The Palestine Dilemma

On 7 October 2023, Hamas terrorists emerged from Gaza to commit an horrendous atrocity against Israeli civilians. This deadly incursion has been well documented so I won’t elaborate on the gruesome details. Inevitably Israel responded with deadly force in order to deter further aggression and to rescue the civilian hostages that Hamas had kidnapped during […]

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The Downside of a University Education

At the age of eighteen, I left my family home in Charters Towers to start an engineering degree at James Cook University (JCU) in Townsville. In those days it was quite an extraordinary thing to do! In my high school years I can only remember two students in the cohort that I knew ahead of […]

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The Perfidy of God

Well, after this essay my soul is likely to be sentenced to eternal damnation in Hell, but I can’t but help share with you some of my reservations about conventional religious beliefs. Traditional monotheistic religions have been largely constructed by those who have claimed to have had particular, personal access to God. In ancient times […]

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The Manufacturing of Muhammad

Some years ago I wrote an essay which I titled The Most Famous Man who never Lived which critiqued the mythology that had been created to support the notion that an extraordinary man, who purported to be the Son of God lived on this earth some two millennia ago who held the keys to eternal […]

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Creating the Worlds We Experience


A common expression that you are all familiar with is “looking at the world through rose coloured glasses” which implies that the person is unduly optimistic or idealistic. The saying propagates a myth. It implies that everyone else sees the world directly and consequently, more realistically. But as much as we might want to think […]

March 19, 2016

Multiculturalism


Growing up in a country town in North Queensland I had little exposure to other cultures. I went to school with quite a few indigenous children but I knew little about indigenous culture. In fact now I come to think of it they didn’t make a fuss of it either, but seemed determined just to […]

March 11, 2016

On Labels and Differentiation


Most of us believe Albert Einstein was a brilliant physicist who invented a new form of physics derived from  the Theory of Relativity, that enabled us to gain more insights about the universe then the previous paradigm of Newtonian physics allowed. But Einstein was a deep philosophical thinker as well. Let me share with you […]

March 6, 2016

Restoring Real Wages Growth


Times are tough if you are an Australian worker. Not only are unemployment levels presently high (currently around 6%) but wages in real terms are falling (except those who are ensconced in feather-bedded public sector jobs). Now, as I have argued in previous essays, one of the major reasons for these dismal outcomes is the […]

February 27, 2016

A Few Political Bits and Pieces


Some of you have remarked to me how difficult it must be to define a topic each week, research it and then write an essay to post for you. In reality it is not usually hard because I write about things that have interest to me and that have often come up in discussion with […]

February 20, 2016

Bridging the Gap – Opening the Mind


Life has many disappointments. There wouldn’t be a human alive that has not experienced a disappointment when fervently hoping for a better outcome. And this week we were bound for more disappointment as this year’s “closing the gap” statistics were released. But those of us who wished to see our indigenous compatriots prosper have had […]

February 14, 2016

My Views on Militant Islamism – A Summary


A friend just recently commented that he thought my thoughts about militant Islamism had changed over recent times. That is no doubt true. But it also provided a spur to me to summarise what I currently think on this issue. This short essay seeks to do just that. It is difficult to understand the phenomenon […]

February 6, 2016

Musings on Australia Day


This is the week of Australia Day. First up on the day, while it was still cool (36 degrees being the forecast maximum), I did something very Australian and mowed the lawn. Then I sat down to read the newspaper. I couldn’t help peruse the Australia Day honours list to see who I knew had […]

January 31, 2016

The Cost of Free Speech


The underlying platform of our liberal democracies is derived from our freedom of speech. There is nothing more important to an enlightened society. Yet, today, it seems to me that our freedom of speech is being constantly eroded. With that our way of life is being threatened. As you can see, I have titled this […]

January 22, 2016

How Not to Have a Birthday!


With the ubiquitousness of social media, it’s now almost impossible to keep anything to yourself! The tentacles of Facebook and Twitter reach into every crevice of our psyche and overturn every metaphorical stone we seek to hide something under. Sometimes reputations are destroyed by anonymous commentators who operate with malignant intent and no accountability. Often […]

January 16, 2016