Net Zero joins the choir invisible
Gender dysphoria: a modern pandemic?
I should start this article by stating my credentials. I am not a psychologist, psychiatrist, or paediatrician; however, over the…
Koala apocalypse? It ain't science
Koalas eat soft young shoots. They cannot survive on a diet of healthy mature eucalypt leaves. When Aboriginal people maintained…
Nuke or no nuke?
Russian President Vladimir Putin launched his war against Ukraine on February 24 of this year. Within three days of commencing…
Dear Anthony Albanese, please calm the children
This open letter is meant to reassure you and ask you to – in turn – reassure Australia’s children that…
Net Zero means 'no coal'
The reality has finally dawned on Labor that Net Zero means no new coal projects. This is something that the…
Newspoll: a pox on both your houses!
‘A pox on both your houses!’ That famous line from Romeo and Juliet looks like being dusted off by voters…
Labor's ship of fools
Last week I predicted that Anthony Albanese would continue his campaign, Riding Solo, fronting the media without help from his…
Who the 'bloody hell' are the Libs?
The 1987 election was the first I took interest in. Seeing two politicians of conviction, Bob Hawke and John Howard,…
Why Brussels fears Elon Musk
Thierry Breton, the European Commission for the internal market, lost no time in rattling his sabre at Twitter as soon…
Will Ron DeSantis run against Donald Trump?
Last week, Florida governor Ron DeSantis took two big steps to solidify his popularity with the Republican base, not only…
Why Russian sanctions won't topple Putin
Are sanctions against Russia working? Two months on from the first targeting of Russian banks and oligarchs, Putin’s grip on power…
How Russia is splitting the EU
Russia is turning off the gas to Poland; the country’s state-owned gas supplier has refused to pay Gazprom in roubles.…
A Covid retrospective
Two years ago, I and a small group of multi-disciplinary New Zealand-based academics published our Covid Plan B. The plan…
New Zealand 'trusts' China on extradition
New Zealand’s Foreign Minister, under Ardern’s Labour government, has set another scary precedent in relation to China. ‘I don’t think…
New Zealand’s cultural upheaval
My wife and I recently spent two weeks on a road trip around New Zealand’s South Island. It’s a spectacularly…
Ardern and Clark’s next pandemic will be horrid
Helen Clark and Jacinda Ardern have been very mean to the world’s Covid Cinderella, New Zealand. Just when we thought…
The silence of the wolves
Of several things that struck me about Rebecca Weisser’s memorable piece on the ‘leper vote’ of unvaccinated deplorables and other…
Major parties collapsing
Want evidence of there being a big problem right now with mainstream political parties in the West? A fortnight or…
Business/Robbery, etc.
With the election only three weeks away, where are the major parties’ campaigns on ‘Our greatest moral challenge’ – climate…
How the Libs could have won (easily)
Let me put it out there: I’m a person who watches Question Time. Not religiously and not always for the…
The best time to break out of strategic encirclement
Australia and the US fear that China’s newly minted security agreement with the Solomon Islands will bring Chinese military bases…
End the locust years now
The future of Australia’s freedom will be decided in the Pacific, yet history demonstrates free people will not remain free…
A Covid retrospective
Two years ago, I and a small group of multi-disciplinary New Zealand-based academics published our Covid Plan B. The plan…
Neighbourhood watch
Defence minister Peter Dutton marked Anzac Day by comparing China and Russia to Germany before the second world war. Normally,…
Anatomy of a forgettable scandal
An evening of shorts, courtesy of Flickerfest, even at a lustrous cinema like the Kino in the Sofitel complex off…
A peculiar backwards mutation
It’s not hard to sympathise with Christopher Allen’s recent column in the Review section of the Australian decrying the juxtaposition…
A remarkable film that gleams with mastery
What a relief it was to see Parallel Mothers the new film by Pedro Almodóvar. There was the tediousness and…
Archangel of Italian film
Like yesterday, there’s the memory of William Weaver, the great translator from the Italian of Umberto Eco’s The Name of…
Presumption of guilt
The Pell case is a contemporary Australian version of the infamous Dreyfus case in 19th century France and may even…
Poor parenting is at the root of our failing schools
When it comes to education, I’m in two minds, maybe three. I was sent to private schools, including, for my…
Boris Iofan – cunning apparatchik of a loathsome regime
The invasion of Ukraine by Russian forces has rendered what might otherwise have seemed a fairly niche study of a…
The musical note that can trigger cold sweats and sightings of the dead
Imagine that all the frequencies nature affords were laid out on an extended piano keyboard. Never mind that some waves…
Murder, suicide and apocalypse: Here Goes Nothing, by Steve Toltz, reviewed
Angus Mooney is dead. Freshly murdered, he’s appalled to find himself in an Afterworld, having always rejected the possibility of…
Momentous decisions: Ruth & Pen, by Emilie Pine, reviewed
Emilie Pine writes about the big things and the little things: friendship, love, fertility, grief; waking, showering, catching the bus.…
The effortless magnetism of Marcel Duchamp
One could compile a fat anthology of tributes to Marcel Duchamp’s charm – especially what one friend called the artist’s…
Boy wonder: The Young Pretender, by Michael Arditti, reviewed
During his brief stage career Master Betty, or the Young Roscius, was no stranger to superlatives: genius, unparalleled, superior, Albion’s…
