8degreesoflatitude

Richard Laidlaw on things that interest, engage and enrage

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  • When Mr Keating Came to Town

    Just a quick note, on current matters. Paul Keating will be feeling pleased with himself. He’s managed to distress a number of luvvies, media and otherwise, with his remarks at the National Press Club in Canberra on Tuesday. He even got a reprimand from the prime minister for daring to say that diplomacy was about…

    8degreesoflatitude

    March 16, 2023
    Australia, General Interest, Politics, Politics and current affairs
  • The Mad World of Manipulative Mendacity

    How The Australian’s breaking news website portrayed China’s response on Mar. 14. The boys are about with their tin drums again. They’re dressing in uniform and singing marching songs. The Australian’s breaking news service popped up this colourful fear-maker yesterday asserting that the Chinese have said we’re a target. They haven’t, and won’t, short of…

    8degreesoflatitude

    March 15, 2023
    America, Australia, China, Current affairs, General Interest, Global affairs, Global Politics, Politics and current affairs
    Anthony Albanese, Joe Biden, Rishi Sunak, Xi Jinping
  • I Confess

    AUSTRALIA | Taking it on the chin Like the flatfooted NSW premier, Dom Perrottet, though in my case through a compulsion known only to someone else’s god, I feel the need to confess.  Moreover, the significant lack of judgment of which I am culpable and for which I am compelled by unknown forces to plead…

    8degreesoflatitude

    January 13, 2023
    Australia
    Farce as a political weapon, Nazi fancy dress, Perrottet
  • Poltergeists of Christmas

    Where we live, in a small area on the outer edge of the ever expanding Australian suburban universe, we are a fail-to-fit on most of the local demographics. This doesn’t worry us. We’ve never been fit-in people. But it does interest us. Most of the time, when the tradies who make up most of the…

    8degreesoflatitude

    December 25, 2022
    Australia
  • Lunch is off: Thanks Jetstar

    Sunday, Nov. 6, 2022 Today, we were supposed to be lunching at Wise (a favourite winery) at Eagle Bay, with a friend we haven’t seen for so many years that we’ve lost count and who was flying in from Melbourne for the occasion, and others. Supposed being the operative word. Jetstar intervened. They’re so good…

    8degreesoflatitude

    November 6, 2022
    General Interest
  • Getting Down to Business

    AUSTRALIAN POLITICS Tuesday, June 7, 2022 That’s the thing about writing fortnightly political and current affairs commentaries: My friend and long-ago colleague Dennis Atkins, a veteran of the Queensland and national political media field, wrote exactly what I had planned to write for this column, in the May 31 edition of the online newspaper InQueensland.…

    8degreesoflatitude

    June 7, 2022
    Australia, General Interest, Politics and current affairs
    Alexander Downer, Anthony Albanese, Dennis Atkins, John Howard, Jokowi Widodo, Peter Dutton, Scott Morrison
  • On with the show: The (new) gang’s all here

    AUSTRALIAN POLITICS Tuesday, May 24, 2022 Australia’s voters have delivered a Labor government. Some will see this as a sea change, a fundamental shift in the electoral demographics. Others may cautiously view the result of Saturday’s election – when it finally becomes clear in all its detail, which is unlikely to be this week –…

    8degreesoflatitude

    May 24, 2022
    General Interest
  • Are We There Yet? No? Shame.

     AUSTRALIAN POLITICS Sunday, May 8, 2022 This isn’t the midpoint of the 2022 federal election campaign. It just feels that way, or possibly that we have yet to really start. In fact, we’re over the hump. Did anyone notice? Is anyone counting? There is a fortnight to go, a full 14 days of glee club…

    8degreesoflatitude

    May 8, 2022
    Australia, General Interest, Politics and current affairs
    Anthony Albanese, Election 2022, Scott Morrison
  • Ho hum. Repeat.

    AUSTRALIA | 2022 ELECTION Tuesday, Apr. 19, 2022 The Easter weekend, over which this column was crafted, was a campaign quiet spot. Every election campaign should have at least one buzz-free zone. This one’s got two, courtesy of ANZAC Day. A bonus! Thank goodness for small mercies. Though we always knew the big guns would…

    8degreesoflatitude

    April 19, 2022
    Australia, General Interest
  • Don’t Expect to be Excited

    AUSTRALIAN POLITICS | ELECTION 2022 Tuesday, Apr. 5, 2022 Sooner or later, this week or next, Scott Morrison will make his prime ministerial trip out to Yarralumla on the lake in Canberra, to ask the Governor-General to authorise a half-Senate and full House of Representatives election. So runs the form, and such is the constitutional…

    8degreesoflatitude

    April 5, 2022
    Australia, General Interest, Politics
    Anthony Albanese, Election2022, Scott Morrison
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