I couldn’t help my self, here is a Christmas thought from the book I got for Christmas from my beautiful brother and sister, George Monbiot’s The Age of Consent:
Any change worth fighting for will be hard to achieve; indeed if the struggle in which you are engaged is not difficult, you may be confident that [...]

I’m drawn over what to say for what is probably my last post for the year. I wanted to add a quote from the Victorian Shadow Minister for Police (I think) regarding drug testing that was just bizarre but I can’t find it anywhere. Oh well.
So anyway, I’m a closet fan of Christmas [...]

Just to clarify.
I am guilty of supplying disinformation (I think). I may (or may not) have said on this blog before that under the US/Aust FTA Corporations would be able to sue governments for anti-competitive behaviour similar to the ‘Chapter 11′ provisions in the NAFTA.
This is not true. While the US government pushed [...]

For well over a decade now “surplus budget” economics has dominated Australian politics. It seems to me (and I’m far from an economist) that this is a particular brand of economic rationalism and I am obviously quite critical of it. The world runs on debt, having debt is necessary and if invested correctly [...]

Congratulations to Greg Combet and all those involed in the James Hardie campaign. Obviously justice is finally being served and without the compromises that everyone thought would have to be made. I’d like to see industrial manslaughter laws introduced in Victoria as they have been in the ACT and perhaps this campaign [...]

Gunns (a Tasmanian tiber company) are sueing several envrironmental activists including Bob Brown for “alleged actions includ(ing) defamation, interference with contractual relations, trespass and property damage, all committed in the name of protest against the company and its practices.”
Greg Barns is adiment that “(t)he Gunns case concerns the limitations on freedom of speech and the [...]

There seems to be two key arguments against the Federal government gaining control of Australia’s universities: “Committee chief executive John Mullarvey said universities wanted and needed diversity, not uniformity.”
and
“The paper warned that universities risked losing $200 million in annual funding from the states, and stifling diversity within the sector.”
Surely both are flawed and week arguments. [...]

Bloggers are net stars for 2004 – Technology – http://www.theage.com.au/technology/: “The American Merriam-Webster dictionary publishers dubbed ‘blog’ word of the year for 2004, to mark the rise in influence of the sometimes anonymous internet diarists who are simultaneously courted, ridiculed and feared.”
Got to love the blog!

The Democrats have a bit of a history of misguided political actions and I’m really not sure what to make of Andrew Bartlett’s latest hunger strike (or fast as he calls it – funny how language affects things.) Seems a little out of place in Australia but then again I suppose our refugee situation [...]

Federation is a funny thing. If you overlook the current political dynamics of a Coalition government and Labor controlled states your reaction would be to place control of higher education into the hands of the States (as opposed to the current ’shared responsibility’ arrangement between the states and the federal government.)
However if you take [...]