Well, I hesitate to enter the highly contested field of military procurement, but there was a sense of inevitability about the choice of the Abrams battle tank for the Oz army. Increasingly the Oz military looks like the regional task force for the US military.
I just can’t see how […] Continue Reading…

According to British Labour’s leader of the Commons Peter Hain, New Labour is “overcentralised, undemocratic and closed to new ideas”.
I don’t honestly know how true this is of New Labour, but it certainly describes the ALP very well indeed. Despite reforms by Simon Crean following the Hawke-Wrann report, the […] Continue Reading…

This blog has been considering a few religious issues lately, including Mel Gibson’s new film. While we are on this religious theme, I would suggest that there are some interesting parallels between Christ’s death and the current situation in Iraq.
A very hot issue for two millennia has been: who […] Continue Reading…

That is the question that came home with my girls from Sunday School the other day branded across a couple of book marks. The Oxford Diocese of the Anglican Church seems to have asked themselves the same question and come up with the answer “Get on the net!”
As a […] Continue Reading…

In my last blog entry I mentioned a Pentagon report on global warming. This was taken from the Guardian website and some have claimed the story misrepresented the actuality. Thanks to a lead from a reader I’ve got more info on the story. I don’t intend going into this […] Continue Reading…

On the basis of its last two election results, the most competent political administration in the country is the Beattie government. So why is it in so much trouble over a ten dollar bottle of wine?
The story so far, for those not in Queensland, is that Teresa Mullan […] Continue Reading…

President Bush must be getting sick of the Pentagon criticising him. Recently a Pentagon report argued that the War on Iraq would only expand global terrorism and create a quagmire the Americans might be stuck in for years. And now a Pentagon report has said Bush is dead wrong […] Continue Reading…

Hmmm, this blogging thing is tricky. It was originally put forward (not so long ago at all – this is very much an infant sub-genre) as being sort of like a cross between a diary and an essay – more personal and provocative than an essay, but obviously not […] Continue Reading…

I have not been pulling my weight on this blog. Over the last month since the Queensland State election, Peter McMahon has blogged (cyber for “spawned”) twenty times and I have only blogged three. I have a number of excuses, but one is a beauty, in […] Continue Reading…

There are some strange things going on right now that suggest that we may be entering a new phase of post-rational politics. If this is true, then celebrity will replace intellectual competence as the main political asset.
First, let us consider the most controversial movie in years, and its impact […] Continue Reading…