Former NSW Premier Bob Carr has written about the Labor debacle:
IT has taken political talent bordering on genius. The creativity of a master such as Disraeli or F. D. Roosevelt to deliver NSW Labor a defeat of this scale ( Read more... )

A two-part essay on the problems of social division and failures of urban planning and management using Sydney and Melbourne as "compare and contrast" examples is here:
Since 1990, owner-occupied and investment property credit has expanded its share of total credit from 23 per cent to 58 per cent. (Business credit has dropped from 63 to 34 per cent ( Read more... )

Identifying the really world class creeps and jerks. As Michael Totten informs us. So, we find that:
Former Cuban leader Fidel Castro said Tuesday that the unrest may be a pretext for a NATO invasion of Libya, while Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega offered support for Gadhafi, saying he had telephoned to express solidarity.
Qaddafi has warm ( Read more... )

A nice Dangerous Liaisons mashup critiquing Californian government pensions (funny, if you are not a Californian taxpayer).

Feminism explained (more accurately, a certain sort of American political feminism explained, but still funny).

Which US State is worst at what.

Cruel but funny: advice to a newly unemployed former Congressperson. ( Read more... )

Imre S. proves to be a very bad, but very funny, man.

Before and after pictures of flooded Brisbane: a fairly mild indicator of the devastation across Queensland.

Evidence of medieval warm period in Antarctica.

According to Greenland ice core data, only 9,099 years of the last 10,500 were warmer than 2010. (There is a reason “the Little Ice Age ( Read more... )

I am reposting a new version of my earlier post on reading political responsibility into the Tucson shootings because responses to my original post wandered off into whose rhetoric was worse, which was irrelevant to the point the post was trying to make, and because the earlier version ended up with so many updates as to be unwieldy. So, once again ( Read more... )

What do we know about the tragic shootings in Tucson?

(1) The shooter shows considerable evidence of mental illness. [UPDATE His logical disconnectedness showed up in his philosophy class.]
(2) He has stated admiration for an eclectic group of political texts, (The Communist Manifesto, Mein Kampf) of extreme but not of a politically specific ( Read more... )

The Indian rupee now has its own symbol.

Visualising the size of Africa.

About the experience of travelling to an old Arab city where Western tourists don’t often go.

About anti-witchcraft law in Africa and our law not being that different …

Clearing China’s nine-day traffic jam.

About the hospitality of Israelis.

About anti-anti-Islamism ( Read more... )

Nice piece on what slash fiction might have done for gay rights.

A movie trailer which looks rather fun.

Aztec views on sexuality and the law.

About Norse attitudes to homosexuality. Diana L Paxson on Norse attitudes to homosexuality.

Attempt to get the charitable status of the major ex-gay group in Canada revoked.

Taking a rounded view of the ( Read more... )

A lovely obituary of a quiet man who knew what he liked:
They will toast the memory of a solitary man who knew his likes and lived within his means, a man who could be counted upon.

Texas continues to provide competitive jurisdiction evidence on preferable public policy.

Culture war politics are not helping Republican candidates ( Read more... )