Of Hanukkah and Hate

Western civilisation was built on the Judeo-Christian tradition. Most of us are probably more familiar with Christianity than we are with Judaism. But Judaism has a long (predating Christianity), colourful history. It is the oldest of the religions of “The Book” and the antecedent of Christianity and Islam. According to Jewish folklore, the Maccabees were […]

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What Should We Do About Immigration?

Whilst I have written on this subject before, I believe it is worthwhile revisiting the topic again because the Federal Liberal Party is currently trying to formulate a policy on immigration to take to the next election. They have just successfully compiled a policy on energy where they have (sensibly in my view) walked back […]

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A Few More Thoughts about Leadership

As you undoubtedly would know by now, the person who had the biggest influence on my career as an executive was the late Dr Pill Harker. Whilst Phil helped me understand the basic psychology of human beings, he was sometimes naïve about the politics of organisations. Nevertheless I will be eternally grateful to him for […]

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The Dualism Quandary

Having studied physics, chemistry and mathematics, I have always been intrigued by what is the nature of the natural world. Conventional science would have us believe that science is about “discovering” the Laws of Nature that have governed the Universe since its creation. If you are religious you probably believe that God laid down these […]

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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 […]

March 27, 2025

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 […]

March 15, 2025

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 […]

February 27, 2025

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 […]

February 18, 2025

Recovering from Wokeness


I have written in previous essays of how wokeness has permeated the fabric of Western democracies. In many ways it has impacted on our sense of self with its promotion of identity politics and its denigration of our history and traditional culture. Consequently we are encouraged by the left to view ourselves very differently to […]

February 10, 2025

The Waning of Woke?


Whilst in my younger years I was much more progressive in my political point of view, as often seems to be the trend (we can only hope for the same with Greta Thunberg!), But as I’ve grown older I must confess I have become more conservative in my thinking (in case you haven’t noticed). My […]

January 28, 2025

Some More Thoughts on Knowing, Consciousness and Time


In 2009 I published a little book of parables which was titled Augustus Finds Serenity. In the introduction to the book, I outlined the reason why I had sought to use the medium of metaphor and parable to outline the concepts that I thought were useful in helping people live more fulfilled lives. I started […]

January 18, 2025

In the Beginning


In the Beginning In The Sound of Music, Julie Andrews sang: Nothing comes from nothing, nothing ever could.. (Lyrics from Something Good.) I suspect she wasn’t trying to make a philosophical statement but in fact she made a very profound statement. When we study cosmology we try to understand how the universe began. Science suggests […]

January 5, 2025

Albanese’s Blind Spots


Albanese’s Blind Spots It is amazing how much the political world has changed in my lifetime. My father was a staunch Labor supporter. He had even been elected to the local council on the Labor ticket and served a couple of terms as a Labor alderman. Although he actually had many skills and was a […]

December 13, 2024

Unclear on Nuclear


The Albanese government has gotten us into a diabolical hole with its energy policy. Let me try to explain. Firstly you would have to concede that understanding our electricity system and the electricity market is quite a complex undertaking. I spent most of my professional career working as a manager in the electricity industry. Whilst […]

November 27, 2024