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Archive

Submitted by Richard Tonkin on October 28, 2008 - 3:00am.
The Haneef Conspiracy
Downer's attempt at diplomacy, through an email from one of his senior DFAT officials, was carried out four days before Immigration Minister Kevin Andrews cancelled Haneef's visa and had him sent to the Wolston Correctional Centre.
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Submitted by Guest Contributor on October 27, 2008 - 5:13pm.
No taxation without representation: We are all Americans now...
Maybe the time has gone when national societies were go-it-alone concerns, and perhaps we now need to give constitutional recognition to global interdependence. I can think of no more effective way of doing this than an extension of the franchise to all payers of American taxes. (Desmond Ryan)
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Submitted by Guest Contributor on October 27, 2008 - 11:01am.
Nine days to go: Anchorage Daily News endorses Obama
To step in and juggle the demands of an economic meltdown, two deadly wars and a deteriorating climate crisis would stretch [Governor Palin] beyond her range. Like picking Sen. McCain for president, putting her one 72-year-old heartbeat from the leadership of the free world is just too risky at this time.
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Submitted by Guest Contributor on October 24, 2008 - 1:36pm.
You can see a lot by just looking: Understanding human judgement in financial decision-making
As market confidence continues to plunge some of modern economics’ most popular ideas are now looking a little under-dressed. This paper deals with just one of those ideas - the myth that market participants are always rational decision-makers who act to maximise their own best interests. (Miriam Lyons and James Murray)
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Submitted by Malcolm B Duncan on October 24, 2008 - 12:15pm.
The Great Australian Novel - Chapter 3: ‘Twas Brillig and the mome raths outgrabe
Would this bloody breakfast never end? Then again, what ends are there? Howard’s End [available in all good bookshops, published by Penguin]? Will there be a Malcolm’s End and when might it be and for which one of us?
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Submitted by Guest Contributor on October 24, 2008 - 12:10pm.
The world's poor stand to lose the most
It is too soon yet to predict exactly how badly the poorest countries will fare in the financial crisis and resultant economic downturn. But it is clear that reduced demands for exports to developed countries and lower foreign investment will mean less growth and government revenue for already-fragile social protection and services. For millions of the world’s poorest citizens, it is literally a matter of life and death.
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Submitted by F Kendall on October 23, 2008 - 8:46pm.
The monstrous regiment of women
Julia Bishop, we x chromosomes seem to agree, is like the Head Girl who is selected by the Headmistress, not by the student body. Julia Gillard's breasts are too small, hips too large, seems a popular verdict. Sarah Palin has the ready popular appeal that Pauline Hanson had for a moment or two. Is she the future?
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Submitted by Zhang Xiaojia on October 23, 2008 - 11:27am.
Greed Kills
Four babies were killed and more than 12,600 were hospitalized by the melamine-tainted infant formula produced by SanLu earlier last month. At first glance, people thought it was only a random incident. But when further investigations were undertaken, it was revealed that almost every milk product sold on the Chinese market contained excessive melamine.
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Submitted by Malcolm B Duncan on October 22, 2008 - 12:49pm.
Chronicles of Nadir 3: The Voyage of the Born Trader Chapter I
Damn if I didn’t have it here somewhere. A large, thank you James. Damn, not under the chair is it, m’dear? Last few Chapters of Prince Crispian. Damn. Oh here it is inside today’s Tele. Oh, that’s not it. Same typeface. What’s this then? Oh things do change so when you’re dead...
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Submitted by Guest Contributor on October 22, 2008 - 12:32pm.
The 2008 Andrew Olle Media Lecture - Ray Martin
Commercial television - where most Australians used to get their news and information - has dropped the ball. Even more disturbing, I think it’s showing serious signs of pulling out of the main news game. I think what we need - desperately - is to find some new models of those ruthless, old privateers we used to sneeringly call media moguls. (Ray Martin)
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Submitted by Fiona Reynolds on October 21, 2008 - 5:18pm.
Dumbing down ABC Radio National
The decision to axe one of this network's most distinctive and important programs has been approved by the director of ABC Radio, Sue Howard, and it will condemn Radio National to even greater irrelevance. (Stephen Crittenden)
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Submitted by Richard Tonkin on October 20, 2008 - 10:51pm.
The Filth of the Dirty Bomb
Normally the most amazing thing about a thermos flask would be along the lines of the old joke "It keeps hot things hot and cold things cold.. how does it know?"  Since September 11 2001 such an object is now capable of halting cities.
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Submitted by David Markham on October 20, 2008 - 4:01pm.
The Washed Up
So there you have it – situation average in Canberra. ‘Go for Coe’ is now one of my electorate’s members of the Assembly... Webdiarist David Markham reports on the aftermath of the ACT election.
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Submitted by Fiona Reynolds on October 18, 2008 - 1:16pm.
From the man who brought you Gordon Gekko...
Oliver Stone's latest film W has just been released in the US. It covers the period from George W Bush's student days at Yale to 2004, the last year of his first presidential term. Its reception has, to put it mildly, been mixed.
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Submitted by Guest Contributor on October 18, 2008 - 8:48am.
A nastier beast
As the foundations of our lives erode, we search for an anchor, and social politics very often provides it. When all else fails, we may still rally around old certainties: nation, culture, religion, race. We crave strong authority figures that can imbue us with certainty and articulate for us a sense of self. That often involves fabricating a scapegoat who becomes a mortal enemy. (Waleed Aly)
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Submitted by Guest Contributor on October 17, 2008 - 4:13pm.
Who will be the next Prime Minister of Australia? A woman, and it will be sooner than you think!
This week’s Rudd Government stimulus package is a good start, but more is needed now. It is imperative for the Federal and State Governments to stimulate business with tax cuts otherwise both unemployed and "underemployed" will jump ... . In addition the Reserve Bank must cut interest rates another 1% at each of its next two or three monthly meetings. (Gary Morgan)
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Submitted by David Markham on October 17, 2008 - 2:18pm.
The big day is here
Since I moved house recently I have not found anywhere to put up my dart board, so I have no means of working out who to vote for. A friend has told me that he dislikes all the candidates that he knows so intensely that he is only going to vote for candidates that he has never heard of. This sounds like a very sensible plan.
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Submitted by Dylan Kissane on October 17, 2008 - 1:56pm.
Siding with the Communists
And yet for perhaps the first time I can remember I found myself agreeing with Marie-George Buffet, the leader of the French Communist Party who said: "So we stop the match, then what? Is it going to solve the problem of these men and women who in a way are expressing that they don't feel right in our country?"
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Submitted by Chris Saliba on October 16, 2008 - 5:02pm.
Chris Saliba reviews The Costello Memoirs
What’s the take away? For Costello, he has learnt that the Liberal party has a cult of the leader. Too many in his party saw Howard as a virtual god. For the reader, we have discovered not to trust the promises of a hungry politician, for they'll step on anyone's neck to get to their desired destination. Voter beware!
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Submitted by Richard Tonkin on October 15, 2008 - 11:58pm.
$2b or not $2b... that is the question about milking misery
After Treasurer Foley's announcement yesterday, planted on ABC Local radio in the morning and moved through the media over the day, our Premier and our Infrastructure Minister trotted themselves out on the telly overnight to suggest the possibly that abandoned projects might be saved by Federal funds.
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Submitted by Guest Contributor on October 15, 2008 - 4:34pm.
Senate blocks inquiry into asylum seeker tragedy
A motion calling for a judicial inquiry into the Commonwealth Government's People Smuggling Strike Team's actions, including those concerning the boat known as SIEV X and its tragic loss of life, has been voted down by the Senate.
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Submitted by Guest Contributor on October 15, 2008 - 2:44pm.
The limits of tolerance – diversity, identity and cohesion
In Australia, there are three key arenas in which the limits of racial, cultural, ethnic and religious diversity are tested. The first is in the relationship between indigenous and non-indigenous Australians. The second is at our borders as defined by our immigration policies. The third is in the policies directed at managing cultural and ethnic diversity in Australia. (Petro Georgiou MP)
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Submitted by Chris Saliba on October 13, 2008 - 11:54am.
Is our food too cheap?
It’s been estimated that the average Australian basket of food travels around 70,000 miles  That doesn’t include the energy costs in the actual food’s production – from manufacturing to the use of pesticides and fertilizers. For example, it takes 2,200 calories of hydrocarbon energy to produce a can of soft drink containing 200 calories.
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Submitted by Malcolm B Duncan on October 12, 2008 - 7:03pm.
Oh, John Cain, you’ve done it again
This announcement by the Prime Minister, if correctly reported, is a recipe for disaster because of its open-endedness. The agreement of the Leader of the Opposition is equally rash. To guarantee deposits for the big four with substantial assets makes some limited sense but ...
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Submitted by Guest Contributor on October 7, 2008 - 4:43pm.
Greed
The “greed-is-good” era brought the stock market crash of 1987, the savings and loans debacle in the United States and the global recession which gripped many countries in the early 1990s. It is perhaps time now to admit that we did not learn the full lessons of the greed-is-good ideology. And today we are still cleaning up the mess of the twenty-first century children of Gordon Gecko. (Kevin Rudd)
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Submitted by Tony Phillips on October 6, 2008 - 8:45pm.
Henson versus Hanson Land
Henson has done nothing wrong under the law and for lawmakers to be carrying in this manner is actually an appalling dereliction of their role in our political system. Indeed arguably undermining of it. They need to be called on this, every one of them.
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Submitted by James Sinnamon on October 6, 2008 - 8:36pm.
How decades of privatisation have impoverished NSW
NSW's record seems to confirm that privatisation is, indeed, just old-fashioned plunder as practised by the Conquistadores, Vikings, Mongols, etc. Revenue generating assets paid for over previous decades by taxpayers have apparently been sold off for no better reason than to line the pockets of private investors, bankers and stockbrokers.
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Submitted by Chris Graham on October 2, 2008 - 4:06pm.
NT intervention review: Watch the body count
Indigenous affairs watchers should prepare themselves for some staggering incompetence. Even those already well-versed with government failure after government failure in Indigenous service delivery are going to be shocked. I can smell a Royal Commission on the horizon … and if Jenny Macklin has any sense, she’ll start drawing up its guidelines later this afternoon.
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Submitted by Jenny Hume on October 2, 2008 - 3:18pm.
Ashes to ashes and dust to dust
Are funerals for the living or the dead? I am still not sure but I tend to think they are for the living, except one’s own of course. That is most certainly for the dead.
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Submitted by Richard Tonkin on October 1, 2008 - 2:26am.
A critical moment
"The dramatic drop in the stock market that we saw yesterday will have a direct impact on the retirement accounts, pension funds, and personal savings of millions of our citizens. And if our nation continues on this course, the economic damage will be painful and lasting. "  - U.S President George Bush
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Margo Kingston

Margo Kingston Photo © Elaine Campaner

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