By the book
Three comments on the United States
How many readers realise that of all 50 US States it is Florida that, as I write this, has the lowest rate…
What’s new about politicians calling their opponents liars?
From Glasgow to Ultimo there is a most convenient confluence of resentment, even hatred. Feeling the heat at home and…
So long and thanks for all the krill
China is an eco-serial killer. When it’s not poisoning, re-landscaping or using Asia’s waterways to blackmail its neighbours, the Communist…
Je suis ScoMo
Je suis ScoMo. Friends, Australians, countrymen, lend me your ears. I come not to bury the Prime Minister. This time. …
How Canberra can stop Victoria becoming Dictator Dan’s Dystopia
Imagine a place where all power lies with one man. He gets to dictate the rules by decree. He can…
Don’t forget Labor’s still loathsome
Prussian soldier strategist Carl von Clausewitz is best remembered for his statement, “War is the continuation of political intercourse with…
Yes, Virginia, there is a culture war
Voters in the Commonwealth of Virginia just delivered a message that will radiate hope to Christians and conservatives in the Commonwealth of Australia. Parents’ concerns…
Glasgow and the greenhouse gap
As we watch the bureaucratic minions and the behemothic motorcades circulating in Glasgow, the ‘Greenhouse Gap’ appears to be growing. On one side of…
Let’s hear it for Winsome Sears
Of all the improbable outcomes in this week’s elections, a couple struck me as worthy of a Hollywood movie script.…
Manchin and Sinema: Cassandras of the Senate
Tuesday was a very bad night for the Democratic Party. They lost the Virginia governorship and House of Delegates, almost lost the New Jersey governorship, and lost several…
Maryland gubernatorial candidates push child vax mandates
There were plenty of lessons for Democrats to learn from the shock victory of Republican Glenn Youngkin in Tuesday night’s…
I’m a racist, you’re a racist, we are racists all
What news network did you watch on election night? Thankfully we all had plenty of options. There was CNN, where…
Kiwi notes
Our tired democracy teeters When is enough? When Aucklanders recently heard the seemingly interminable lockdown which the Prime Minister Jacinda…
Kiwi Life
Lorde vs Lana People who live in glass houses really shouldn’t get changed with the lights on. Doubly so, one…
Saint Jacinda backs a two-tier society
For many so-called liberals, Jacinda Ardern seemed to be the perfect premier. Warm, empathetic, progressive, above all – moderate –…
Vaping: one policy the Kiwis have got right
The Asia Pacific region has been split in two as to how to best deal with vaping. No bigger is…
Gladys & the ICAC porn
The daily revelations at the Independent Commission Against Corruption in New South Wales are providing satisfying sport for those who…
At the fork in the road, the High Court took the low road
There is a story from the Cold War that may be apocryphal but deserves to be true. It’s difficult enough…
Twiggy’s fugitive gas
Renewables are so yesterday. It’s now all about hydrogen. But not just any hydrogen – it has to be green…
Lessons from Loudoun County
By the time you read this the result of Virginia’s gubernatorial election will be known. It is not known as…
Make me Covid Lord High Executioner, please
In Gilbert and Sullivan’s opera The Mikado, the character Ko-Ko is appointed to the position of Lord High Executioner. He…
The Petrovsky Affair
Professor Nikolai Petrovsky has just developed Australia’s first successful vaccine in 40 years. In any approximation of a normal world,…
Sorry, that’s not a holocaust
If you have heard anything about Dave Chappelle’s latest comedy special on Netflix, The Closer, it’s most likely the accusations…
Climate doom is harming the young
The Satanists came out to play in Noosa last week on Hallowe’en, staging a Black Mass at the Surf Club…
The Crucible
Sometimes you think the Apocalypse doesn’t go away. It just takes new and frightful forms. No sooner was the lockdown…
Keith Michell
So the lockdowns end, even in Melbourne, and we get a glimpse of what artistic performance may loom in a…
Bob Dylan
Only in Australia and perhaps only in Sydney, that cradle of the cons and the jailers, the Rum Corps and…
Maggie Smith
And so we look like being able to see live performance again in the two biggest cities in Australia: Sydney…
Even the greatest tennis players need to be adored
Louis MacNeice once wrote that if you want to know what chasing the Grail is like, ask Lancelot not Galahad.…
A wife for King Lear — J.R. Thorp imagines another Lady Macbeth
Shakespeare wastes no time on Lear’s backstory; we meet the brutal old autocrat as he divides his kingdom between two…
Dark days in the Balkans: life under Enver Hoxha and beyond
For many in the West, Albania remains as remote and shadowy as the fictional Syldavia of the Tintin comics. The…
What motivates Peter Thiel apart from the desire for more wealth?
If you’ve only heard one thing about Peter Thiel (and many have heard nothing at all) it is that he…
Can the fiasco of the Dieppe Raid really be excused?
In my mother’s final days we had a long conversation about the second world war. I asked if she’d ever…
Love in a cold climate: Snow Country, by Sebastian Faulks, reviewed
In the months before the outbreak of the first world war, Anton Heideck arrives in Vienna. Family life offered him…
The Great God Pan is all things to all men
Pan’s name is thought to derive from ‘paean’, the ancient Greek verb meaning ‘to pasture’. His half-man, half-goat form reflected…
Homage to the greatest 18th-century poet you’ve never heard of
If you were to glance only briefly at the title of the Irish poet Doireann Ní Ghríofa’s prose debut you…
