Polarisation takes us back to the 19th century
We seem to be on the cusp of another age of sharp tribalisation, where people of different beliefs and persuasions increasingly lead different lives and share different spaces, passing each …
Read MoreAuthor: Arthur Chrenkoff
Dire Straits of Hormuz
What if Iran wanted to provoke a war and nobody came? A growing consensus among smart people* seems to be that Donald Trump should not let himself be drawn into …
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Plastic fantastic
Last year, major Australian supermarkets have stopped using thin plastic bags to save the environment from more pollution. I don’t know about others, but I’m still using plastic bags as …
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The Woke versus the Poor
My favourite American urbanist and demographer, Joel Kotkin, writes how the quest for social justice so often harms the poor: Perhaps no issue more motivates progressive activists than social justice. Good …
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What Trotsky’s granddaughter said
In one of those cruel strokes of fate, all of Leon Trotsky’s four children predeceased him, even if many would not feel any compassion for one of the fathers of …
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Where are the songs of freedom?
A discussion at PJ Media and then Instapundit, about music and the end of the Cold War, which we should be celebrating throughout this year, but we won’t be very …
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Immigration as reparations
Of the people who can broadly speaking be described as being on the right, libertarians are the ones who are passionately in favour of (more) immigration, believing that any problems …
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Chernobyl versus nuclear power
I don’t know whether it was the intention of the creators of HBO’s “Chernobyl” mini-series to scare the viewers’ pants off about the nuclear technology (I do know it was …
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Socialists see the light
Well, a few of them. “The Guardian” reports on Mette Frederiksen, the 41-year old leader of the opposition Social Democrats in Denmark: A victory for Frederiksen would be a boon …
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No, not every wall is the Berlin Wall
You have to give this to libertarians: they are at least consistent. For example, unlike most if not all other ideological persuasions, they believe in a free and unrestricted movement …
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AFL’s own goal at Tiananmen Stadium
If you need any further evidence that time indeed flies, on Tuesday we will remember the 30th anniversary of the Communist Party of China sending tanks against its own people …
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God Emperor Trumps King
It’s true what they say – Donald Trump lives rent free in people’s heads. One of the most bizarre recent cases in point: It's impossible to watch HBO's CHERNOBYL without …
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“ALP: Thought Crimes Unit” – what to expect in season 7
Big changes are in store for the ACTU/ABC/Fairfax’s hit TV drama “ALP: Thought Crimes Unit”. The last season, already thought by the viewers to have been the most disappointing so …
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John Cleese’s Fawlty Opinions
Just the other day, the elderly British comedy legend, John Cleese, tweeted – or, as some would say, decided to end his career – thus: Some years ago I opined …
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The Libs have a problem with the trendy vote too
It has been said for the past decade or two that the parliamentary Labour Party is finding it increasingly difficult to hold together the two major poles of its base: …
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Who’s Who at the EU Zoo
So the people of the European Union have voted – the 51 per cent of them, at least, which is a considerable reverse on the long term trend of a …
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The world to end; Millennials hardest hit
If Millennials strike many of their elders as rather feckless perpetual adolescents who live in the present and don’t think of the future, it might be because they actually think …
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Dems: Even distress is fake
Donald Trump’s election was a shock to many people. And it was a shock that continued to reverberate long after November 2016, with breathless media reports of mass despondency among …
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Not our government
It’s pretty much a hard political law that when the right loses an election they tend to blame themselves (“it was the infighting – the bloody moderates/conservatives [delete as appropriate] …
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Less than half crazy
The numbers in the low 40s pops up in two stories today: Americans today are more closely divided than they were earlier in the last century when asked whether some …
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