October 16, 2009 – 8:56 am
Immigration can improve the national gene pool:
Geneticists have shown that there is literally such a thing as American DNA, not surprising when nearly all of us are descended from immigrants. We therefore carry an immigrant-specific genotype, a genetic marker expressing itself—in some environments, at least—as energetic risk-taking and competitive self-promotion. Even when famine, warfare, or [...]
October 10, 2009 – 6:28 am
Awarding Obama the Nobel peace prize seems emblematic of the triumph of celebrity over substance. I’m an Obama fan, but the reality is that his achievements lie ahead of him not behind him, and you can’t help thinking that the Nobel judges were more than a little ‘previous’ in awarding the prize to a guy [...]
September 29, 2009 – 11:26 am
In a recent issue of the new york review of books (Sept 24), Tony Judt described social democracy as the “ideology that dare not speak its name”, such has been the decline of the political ideology that once dominated Western Europe, Australia, New Zealand and ‘new deal’ America. (Obviously, Judt doesn’t read Kevin Rudd’s essays.)
This [...]
September 22, 2009 – 6:43 am
A few weeks ago, John Pilger made some interesting claims that the script of Balibo had been toned down to expunge Australian Government (and media?) complicity. Pilger’s quotes from director Robert Connolly don’t exactly refute the claims but the Australian media doesn’t seem interested in it either, perhaps preferring the official version once again that [...]
September 21, 2009 – 6:57 pm
A new light on the hill | The Australian
In Saturday’s Australian Tim Soutphommasane had a long piece on where Rudd and Labor stand in ideological terms. Part way through reading it I started to notice that there was a lot missing from his account of the ALP’s current relationship with its traditional ideology. What was [...]
September 9, 2009 – 6:31 am
A new study seems to suggest so.
The authors, Joshua Gans and Andrew Leigh, got some solid media coverage with their finding that the ABC is slanted rightwards. In fact, the study claims that ABC TV is more favourable to the coalition then talk radio stations 2UE and 2GB. Do you believe it?
Others have already [...]
September 4, 2009 – 6:34 am
From The Australian:
(Rudd) has asked Terry Moran, secretary of his Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet to put together an advisory panel which will develop a discussion paper seeking ideas for reform by the end of this month.
Unfortunately the syntax here is confusing but I guess that it means that the advisory panel will be [...]
September 3, 2009 – 8:34 am
Multi-employer awards are an Australian phenomenon and so is the herculean task of modernising them.
As time goes by, and given the legalistic approach we take to these things, our award system starts to take on some of the characteristics of an archeological dig with layers of regulation piled on top of each other. Faced with [...]
August 30, 2009 – 5:24 pm
In recent days I have secured some good media coverage for my research comparing the first speeches of the 2007 and 1983 ALP MP intakes; which I luridly titled “Whitlam’s Grandchildren: What the Class of 2007 tells us about the ALP”.
Annabel Crabb wrote it up in the SMH Thursday (In Gough we Trust) which prompted [...]
August 11, 2009 – 8:37 pm
Changes of government typically result in a flood of new members into the House of Representatives, especially, of course, on the winner’s side. After winning the election in 2007, 32 ALP members sat, and spoke, in the House of Representatives, for the first time, 39 per cent of Labor’s representation in the lower house. The [...]
