Dazed and confused by the media bull
Over the years of travelling around the globe and speaking at all sort of forums, Swedish public health expert, the late Dr Hans Rosling, would conduct an informal experiment, asking …
Read MoreTag: the right
When making Nazi analogies is not Reich
“Cancel culture doesn’t exist”, exhibit 56,823: Gina Carano will not be returning to The Mandalorian or the Star Wars galaxy after sharing a post on social media implying that being a Republican today is …
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The year of living outrageously
Americans are more stressed now than at any time since April, or the early days of the COVID pandemic last year. This is the conclusion of an opinion poll recently …
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There’s no party like the third party
To the two life certainties of death and taxes (in that and in the reverse order), add this: over the next two years at the very least, the conservative/right-of-centre side …
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Just like the Reichstag fire, only crunchy
There is a saying in counter-terrorism that the good guys need to get it right 100 per cent, but the baddies only need to get lucky 1 per cent of …
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Another “mostly peaceful” day in the US of A
As Talleyrand famously said after Napoleon’s international kidnap and subsequent execution of the royalist Duc d’Enghein, “it was worse than a crime, it was a mistake.” The unknown number (from …
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Eight trends to watch in 2021
Twenty-twenty, the year of the “cool number” previously associated with the positive (perfect vision), had been anything but cool and positive itself. A lot had gone wrong; most related to the …
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Honey, I swapped the party bases
Once upon a time, centre-left wing parties were the parties of working class and the poor, while centre-right parties were the parties of the wealthy, middle class and the educated. …
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Science is settled: Republicans are fascists
As CNN’s Christiane Amanpour again compares Trump to Hitler on the 82nd anniversary of Kristallnacht, a new a piece of research is being touted by major media outlets: “US Republicans …
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Where to for the Republican Party?
Donald Trump had turned out the record number of supporters ever for a sitting president. Joe Biden had turned out an even greater record number of supporters ever for a …
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Rupert ditches Donald
The love affair between Rupert Murdoch and Donald Trump is well and truly over. Trump has been repeatedly complaining about the Fox coverage of his presidency for a year or …
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2000 – a few early take-aways
1. Democrats, buoyed by the media and the public research industry support chorus, were expecting a Blue Wave. A lot of Republicans, buoyed by the enthusiasm of the base as …
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Against the Great Satan
Back in 1996, I and three friends had the privilege (having handsomely won the election) of editing the University of Queensland student newspaper “Semper Floreat”. The Latin name means “always …
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The modern left’s dissident envy
When freedom and democracy are restored to the United States: In case you are unfamiliar with the term, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission was instituted in the post-apartheid South Africa …
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Mass debating in public
I’m still having a PTSD episode after watching the entire 90 minutes (or was it 900 minutes?) of the badly misnamed “debate” between Donald Trump and Joe Biden, so you …
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No shots, thanks, we’re Americans
“I would advise you not to take the Russian or the Chinese vaccines,” my GP told me the other day, “I suspect there might have been some shortcuts taken in both …
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160 years on, Democrats still think they own blacks
Cheap shot? Sorry, I usually prefer expensive ones too, but that’s all I have tonight with #UncleToms trending on Twitter and Jake Tapper complaining on CNN that the first night …
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Trump’s agenda – a little bit nationalistic, a little bit fantastic
Donald Trump has released the agenda for his second term: A few random thoughts in response: 1) The biggest missing piece – as it has been from Trump’s agenda over …
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The most important thing you will read this year
As somebody who has experienced “not the real socialism”(TM) for the first fifteen years of my life, I seriously never expected that a few decades on I would have to …
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The Great Unrepayable
The perfect storm of more than a decade of fiscal mismanagement and a “once-in-a-century shock” (Treasurer Josh Frydenberg) – God helps if there is ever a real shock like a …
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