Australia
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SHOW US YER UNDIES
AUSTRALIA DAY 2024 Do they have little flags on them, like the ones on toothpicks that are condemned to celebrate Australia Day by being stuck into sausages or lamingtons? If not, you’re not a patriotic Aussie and you should get back on the boat, or whatever. Such is the banality and tenor of debate in… Continue reading
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Is it time to consider a universal wage?
Tuesday, Nov. 2, 2021 Every cloud has a silver lining. Well, that’s if you’re lucky and you believe in ancient aphorisms. But there’s certainly a silver lining under the big covid cloud if the idea of a Universal Basic Income (UBI) attracts you. Serious academic study of the concept and of its associated cost is… Continue reading
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Silence is No Longer Golden
BOOK REVIEW: GODS AND DEMONS A foreign correspondent’s memoir | Deborah Cassrels It’s certainly not Scoop, and Deborah Cassrels is hardly Evelyn Waugh. But there are enough fanciful echoes of imagined distant drums in Cassrels’ book, and there’s sufficient colourful reportage, to prompt consideration of the demerits of figjamery. According to the book cover, it… Continue reading
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HECTOR’S DIARY Bali Advertiser, Nov. 25, 2015
His fortnightly diet of worms and other non-religious experiences Blacklisted It’s official. The Diary and Vulcan, god of the underworld and chief patron of volcanic excess, are no longer speaking. Vulcan has been blacklisted. Until further notice, even if we should by chance fly over one of the spectacular mountain vents that lead down to… Continue reading
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HECTOR’S DIARY Bali Advertiser, Apr. 1, 2015
His fortnightly diet of worms and other non-religious experiences In a Word: Tosh Proposals lately aired that would further limit the number of foreign workers in Indonesia are sensible. As a medium- to long-term strategy they are surely free of any downside. Though that would be in the context of the further development of the… Continue reading
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Clumsy Confections on all Sides
Nick Feik, editor of the online newspaper PoliticsOz, wrote this in his editorial note today (Feb. 17): TERRITORIAL TENSIONS The Indonesian government had only just finished protesting to Australian ambassador Greg Moriarty over the Abbott government’s border protection policies when its foreign minister Marty Natalegawa was again fronting the media to object to Australian conduct.… Continue reading
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A GOOD ARGUMENT
And let’s just note this: No one’s rights have been infringed. The person concerned remains an Australian citizen. with all the benefits that status confers. ASIO acting to prevent Australians fighting in Syrian war is not racist Gerard Henderson, The Sydney Morning Herald 10 December 2013 So now it has come to this.… Continue reading