8º of latitude

Richard Laidlaw on things that interest, engage and enrage

General Interest

  • How I discovered my feminine side

    I’ve never understood why the fact that men like to have sex with women (sometimes the reverse applies, it seems…) should so colour gender bias in every other aspect of life. Continue reading

  • The diversion of aid: Carr’s false comparisons

    Originally posted on No Place For Sheep: The Gillard government yesterday declared its intention to rob overseas aid of $375 million in order to help pay  the living expenses of asylum seekers who have arrived in Australia by boat. The money will allegedly go towards supporting the resettlement of asylum seekers who have been released… Continue reading

  • This is a fun piece. And nothing beats a baguette,,, Continue reading

  • Raffles Revealed, in a Javanese context

    Indonesians are apt to say they wish their former colonisers had been the British instead of the Dutch. It is a comment anyone who lives in the country, and who talks to ordinary people, hears at least once, if not repeatedly. The argument goes that if the British had run what later became Indonesia there… Continue reading

    , , ,

  • HECTOR’S DIARY Bali Advertiser, Dec. 12, 2012

    His fortnightly diet of worms and other non-religious experiences What a Stinker Sir Stamford Raffles is a footnote in history for having identified a swampy and malarial island at the bottom of the Malay Peninsula as the site of the future New Serenissima (Venice) nowadays known as Singapore. He is due that credit. He’s also… Continue reading

    , , , , , , , ,

  • There’s No Defence of Rank Idiocy

      The central point in the royal prank saga caused by two vacuous little Sydney radio presenters is clear. Perhaps that’s why it has been almost universally ignored. It is that the two initiators had no thought other than for their own promotion in perpetrating a hoax on the other side of the world. It… Continue reading

    , ,

  • Fattypuffs & Thinifers: Soup For Fat Girls

    Originally posted on Lottie Nevin – The Red House Diaries: Let’s not beat about the bush here; I’ve always been greedy. If I were a dog, I’d be one of those really annoying types that’s always jumping up and pestering their owners at the table when they are eating, or whining the minute that I… Continue reading

  • Originally posted on No Place For Sheep:   (With thanks to @ForrestGumpp for the title, and for reminding me of Dylan’s song) I’m sitting in the Mt Tamborine library, availing myself of free wireless for three hours. It’s the most delightful little library I’ve seen in a long time, the kind of library in children’s… Continue reading

  • Evilcabamba Diary 1

    Originally posted on Passionfruitcowgirl: It’s difficult to say, really, who ruined everything. I mean, where the rot really set in. Of course, there was that whole thing with the Spanish, and there has been that whole thing with the USA and its calculated plundering of the islands and continents sequentially, but I doubt that even… Continue reading

  • Originally posted on No Place For Sheep: Politicians from both major parties have set themselves quite a challenge to come up with a deterrent that will persuade asylum seekers that traveling to Australia by boat will result in them facing a situation worse than that they’ve fled. Potential refugees are clearly undeterred by the prospect… Continue reading