with the courage required to put the brakes on this increasingly menacing process, or will the future of Australia be sacrificed on the altar of the eco-apocalypse?
Read more...The coming inflation
November 15, 2009
That there is a serious inflation coming seems all too possible. We have now poured an inordinate amount of money into the economic system without creating any buyable goods to match and I fear it is starting to show.
Read more..."V" vill eat you
November 15, 2009
Is political-incorrectness ready to meet sci-fi? Yes, If ABC’s (US) series première is anything to go by. “V” is for “O.”
Read more...Blogging as a fine art
November 15, 2009
The blogger is not off in their own imagination, the blogger is participating in the great conversation of humanity. To my way of thinking blogging is an Oakeshottian conversation.
Read more...After Versailles - The Copenhagen Treaty
November 15, 2009
No-one in those days, or up until recently, would have thought there might come a day when the debt of war would be replaced by the debt of climate ‘warming’, for which reparations were demanded.
Read more...Worshipping at the Altar of Tolerance
November 12, 2009
As people more and more reject the notion of absolute truth and universal morality, they do not remain without belief.
Read more...Debate me, Prime Minister
November 12, 2009
I will debate Kevin Rudd on the science of climate change anywhere, anytime. I am very confident that he will be too cowardly to accept the challenge, far easier to resort to invective.
Read more...Rudd contra science
November 10, 2009
The Prime Minister’s speech to the Lowy Institute appears to have been drafted by one of Australia’s many climate change bloggers. It certainly marks a new low in the standard of political debate.
Read more...ETS or another GST?
November 9, 2009
The description of the impact of the CPRS with its ETS has been an artful exercise in misleading and deceptive presentation. It is another GST dressed up as a tax on carbon dioxide.
Read more...The Education Revolution
November 9, 2009
The loss of deference in our society and authority in our schools means that teachers are among the few people who actually go to work in the morning with a sense of dread, dread of what some child may say or do to them in the course of the day.
Read more...Obama will eat us!!
November 9, 2009
Coming from the US a new TV series called “V” - for Visitors. Interesting political sub-plot. See the trailer here.
Read more...Singer out of tune
November 9, 2009
Pro-infanticide Peter Singer wants you to save the children, and give at least five percent of your income – assuming you work – to his pet causes.
Read more...The bad language of economics
November 9, 2009
If we are ever to stop governments wasting our money we have to begin to change the political lexicon. Only conservatives – in the media, in think tanks and in politics – have the philosophical wherewithal to begin the job and to persist with it.
Read more...Health war victims
November 9, 2009
For evidence to prove that the conspicuous compassion of the Rudd government is a complete fraud, the issue of cataract surgery for the elderly is the place to go.
Read more...Eco-Fascism & Clive Hamilton
November 9, 2009
Because the Greens portray themselves as “progressive” in their political ideology and programme, questions about the “natural fit” between radical environmentalism and fascism have not been frequently asked.
Read more...Labor and the ETS
November 9, 2009
The National President of the CFMEU, a union covering 13,000 coal miners, recently described the term “green jobs” as “dopey”.
Read more...CIA on climate change
November 9, 2009
The CIA goes as far as to suggest that the new global patterns considered likely to last at least 40 years and possibly centuries, could cause political and economic upheaval “beyond comprehension”.
Read more...Goodbye doctors' wives
November 3, 2009
Unless Mr. Turnbull turns his back on the doctors’ wives of Wentworth, he will remain Mr. Rudd’s principal defence.
Read more...Controlfreakonomics!
November 2, 2009
Will the Copenhagen Treaty be debated and voted on by the Australian Parliament? - or will it be simply be another one of those international treaties simply signed by the Prime Minister. Another one of our “international obligations”!
Read more...COP 15 - Copenhagen Treaty
November 3, 2009
The famous COP 15 or Copenhagen Treaty, which few politicians seem to have read, is here.
Read more...Does anybody care?
November 2, 2009
The Government is counting on your ignorance to get away with literally destroying billions of dollars of our wealth. These projects will almost certainly not make us better off, they will just make us poorer.
Read more...An Education at the movies
November 2, 2009
Peter Sarsgaard’s role as the emotional rapist is uncomfortably believable. He is the thinking person’s Brad Pitt. A poster boy with deep acting skills.
Read more...Education Standards Institute
November 2, 2009
A conservatively minded, internet site is especially needed in the area of education.
Read more...Authors, Beware!
November 2, 2009
I then did what perhaps I should have done in the first place and Googled the literary agency, adding the word scam.
Read more...Size is important
November 2, 2009
A small amount of stimulus spending doing little good; does little harm. A large amount of spending doing little good; does harm, because it has to be financed on the other side and because it draws resources way from where they can be used more productively.
Read more...The Eco-Apocalypse Craze
November 2, 2009
It is a measure of the corruption of science amidst the moral panic of global warming that Lovelock’s ‘Gaia Hypothesis’ has now been elevated to the status of a scientific theory.
Read more...Plea for tolerance
October 27, 2009
Quadrant Online has received a passionate plea for tolerance - emailed from a gum tree somewhere in Higgins.
Read more...A defining moment
October 29, 2009
Conservatives are not sociopaths as Jill Singer would have it – uncaring about their fellow human beings – but people whose empathy has developed beyond a child-like response to suffering.
Read more...Tracey does whiteface
October 19, 2009
Tracey couldn’t make it for the Big Quadrant Bash. There was an emergency Fabian seminar she had to go to, to deal with Australian racism in the wake of the Hey Hey scandal.
Read more...The daft treaty
October 26, 2009
Are countries like the US, Australia, Great Britain, Japan, and the nations of Europe ready and prepared to transfer their economic wealth and treasure to countries of the third world? Are Japan, China and India?
Read more...A modern fairy tale
October 26, 2009
It seems as though there is a magic pudding. The Government can apparently spend big and borrow very large sums to pay for it without ever having to worry about its effect on interest rates. This seems to be too good to be true; and so it is.
Read more...Prawn cocktail
October 26, 2009
The full complexity of modern South Africa – drugs, gangsterism, crime, black African superstition, white superiority, a desperate and corrupt military – is aired for public consumption, and a very unpleasant mess it is.
Read more...Their favourite dictator
October 26, 2009
To the Martini Marxist, Venezuela is his personal ant farm: “During the first seven years that Chávez was in power, 100,000 people were killed in Venezuela, a country with scarcely more than twenty million inhabitants.”
Read more...Culture catcher: 20
October 26, 2009
McCarthyism in 2009: “Who cares about denialists? Ignore them, don’t feed them. Never link to them.”
Read more...The Kevinator
October 26, 2009
A cunning plan to bring water to Lake Eyre, rain to south east Australia and prosperity to the Murray Darling Basin.
Read more...The science of deceit
October 26, 2009
Though no scientist doubts that humans influence climate at local level - causing both warmings and coolings - no definitive evidence has yet been discovered that a human influence is measurable, let alone dangerous, at global level.
Read more...John Howard at Quadrant
October 19, 2009
John Howard officially opened the new Quadrant office in Balmain, and launched the first in a new series of Quadrant Books - Frank Devine’s Older & Wiser.
Read more...Not Evil Just Wrong reviewed
October 12, 2009
The film is not so much about the science of climate change as it is about explaining the sociology and politics of what is now perhaps the world’s greatest-ever scare campaign.
Read more...Bard does climate change
October 19, 2009
The big question is who will get the part of the Hamlet, Prince of Denmark — Barack Obama, Gordon Brown or Kevin Rudd?
Read more...Julie and Julia
October 19, 2009
While the movie starts off innocently enough, it evolves into a screeching chick flick, weighed down by politically correct talking points.
Read more...They got it wrong
October 19, 2009
What has been done is totally indefensible, will do incalculable damage, weaken our economies and prolong unemployment.
Read more...Red Shoes
October 19, 2009
The parts I enjoyed the most in Mao’s Last Dancer were the ballets. Vivid, lively, colourful, fast-moving, energetic and thoroughly entertaining, they were everything the rest of the movie wasn’t.
Read more...The way ahead
October 19, 2009
All Australian politicians have now for some years lived in terror of a global-warming-brainwashed electorate, and of the strong Green intimidation that continues to be exercised against all voters.
Read more...Left's War on Science
October 19, 2009
The Left should call a halt to their ongoing war on DDT and thereby on science; the collateral damage – mostly third-world children, pregnant women and the old, claimed by malaria – is unacceptable.
Read more...Rethinking Foreign Aid
October 19, 2009
What happens when economists from the developing world start to denounce much of what passes for Western overseas aid? That is exactly what one young woman from Zambia has done. Dambisa Moyo is an economist who has just penned an important new book on the subject.
Read more...My friend Frank
July 4, 2009
Frank Devine was an indomitable cavalier. A bon vivant who loved long lunches, he was a conviction journalist whose religious faith was central to his life. (He used to pray privately at work: “Jesus Christ, Son of God , have mercy on us.”).
Read more...Double dissolution? Yes, please
October 13, 2009
The Liberal leadership should stop being afraid and welcome a double dissolution, using the opportunity to expose the global warming fundamentalists.
Read more...Nobel-esse Oblige
October 12, 2009
Wow! Barack Obama has won the Nobel Peace Prize! Gosh, I mean that one really came out of nowhere, didn’t it?
Read more...The neo-Cromwellians
October 12, 2009
The attacks on academics and writers (and ordinary citizens) who question current Left-wing theories on history, society, climate and a host of other issues are not based on freedom of expression and thought, but on suppression.
Read more...Culture catcher: 19
October 12, 2009
‘According to these Poststructuralist relativists, we cannot even be sure that the Holocaust took place.’
Read more...The West in a Nutshell
October 12, 2009
The essays I have written are pieces written, as the occasion presented itself, or the mood took me, over the past decade. Each was written for the sheer pleasure of trying to articulate a thoughtful position on the subject in question.
Read more...The writing life: 2
October 12, 2009
Writers are professional stickybeaks, eyes on stalks, ears flapping, ever on the look-out for the telling vignette, the odd detail, the weird seed that might one day flourish into a full-grown literary plant.
Read more...Stimulus or welfare?
October 12, 2009
It is not just “spending” that matters but what that spending is on. Our productive structures are being bent out of shape towards the creation of what can never give this economy momentum or higher real incomes.
Read more...The wisdom of skepticism
October 12, 2009
Why should the people of the world, whose lives will be utterly transformed by the draconian actions proposed by the global warming fanatics, meekly accept their fate?
Read more...Whither the Liberal Party?
October 12, 2009
Menzies was no saint, but he seemed to have a bit of vision, principle, and a set of core values. If the modern Liberals want to get back into power, they will need leaders with similar traits. Otherwise they may languish on the sidelines for some time to come.
Read more...Rethinking the Crusades
October 11, 2009
Dispelling the many myths about the Crusades takes guts, and someone with the right intellectual and academic qualifications. Rodney Stark is certainly the man for the job: he has become one of our finest writers on the sociology and history of religion, and is unafraid to go against the tide.
Read more...Not Evil Just Wrong
September 27, 2009
On October 18 our documentary, Not Evil Just Wrong, will premiere in homes and campuses across Australia and around the world.
Read more...The writing life: 1
August 31, 2009
Children and teenagers are honest. If they aren’t hooked into your book in the first couple of pages, they will simply close it. It doesn’t matter how many prizes its won, how well regarded you are by the literary world, they simply don’t care if your book doesn’t grab them.
Read more...The Big Fix
October 9, 2009
The [Brennan] committee makes much of the fact it received 35,000 responses, with another 6000 odd people attending its round-table sessions. That is the same as saying it heard from 0.2 per cent of the Australian population, or hasn't heard from 99.8 per cent of us. And those it heard from were disproportionately from charter cheerleading lobby groups.
Read more...One of these photos is racist
October 9, 2009
Daryl Somers is in trouble for a Red Faces segment on the Hey Hey It's Saturday Reunion. Here are two photos.
Read more...Killing the Black Dog
October 5, 2009
Killing the Black Dog is Les Murray’s courageous account of his struggle with depression, accompanied by poems specially selected by the author.
Read more...Islam and Polygamy
October 5, 2009
I have been utterly amazed to discover that a major newspaper recently carried an opinion piece by a Muslim spokesman advocating polygamy in Australia. The Melbourne Age evidently thought it was quite alright to actually run with this nonsense, presumably because it was being pushed by a Muslim.
Read more...Comrades vs. Liberty
October 5, 2009
For the vast variety of leftist ideologues that inhabit Leftland, the idea of liberty — or freedom of thought, speech, movement and ideas — always gets in the way of the socialist agenda.
Read more...Stimulus hampers growth
October 5, 2009
If you give everyone a cheque in the mail before Christmas you have to expect that some people will spend it in retail stores.
Read more...Rudd keeps Left
October 5, 2009
Few readers will be aware of a recent news conference at which Prime Minister Rudd fielded questions from ABC and Fairfax News reporters. Oddly enough, all the questions related to the recent change in Samoa from driving on the right hand side of the road to driving on the left hand side of the road.
Read more...Counting the cost
October 5, 2009
The Secretary of the Treasury believes that the $43 billion additional spending accounted for by the stimulus added 200,000 additional jobs to the economy. My own estimate, given the relatively mild recession that we have had, is that no more than 30,000 to 40,000 jobs may have been saved.
Read more...Culture catcher: 18
October 5, 2009
Program for a day in Berlin (courtesy the Australian taxpayer): Left "history" at the Free University, lunch at the Aux Délices normands restaurant, drinks at Luisa, dinner at the Restaurant Piaggio.
Read more...Rachel Carson
October 5, 2009
Rachel Carson’s magnum opus Silent Spring made her famous and a darling of the left. In making her case against DDT Carson constructs not a sturdy cornerstone of scientific truth but rather an elaborate tissue of exaggerations and lies.
Read more...Debating global warming
October 5, 2009
The advocates for what turned out to be markedly opposing views were Des Moore, the former Deputy Secretary of the Federal Treasury and Harry Clarke, Professor of Economics at La Trobe University.
Read more...Dear Malcolm
October 2, 2009
A proper hazard reduction and adaptation policy to deal with known future climatic threats is a very different matter to the political question implicit in today’s headlines.
Read more...Howard and the Nobel Peace Prize
September 29, 2009
But for John Howard, East Timor would not be free. So why was the Nobel Peace Prize awarded to Kofi Annan and the UN? Was it because of Howard’s refusal to go along with the hijacking of the Tampa?
Read more...Left Forum: Care on the Left
September 27, 2009
The pedestrian and gullible were recruited into the counter cultural left. If they were useful women they became the vanguard of the feminist movement. How many have sailed through academia in paltry women’s studies courses and were later taken up and promoted into areas of the public service by affirmative action?
Read more...Left Forum: On Left equality
September 27, 2009
The equality that must be defended is equality before the law - the equal right of every individual to advance his or her life and pursue happiness in liberty, including the liberty to earn or produce property, and to keep it.
Read more...Media ecoevangelists
September 27, 2009
By what authority does the ABC allow ecoevangelists to grandstand their relentless and extreme views at public expense – effectively providing their organisations with continuous free advertising at the taxpayers’ expense?
Left Forum: The Rudd Ticket
September 27, 2009
A momentous event in our national affairs has all but gone unnoticed. The political party which for over a hundred years was known as the Australian Labor Party has ceased to exist.
Read more...Left Forum: Homepage
September 27, 2009
Last The Australian began publication of a series of articles by some of Australia’s leading Left thinkers explaining what it means to be Left. This Quadrant Online Forum looks at some of those articles, and some of those ideas.
Read more...Left Forum: The lites on the hill
September 21, 2009
The Left has no idea what it stands for or why it is in office, beyond pursuing and indulging the perquisites of power.
Read more...Left Forum: 'What's left'
September 27, 2009
‘What’s left’ is pragmatic politics, in which a social democratic Prime Minister can claim to be an economic conservative and a Keynesian big-spender, a critic of ‘neoliberalism’ and the heir to Labor’s ‘neoliberal’ economic reforms. For followers of political ideas, it’s a confusing mix. But for Labor, it might just be a winning electoral formula.
Read more...Culture catcher: 17
September 27, 2009
This Declaration supports the right of every woman, man and child to associate freely and to volunteer regardless of their cultural and ethnic origin, religion, age, gender and physical, social and economic position.
Read more...Left Forum: Green Left Weakly
September 27, 2009
Those who waste their time with their special pleading for theoretical rigor, are blind to the horrific reality that all the Left is about are simplistic ideas and slogans, jealousy, resentment, opportunism, and a lust for power and personal advancement.
Read more...Charlie & Boots
September 27, 2009
This authenticity is a joy after the paralysing self-consciousness which usually affects Australian film. Refreshingly, this movie seems to be pitched at people who don’t live in expensive inner-city terrace housing and don’t actually care who edits The Monthly.
Read more...Testing the stimulus
September 27, 2009
We do not know in any realistic way what would have occurred had the stimulus package not been introduced, or what would have occurred had some other set of economic policies been applied.
Read more...Left Forum: "TEH left"
September 27, 2009
A very convenient rhetorical strategy is to make mocking references to ‘TEH left’ (misspelling intended) anytime any critique of a thinker or movement identified with the left is attempted.
Read more...Left Forum: Why we differ
September 27, 2009
The enemies of the Left usually in fact turn out to be the best guarantors of genuine social goods, such as freedom, opportunity and prosperity. The things the Left tends to press for are often at odds and conflict with such goods.
Read more...Beginning a new day
September 22, 2009
Mr Rudd’s honeymoon has survived that of even President Obama – why? It is surely not a question of superior charisma.
Read more...The law in black and white
September 21, 2009
In the arcane world Tasmanian politics, nothing is what it seems. Business has an expression of “above the line and below the line”, but in the Apple Isle we tend to define political decisions as either “above the belt or below the belt”.
Read more...Culture catcher: 16
September 21, 2009
“There’s places on this island we can’t walk through; there’s this horrible feelin’ you get. There’s terrible things been done, and tho’ we don’t know what exactly, nobody will go there.”
Read more...Liberals - Whither goest thou?
September 21, 2009
The essence of the problem is the lack of any coherent set of policies that might convey what kind of society the Party considers Australians should have and how that might be achieved.
Read more...The Young (and the Restless) Victoria
September 21, 2009
Apparently Martin Scorsese had something to do with this film; I find that hard to believe. I do, however, find it very easy to believe that Sarah Ferguson, Duchess of York, had plenty to do with it.
Read more...Understanding the Business Cycle
September 21, 2009
Cycles are cyclical. An upturn follows a downturn, and relatively quickly unless something is done to hold the economy down.
Read more...Think globally, destroy locally
September 21, 2009
As the temperature trend for ten years now has been one of cooling, since the unusually warm El Nino year of 1998, this requires a precautionary response to cooling rather than warming.
Read more...Why This Unholy Alliance?
September 21, 2009
One of the great unresolved questions of recent history is why so many members of the Western left have become so besotted with and apologetic for ruthless totalitarian regimes. Whether the Soviet Union, Cuba, or Islamist Iran, there have always been Western leftists who have idolised these brutal regimes and preferred them to their own countries in the free and prosperous West.
Read more...Quadrant testimonials
September 14, 2009
TEN really good reasons for subscribing to Quadrant - and it's great value!
Read more...A petition not for signing
September 15, 2009
This petition is no more than a plea for more government intervention, a very bad idea indeed. That it has originated in the United States, in an economy now being choked by intervention, is as worrying as the text itself.
Read more...A taste of a Bill of Rights
September 14, 2009
You have to be a bit careful these days when you refer to democracy and Australia in the same breath. This week it became obvious that the idea of democracy got a bloody thumping as ideologues and bureaucrats moved into full gear.
Read more...Culture catcher: 15
September 14, 2009
“By the end of the twentieth century Australia remained one of the few countries on earth without a bill of rights. Emerging nations such as South Africa, Thailand and Timor L’este all developed bills of rights (in 1996, 1997 and 2002), but not Australia.”
Read more...Mayhem at Blak Book Awards
September 14, 2009
A tragic but ultimately empowering story of a Black woman who is often mistaken for white, and of her uplifting and ultimately successful struggle to be recognised as a victim of ongoing colonialism and oppression.
Read more...The eve of destruction: Take 2
September 14, 2009
The atmosphere is not for turnin’
Temperatures rise and people are burnin’
too much fuel but they ain’t learnin’
the earth’s on edge of over turning’
And we are just its overburden.
Culture catcher: 11
August 17, 2009
Elitism 101: “I thought there might have been a statement dressed up as a question from a denialist but no-one was game. Perhaps my mockery of Andrew Bolt cowed them into silence, sorry I mean CRUSHED THEIR DISSENT.”
Read more...Culture cather: 12
August 24, 2009
Australian Viet Cong: “Dr Jim Cairns, Bob Gould, Albert Langer, Michael Hyde, Jean McLean, Brian Laver, Jack Mundey, Mike Jones, Germaine Greer, Allan Ashbolt, Ann Curthoys …”
Read more...Culture catcher: 13
August 31, 2009
Henry Reynolds: “through [his wife] he was able to pass notes to prime minister Paul Keating regarding native title (and his speechwriter and adviser Don Watson often made calls to Reynolds to ask for advice) …”
Read more...Culture catcher: 14
September 7, 2009
“[Barry Humphries’ Sir Les Patterson] is a savage take on both the assertive Australian cultural nationalism that flourished briefly under Australia’s Weimar, the Whitlam Government of 1972-75, and Labor itself.”
Read more...The Garnaut Cult
September 9, 2009
More and more questions are being asked about the scientific foundations of the ETS by highly qualified scientists and others. Yet these doubts are simply being disregarded. This is a high risk path with no apparent ability to back-down if the entire edifice is built on sand.
Read more...Homage to Elizabeth Durack
September 7, 2009
Artist, and Quadrant essayist, Elizabeth Durack (1915–2000) now has a stylish online home.
Read more...Quadrant search
September 7, 2009
Quadrant is preparing its online archives and needs copies of some magazines. Can you help find missing copies?
Read more...Cities that don't work
September 7, 2009
Our roads are congested; our public transport overcrowded; our water supply inadequate; and our amenities are under threat. Experts warned recently of more frequent disruptions to our electricity as power supplies fail.
Read more...The god who failed
September 7, 2009
It is something of an open question, even today, whether Keynes knew much at all of the economics of his own time or whether he lied outright to gain attention for his own approach.
Read more...Spanking New Zealand
September 7, 2009
So in 2007 the law was changed ... This law made spanking for correctional purposes a criminal offence (in effect), though it left a small loophole for spanking to stop disruptions.
Read more...Resenting resentment
September 7, 2009
The 1999 Referendum will celebrate the 10th anniversary of its defeat on the 6th of November this year - a defeat by a majority of citizens in a majority of States. The nation seems to have suffered little from its rejection of resentment.
Read more...Tracey and the Fabians
September 7, 2009
At a weekend seminar Fabians vote to sell ABC. Tenders to be called.
Read more...Global science or global panic?
September 7, 2009
My assessment is not based primarily on scientific analysis but on many years in Treasury and outside of analysing proposals for government intervention to solve perceived “crises”. Much analysis of the present proposal requires little more than common sense.
Read more...Return of the culture wars
August 31, 2009
A UN emissary by the name of Professor James Anaya, of Apache Nation heritage, managed to discover in 11 days - what has eluded this nation for over two centuries - how to improve the well-being of our Indigenous Nations … all 500 of them.
Read more...The Little Black Schoolbook
August 31, 2009
Most students assume that if they receive a disappointing result that it is due to the quality of their work. This may not be the case.
Read more...14 things about Teddy
August 31, 2009
In retrospect, I don’t think many of Teddy’s really great achievements have been praised enough. It’s easy to remember minor achievements like driving his first wife to drink and Mary Jo Kopechne into a pond, and yet so many other things go unacknowledged. So here is a list of what I think are the defining achievements in his career.
Read more...Western Immigration and Global Jihad
August 31, 2009
There is always a moral asymmetry between the free West and its enemies. The West is meant to play by the rules, and it usually does. It seeks to conduct it affairs within a moral framework, and certain things are simply off limits. But the enemies of freedom and democracy know no such compunctions.
Read more...A policy to hurt Australia
August 31, 2009
To pass this Bill, or any incarnation of it ahead of the Copenhagen talks, is sheer folly. To do so, when Labor’s scheme is not even scheduled to commence until 2011, would suggest that politics and politicians have taken leave of their senses.
Read more...Forget the Kids, We’re Gonna Save the Planet
August 30, 2009
The truth is, there is a population crisis. But it is not over-population that we should be worried about, but under-population. Yet the alarmists continue to spin their tunes, urging us to reduce the number of children we have, if not remain childless altogether.
Read more...Creating catastrophe
August 24, 2009
It is claimed that there is a scientific consensus about human-induced climate change. Consensus is a process of politics not science. There is certainly no scientific consensus about human-induced climate change and the loudest voice does not win scientific discussions. Science is married to evidence, no matter how uncomfortable.
Read more...The costs of power
August 24, 2009
The terrible conclusion to be drawn from all this is that while we are exporting expensive energy to Japan, China, India and our other customers we will set about destroying a competitive advantage of cheap power while literally tilting at windmills!
Read more...ETS - Energy Tax Swindle
August 25, 2009
The Liberals should welcome a double dissolution and turn it into a referendum on the ETS, which has absolutely nothing to do with halting global warming and everything to do with damaging the living standards of the Australian people.
Read more...Robbing Hoods
August 24, 2009
It’s intriguing that the movie industry can portray even closeted gays in the military as just as tough as, if not tougher and even more meritorious than, everyone else, but when it comes to Hoover, gays in the FBI are effeminate and rather cowardly snobs.
Read more...Stimulus fed stupidity
August 24, 2009
Economies are cyclical. There will be downturns every so often but to treat each and every one as the end of the world as we know it is a form of short-term lunacy.
Read more...This is the house that Kevin built
August 24, 2009
Alison Anderson’s electrifying speech in the Northern Territory Parliament during a no-confidence motion in the Henderson government was, to put it mildly, sensational.
Read more...Sell the ABC
August 24, 2009
Selling off the ABC would be a way for the Rudd government to start paying back its huge stimulus debt. And it could be a vote winner.
Read more...Think Green, Vote Liberal
August 24, 2009
The astonishing bipartisanship on an environmental issue that threatens Australia’s ability to compete internationally has quickly inspired a startling proposal on “how to save” Malcolm Turnbull by “doing a Whitlam”.
Read more...Accomplices in deceit
August 24, 2009
In my view what is important about The Climate Caper is that it is an insider’s account of how Australia’s scientific institutions were suborned into being accomplices to a religious crusade and, how, in accepting the bribes that were offered, they have seriously compromised their integrity.
Read more...I was there
August 24, 2009
I asked David Karoly why he had not replied to my invitation to attend a lecture by a US scientist who described the kind of science he presented as a “scam”. K said he was on leave, to which I responded “you could have replied”.
Read more...ETS Forum - The Climate Craze
August 11, 2009
Even when alarmist evidence is conclusively discredited (e.g. the hockey stick graph), the climate alarmists continue to use it, and to dismiss all conflicting evidence no matter how sound or voluminous it may be. When their own claims fail, they revise the evidence, not their hypothesis.
Read more...ETS Forum - Science bullies
August 12, 2009
There are many silent skeptics. If the ALP or the Coalition offered their members a silent ballot, they might be shocked at how few privately believe the dogma.
Read more...Carbon dioxide isn't guilty
August 17, 2009
I was asked at a conference in New York last March where public opinion has to be before we can turn government away from climate change. My answer was 70 per cent, and I believe that's the objective.
Read more...Omar Khayyam and the climate
August 17, 2009
As the waters slowly settle on the ETS debate in the Senate last week, the realisation emerges that it all had very little to do with scientific argument and reason and nearly everything to do with economics and politics. Saving the planet gave way to saving face … which at lease was a saving grace.
Read more...Greening the children
August 17, 2009
As a popular textbook explains to students: “ ‘Green politics’ is a term used to refer to issues that ‘Green’ parties throughout the world focus on: protecting the environment for future generations and supporting human rights and social justice.”
Read more...Colette at the movies
August 17, 2009
So I watched the gorgeous scenery (apparently France basked in perpetual summer for the last quarter of the nineteenth century), admired Lea’s real pearl necklace, wondered when Chéri was going to strangle her with it, and regretted that he didn’t.
Read more...Shrinking birds?
August 17, 2009
Reports that climate change is causing some kind of far fetched change in something or other are now a daily occurrence in a news media which has abandoned any vestige of due diligence in reporting stories which appear to support the dogma of global warming.
Read more...An unsustainable future
August 17, 2009
Following the lead of the British Government with the example of the Tate Modern in the old Battersea Power Station, will we see governments create a string of art galleries and museums in the Latrobe and Hunter Valleys or will some sanity return to the essential provision of electricity?
Read more...ETS Forum - The "Save Our Seats" strategy
August 8, 2009
By asking three succinct questions regarding climate change, and exposing the Minister’s inability to answer them, Fielding’s actions have given many politicians within all parties cause for pause.
Read more...ETS Forum - Global targets won’t work
August 8, 2009
There are formidable measurement, verification and enforcement issues that stand in the way of any internationally-agreed scheme of binding emissions reduction targets. In the meantime, Australia should not commit itself to the large costs and inefficiencies of an emissions trading scheme of the kind that is currently before the Parliament.
Read more...ETS Forum - Roll on climate rationalism
August 8, 2009
If you are going to set up a new cult, which is what the emissions trading bill is all about, you really have to get in quickly and corner all of the best descriptive and emotive words; seize the moral high ground; then get out and kick hell out of any doubters.
Read more...ETS Forum - Great, let’s close the beef industry
August 8, 2009
Ross Garnaut, a key advisor to the government on climate change, suggested in his final report on climate change that the end of the beef industry would be a good thing for the Australian environment and that a switch from beef cattle to kangaroo would have multiple environmental benefits additional to reducing emissions.
Read more...ETS Forum - Green jobs subtract value
August 8, 2009
It has quickly become apparent that green jobs will require massive government subsidies to sustain them. They do not create additional value and so cannot become self-sustaining. The biggest question, of course, is to what extent will green jobs crowd out existing jobs? In short what is the opportunity cost of a green job?
Read more...ETS Forum - Domestic solar power is a con
August 8, 2009
An emissions trading system, unlike a straight carbon tax, has merit for governments. For it makes it harder for industry and consumers to see the costs that are being imposed upon them.
Read more...ETS Forum - The models are wrong
August 8, 2009
There is a serious risk that we will end end up with the worst outcomes possible because of the frailties of computer modelling: carbon dioxide will prove to have little impact on climate but implementation of the Rudd government’s cap and trade legislation will seriously raise energy costs and expand unemployment.
Read more...ETS Forum - Softly, softly
August 8, 2009
By 2020, the need for emissions reduction policies will be clearer, and presumably we will have access to all the technological advances that Treasury claim will be forthcoming by that time. Preparing for action should it be needed, but meanwhile deferring the introduction of a tax that will wreak massive economic damage, could be an ideal solution for Australia to adopt.
Read more...ETS Forum - A tax would be better
August 8, 2009
I’m against cap-and-trade and Australia enacting its own such Bill for all of the above reasons, and because I think some people in favour of it are hypocrites. If global warming is such a big risk that it demands action, then it demands a carbon tax and nuclear power.
Read more...ETS Forum - Why no cost:benefit analysis?
August 8, 2009
Australia’s emissions reductions can have no significant impact on global emissions or global climate. Therefore, the incremental benefits to Australia of the Government’s policy are zero.
Read more...ETS Forum - It’s the Sun, silly
August 8, 2009
The government’s intention to introduce an emissions trading system in Australia rests upon their belief that human carbon-dioxide emissions are a cause of dangerous global warming. That belief is incorrect.
Read more...ETS Forum - Agriculture is a carbon zero sum game
August 8, 2009
The Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (the Australian ETS) cannot have any beneficial effects on climate, but it and its associated policies will certainly increase farm costs, decrease farm employment and reduce food production.
Read more...ETS Forum - Get ready for power cuts
August 8, 2009
Wind and solar are fantasies in the Green mind. Where they have been seriously tried, as in Spain, the costs have been prodigious and the impacts on employment calamitous.
Read more...ETS Forum - It’s all in the rocks
August 8, 2009
There is no direct, real world evidence for dangerous human-caused warming at all, and that despite the efforts of thousands of scientists and organisations since 1990, and the expenditure of approaching $100 billion, looking for precisely such evidence. Instead, the global warming scare is built entirely around unvalidated computer climate models that are known to be wrong.
Read more...ETS Forum - Economic stupicide
August 8, 2009
Air and ocean temperatures have been dropping for the last few years, contradicting the climate model predictions made in 2001 of soaring temperatures. Yet the world won’t listen, and seems determined to commit economic stupicide. How did it come to this?
Read more...ETS Forum - ETS are immoral
August 8, 2009
Comfortably clad, fed and housed, and egged on to view themselves as original sinners, our chattering classes and their media flag-wavers have proved astonishingly susceptible to ecoevangelistic propaganda about dangerous human-caused climate change.
Read more...ETS Forum - The Great Climate Scam
August 10, 2009
The IPCC projection of the “very likely” average temperature increase to 2100 has a range of uncertainty that is so wide (50-60 per cent) as to make it meaningless for policy decision-making.
Read more...Punished For Speaking the Truth
August 3, 2009
There is one thing that can be counted on with absolute certainly in this relativistic world: there is a protected species which no one even dares to cross, certainly not in the mainstream media. This group can now get away with anything, and the MSM refuses to offer a contrary point of view.
Read more...Silence of the Lambs
August 3, 2009
I’m not suggesting anything here that justifies the Leyton Hewitt variety of triumphalism, but boy, the report in The Weekend Australian about a judgement by Judge Peter McClellan did wonders for a flagging spirit.
Read more...Ann Coulter's Guilty
August 3, 2009
According to Coulter, the “most worshipped figure in modern America is the ‘single mother.’” 63 percent of all youth suicides are associated with single-parent setups, and she contends that it is time to stop promoting fatherless families as just another family choice.
Read more...Harry without magic
August 3, 2009
Julie Walters is winsome and heroic and red-haired; Helena Bonham Carter dresses up in corsets and does her by-now-patented mad girl routine (Hamlet, Fight Club, Sweeney Todd, etc etc etc). Michael Gambon was the cause of some serious sniggering with his faintly paedophilic visit to the young Voldemort’s ghastly orphanage.
Read more...Culture catcher: 10
August 3, 2009
“Thank Dog [sic] the IPA and their fellow travelers [sic] will never have any influence in this country.”
Read more...Answering 3 simple questions
August 3, 2009
The brief answers to Senator Fielding’s questions are: (1) Yes, temperatures did fall after 1998 while carbon dioxide rose; (2) Yes, late 20th century warming was indeed not unusual in either its rate of change or magnitude; and (3) Yes, all IPCC models did project warming through a ten year period when instead cooling occurred.
Read more...Tales out of court
July 26, 2009
There has been a bit of consternation around our way recently. Tracey’s partner’s dealer has been in court.
Read more...Resisting climate hysteria
July 26, 2009
The need to courageously resist hysteria is clear. Wasting resources on symbolically fighting ever present climate change is no substitute for prudence. Nor is the assumption that the earth’s climate reached a point of perfection in the middle of the twentieth century a sign of intelligence.
Read more...Keynes for our times
July 26, 2009
To paraphrase Margaret Thatcher, the trouble with Keynesian economics is that eventually you run out of other people’s money. By waiting until that day of reckoning, we postpone the inevitable. But as the very meaning of the word clearly states, the inevitable inevitably arrives.
Read more...The Climate Caper
July 26, 2009
As the parallel universe of Global Warming moves from the science-as-politics-phase, to the silly-phase, then to the religious-phase — hold on to your seats. It is going to be a rough ride.
Read more...Money where mouth is
July 26, 2009
Mr. McClelland, when not writing reference letters for all and sundry, paints himself as a big supporter of human rights, and so wants to hand over a lot of decision-making powers currently residing with Parliament to the unelected judges.
Read more...Culture catcher: 9
July 26, 2009
“And what we find extraordinary, reading through the main New Right publication which is the journal Quadrant, is in fact how thin on the ground the New Right history is.”
Read more...How PC is Putting Us All at Risk
July 25, 2009
Political Correctness is certainly annoying, foolish and a pain in the neck. However, it can also be quite dangerous, especially when it is applied to issues of national security, policing and justice. In the attempt of our elites to make sure we do not offend anyone, ordinary citizens can find themselves in positions of real danger.
Read more...Culture catcher: 8
July 20, 2009
“There were no mandarin agents of the KGB here, no moles burrowing deep into the establishment, just fervent men and women recruited when the Soviet Union was an Australian ally to provide it with their limited knowledge of Cold War plans.”
Read more...Adventures in English
July 20, 2009
The President of Indonesia, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, a practicing Muslim, had no trouble using the words “terrorist” and “terrorist group”. Nor did Australia’s Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, who described the slaughter as a “terrorist bombing”.
Read more...The Climate Caper
July 20, 2009
Lord Christopher Monckton: “Dr. Paltridge’s little book will be regarded as one of the few, rare, precious beacons of enlightenment that prevented humanity from wandering through carelessness, ignorance and absent-mindedness into a new Dark Age.”
Read more...PM plans to retire
July 20, 2009
Prime Minister Rudd offers intimate details of his personal super scheme - which he has kept “secret within myself and my partner” - and reveals his retirement plans.
Read more...British elections
July 20, 2009
There has not been a great deal in the local media about the recent British local government and European Parliament elections, apart from the fact that the BNP got two seats in Brussels (with nearly a million votes), but there were some interesting aspects to them.
Read more...Reflections on the Revolution in France
July 20, 2009
Bastille Day, the French national holiday, was observed for the 220th time just recently in France. What happened on July 14, 1789 was to leave a lasting legacy on not only that nation but the world as well. How one views that legacy depends in part on where one stands on the political and ideological spectrum.
Read more...Rudd’s dangerous obsession
July 16, 2009
Why do the elites so fervently pray for an ETS? What happened to common sense?
Read more...In Europe its Lobsters In, Babies Out
July 13, 2009
What do you call a continent which cares more about the rights and wellbeing of crabs, lobsters, and even the common octopus, than it does about unborn babies? Just in case you cannot come up with anything, let me suggest a few possibilities: deranged, degenerate, despicable and delirious. And just to keep the alliteration going: dumb, really dumb.
Read more...Living in the occupied territories
July 13, 2009
We are racist, sexist and homophobic – and that’s when we take time off from agitating for war, destroying the planet and plotting new ways to oppress the poor and disadvantaged. We’re not just wrong, we’re evil.
Read more...Galarrwuy Yunupingu and the Aboriginal future
July 13, 2009
Galarrwuy Yunupingu blames lack of resources for failures by many indigenous Australians to get jobs and claims that ‘the jobs that exist are usually taken by balanda’. Just how genuine indigenous autonomy can be achieved if people cannot fix their water bores or repair their roads and sewerage, he does not explain.
Read more...I love a sunburnt country
July 13, 2009
Project Lexicon is a planned attempt to re-educate Australians in the use of language. That is the English language - as it is used to describe terrorists. Apparently to use such words as “terrorist”, “jihad”, “martyr” and “the war on terror” is likely to offend Muslims, or at least give them bad press - so the Ministry of Love is about to teach us how not to offend Muslims.
Read more...Culture catcher: 7
July 13, 2009
On nearly every count, the evidence suggests that taking seriously the Green complaints about capitalism and science would be the worst thing for nature and humans particularly those in the developing world.
Read more...Flannery Marina - selling now
July 13, 2009
Enjoy global warming with seafront views at the beautiful Flannery Marina (previously known as Hahndorf) in the tropical Adelaide everglades.
Read more...What science-war?
July 13, 2009
Given that Australia still has an emissions trading bill on the Senate table, is it not of public interest to know that climate science Minister Penny Wong is acting on the basis of flawed, if not incompetent, science advice?
Read more...Rethinking Darwin
July 13, 2009
With this year being a celebration of the 200th anniversary of Darwin’s birth, and the 150th anniversary of his Origin of the Species, there has been much hagiography produced about Darwin. It seems many biographies are trying to paint Darwin as a secular saint. A brand new biography is willing to ask hard question about his life and teachings.
Read more...Homeschooling and the War Against Children
July 12, 2009
Children are our future. The way our children develop determines how society develops. And when ideological battles are being fought in a culture, children are the trophy. Those who can control the children will be able to control a culture. That is why totalitarian states always seek to get control of children, especially from very early ages.
Read more...Taking responsibility
July 6, 2009
Responsibility seems to be what the Royal Commission into Victoria’s 2009 bushfire disaster is trying to establish, and responsibility is what the Brumby Labor government is desperately trying to avoid.
Read more...Shameless self-promotion
July 6, 2009
Anyway, what follows is a bit of shameless self-promotion. My excuse is simply that I was asked to indulge in it, and succumbed to the temptation.
Read more...A slobbering love affair
July 6, 2009
Something curious happens when a left-wing journalist meets Obama. She (or even he) takes the role of a hormonal cheerleader. And you can usually tell that some things are not quite right when the state-serving scribblers stand for Obama.
Read more...Culture catcher: 6
July 6, 2009
“To set forth, as only art can, the beauty and joy of living and the blessedness of death, the glory of battle and adventure, the nobility of devotion - to a cause, an ideal, a passion even - the dignity of resistance, the sacred quality of patriotism, that is my ambition here.”
Read more...The PM had the last laugh: thanks to the besotted media
July 6, 2009
Isn’t it time the gallery got over its love affair with Kevin Rudd? “Working families” will eventually realise they have been fed a diet of spin, and that will not be good for the future of a free press.
Read more...Culture catcher: 5
June 29, 2009
“It may sound harsh, like no-smoking laws at bars, or requiring catalytic converters to cut down on vehicle emissions, or China’s one child policy, but in time people will realize it is for the greater good: Celebrities should not be allowed to have children. Period.”
Read more...Libs mentally ill
July 6, 2009
I hadn’t seen Tracey for a while until I bumped into her the other day in Dick Smith’s looking at talking bathroom scales. I told you she had joined the Fabian Society. Well, she already seems a little over them.
Read more...Culture catcher: 4
June 22, 2009
Australian history writing from Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee in the early 1970s to the land rights politics of the early 1980s.
Read more...Paying People to be Responsible
June 29, 2009
The concept of personal responsibility has taken a battering lately. People are quite happy to blame anyone and anything other than themselves for their behaviour and actions. We are happy to pass the buck and shift the blame instead of taking ownership of what we do.
Read more...Mission Impossible II
June 29, 2009
“This email will self-destruct in 5 seconds” — well, as everyone now knows, it darn well didn’t. It turned up in Godwin’s Grech’s house, on Godwin’s personal computer.
Read more...What Science Knows
June 29, 2009
What Science Knows will not please the enemies of science, whose willful misunderstandings of scientific method and the relation of evidence to conclusions Franklin mercilessly exposes.
Read more...Rudd servants or public servants?
June 29, 2009
The timing and framing of this first survey of environmental views and behaviour is not inconsistent with the apparently increasing tendency of the public service to serve the interests of the government rather than the wider national interest.
Read more...Answers on climate change
June 29, 2009
Assessment of Minister Wong’s "Written Reply to Senator Fielding’s Three Questions on Climate Change" by Bob Carter, David Evans, Stewart Franks and William Kininmonth.
Read more...Culture catcher: 1
May 31, 2009
“When men spend, they buy luxuries - cigarettes, alcohol, petrol, pornography and women’s bodies for their individual use.”
Read more...Mission Impossible
June 22, 2009
Please, nice, gentle Godwin Grech – please try and find your missing email!
Read more...Economics in interesting times
June 22, 2009
The often predicted suicide of the West may truly be upon us. If we actually believe that we will be economically better off with Kevin Rudd and Barack Obama choosing where our savings should go, then our economies will over the longer term weaken and slow.
Read more...The Wriedt stuff?
June 22, 2009
Sadly, feminism can be short-winded on the responsibilities accompanying the making of choices, especially poor choices.
Read more...Major changes in views on the environment
June 22, 2009
Surveys have obvious implications in terms of the all-important US policy position on global warming. Unfortunately, our major political parties seem way behind the ball game in gauging both community attitudes and the fundamental flaws in the science used in reports by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
Read more...Why did the media mislead us about President Obama?
June 22, 2009
President Obama was using an autocue in Cairo, but the media tried to hide it. This is testimony of a wider malaise.
Read more...More Green Lunacy
June 22, 2009
Some of the more radical green groups can come up with some quite bizarre and ludicrous stuff. One is left wondering whether the best response is laughter, tears of hari-kari. The supply of examples seems endless.
Read more...The Indian Mutiny
June 15, 2009
Some might say that David Jones, that bastion of White-Australia supremacy, blue-rinse gals and affluent Anglo-Saxon privilege, is the last place to study racism/racialism. On the contrary; it might possibly be the best.
Read more...Government Motors Inc.
June 15, 2009
If you had to make a sweeping generalisation, I figure you wouldn’t go too far wrong in saying some of GM’s most loyal customers are what might be described as Sarah Palin Republicans – or rednecks if you work for National Public Radio in the US, or for that matter for the ABC here in Australia.
Read more...Online newspapers
June 15, 2009
The project aims to digitise the vast newspaper archival resources in every state, and create a searchable database which will, for the first time, open up thousands of previously-forgotten news items to historical researchers.
Read more...Culture catcher: 3
June 15, 2009
A High Court judge: “If you take the view that the political process is increasingly, in a sense, an elected dictatorship softened by spin doctors and alienated from the people, then there may be a case for the expansion of the judicial role.”
Read more...Obama and Muslim apostasy
June 15, 2009
If an Ahmadinejad sponsored apostasy law had been passed in 2008, President Obama may already have been targeted for murder by the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Read more...More Secular-Left Double Standards
June 15, 2009
I know it seems like ages ago, but try to think back to the days when George W. Bush was in the White House. You knew he was there because almost on a daily basis the mainstream media was warning about the dangers of having a professing Christian lead the nation. We were regularly warned that America was about to be turned into a theocracy.
Read more...Part 4: Is anybody listening yet?
June 11, 2009
The greatest Australian special interest of all lies with the average voter upon whom Prime Minister Rudd and Climate Minister Wong plan to impose their unnecessary, ineffectual and swingeingly costly carbon dioxide tax. Are you listening out there, True Blue?
Read more...Part 3: The NIPCC book launch
June 10, 2009
Have you ordered your copies yet, Bob Brown and Christine Milne?
Read more...Part 2: Heartland-3
June 9, 2009
This is scarcely a scientific secret, so how come that Ross Garnaut doesn’t seem to know about it?
Read more...Part 1: The Waxman-Markey Bill
June 8, 2009
“In my judgment, the proposed cap-and-trade system would be a costly policy that would penalize Americans with little effect on global warming. The proposal to give away most of the permits only makes a bad idea worse”. Are you listening, Kevin Rudd?
Read more...
Tracey turns Left
May 31, 2009
Tracey’s joined the Fabians. I suppose it had to happen. She’s very career conscious.
Read more...Watching Big Brother
June 8, 2009
The image of Sasha Baron Cohen’s (Borat) bare bottom, inches from the face of Mr Nasty was a stunning example of a well executed live-television stunt, bringing down the arrogant and repulsive.
Read more...Islam, Obama and Appeasement
June 8, 2009
To simply seek to get along for the sake of getting along, without acknowledging fundamental differences of worldviews, belief systems and values is a recipe for disaster. Indeed, the attempt to achieve peace at any cost can often be extremely reckless and costly.
Read more...The uselessness of useless spending
June 8, 2009
There are some of us who believe that what is being done will actually make economic conditions worse, with the potential to slow recovery, reduce real incomes, lower employment, push up inflation and cause investment to fall back.
Responding to anti-semitism
June 8, 2009
“Bendle is in the pocket of Judaism. [His article] is no more than a well-orchestrated part of a concerted attempt, by Jewry, to take the heat off the recent barbarity and murderous conduct of … Israel in its dealings with [the] Palestinians [who] Jewry, has set … up as sitting ducks for Jewish armed killing incursions”.
Read more...Culture catcher: 2
June 8, 2009
“In the case of the jihadist war, where we [Australians] are fighting proponents of a distorted view of the Islamic religion, we occupy the moral high ground and we must be confident of that position.”
Read more...Ice-sheets and sea level
May 31, 2009
As the world has been getting cooling since 1998 the global warming alarmists have to scare us with other things. A favourite is rising sea level, allegedly caused by rapid melting of the ice caps of Antarctica and Greenland.
Read more...Humanitarians: Please, Spare the Humans
June 1, 2009
I am not a big fan of conspiracy theories. They tend to be a dime a dozen, and are usually without merit. I do not think there is a monolithic cabal of conspirators plotting to take over planet earth. However, it is certainly the case that there are plenty of people out there who are hatching sinister schemes on a regular basis. And when you put a bunch of these folks together in the same room you can certainly end up with some really big trouble indeed.
Read more...What fresh Hell is this?
May 31, 2009
While looking at an awful photograph on page 11 of The Australian of Sheikh Issa (brother to the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi) torturing an Afghan by burning his genitals and beating him with a nail-studded board; a lump of jam fell off my morning toast and hit a large advertisement at the foot of the page.
Read more...Business Class Radicals & Holocaust Denial
May 26, 2009
Australian historians can contribute to this strategy of Holocaust denial in a number of ways. After all, they have demonstrated a fierce and unquenchable desire to portray the history of indigenous Australians in terms of alleged genocides perpetrated by white Australians, involving the ‘Black Wars’, the ‘Stolen Generations’, and other over-hyped alleged depredations.
Read more...Observations on Government Policies
May 27, 2009
Prime Minister Rudd is clearly wrong in attributing the crisis to policies that reflect the neo-liberal views of free marketeers. President Obama is also wrong in taking a similar view in the United States, as is Prime Minister Gordon Brown in the UK.
Read more...President Obama: “No we can’t.”
May 18, 2009
The retention of military commission trials at Guantanamo Bay shows how unrealistic much of the Democrat campaign was. George W Bush and John Howard are vindicated.
Read more...Sex and the single footballer
May 25, 2009
When Australian Rules footballers invite a stripper to perform in the dressing room before a show, "it is absolutely, completely unacceptable and inappropriate and it sends all of the wrong messages.” Name the source of that quote -
Read more...Spin, spun, splat!
May 25, 2009
If there were such a thing as the Eurovision Spin Contest, Australia’s Kevin Rudd would have won it hands down. Nobody in Australia, but nobody, does a wall-of-sound like our Kevin Rudd.
Read more...Business Class Radicals
May 25, 2009
On the Left, it rains money - public money. On the Left, you can say anything - and get away with it. On the Left, they get to see the world - and often someone else does the paying.
Read more...ETS in the Twilight Zone
May 25, 2009
In the words of Sir Humphrey Appleby, it is a “courageous act” to tax pipelines with such an extraordinary formula. It is more than courageous, it is really stupid.
Read more...A double dissolution election: not much room to move
May 25, 2009
Kevin Rudd has only a short window for a double dissolution election early next year – and the result is not guaranteed.
Read more...Thinking About Islam and Public Policy
May 25, 2009
How Western governments deal with the threat of militant Islam is a vexed issue. Easy answers are hard to come by. Yet a new volume seeks to carefully explore such issues. I refer to Islam, Human Rights and Public Policy, edited by David Claydon (Acorn Press, 2009).
Read more...Nulliusgate - the war on a book
February 23, 2009
The Invention of Terra Nullius was launched in Sydney at the beginning of December 2005. Several news articles in the Australian held damning criticism. When these comments were published stock of the book had just been transported from the Sydney printer to the distributor’s warehouse in Adelaide. Not a copy had gone into the bookshops. The expert opinion was from experts who had not read my book.
Read more...Defending the Indefensible
May 18, 2009
If anyone wonders why society is in such a mess, they simply need to look at our ruling elites. Many of our opinion makers, judges, movers and shakers, and intellectualoids tend to promote ideas, values and worldviews which are not only contrary to the sensible majority, but are often perverse, irrational and outrageous.
Read more...Sex and the single girl
May 18, 2009
Feeling bad about oneself is the first sign of wrongdoing in present-day antipodean culture, and finding the culprit – who is invariably someone else – is the customary solution.
Read more...How long is temporary?
May 18, 2009
Thank goodness they have repaired the Hubble Space Telescope because we might need it when trying to find the end of Wayne Swan’s “temporary deficit”. His vague estimate, and that of the Australian Treasury people, is that “temporary” means some time between 2015 and…well…er…infinity?
Read more...Money, spin and lies
May 18, 2009
With the next federal election almost certainly less than 18 months away, the Coalition parties face a difficult task. One of the big questions will be, as the economy declines, whether or not today’s more media savvy electorate will see through what will be, most certainly, a very dense fog of Labor and media spin.
Read more...Magnanimity in victory
May 18, 2009
These twin evils of sore losing and sore winning can even tell us something about democracy. To make a democracy work, you need to be able to throw those in power out peacefully, whatever sort of job they’ve been doing. And you need them to leave without being sore losers.
Read more...Spinning the truth
May 13, 2009
There was Elmer Fudd, in the bath, pulling out the plug. The bath water (the nation’s treasure), was gurgling down the plug-hole, and all Elmer could say was that it was “only temporary” and the bath would be full again by 2015.
Read more...Towards a banana republic
May 15, 2009
A model in economic management eighteen months ago, Australia seems to be on the way to becoming a banana republic. What went wrong?
Read more...A remainder is announced
May 11, 2009
An ex-Tory, ex-Liberal, ex-Prime Minister is writing his memoirs, with the help of a Doctor of Creative Arts “collaborator”, which are to be published by a Left publishing house.
Read more...Budgets, debt and deficit finance
May 15, 2009
For Obama, Brown and Rudd, I can see there has been no pain in choosing the big spending, high deficit options they have chosen. It’s no doubt lovely when the actions they are compelled to take by the prevailing theory happen to coincide with the very things they would like to do as political leaders.
Read more...Picking losers
May 11, 2009
It is the timeworn role of governments to pick losers. It is what governments can be expected to do for which they have had much practice. I cannot think why they should be encouraged further along this road than they have already gone.
Read more...Debating Steven Kates
May 11, 2009
On Rudd’s cash handouts: “It is a budgetary matter. Some people, including many recipients of today’s handouts, will pay a little more tax in later years, or suffer a little from the RBA allowing government a little more inflation to make discharge of debt easier.”
Read more...Targeting Toddlers
May 11, 2009
The activists of the secular left are no dummies; they know that in order to win the culture wars, they must get access to our children, and the younger the better. They know that if they can indoctrinate our kids at the most early ages possible, they will have a much better chance of seeing their social engineering agenda accomplished in full.
Read more...Robert's nice new friend
May 7, 2009
Hal Colebatch shows how a superannuated defender of mass murder has been wheeled out to applaud - Kevin Rudd.
Read more...Rudd writes to Quadrant!
May 4, 2009
We too were “surprised and gratified” when we found the Prime Minister had written to us with an exciting new plan for fixing the economy.
Read more...The ACCC and Richard Pratt: a case to answer
May 4, 2009
When the ACCC pursued Richard Pratt to the end, were they acting as a model litigant as the government requires? Was the criminal prosecution harsh and oppressive? How was it related to their campaign to have Parliament criminalise cartel offences? Only an independent judicial inquiry can answer these and other questions.
Read more...Music without instruments
May 4, 2009
Kitchen sinks, polypipe, empty tin cans, bin lids, water, newspaper, brooms, dustpans, brushes, boxes of matches, hubcaps, and all the other detritus of any industrial workplace are transformed by STOMP09 into a symphony orchestra.
Read more...Fat men can fight too
May 4, 2009
So, can one single father doing it tough rise above it all? Is there hope for today’s pot-bellied man? If a drunken man wakes up with a Loch Ness tattoo does he not feel?
Read more...A reply to Robert Manne
May 4, 2009
The Prime Minister has no skills as an entrepreneur. None. He has no personal judgement about what will create value and what will not. He may be able to lead a government, he may be able to hobnob with the great and the good, but what he cannot do is work out what sorts of things will add to economic growth and what will not.
Read more...Fat chance
May 4, 2009
As I walked in, I was greeted with the sight of a rubber model of 15 kilos of fat and two pleasant ladies who appeared to be in charge. I was handed over to a man who was going to be my personal weight-loss consultant. He was a cheerful man.
Read more...Caught in the net
May 4, 2009
John Howard, who out rates Rudd with the number of YouTube sites, by 16 to 1, does so by the sheer number of nasty clips produced prior to the last election. For the rabid anti-Howard clique, he must be sorely missed.
Read more...May Day Message
May 1, 2009
We celebrate May Day with a custom called the “Cash Splash”. I am not clear when this habit started but do the names of Costello or Swan mean anything to you?
Read more...Eavesdropping on a cultural crisis
April 30, 2009
Mervyn Bendle is dead right when he writes about Asian students haplessly absorbing mega-jive about Australian history and culture.
Read more...Senators against hypocrisy
April 30, 2009
The Invitation to the Brisbane “launches” of Ian Plimer’s Heaven and Earth carries a remarkable statement about two Federal Senators.
Read more...Gran Torino un-snubbed
April 27, 2009
The Academy of Motion Pictures and Sciences snubbed Eastwood’s movie, Gran Torino. It’s disappointing. Sad, in fact, that our elites can’t see the cracks on those colourful picket fences.
Read more...The censor cometh
April 27, 2009
Censorship happened this month in Australia when the Rudd government censored what had happened to the appallingly injured Afghan boat-people when their Indonesian fishing boat exploded in the Indian Ocean.
Read more...Rogue Science and Human Cloning
April 26, 2009
The danger always exists that if science can do something, it will do it. But simply because something can be done does not mean that it should be done. Some scientific possibilities are better left alone, never to be pursued. Human cloning is one such case.
Read more...More Population Madness, More Human Culls
April 24, 2009
With increasing regularity our elite moonbeams are coming out with over-the-top proposals to save the planet. In their zeal to rescue mother earth, these green fanatics are quite happy to wipe out much of the human population to achieve their goals.
Read more...Stop outsourcing policy to the refugee industry
April 20, 2009
Kevin Rudd should follow the example of the Chifley government and take full control of our refugee intake. The government should stop queue jumping - the risk to people’s lives, including our sailors’, is too great.
Read more...Our children will pay for this madness
April 17, 2009
The government and its advisors do not know what to do about the financial crisis, but feel they must do something, however foolish. This is a tragedy; a tragedy for which we and our children will pay.
Read more...The Boat that Sucked - Big time
April 17, 2009
The only thing I can recommend in this film is the clothes. The costume department excelled itself: Chris O’Dowd’s patchwork velvet wedding jacket is to die for; ditto Rhys Ilfans’ purple velvet sharp-fitting suit. The irritating lesbian wears some lovely crocheted waistcoats.
Read more...Australia's debt sentence
April 17, 2009
With a budget outlook suggesting over $200 billion in national debt will be accrued in little over three years. This is Mr Rudd’s debt sentence to all Australians.
Read more...BHO and Dhimmitude
April 17, 2009
Barack Hussein Obama promised us he would take a different approach to Islam and the Middle East. That he has certainly done. There is a name for it - it is called dhimmitude. On his recent overseas trip he has made it clear that national self-loathing and grovelling to Islam will now be basic elements of American foreign policy.
Read more...Blame it all on Lawrence
April 13, 2009
For many of us the only early visual images of Saudi Arabia were from the film Lawrence of Arabia in which Lawrence was endlessly going about the desert blowing up the railway line to Medina. Oh well, it had to start somewhere!
Read more...Paradise seeks us
April 13, 2009
It is widely believed that there are too many human beings and that our success will be our demise. It is fundamentally believed that we, homo sapiens, do not belong here on earth.
Read more...The Flea Market
April 13, 2009
At the Flea Market you will also discover that many middle-class Australians have no idea of fundamental economics, which could be why they are currently in debt up to their eyeballs.
Read more...Climate fundamentalism
April 13, 2009
Climate change politics is religious fundamentalism masquerading as science.
Read more...Our Christophobes at Work
April 13, 2009
It seems that anytime is a good time to take pot-shots at Christianity. But if this anti-Christian bigotry can take place over holy days on the Christian calander, so much the better. Thus this Easter we see more drive-by shootings against Christianity.
Read more...What happens to Kevin Rudd?
April 2, 2009
A reader replies to William York. Copy of letter supplied to Quadrant Online courtesy Patrick McCauley.
Read more...
Australian political identity survey
April 6, 2009
An invitation to take part in the Political identity survey being conducted by Andrew Norton.
Read more...
The Slippery Slope in Action - Euthanasia Kills
April 7, 2009
Whenever contentious social changes are promoted by various activist groups, we are always assured that adequate safeguards will be set in place, and that things will not spiral out of control. Whether it is abortion, drugs, prostitution, or pornography, we are always assured that these things will be kept in check. Consider the issue of euthanasia.
Read more...Churchill's trial
April 6, 2009
The [Ward Churchill] verdict seems to suggest that a citizen’s right to “freedom of speech” includes the right to falsify documents, falsify research and invent historical occasions.
Read more...A Fake Prime Minister
April 6, 2009
Wealthy Lefty property developer Morry Schwartz’s Monthly has published an essay of nearly 8000 words under the apparently sincere belief that it was written by the Prime Minister of Australia.
Read more...Reading April Quadrant
April 6, 2009
John Stone has never liked the electors of Wentworth and I suddenly saw why - all Veliz’s croakers live there! Lovely issue.
Read more...Phillip Adams nude
April 6, 2009
Free Quadrant pornography. Guys, gals - naked people. Gay marriage - free gay divorces. Lots of really sexy photos.
Read more...Coming soon: Heaven and Earth
April 6, 2009
At Easter, my book on climate change comes out. I destroy every single argument that has ever been raised about human-induced climate change.
Read more...The Coercive Utopia Known as Sweden
April 6, 2009
There are plenty of countries in the West which have promoted secular, leftist ideologies and have embraced radical social engineering. And these utopian schemers are quite happy to use the coercive powers of the state to enforce their radical objectives. Sweden is a leading case in point, and its latest act of radicalism is to legalise same-sex marriage.
Read more...On David Williamson
September 2, 2008
Behind me the ladies ate Maltesers, in a satirical manner, while talking of crumbling bones and ABC reruns of As Time Goes By.
Read more...April 1: Remembrance Day
April 1, 2009
“William York” is a well known contributor to OnlineOpinion. His friend Tom recently received a letter from him.
Read more...The Dandelion Liberation Front
March 31, 2009
One keeps coming back to the dictum attributed to GK Chesterton: “When a man ceases to believe in God, he does not believe in nothing. He believes in anything.” Europeans of course have taken this further than anyone else. The most secular continent on earth, Europe is also the most radical when it comes to attacking human dignity and the sanctity of life. It is also the most radical when it comes to conferring legal status and rights on non-humans.
Read more...Training Manual for Conservative Radicals
March 30, 2009
Everything you need to know about conservatism, but are too afraid to ask.
Read more...John Stone at HR Nicholls
March 30, 2009
"However politically propitious the economic circumstances late next year might seem to be for the Coalition parties, they have little hope of winning office under their present leadership."
Read more...Whale songs
March 30, 2009
Members of parliament caught attending strip-joints in foreign cities can argue that magnetic field deviations caused them confusion.
Read more...Saving the past
March 30, 2009
History warriors wedded to political schemes cannot be good historians because they cannot allow themselves to be open to the ambiguous and elusive qualities of human beings. For political purposes all they want to see are the massacres and the brutality.
Read more...The Skeptics Handbook
March 30, 2009
Joanne Nova’s lively The Skeptics Handbook has been published in the US with an astonishing 150,000 copies print run which will be distributed to thousands of politicians, scientists, journalists and teachers. A further 10,000 copies are being published for Australia and New Zealand.
Read more...Treading the world stage
March 30, 2009
Is the Prime Minister’s wish to strut the world stage damaging to our national interest? Is Australia paying too high a price for Prime Minister’s thespian ambitions?
Read more...Those Funky Debaptists, and Other Tales
March 30, 2009
If I were paid for every case of lunacy I document on this site, I would have enough moolah by now to purchase a small nation. It is a fulltime job just keeping up with all the moonbeam ideas and activities taking place around us every day. What was that saying about ‘whom the gods would destroy, the first make crazy’?
Read more...History Wars - the dream cast
March 23, 2009
Quadrant has acquired the performing rights to the History Wars. The cast list is mouthwatering.
Read more...The break-up of Australia
March 28, 2009
The Chief Justice of Australia, Robert French, has been reported as supporting calls for a treaty with Aboriginal Australians. With his eyes wide open, the Chief Justice is driving Australia towards a precipice. Inexcusably, he is ignoring the obvious, the desired consequence of the treaty sought by activists - the destruction of Australia's sovereignty.
Read more...Right wing pornography!
March 26, 2009
Openly on sale in Melbourne bookshops. A report on the shame from the front line. We name the booksellers!
Read more...Burchett whitewash continues
March 23, 2009
Bill Hyde published On Burchett by Tibor Méray. He has now written an account of the reaction to the book.
Read more...Heartland-2
March 23, 2009
The International Conference on Climate Change was held in New York from March 8 to 10, 2009. While the international media ignored the conference Quadrant Online carried exclusive reports by Bob Carter.
Read more...Vaclav Klaus on Ian Plimer
March 23, 2009
Vaclav Klaus: “The book I wrote two years ago Blue Planet in Green Shackles comes to very similar conclusions but I have to say that if I’d had a chance to read Professor Plimer’s book, my book would have been better.”
Read more...How to Kill a Nation (From Within)
March 23, 2009
There is nothing great about Great Britain any more. Having jettisoned and renounced its own Judeo-Christian heritage, it is left floundering on the raging tempest of relativism, subjectivism, radical individualism and statism.
Read more...Thank God for Carbon
March 1, 2009
Thank God for Carbon, a new publication by Ray Evans, explores the demonising of carbon by climate change extremists – including the Rudd government.
Read more...Robert Manne's "Hogwash"
March 16, 2009
Left academics are ideologues first and second, and scholars third.
Read more...The Islamic Assault on Free Speech
March 16, 2009
To have religious anti-defamation laws on an international scale would achieve as much for the Islamists as 9/11 ever did. As always, eternal vigilance is the price of freedom, and this goes for religious freedom as well. The question is, will the West resist this clampdown on freedom of speech, or will it instead submit to appeasement and dhimmitude?
Read more...Remembering the future
March 16, 2009
An angry woman shouted out from the gods that we were all invaders who had destroyed the Garden of Eden. This is Melbourne in 2003 when Keith Windschuttle debated Pat Grimshaw.
Read more...Intellectual delusions
March 16, 2009
Just how dishonest, ignorant, self-obsessed, and delusional can the Australian left get? Consider some of its latest contributions to the intellectual and cultural life of Australia.
Read more...Bob Carter at Heartland-2
March 8, 2009
Travellers from around the world are today converging on the Mariott Marquis in Times Square, where the Heartland Institute is hosting its second Manhatten conference on climate change.
Read more...DIY bill of rights
March 10, 2009
We asked Professor James Allan to write a DIY bill of rights. This was his reluctant response.
Read more...Life on Earth #1
February 25, 2009
A report of life on planet Earth with appearances by Anna Bligh, Robert Mugabe, Timon the meerkat, Rupert Murdoch and others.
Read more...Anti-Natalist Fatalists
March 9, 2009
Planet earth is doomed. That is the clear message coming from the population control zealots. These anti-natalists are certain that if we do not immediately take radical steps to curb population growth we will all perish. Of course we have been hearing this gloom and doom ideology for decades now.
Read more...Media Watch Dog bites
March 9, 2009
Gerard Henderson, executive director of the Sydney Institute, has launched Media Watch Dog a blog that is sure to do much more than simply bark and snap at the heels of wayward journalists.
Read more...The monetary collapse
March 9, 2009
Ron Kitching, who celebrates his 80th birthday in April, was one of the organisers of the month long visit to Australia by F.A. Hayek in 1976. He is the author of Understanding Personal and Economic Liberty.
Read more...Memory loss and dependency
March 6, 2009
With increasing welfare dependency, the obliteration of memory and rule by judges, the elites are seriously damaging our way of life.
Read more..."Hayek's got Inflation by the balls"
March 5, 2009
Ron Kitching’s famous photo of F.A. Hayek and Inflation is now over 32 years old.
Read more...Rudd's not so New Deal
March 2, 2009
Last year Kevin Rudd declared that: “We simply don't have to choose between Friedrich von Hayek and Leonid Brezhnev”. He was confident that he could stand astride the ideological seesaw placing just the right weight on his left foot then his right to keep both the free enterprise and the government controlled halves of our economy buoyant. It didn’t take long for him to get the wobbles.
Read more...What Marriage Means
March 4, 2009
David Blankenhorn is a world authority on the institution of marriage. One of the biggest debates concerning marriage today is whether we should expand the concept to include same-sex unions. Blankenhorn thinks not, and has penned a book to explain why.
Read more...The academic publishing game
March 4, 2009
Early in 2008 Henry Reynolds launched a new book of old history by Dr Ian McFarlane called Beyond Awakening, The Aboriginal Tribes of North West Tasmania: A History. It had an interesting publishing history.
Read more...Retaking the universities
March 2, 2009
An audio interview with Roger Kimball to mark the publication of the third edition of Tenured Radicals suggests how change, for the better, could be brought about.
Read more...Bob Brown has an affair
March 2, 2009
The story was broken in the Hobart Mercury under the headline - "Printed proof of love affair".
Read more...The Dangerous Return to Keynesian Economics
February 3, 2009
The Great Depression, in most places, began with the share market crash in 1929 and by the end of 1933 was already receding into history. In 1936, well after the Great Depression had reached its lowest point and recovery had begun, a book was published that remains to this day the most influential economics treatise written during the whole of the twentieth century.
Read more...Email from Heaven - and a reply
February 25, 2009
An email from father Frank Brennan in response to James Allan on Telstra's Bill of Rights submission - and James Allan's reply.
Read more...Top global threat - terror or economics?
February 25, 2009
The Obama administration is desperate to distance itself as quickly as possible from the war on terror associated with the previous presidency. Unfortunately, its desire to downplay the terrorist threat is leading it down a strategic blind alley.
Read more...Phoning at the mouth (Telstra's bad bill)
February 23, 2009
Telstra doesn’t know anything at all about how bills of rights work or what their effects are in other countries that have them. But never mind, dear chap. This phone company feels free to launch an attack on Australia’s human rights record and to urge the government to adopt a charter of rights.
Read more...Racist Andrew Bolt
February 23, 2009
Is the Left’s fraud squad at it again? Now it’s Andrew Bolt’s turn. Attempts have been made to place racist comments on his blog to embarrass him and his readers.
Read more...Science versus propaganda
February 24, 2009
Australia needs adaptive policies to deal with real climate change in place of the government's expensive, inefficient and ineffective plans to “prevent” an entirely hypothetical global warming. Why is it so difficult for our major political parties to discern this obvious truth?
Read more...The next disaster: Denticare
February 24, 2009
The socialisation of dentistry will be as much a disaster as the socialisation of medical practice, hospitals and universities has been. The elites know it, but this will give them wealth, more power, and the votes of a growing client class.
Read more...The Stimulus Bill explained
February 23, 2009
A joke (or serious explanation of the US Stimulus Bill) which has flashed around the internet in the last few days.
Read more...Sexual Suicide
February 23, 2009
We are today witnessing the bitter fruit of allowing sex to become a tyrant. Each day new headlines testify to the fact that when we abuse the wonderful gift of sex, we abuse ourselves and our neighbours. The question is, how much more abuse can we take as a culture before society can no longer function or continue.
Read more...Terrorist Victory Without Terrorism
February 19, 2009
During the height of the Cold War many Westerners refused to believe that there was an “evil empire” intent on conquering the world. And if they did recognise the overt nature of Soviet imperialism, they were taken in by the covert operations. In the same way today many Westerners do not want to admit to an Islamist threat. And while they may acknowledge overt acts of terrorism, they are ignorant or gullible about covert jihad.
Read more...Censorship and the Secular Left
February 18, 2009
Liberal or leftist secularism is the reigning ideology amongst our Western intelligentsia and elites. It certainly has a stranglehold on our educational system. It can be very difficult to get in alternative points of view. Most attempts to penetrate this ideological hegemony are usually met with stiff opposition, animosity, and censorship.
Read more...Simon channells the Zeitgeist
February 18, 2009
Simon’s got a job. He’s started “channelling the Zeitgeist” for Cripes – the online gossip website that Tracey says is going broke.
Read more...Will Rudd turn a recession into a depression?
February 18, 2009
Cato Institute: “Notwithstanding reports that all economists are now Keynesians and that we all support a big increase in the burden of government, we the undersigned do not believe that more government spending is a way to improve economic performance.”
Read more...The Left blacklist
February 18, 2009
In the National Review Ronald Radosh reviewed Blacklisting Myself by Roger L. Simon - a Left-Hollywood writer who had second thoughts.
Read more...Keynes and Keynesianism: from correct diagnosis to flawed remedy
February 17, 2009
John Maynard Keynes: “I believe myself to be writing a book on economic theory which will largely revolutionize…the way the world thinks about economic problems.” He was right; but was he right?
Read more...The green inquisition
February 16, 2009
From bushfires to shark attacks and with an aversion to spending on economic infrastructure, why do our politicians follow the agenda set by our green inner city elites?
Are they gullible, corrupt or just afraid?
Read more...Mark Steyn plays Ontario
February 13, 2009
This week Mark Steyn gave evidence before the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario. He was questioned by Liberal MP David Zimmer.
Read more...Balance in Public Broadcasting
December 20, 2008
“Had you been listening to these [ABC] reports during the recent US elections, it would have been a complete mystery to you as to why any sane person would be considering voting for the Republican John McCain. The fact over 46 percent of US voters ended up doing so would baffle you.”
Read more...Bernard-Henri Levy on the new Anti-Semitism
September 1, 2008
In ‘The Task of the Jews’, The American Interest, September-October 2008, Lévy writes.
Read more...In good times and in bad?
February 13, 2009
Even with Work Choices in place and operating, Australia still had a noticeably more regulated and less liberal labour market than the Kiwis. The Rudd/Gillard back-to-the-future changes have only accentuated the difference.
Read more...On Social Workers and Arsonists
February 12, 2009
Crime and punishment has been seen in a new light for quite some time now. We no longer talk about right and wrong. We no longer talk about criminal activity. Instead we talk about sickness and the need for healing. Treatment, not punishment, is the order of the day.
Read more...The Magic Pudding is finished
February 11, 2009
The idea that governments should spend freely for their constituents, and institute bad policies such as Protection, made many Australians in the twentieth century consider government to be essentially a giant honey pot for their benefit. This attitude is best summed up by Norman Lindsay’s book The Magic Pudding. The more that one eats the more that there is to eat.
Read more...Academic Left vs. Left academic
February 11, 2009
During 2008 there was a bloody prize-fight between Left and Left over the ghastly remains of Wilfred Burchett. Robert Manne said he smelt bad, others on the Left said he was perfumed like a red saint.
Read more...Green bushfires - the warning in 2002
February 10, 2009
David Packham in 2002: “For almost three decades State and Commonwealth governments have been warned of the potential of a 1939 repeat fire disaster. Those warnings by fire managers and fire researchers have been ignored, discounted or discredited."
Read more...Green bushfires
February 10, 2009
“It has been a difficult lesson for me to accept that despite the severe damage to our forests and even a fatal fire in our nation's capital, the political decision has been to do nothing that will change the extreme threat to which our forests and rural lands are exposed.”
Read more...Media Wash
February 10, 2009
This year’s Media Watch started (February 10) with a flashy new introduction and Jonathon Holmes sitting at a new angle to the camera — but still looking like the cat that had caught the ABC canary. Well actually while it was yellow, what he caught was more like an ABC lemon.
Read more...A bigger mess than Whitlam’s, Keating’s or Kirner’s?
February 9, 2009
Not since Whitlam has a government been so profligate. The latest, a massive $42 billion package with a $200 billion line of credit, is demonstrably the worst thing a government could do. It is elementary that it will do little to counter the recession, but every cent will have to be repaid – not by the Rudd government, but by the Australian people.
Read more...Obama - an Australian view
February 7, 2009
The Institute of International Affairs in Melbourne has got a new life. One result is that on 5 Feb, 2009, we had a brilliant presentation by Greg Sheridan on Obama and what he might mean for US foreign/defence policies and for US/Aus relations.
Read more...Batman's grabbed the Treasury
February 6, 2009
Waking up to hear the ABC rambling on about Kevin Rudd going ‘bats’ was enough to get the old heart up to operational speed. Bats, they must be crazy?
Read more...Our soft underbelly
February 6, 2009
"It's time to build a strong country, but that can only take place if we accept the relevance of the right values.”
Read more...On Population Controllers
February 5, 2009
Population control movements and eugenics are not new. They have actually been around for a long time. It’s just that today the rhetoric is different, and the true aims have been concealed. But the outcome remains the same: dead human beings.
Read more...Come back Peter
February 3, 2009
Kevin Rudd, a fiscal conservative for the election campaign, has revealed himself to be an unreconstructed Whitlamite. When he could not go to Davos, Ms. Gillard implicitly heaped praise on the one man who probably knows what to do, Peter Costello.
As Kevin Rudd fritters away the surplus, and even plans to borrow against the future to continue this folly, it is time for Peter Costello to go to the front bench.
Read more...The time for electoral campaigning is over
January 29, 2009
It is surely time for so many in the media to stop campaigning for the governments they were so determined to put into office. They should go back to their duty which is, as The Times declared so long ago, to obtain the best intelligence of the time and make it the common property of the nation.
Read more...Titanic Inc writes sea-safety manual
February 3, 2009
It was revealed at its launch yesterday that Kevin Rudd, CEO of Titanic Inc, is the author of the company’s new Safety Manual for Seafarers.
Read more...Tracey's Invasion Day
January 27, 2009
I saw Tracey and her partner Bruce just after Australia Day and she told me how they celebrated Invasion Day.
Read more...The Emperor has no clothes
February 1, 2009
While the Prime Minister accuses free market capitalism of being an emperor without clothes. But that is how the former NSW Labor Treasurer seems to see the prime minister. The government does not know what to do about the economic crisis. Its answer is just to spend. Already next year’s budget deficit is predicted to be $40 billion- approaching one half of Keating’s debt which Howard and Costello took years to pay off.
Read more...Thank God for Carbon - book launch
February 2, 2009
Senator Cory Bernardi: "... challenging popular opinion demands courage … And in no sphere is this more apparent than the new religion of climate change where all questions challenging the orthodoxy are treated as heresy and those that dare to raise them are heretics or, worse still, ‘deniers’."
Read more...Time to Put the UK Out of Its Misery
February 2, 2009
Historian Arnold Toynbee once said “Civilizations die from suicide, not murder”. I don’t think there is much debate about that. There might be some debate however as to which nation today best exemplifies this. A number of countries are clearly in the process of self-destruction. But a good case can be made for nominating the UK as the most obvious example of collective hari-kari.
Read more...Rudd's verbosity wears thin
February 1, 2009
In the two weeks ended 29 January our Prime Minister made no less than 15 speeches at a time when most Australians, including journalists, are at the beach. Not surprisingly he got limited media coverage. Now he is having a go with an essay.
Read more...When the West Sides With Its Enemies
January 28, 2009
With the twin challenges of militant Islam and a West that seems hell-bent on bowing in subservience to it, a number of fearless individuals have risen to the occasion. One of them is Dutch politician Geert Wilders.
Read more...Fred Schwarz, RIP
February 1, 2009
A great Australian has just passed away, and almost nothing about his passing can be found in the Australian mainstream media. While Australia has many heroes – especially sporting figures and movie stars – one of the greatest heroes to arise from Australia in recent times has been totally overlooked by our secular, leftist media. I refer to Dr Fred Schwarz, who died last week at age 96.
Read more...The ASIO tapes - Terry Dix
January 29, 2009
Terry Dix is the host of a television current affairs program. He is the brother of the noted Fairfax journalist Dorothy Dix. Although it is said that Dix is an Anchor-For-Life this is not true – it just feels like it.
Read more...Are you doing it?
January 27, 2009
I am. I walk through my local shopping centre wondering which shops will be among the first to go.
Read more...Prophets of doom, gloom and penance
January 28, 2009
Ian Plimer: A new ignorance fills the yawning spiritual gap in Western society. Climate change politics is religious fundamentalism masquerading as science. Its triumph is computer models unrelated to observations in nature.
Read more...Freedom From Religion
January 25, 2009
American President Ronald Reagan once famously said, “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are, ‘I’m from the government and I’m here to help.'” That is certainly true in the area of religion. Whenever the government starts sticking its nose in religious affairs, it generally ends up causing trouble – and lots of it.
Read more...The Australia Day Hate List
January 23, 2009
Australia Day is a time for reflection – on some of the things the Left hates about Australia.
Read more...Those Coercive Utopians Are At it Again
January 22, 2009
Amongst the favourite terms blithely thrown around by the various radical social activist groups are “tolerance,” “acceptance,” “inclusion,” and “love”. Sounds pretty good. But the rhetoric seldom matches the reality with these groups. They are all about sweetness and light – until someone dares to cross them. Then the real deal breaks forth.
Read more...On the Obama Cult
January 21, 2009
To be honest, I am getting a bit nauseous. I have seen so much sentimental sop, sycophantic personality worship and liberal drooling in the past 24 hours, that I really do feel ready to lose my breakfast. With the convergence of two things – an ultraliberal American president and an ultraliberal mainstream media - one could be forgiven for thinking that the Messiah has in fact arrived on planet earth.
Read more...Liberal Fascism 101
January 21, 2009
When David Horowitz, who promotes an academic Bill of Rights, attended the annual conference of the Modern Language Association his reception was what you would expect from a room full of progressive American academics.
Read more...Recall Lebanon to Understand Gaza
January 19, 2009
Lebanon used to be a bright spot in a very dark Middle East. Muslims and non-Muslims could live together in peace and calm, even at the political level. It was a beacon of hope and freedom to the surrounding Arab nations. The Lebanese had the highest standard of living in the area. In many ways it seemed more like a Western nation, and Beirut was known as the Paris of the Middle East. But all that changed in 1975.
Read more...What the Left are reading on Obama Day
January 20, 2009
The Australian Left are killing the fine art of satire.
Read more...Reclothing the Naked Public Square
January 19, 2009
We are often told that religion and politics don’t mix. But it is usually the irreligious who make such claims. Secularists generally do not want people of faith to have any input into the political process. But given that the majority of the world’s population is religious, it is reasonable to expect religion to inform and flavour the political debate.
Read more...The countdown to Obama
January 19, 2009
Seems to be the most popular headline in the MSM. It's reminiscent of a 1960s US election ad. The one that began with a girl pulling single petals from a daisy as a voice counted backwards - to a mushroom cloud. To take your mind off Obamamania, and avoid the coronation, two DVDs are highly recommended.
Read more...Tracey's mum goes blogging
January 17, 2009
I saw Tracey at the library yesterday. She was releasing her mum, the one with Alzheimer’s, for an afternoon's blogging.
Read more...On Celebrating Darwin
January 14, 2009
This year we have an important double anniversary of Charles Darwin: the 200th anniversary of his birth, and the 150th anniversary of his classic work, The Origin of the Species. Already plenty of celebrations and commemorative events are under way. But there is a real mix of opinion in regards to Darwin and his thought.
Read more...When Paul Robeson's voice was silent
January 15, 2009
The fate of working class Americans who migrated to the Soviet Union in the 1930s is recounted in a new book which also documents the silence and cowardice of the western Left who, though aware of the reality behind the Stalinist façade, never spoke out against the horror.
Read more...Australiaphobia
January 14, 2009
The distinctive feature of Australiaphobia is a desire to hurt, inflict pain, and wound Australian society.
Read more...Bernard Black - a profile
January 13, 2009
You know Bernard Black. Everyone knows Bernard. The writer you think of whenever the words “Australia’s Leading Indigenous Writer and a Living National Treasure” pop into your mind.
Read more...Tracey's hoax joke
January 9, 2009
I saw Tracey today. It was very busy at the supermarket but in between scanning my baked beans and fish sauce (small bottle) she told me a joke.
Read more...Jason Soon hoaxcatcher
January 10, 2009
Jason Soon, on Catallaxy, was the first blogger to discover the identity of trickster Sharon What’s-her-name.
Read more...Hatred blows in from the Left
January 11, 2009
When the hoax was blowing through the media last week the hot air blew in some strange non-readers.
Read more...Shocking photo of David Marr discovered
January 10, 2009
A new book with startling revelations of Left cultural aggression and a cover photo of David Marr.
WARNING: Image not suitable for the faint hearted.
Read more...Jennifer Marohasy suggests revenge
January 10, 2009
Jennifer Marohasy on hoaxing Quadrant and a great idea for revenge.
Read more...David Marr goes Quadrant bashing
January 10, 2009
It took less than five minutes for David Marr to turn the conning of Quadrant into an excuse for attacking Keith Windschuttle and Quadrant in the Sydney Morning Herald. Was it payback for having laughed at Marr?
Read more..."Michael Moore Hates America"
January 9, 2009
The 2004 documentary about Michael Moore, Michael Moore Hates America, has made it into the discount stores - and is well worth looking for.
Read more...Comments on hoaxing Quadrant
January 7, 2009
Soon after it was revealed that Quadrant had been hoaxed the internet was buzzing. Two comments stood out – one for malice and one for common sense.
Read more...Turning Parents into Criminals
January 6, 2009
A great way to turn most parents into criminals overnight would be to ban all corporal punishment in the home. Make smacking illegal, and most of the adult population would find themselves to be lawbreakers. That is the likely outcome of yet another call to ban all hitting of children.
Read more...Left win literary award - again
January 6, 2009
Richard Flanagan’s wild, environmentalist diatribe called “Out of Control” won the $15,000 John Curtin Prize for Journalism in the 2008 Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards.
Read more...At the Movies with Blecker and Nun
January 4, 2009
For years and years and years Blecker and Nun have bored their way through weakly [sic] TV programs of film criticism.
Read more...Titanic Inc. buys Gitmo franchise
January 2, 2009
With emotion, though speaking falteringly in English, Kevin Rudd, the CEO of Titanic Inc, announced that the company has successfully purchased the franchise for Gitmo detonators in the Australasian region.
Read more...Obama in Hobart
January 2, 2009
Great News! On New Year’s day Global Warming was cured and the President Elect was sighted in Hobart.
Read more...The "cursed generation"
December 29, 2008
According to reviewer Bernard Chapin author Roger L. Simon had second thoughts about the havoc his cursed generation bought upon the American people.
Read more...Tracey does Xmas
December 28, 2008
Caught up with Tracey after Christmas. Even though she is taking a well deserved break from researching her PhD in performing arts she was looking a bit frazzled. It can’t be easy being a checkout chick with a conservationist conscience giving out all those plastic bags and I know that Rudd's performance on the environment has been getting her a bit depressed lately.
Read more...Love among the ruins
December 27, 2008
Christmas is over. A splendid new year, well interesting anyway, stretches before us. But spare a thought for the unfortunate Left.
Read more...Tsunami warning
December 24, 2008
Thomas Sowell: The rise in unemployment after the stock market crash of 1929 was a blip on the screen compared to the soaring unemployment rates reached later, after a series of government interventions.
Read more...The ASIO tapes - Kevin Rudd
December 24, 2008
Kevin Rudd is the CEO of Titanic Inc. This confidential Report points to the source for his internationally acclaimed linguistic excellence and gives examples of his uncanny ability to descend to the level of his audience.
Read more...Buy that degree - NOW
December 23, 2008
One internet company writes the essays while students occupy themselves “focusing on more important things.” Sounds like a recession-proof business.
Read more...The worst poet in America
December 23, 2008
The President-Elect has chosen Elizabeth Alexander to read her poetry on Inauguration Day, 2009. Read and tremble.
Read more...Bill of Rites Rules
December 22, 2008
Frank Brennan, Managing Director of Bill of Rights Pty Ltd, launched the company’s first promotional blimp from the Australian's head office in Murdochville. As it soared into the air Father Brennan gave a sermon on the mound.
Read more...Obama does plagiarism
December 22, 2008
I saw Simon the other day. He’s the novelist who lives in the granny flat at the back of Tracey’s. He’s mad with Obama and is thinking of suing him for plagiarism.
Read more...Ten Wrongs with a Bill of Rights
December 22, 2008
The Rudd Government has established a panel to conduct an Inquiry into whether Australia should have a Bill of Rights. The panel will be chaired by Fr. Frank Brennan. The recently passed Victorian Bill of Rights seems to serve as a model of the proposed Federal version. The question is, do we need such a Charter or Bill of Rights (BoR)? I believe the answer is no. Here are ten reasons why.
Read more...Beckie graduates
December 21, 2008
Beckie has graduated from the local university. Her education there was an experience many of her generation have shared.
Read more...Yes, Arts Minister
December 21, 2008
If you thought political correctness was dying – think again. It's Peter Garrett's new hat in a career that could be the TV hit of 2009.
Read more...Peter Garrett - the soft warrior
December 20, 2008
Titanic Inc Arts Minister Peter Garrett: I have no hesitation in standing here, as a former practicing artist, and say the arts are inherently valuable; they are a public good.
WARNING: This is not a satire.
Read more...Baz does Gatsby - Zelda unbottles bender
December 20, 2008
Baz Luhrmann has acquired the rights to F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby. Zelda was unavailable for comment.
Read more...Crims rule! - not OK
December 19, 2008
Christine Nixon is police commissioner of the Underbelly state. She is leaving her job. The state’s police force is not in the best condition.
Read more...Harmony Week goes Left
December 19, 2008
Angela Davis was in Australia to present the Chancellors’ Oration at Murdoch University and give some public lectures: “to speak about the ways racism infiltrates our institutions without us realising.” The Left applauded.
Read more...Whiteness Studies Uber Alles
December 4, 2008
Last week the Mumbai killers were asking who among their victims were British or American. This week Monash University is hosting the Australian Critical Race and Whiteness Studies Association’s “Re-Orienting Whiteness Conference”. Connect the dots for yourself between foolish western academics with killing ideas and terrorists killing for ideas.
Titanic Inc. welcomes People Smugglers Inc.
December 18, 2008
This week Titanic Inc. welcomed People Smugglers Inc. into the Australian market and Australian waters. “Competition is good,” said Captain Rudd.
Read more...Australia - "the prosaic facts of history"
December 17, 2008
Ross Douthat at the National Review (December 15) has reviewed Baz Luhrmann’s movie of last week – Australia: The overall effect is Little Black Sambo by way of Dances with Wolves: The condescension is intended to be favorable, but it’s condescension all the same.
Professor Marcia Langton thinks differently.
Read more...Titanic Inc. writes suicide note
December 16, 2008
Terry McCrann: Rudd becomes the first prime minister to specifically set out to make Australia and Australians poorer. Significantly and permanently.
Read more...The best books of 2008
December 16, 2008
Christmas is the time for looking back at the past year’s crop of books and choosing those which really stood out. Here is my personal selection of seven outstanding conservative non-fiction books published in Australia in 2008.
Read more...Steyn Aid - Mark Steyn sings for World Peace
December 15, 2008
THE Mark Steyn has recorded a musical single for Christmas – A Marshmallow World. True.
Read more...I’m Sorry (For What Somebody Else Did)
December 15, 2008
There are two related tendencies in the West which are as puzzling as they are troubling. One is the habit of claiming victim status. Ben Wattenberg once called this “The Victim Dictum”. It goes li
Give Australia a Little Black Christmas
December 15, 2008
Education minister Julia Gillard could improve Australian education by forgetting about free Google machines and handing the kids copies of Mark Lopez’s The Little Black Schoolbook. While waiting for her to do so you might consider putting it on your own Christmas giving list.
Read more...Titanic Inc. buys iceberg - crowd cheers
December 12, 2008
What a future for our country. Jobless, sitting at home amongst empty boxes and broken toys waiting for another Rudd cheque which may never arrive.
Read more...Destroying the Foundations of the West
December 14, 2008
The Judeo-Christian worldview was essential for the rise of the West. Without it the world would be a radically different place today.
Read more...Bill Muehlenberg
December 15, 2008
Bill Muehlenberg blogs on Quadrant Online. Bill Muehlenberg wrote a brilliant book.
Read more...The Australian Conservative
December 14, 2008
The Australian Conservative goes places you don’t want to go and brings back treasures of Left stupidity, malice and lunacy. More importantly, it highlights the increasingly good comment to be found on Australia's dissident websites.
Read more...Hollywood, 'Australia', and Historical Revisionism
December 13, 2008
That filmmakers take a bit of artistic license with their products is nothing new. It happens quite often. Indeed, films purporting to deal with historical events can often be radically skewed because of the filmmaker’s political and ideological stance.
Read more...Bad movie, great review
December 13, 2008
Peter Suderman: Good blockbusters always show audiences something new, and here, you can't fault it: It's the first movie to feature a hive of enviro-socialist alien nano-goo as its villain.
Read more...Bill of Rights Pty. Ltd. appoints director
December 13, 2008
This week (while the opposition was holding their weekly Christmas party) Bill of Rights Pty. Ltd. announced the appointment of well known cultural entrepreneur Frank Brennan as Managing Director.
Read more...Killer Chic
December 12, 2008
The faces of killers Che and Mao sell jewellery, beer, food, tee-shirts and movies. A new online film, Killer Chic, removes the makeup.
Read more...Quadrant exits closet and bakes cake
December 11, 2008
Quadrant - a magazine that lost its raison d’etre after the Cold War, and is a refuge for fruitcakes and closet racists.
[Note to Editor - Perhaps we should contact Louise Malaprop at SMUP and suggest a Quadrant Fruitcake and Biscuit Cookbook?]
The ASIO tapes - Louise Malaprop
December 10, 2008
Louise Malaprop is Director-For-Life of the South Melbourne University Press (SMUP). Mrs Malaprop is the wife of renowned actor and esteemed purveyor of charcuterie to the gentry Max Malaprop.
Read more...He is a Killer, But...
December 9, 2008
The US election is now history, but there is still plenty of discussion about the election of Barack Hussein Obama.
Read more...Wadeye is us
December 9, 2008
Over its lifetime Quadrant has published important essays which have had an impact on Australia’s public life. In the December issue Patrick McCauley’s essay, “Wadeye: Failed State as Cultural Triumph”, is such a work.
Read more...Titanic Inc. gives cash to steerage class
December 9, 2008
Latest news from White Star head office in Canberra.
Read more...Titanic Inc. appoints Arts advisory panel
December 9, 2008
The Prime Minister’s 2020 Creative Australia was a weekend party which produced confusion, quite a lot of hot air, and a huge hangover.
Read more...Money, money, money - Christmas '08
December 7, 2008
The auction was very interesting. There were a lot of first home buyers. It was held by a well known local firm and they began with a Welcome to Country ritual. Tracey said they get Arts funding to do it. At some auctions they even perform smoking ceremonies.
Read more...I don't think like that anymore
December 5, 2008
Before, every time news of something awful broke, I used to say “Now, they’ll understand. Now they’ll get it.” They never did and I felt awful.
Read more...The War Against our Children
December 6, 2008
Why is this Government so captivated by the radical lobby groups, and so uninterested in the fundamental right of every Victorian child to have his or her own biological mother and father?
Read more...Why don't they get it?
December 5, 2008
Left blogs attract Left readers. Conservative blogs attract Right and Left. The comments pages on the blogs of Andrew Bolt, Janet Albrechtsen, Tim Blair and Piers Akerman etc are lively places. Phillip Adams’ blog is a cemetery with dull contributions from the typing dead.
Read more...Students, Red Pens, and the State of a Nation
December 4, 2008
By now most of you would have heard of another example of madness in our public (taxpayer-funded) schools. An education kit in Queensland is encouraging teachers to throw out their red marking pens because using them might give little Johnny or Sarah a bad self-image.
Read more...Silly season begins early - in Canberra
December 5, 2008
“AUSTRALIAN universities are not controlled by left-wing academics hell bent on brainwashing students, a Senate inquiry has found.” News.com.au
Read more...Actor bites audience - Is there a vet in the house?
December 4, 2008
It’s true, Left theatre even bores Left actors.
Read more...Australiaphobia - the movie not by Baz Luhrmann
December 1, 2008
It starts with a revolving globe showing the Imperial Japanese Army heading for Australia with duty free stopovers in Hong Kong, Bali and Singapore and then it cuts to the tastefully naked lady aristocrat dancing under the Botox gusher she has just discovered in the desert.
Read more...Thinking About Global Jihad
November 12, 2008
Everyone now knows about radical Muslim terrorists and their campaign of bloodshed and intimidation. In response, the West has declared war on terror.
Read more...Watch Out For Those Tolerance Thugs
November 14, 2008
It always amazes me how those activist groups who most go on and on about tolerance and acceptance and peace and love are often the most unloving and intolerant folks around.
Read more...Mumbai and Islamic Terrorism
December 2, 2008
Even though it is not politically correct to say so, there is a lot of terrorism taking place, and quite a bit of it is coming from Muslims.
Read more...The Threat of Judicial Activism
November 2, 2008
All over the Western world we are witnessing the rise of judicial activism.
Read more...Here Come Those Pesky Atheist Evangelists Again
November 22, 2008
That atheism is really a religion has long been noted.
Read more...Thoughts on a Paid Maternity Leave Scheme
September 30, 2008
There are two main questions to ask about any paid maternity leave scheme: Who pays for it?, and, How long should it extend for?
Read more...The Death Culture in the West
October 24, 2008
In the West the culture of death continues to grow.
Read more...Scientism as the New Fundamentalism
September 17, 2008
The term ‘fundamentalism’ is today taken as a term of derision.
Read more...PETA and Further Scenes from the Passing Madness
September 26, 2008
Of the making of public insanities there is no end, it seems. Each passing day brings more examples of idiocy from our intellectualoids, elites and activist groups.
Read more...Media Bias
November 15, 2008
The reason this website exists – and many like it – is because of media bias. If the mainstream media (MSM) were doing its job properly, there may not be a need for sites such as this.
Read more...When Art Covers a Multitude of Sins
October 6, 2008
There has been a lot of media attention and commentary on the latest outrage concerning Australian photographer Bill Henson. It turns out he scoured schoolyards to find very young children to be photographed in the nude.
Read more...Those Unethical Ethicists
November 18, 2008
Why is it that Australia seems to produce so many “ethicists” who would perhaps have been perfectly at home in a certain European nation about 70 years ago (beginning with ‘G’ and ending with ‘y’).
Read more...The Menace of Eugenics
November 20, 2008
Most people know about Hitler’s plan to create a master race and to weed out the unfit and inferior races. His horrible plans resulted in the Second World War, the deaths of millions, and the Holocaust. His notions of racial and national superiority did not come out of thin air however, but were based upon ideas and practices going back at least to the nineteenth century.
Read more...On Spring Theatre
November 1, 2008
Free in Melbourne on a spring afternoon I went walking. Last time in Melbourne was mid-winter and the place was dirty and dull. It had recovered. In the capital of black I noticed an ecotourism travel company called Extragreen Holidays. Their advertising sign had the company name emblazoned across a very big jumbo jet.
So this is cultural studies
December 2, 2008
“The beach remains the rallying ground of Anglo-Australia, the preserve of decent, wholesome white bodies, policed in a variety of ways against any contaminating whiff of “dirty wog” – and, by implication, even dirtier black – bodies.” Suvendrini Perera
Read more...Senate Inquiry on Academic Freedom: Why genocide studies proliferate in our universities
October 11, 2008
Senate hearing opening remarks
…the underlying agenda of the academic field of “genocide studies” is not the study of genocide, let alone its analysis or prevention. It is to argue that our own society and those like it, that is, Britain and the United States, are every bit as bad as Nazi Germany, Stalinist Russia and Maoist China. The old moral equivalence argument from the Cold War is alive and well in genocide studies. Let me quote from the 2001 edition of the academic journal Aboriginal History, whose editors, Ann Curthoys and John Docker of the Australian National University wrote:
“Settler-colonies like ‘Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Argentina, the United States, and Canada’ led the way in setting out to achieve what the Nazis also set out to achieve, the displacement of indigenous populations and their replacement by incoming peoples held to be racially superior.”
Curthoys and Docker are here quoting a claim by former Professor Ward Churchill of the University of Colorado …
See also: Aboriginal History ‘a live political issue’
Read more...The Follies Bizarre: Australia's political theatre
September 1, 2008
The hero of a Stephen Sewell play, and clearly his creator’s alter ego, says: “People change.
Read more...Big Brothel Finally Bites the Dust
September 7, 2008
When there is so much bad news around, it is great to get some good news once and a while. And it doesn’t get much better than to learn that Big Brother will no longer be disgracing our small screens.
Read more...The Abused Science of Climate Change
September 4, 2008
The extent of anthropogenic global warming caused by carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels is a controversial and politicised issue and there certainly is no scientific consensus.
Read more...Dissent intolerable
September 23, 2008
Academics in the field of terrorism studies at two Australian universities have responded to a critique of their work by Dr Mervyn Bendle in Quadrant’s September edition by trying to close down debate and punish its author. They have approached Bendle’s employers at James Cook University in Townsville to recommend he be investigated for academic misconduct and suitability for academic employment. Within a week of the publication of Bendle’s article, the left-wing academics he criticised approached the JCU Vice-Chancellor, Professor Sandra Harding, to take action against him and suggested his head of department, Professor Richard Lansdown, re-think Bendle’s fitness as a university-employed scholar. At the same they also demanded the September edition of Quadrant be recalled and pulped, and that Quadrant Online remove the article in question from the internet. These actions represent disturbing developments not only for academic freedom but also national security.
Read more...Clinton's responsibility for the loans crisis
September 24, 2008
In the past week, the Australian media have given copious quantities of space and time to commentators seeking to blame the American sub-prime loans crisis on the market economy.
Read more...On Breaking the Marriage Covenant
September 4, 2008
For millennia, the institution of marriage was viewed as a solemn covenant, involving strong obligations and commitment.
Read more...Some Objections to Legalised Euthanasia
September 3, 2008
There are many reasons why we should not legalise euthanasia.
Read more...The Passing of a Prophet: Vale Solzhenitsyn
September 9, 2008
A mighty prophet has just left us. One of the great figures of the past century has passed away.
Read more...Abortion and Hard Cases
September 8, 2008
One of the most common arguments for the legalisation of abortion is the issue of the so-called hard cases.
Read more...Chicken Little Logic
September 2, 2008
In the ancient fable, Chicken Little thought one acorn dropping on her head meant the entire sky was falling. Today’s Chicken Littles show similar insight.
Read more...Kids and Crime
September 5, 2008
Two recent articles about teen crime in Victoria make for disturbing reading.
Read more...Our New Established Religion
September 2, 2008
Many reasons have been put forward for John Howard’s failure to win the 2007 election—negative reaction to WorkChoices, his refusal to abdicate in favour of Peter Costello, even a sense that he had just been in power too long—but there was another issue which suffused the Opposition campaign and which played a major part in persuading voters: climate change, in particular the recent drought.
Read more...Satanic Gas
September 3, 2008
Carbon is the sixth element in the periodic table. It is unique among the elements in the vast number and variety of compounds it can form.
Read more...Homosexual Lawsuit against the Bible
September 6, 2008
If nothing else, the steady stream of madness and moral decrepitude one encounters on a daily basis at least keeps life interesting.
Read more...The Chilling Costs of Climate Catastrophism
September 1, 2008
Sometime after the Soviet Army had crushed the Dubcek regime in Prague in 1968, our great cold-war warrior, Frank Kopfelmacher, was described by his opponents in condescending and patronising tones as a “threat expert”.
Read more...- Online Opinion list
- Bill Muehlenberg
- David Flint
- Doomed Planet
- History Wars
- Michael Connor
- QED