Ambit Gambit

MWF blogging
I’ve only been to a couple of events at the Melbourne Writers Festival so far[1], but already this statement from Nobel Prize winner Peter Doherty has been worth the trip for me. Responding to a rant against Darwinism as religious orthodoxy, coming not from a creationist but from a neo-Lamarckian viewpoint[2], Doherty said: Science is revolutionary, [...] More
Fortunes of war
Things have gone better than expected (certainly better than I expected) in Iraq over the past year[1]. On the other hand, things are going very badly in Afghanistan. For those, like me, who have supported the war in Afghanistan and opposed the war in Iraq, this raises some points to consider. Most obviously, war is inherently [...] More

The Bartlett Diaries

Raising age for Aged Pension eligibility put on agenda
When I posed the question a couple of months ago about whether it was time to increase the eligibility age for the Aged Pension, one of the last groups I would have expected to promote the idea was the National Seniors. But to their credit, that is what they are doing, reportedly calling on the [...] More
Queensland government’s hot air on climate change continues unabated
Those who say they accept the general consensus about the threat of rapid and serious climate change but pretend we can prevent it without major and rapid changes to our lifestyle are the real climate change deniers. Even though I strongly disagree with those who genuinely believe that climate change is either not real or doesn’t [...] More

Is the bell tolling?
The corporate reporting season is in full swing. The over-geared financiers have already fallen by ... More
Should Australia go nuclear?
Paul Keating has been reading and thinking. We have not been denied 'a new canvas to paint out a be... More
Commodity boom `subsides`
Has the mining/commodity bubble burst? Almost certainly the answer is 'no'. But prices have substa... More
Saturday Sanity Break, 23 August 2008
The 'gay wizard' joke A good friend sent Henry a copy of JK Rowling's commencement address to Harva... More

I was wrong about Julia Gillard
As Andrew points out, Gillard has backed plans by the Victorian government to free up the vocational education sector by having the Commonwealth provide income contingent loans as a tradeoff for the Victorian sector being allowed to raise fees and remove caps on current courses so that students can in effect buy whatever courses they [...] More
The Dark Knight interrogation scene spoof
One of the hottest topics of debate among Batman fans is whether Christian Bale’s Batman voice (which Bruce Wayne has to put on when in costume to disguise his identity) was too over the top. The spoof below from YouTube of the interrogation scene from The Dark Knight nailed this issue perfectly. I watched this twice [...] More

Leaders of the free world
From Joe Biden’s acceptance speech: Again and again, on the most important national security issues of our time, John McCain was wrong, and Barack Obama has been proven right. Folks, remember when the world used to trust us, when they looked to us for leadership? With Barack Obama as our president, they’ll look at us again, [...] More
Education ‘reform’
Our prime minister must have spent so much time in opposition nodding in agreement with Howard’s mob that his neck got sore. Fresh from making life even harder for the poor sods on welfare, the government has now announced a package of education measures that could have been lifted straight from a Howard Government cabinet [...] More

Cutie of the week (well last week)
Congratulations to Mathew Mitcham - I think I’m right in saying the only out gay guy in the Olympics. Congratulations for his coming through depression, and burnout and coming back and doing so well. Mathew was stoked to be getting silver. Then the guy coming first dived not so well and Mathew did [...] More
“An Imperfect Offering: Dispatches from the medical frontline”
“The rich beauty of Dr. James Orbinski’s writing contrasts with the stark poverty and suffering of the people he has served. . . . This book exposes truths most of us would rather not know. Do not put it down. . . . See who you become after reading it.” Canadian Medical Association Journal I was [...] More

Currently unavailable due to technical difficulties.

Bureaucracy Bound
Today, I’m an academic. Tomorrow, I become a public servant. After some generous arm-twisting from the brother of a famous econ-blogger (and no small amount of flexibility from my senior ANU colleagues), I’m taking a six-month secondment to the Australian Treasury. I’ll be a principal adviser in the social policy division, working on issues such [...] More
Experiments in the Classroom: Part III
The third classroom experiment returns to an exercise that I posted about on 6 March, at the start of semester. At the end of an introductory quiz, I asked the class: Looking around the classroom, what percentile of the relative distribution do you expect to end up? For example, 100 means you expect to top the [...] More

Currently unavailable due to technical difficulties.

Currently unavailable due to technical difficulties.

Watts going on?
There is this major Australian political party that claims in it’s constitution to be in favour of the “socialisation of Industry, Production, Distribution and Exchange”. And yet the NSW branch of that party sets itself on a course to privatise the state electricity industry. It does this with support from the federal wing of the [...] More
Compassion is Irrelevant to Arguments for Welfare
The reason I am writing this post is because by my judgement of western culture, welfare is often justified by the compassion argument. ie: A society without welfare would be lacking in compassion. Two recent examples of this line of argument are seen in Kevin Rudd’s address to the CIS and in this Australian newspaper [...] More

The Iranian perspective
Sadegh Zibakalam, Bitterlemons International, August 28: Iranian support for the newly established Iraqi regime was quite reasonable and to be expected. The Iranians fought eight long years to witness a Shi’ite-dominated government in Iraq. Iran lost a million of its people in that war, its economy was shattered and the Islamic republic lost nearly all the [...] More
Time to honestly debate Israel/Palestine
My following post was written for Khaldoun, the blog recently started by Macquarie University’s Centre for Middle East and North African Studies, where I’m a board member: Robustly debating Zionism has existed for as long as its existence. Jews, historically a persecuted people, were unafraid to discuss the merits or otherwise of the plan to establish [...] More

Guest post by Ben Eltham: Useless pack of Bankers
Earlier this week at New Matilda, I explored the growing problem of the media’s fascination with corporate-backed reports and surveys. There’s already been plenty of discussion here about the BCA report into emissions trading, and my colleage Ben Pobije put a satirical skewer through Bernard Salt’s pop demography. I want to specifically have a look [...] More
Privatising democracy
So, Barry O’Farrell and the Coalition rained on Morris Iemma’s privatisation parade. Now, the Dilemmster announces that he can still privatise the retailers and generation sites without parliamentary approval. Correct me if I’m wrong, but wasn’t Iemma’s original argument some high sounding blather about the sovereignty of the people’s representatives in Parliament assembled and governing in [...] More