Category blog
By John Stapleton Do No harm. So goes the most basic maxim of medical practice. Yet many hundreds of Australian practitioners have done exactly that, with senior health bureaucrats standing side by side with the nation’s grandstanding politicians as they… Continue Reading →
The End Is Nigh As the shutdown of Australia continues apace, there’s one very legitimate question to ask: How is the Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s avowed belief that we are living through The End of Days influence his decision making?… Continue Reading →
By Tim Flynn, Illustrated by Michael Fitzjames The End the Lockdown Australia group on Facebook was formed in early April, mainly because of the fundamental belief of the founder Tim Flynn that “he had to do something”. In a time… Continue Reading →
By Ray Norris, Western Sydney University At the very largest scale, the Universe consists of a “cosmic web” made of enormous, tenuous filaments of gas stretching between gigantic clumps of matter. Or that’s what our best models suggest. All we… Continue Reading →
If You are Under 60 and Healthy you have More Chance of Dying of a Car Accident than Covid, argues Dr Guy Campbell We are facing a lethal and unpredictable enemy .Covid 19 is a serious disease. But it’s not the only… Continue Reading →
By John Stapleton Desperate to distract attention from his spectacular mismanagement of the Covid crisis, the destruction of the national economy and the devastation his idiotic policies have wrecked on the lives of millions of people, this week Australian Prime… Continue Reading →
By Professor Ramesh Thakur On 8 October, I delivered a lecture on ‘Covid-19: A Data Driven Reality Check’ via Zoom to the World Bank-affiliated Global Development Learning Network. The webinar attracted 55 participants from five African and Asian countries, many… Continue Reading →
By Tasha May with Michael West Media Executive bonuses inflated by JobKeeper, rising property and share prices, tax cuts for the wealthy. What’s not to like about 2020 for the top end of town? Tasha May takes a closer look at how… Continue Reading →
By Caitlin Johnstone YouTube, whose corporate owner Google is arguably the most powerful company on earth, is now deleting user videos which claim the US election was fraudulent. YouTube’s official statement on its decision to do this is very revealing, not so much for what… Continue Reading →
We live in a time of change, when people are questioning old assumptions and seeking new directions. In the ongoing debate over health care, social justice, and border security, there is, however, one overlooked issue that should be at the… Continue Reading →
By Daniel Lacalle United States jobless claims have picked up, since the elections and the second wave of coronavirus have slowed down the economic recovery. Uncertainty about tax increases and changes in labor laws, including an increase in the minimum wage, add… Continue Reading →
By Paul Collits There was a pleasant surprise in the mail a few weeks back, when a new book arrived. It was a book that I had not anticipated, though perhaps I should have. It is The Persecution of George Pell,… Continue Reading →
By Tony Smith with Pearls and Irritations In 2001 I reviewed Mungo MacCallum’s memoir ‘The Man Who Laughs’ (AQ 73(6), Nov-December). Although this entertaining writer appeared to have retired from political commentary, I, like so many readers, was thankful that… Continue Reading →
By Chris Impey If intelligent aliens visit the Earth, it would be one of the most profound events in human history. Surveys show that nearly half of Americans believe that aliens have visited the Earth, either in the ancient past… Continue Reading →
By Paul Collits We are facing a six-headed monster of tyranny. Freedom is on the line, as Western, so-called democratic governments have trashed our basic human rights. How much do we know, or care? The West now faces a hexagon… Continue Reading →
By Aidan Hotan, CSIRO Astronomers have mapped about a million previously undiscovered galaxies beyond the Milky Way, in the most detailed survey of the southern sky ever carried out using radio waves. The Rapid ASKAP Continuum Survey (or RACS) has… Continue Reading →
By Alison Broinowski with Pearls and Irritations When Joe Biden is in the White House and Donald Trump is back in his tower or at his resort, some things about the Trump years will be missed. As newly elected leaders… Continue Reading →
By Tim O’Hara, Museums Victoria A complete tree of life – showing how and when organisms are related to each other – has long been desired by biologists, but obscured by the vagaries of the fossil record. Now, next-generation gene… Continue Reading →
Panorama of the Milky WayCredit: Kelvin Hennessy https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=156622327066353&set=a.149603584434894 Sh2-157 (Lobster Claw Nebula / Hummerscherennebel) in Cassiopeia & CepheusCredit: Josef Pöpsel, Frank Sackenheim, Stefan BinnewiesLocation: Capella Observatory at Skinakas, Crete/Greece,robotic (with babysitting from Bad Arolsen/Germany)Date: September, 2022 https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=158017963593456&set=a.149603584434894 IC 405 (also… Continue Reading →
By Paul Collits Welcome to the Covid economy. Depleted incomes, smashed small businesses, bullshit jobs, a whole new platform for crony capitalism, deserted main streets. What’s not to love? Not many businesses and industries are growing in 2020. Main Street… Continue Reading →
By Kliti Grace and Calum Peter Fox, Curtin University Chemical clues left behind by humble microbes have rewritten the timeline of one of the biggest mass extinction events in Earth’s history. The so-called “end-Triassic mass extinction”, thought to have occurred… Continue Reading →
By Ari Chand Why do drawers draw? Drawing is historically connected to creative practice, but also truth and accuracy. It helps materialise story and culture, perhaps because it’s often the fastest way to get an idea down on paper. But… Continue Reading →
By Trevor Cobbold with Michael West Media With its favouritism of funding wealthy Independent and Catholic schools, the Morrison Government has completed the demolition of the Gonski funding model that began with the Abbott and Turnbull governments. Yet public schools… Continue Reading →
By Paul Collits The Covid affair of 2020 simply couldn’t have happened a decade ago. It is a chilling thought that we are only cowering beneath the stare of Big Brother because of tech. Yes, we are only going through… Continue Reading →
From the British Medical Journal A scathing editorial on government misuse of Covid-19 to scare, intimidate and confuse populations while distorting the science behind the most over-hyped disease in history has appeared in the prestigious British Medical Journal. Covid-19 has… Continue Reading →
Australian Sues The Emir of Dubai Well that’s not a headline you see everyday. But that’s exactly what one Australian has been doing. The story is a complicated one, made more complicated by the passing of time and a long… Continue Reading →
By Paul Collits The Anglosphere faces a crisis of leadership. The West is now ruled wall-to-wall by second rate ideologues and/or chancers, either determined to change the global order or powerless to prevent the revolution we now face. When the… Continue Reading →
By John Stapleton The arrest of 404 people protesting outside Parliament House in Melbourne’s central business district, and the issuing of 395 very punitive fines, has crystallised Australia’s descent into authoritarianism. It is now a simple statement of fact that… Continue Reading →
By Peta Malins, Crystal McKinnon, Kim Kruger and Paola Balla In an open letter, more than 1,200 academics from universities and institutes across Australia have written to the Victorian government to protest against the destruction of Djab Wurrung country as… Continue Reading →
By Graeme Dobell with the Australian Strategic Policy For the first time in the 68 year history of Australia’s overseas spy service, the top spy Paul Symon has gone before the camera for a four-part series of video interviews, conducted… Continue Reading →
By Paul Barrett with Pearls and Irritations In response to the suicide attacks on the Twin Towers on 11 September 2001, the US issued an ultimatum to Afghanistan’s Taliban regime to hand over Osama bin Laden and the other Al… Continue Reading →
By Alexander Schmidt-Lebuhn, Research Scientist and Ben Gooden, Plant Ecologist, CSIRO. We accidentally found a whole new genus of Australian daisies. You’ve probably seen them on your bushwalks. When it comes to new botanical discoveries, one might imagine it’s done… Continue Reading →