Sometimes Moore is Too Much: Darlene on Fahrenheit 9/11 - posted by

At a recent screening of Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 the audience was less lively than I expected them to be. Where was the applause like that which erupted at the Cannes Film Festival or the vocal agreement with Moore's representation... More

Marcus Einfeld on Fahrenheit 9/11 - posted by Graham

I'm going to do my own take on Fahrenheit 9/11 over the weekend. In the meantime one reader - Justice Marcus Einfeld sent this short comment in to me. Fahrenheit 9/11 has flaws but its basic message is powerful testimony... More

National characteristics trump technology and truth. - posted by Graham

Well, as far as I know, if you live in Australia you probably read about it first here on this blog. It took next off the block, the AFR, another 4 days to report it here. I've yet to see... More

Tony Blair, 10 years on - high praise from an unlikely source. - posted by Jeff Wall

THE Right Honourable Anthony Charles Lynton Blair last week celebrated 10 years as Leader of the UK Labour Party. To mark the occasion, he has received very high marks on his service as Prime Minister from about as impeccable a... More

A Weapon of War - posted by

Earlier this year the world was, if sometimes pruriently, appalled at the sexualised violence inflicted on male inmates by female soldiers at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. Garnering less attention, but creating more victims, has been the systematic sexual assault... More

Democrats invite pleb pundits aka bloggers inside - posted by Graham

It won't happen this election season in Australia, but bloggers are joining the mainstream in the US. According to Wired News in this story "Blogging against Convention" the Democrats have invited 35 bloggers in to cover their convention. The Dems... More

Two good reasons for investors and governments to sell Telstra - posted by Graham

I'm not monomaniacal about it, and I think it's bad politics, but the government should sell Telstra,and Mark Latham should agree to it. Every day the case for doing so gets stronger and stronger, as two recent pieces of evidence... More

Minoritarianism - posted by Graham

Consider this - a mild-mannered Australian newspaper editor with a slight US accent says that Palestinians are "vicious thugs" and "cannot be trusted", and his employer, the Fairfax Group, is found guilty of inciting racial hatred and fined. Two nights... More

Another poll, another beat-up. - posted by Graham

I woke this morning to the ABC Radio telling me that "Labor has hung-on to a slim election winning lead, but voter satisfaction with leader Mark Latham's performance has slipped." This was a pretty trashy take, even on the basis... More

John Laws takes on the big end of town - a spectacle not to be missed. - posted by Jeff Wall

IN recent days John Laws has demonstrated two things. Firstly, he has not entirely lost his enthusiasm for radio after 51 years, and, secondly, talkback radio remains a powerful political medium. It's been compelling listening as John Laws has taken... More

Don't Take Your Love to Stepford - posted by

As Ambit Gambit's self-appointed commentator on some things gender, I thought spending an hour and a half in a suburban multiplex watching the new version of The Stepford Wives would supply the sort of ideas you'd enjoy to read my... More

Negative gearing is not the problem - posted by Graham

In today's AFR John Quiggin argues that one source of savings from which Mark Latham could pay for policy initiatives would be the abolition of negative gearing. In passing John also blames negative gearing in part for the housing boom.... More

Private lives - public interest. Where does the boundary lie? - posted by Jeff Wall

THE recent media feasting over details of Mark Latham's personal and political lives has probably not harmed his chances of being Australia's next Prime Minister, but is the cause of getting the best candidates to seek public office the real... More

The Beazley appointment - Latham cuts and runs. - posted by Graham

The appointment of Kim Beazley as ALP Defence spokesman shows that Labor's election strategy is in disarray. It is the worst foreign affairs mistake that Latham has made since holding a press conference in front of the US flag. Here's... More

The Bulletin has enough readers in Queensland...apparently. - posted by Graham

If a chip on the shoulder is mandatory couture for Australians, a bit like epaulettes are for soldiers, then Queenslanders are the power dressers of the Australian inferiority complex. And maybe we have cause. This morning when I logged on... More

Another shocking foreign incursion into domestic politics. - posted by Graham

If I hadn't been so busy sleeping and had instead read the Fin Review rather than relying on the ABC on my clock radio, I would have had an alternate source of irritation this morning to Richard Armitage. Can I... More

Armitage's comments were "dumb" - but it's his right to be dumb. - posted by Graham

The reaction to Richard Armitage's comment that the Australian Labor Party is split on its policy of withdrawing troops from Iraq by Christmas seems a bit hysterical. If anything, his comments will probably help the ALP vote. I cannot see... More

Discriminating Ladies - posted by

It has been suggested that many women are abandoning paid work for the home. If this is an accurate appraisal, and not just wishful thinking on the part of some, then the Ladies Against Feminism (LAF) are surely this trend's... More

More on Empire - posted by

Well if Graham and I were not having an argument about American imperialism, then we are having one now. I say America is an imperial power and he says it is not. Let us go through the arguments in some... More

The balance of hatred - posted by Graham

Mark Latham’s performance on Monday was what I would call a “reverse smear” – it did to his opponents what he is claiming they are doing to him, and did it by playing the victim card. It is a legitimate... More

Jason Stevens - not your average rugby league player. - posted by Jeff Wall

JASON STEVENS should be playing for the NSW Blues against the Queensland Maroons at the Olympic Stadium tonight – he won’t be but tomorrow he has perhaps an even more important assignment at the 2004 Hillsong Conference at the Sydney... More

Housing Summit a bit flat - posted by Graham

It appears that my warnings about the Housing Summit were more dire than they needed to have been. The only recommendation of any substance to come out of it was a call for a national Housing Ministry. This is really... More

An empire in the mind - posted by Graham

Gary says that he and I are having an argument about the word “empire”. I’m not sure that either of us has directly used the word in debate against the other, but I take it as being encapsulated in the... More

A meanness of spirit we can well do without. - posted by Jeff Wall

THERE is a meanness of spirit in government – and particularly local level government – that is unhealthy and contrary to the Australian tradition. I saw it again over the weekend in a “Sunday Mail” story on the move by... More

Get Ye Home and Up the Duff: The Howard Government and Women - posted by

It has often been claimed that those who preceded John Howard and Associates in power were banished because they were distant from most Australians. Although the alleged aloofness of Paul Keating’s Labor is sometimes argued to have been chiefly economic,... More

www.johnhowardlies.com - follow-up - posted by Graham

Maybe they like the attention, or perhaps they are plain obstinate, or maybe even just being boof-headed, but the “team” behind www.johnhowardlies.com have struck back at my post with this letter to Crikey!. It’s not surprising, given his Liberal Party... More