The Existential Threat of Radical Islamism

It is a strange quirk of the human condition that we almost universally romanticise the past. T H White captured the sentiment in his lovely book The Once and Future King. The myth of King Arthur and Camelot reflect our desire to reclaim an idealised past. As in many such myths (including the Christian one) […]

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Net Zero, Non-work and Other Nonsense.

The living standards of the average Australian citizen are falling. Per capita GDP, the measure of wealth accumulated by individual Australians has been on the decline for some years now. The government may protest that GDP is increasing but that is only because of high levels of migration. But high levels of migration mean that […]

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The Frugal Mind

Most neuroscientists believe that the cognitive capacities of our minds emanate from the neural complexity of our brains. It is often claimed that the number of neural connections in the human brain outnumber the number of stars in the known universe. The human brain is estimated to have roughly 100 to 500 trillion synapses. This vast […]

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Australia’s Renewable Energy Dilemma

Just as Anthony Albanese was touring the Great Wall of China, kowtowing to President Xi and walking away from our military alliance with the United States, Chris Bowen was in Germany seeking to bolster his case for green hydrogen and other green energy boondoggles to foist upon the long-suffering energy consumers of Australia. But the […]

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The Future of Trade Unionism in Australia


In the early years of Australia’s history, legislation was inevitably weighted in the favour of business and to the detriment of employees. Initially trade unions were suppressed on the basis of being a “restraint on trade”. In general, the law required absolute obedience of employees to the whims of employers. Any act of disobedience could […]

June 15, 2018

Our Freedom under Threat


It seems that more and more of us take our cherished freedoms for granted. Recent surveys of young people indicate that many of them see no great advantage in our democratic way of life. Sure, I guess many of them have known no other way and haven’t had to struggle as our forefathers did to […]

May 31, 2018

The Indignity of Poverty


When I look back at our household when I was young, I can’t but help admire my parents’ tenacity and resilience.  When I was a child I had no perception that we were poor, and compared to some around us, we weren’t. My mother was frugal and as early as March would start putting a […]

May 17, 2018

The Evolving World of Work


Every now and then, after a little nagging, my wife prevails on me to clean up the cupboards in my office. I am a little sentimental and that causes me to be somewhat of a hoarder of the various mementos and awards I have collected over my career. In cleaning out recently, I came across […]

May 1, 2018

Time and Again


It is within my mind, then, that I measure time. I must not allow my mind to insist that time is something objective. When I measure time, I am measuring something in the present of my mind. Either this is time or I don’t know what time is. St Augustine, Book Xl of the Confessions. […]

April 12, 2018

Re-examining Education


Here is a provocative title for you! Bryan Caplan, professor of economics at George Mason University, wrote The Case against Education; Why the Education System is a Waste of Time and Money. Caplan’s thesis is that most of what we learn in the traditional education system is irrelevant. Much of the subject material, apart from […]

April 1, 2018

Promoting Resilience


It is far better to render Beings in your care competent than to protect them. Jordan Peterson, 12 Rules for Life It is fast becoming the dominant ethos in our society that we must shield people from every possible harm, whether physical or psychological, real or perceived. Unfortunately this futile task renders us vulnerable as […]

March 21, 2018

Moving on from “Closing the Gap”


It is a source of great frustration having an interest in indigenous affairs coming to realise how ineffective we are at making a difference. Recently the annual “Closing the Gap” report was published highlighting the usual disappointments in trying to reduce the disadvantage of indigenous Australians. The only statistic we seem to have been meeting […]

March 6, 2018

Beyond Reductionism


Actualities seem to float in a wide sea of possibilities from out of which they were chosen; and somewhere, indeterminism says such possibilities exist and form part of the truth. William James As you will have deduced from my blog essays, I am an avid reader and enjoy a wide range of genres including history, […]

February 22, 2018

Musings on God


I have often told my readers how important I believe myths and parables are to our understanding of the world. Unfortunately we sometimes suffer greatly when these pointers to the truth are taken literally. (I recently came across a clue as to why parables are so popular. According to research quoted by David Di Salvo […]

February 11, 2018