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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…

28 Apr 2022

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…

28 Apr 2022

Nuke or no nuke?

Russian President Vladimir Putin launched his war against Ukraine on February 24 of this year. Within three days of commencing…

28 Apr 2022

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…

28 Apr 2022

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…

27 Apr 2022

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…

27 Apr 2022

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…

27 Apr 2022

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,…

27 Apr 2022

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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…

27 Apr 2022

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…

27 Apr 2022

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.…

27 Apr 2022

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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…

30 Apr 2022

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…

24 Apr 2022

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…

16 Apr 2022

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…

10 Apr 2022

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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…

30 Apr 2022

Major parties collapsing

Want evidence of there being a big problem right now with mainstream political parties in the West? A fortnight or…

30 Apr 2022

Business/Robbery, etc.

With the election only three weeks away, where are the major parties’ campaigns on ‘Our greatest moral challenge’ – climate…

30 Apr 2022

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…

30 Apr 2022

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…

30 Apr 2022

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…

30 Apr 2022

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…

30 Apr 2022

Neighbourhood watch

Defence minister Peter Dutton marked Anzac Day by comparing China and Russia to Germany before the second world war. Normally,…

30 Apr 2022

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…

30 Apr 2022

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…

23 Apr 2022

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…

16 Apr 2022

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…

9 Apr 2022

Aussie life

The failure of Russian forces to achieve their Ukrainian objectives is said to have surprised nobody more than their commander-in-chief.…

30 Apr 2022

Language

The current prominence of the word ‘gaffe’ is due to the Gaffe Meister himself – Joe Biden. But on investigation…

30 Apr 2022

The wonder of the Metaphor Map

‘What’s that?’ asked my husband, looking at my laptop. ‘Fibonacci fossilised?’ His question made no sense, but I saw what…

30 Apr 2022

The call of opium-based analgesics and introspection

On the morning of my last day in England, I drew back a curtain and there in the garden, browsing…

30 Apr 2022

Presumption of guilt

The Pell case is a contemporary Australian version of the infamous Dreyfus case in 19th century France and may even…

30 Apr 2022

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…

30 Apr 2022

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…

30 Apr 2022

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…

30 Apr 2022

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…

30 Apr 2022

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.…

30 Apr 2022

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…

30 Apr 2022

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…

30 Apr 2022