Our Woke Defence

I was astounded the other day to learn how the Government has set net zero emission targets for our defence forces. Our defence services are currently undermanned.(probably a politically incorrect word) and under provisioned. The government seems determined to hobble our defence capability. In an extraordinary display of wokeness it seems to believe it will […]

Continue Reading

Diversity and the Decline of the West

Post-modernism has thrown up considerable challenges for Western societies. More and more it demands that minorities are given voices which is undoubtedly, usually, a good thing. But we continually have to mediate between listening to minorities and maintaining the welfare of the majority, for after all in a liberal democracy decisions should be made on […]

Continue Reading

On Being Especially Ordinary

When I was a young power station manager I had an American engineer from Tennessee as my deputy. He told me a story about Abraham Lincoln. I can’t count for its veracity but I will repeat it just the same. At a function Lincoln was approached by a woman who gushed, “Mr Lincoln it is […]

Continue Reading

Let’s Stand with Israel

It is now twelve months since Hamas terrorists perpetrated a huge atrocity against the people of Israel. The scale and the barbarity of this incursion is beyond the imagination of most civilised people. The abhorrent nature of the Islamist extremist perpetrators is highlighted at the joy they expressed at the killing of innocent citizens in […]

Continue Reading

Sometimes We Forget


The English poet William Wordsworth wrote a poem which he titled The World is Too Much with Us. Many of us today would believe that was a very strange title for a poem. But for me that is not the case. Let me explain why, The essential part of being human is our consciousness. When […]

December 7, 2021

Why the Truth is so Elusive


It seems to me that we in the West have begun to take our democracies for granted. Most of us, particularly our younger citizens, want the freedoms our democracies provide, often abusing them, but without having invested in the maintenance of such freedoms. Only a generation or two ago many young men fought and died […]

November 24, 2021

Waking Up To Wokeness


We are being overwhelmed by the cult of “wokeness”. It has many faces but I am increasingly beguiled by the “wokeness” disciples and their strident objections to “cultural appropriation”. I am not sure I completely understand the concept, but it seems now that it is deemed wrong for anyone to depict or seek to interpret […]

November 10, 2021

Voices That Should Be Heard


The “woke” elite that run the cancel culture in Australia believe that they have the inalienable right to determine what might be put forward in debate in Australia. If this is allowed to continue only debate affirming identity politics and left wing ideals would be admitted into the public domain. Tony Abbott appears to be […]

October 24, 2021

Moving Beyond Fear


There are now glimmers of hope that we are stumbling out of the Coronavirus mire. It has been a distressing time for many Australians. Not only have we had to deal with the impacts on our health of a persistent, virulent and sometimes deadly virus, but we have also had to deal with the draconian […]

October 1, 2021

Forging a Shield to Thwart the Climate Catastrophist Hammer


  “As is the custom these days whenever weather surprises us the term ‘climate change’ is bandied around to describe the event” Steven E Koonin Unsettled President Biden has just finished a tour of districts recently impacted by Hurricane Ida in the United States. Following the tour he has made a statement to the press […]

September 16, 2021

Sleepwalking to Totalitarianism


George Orwell, author of the astonishingly prescient book 1984, in 1940 wrote: Almost certainly we are moving into an age of totalitarian dictatorships – an age in which freedom of thought will be at first a deadly sin and later on a meaningless abstraction, The autonomous individual is going to be stamped out of existence. […]

August 29, 2021

Time for Some Plain Talking Part 2 – Racism and Gender Politics


This is the second essay of two where I am trying to encourage ordinary Australians to speak up and have their say in the face of the opposition from the politically correct. I am protesting in my own little way about the restrictions that we face because of political correctness and cancel culture that contrive […]

August 15, 2021

Time for Some Plain Talking Part 1


Part 1 – Covid and Climate Change Most Australians, I fear, are reluctant to take part in the public debate on many important issues. This is because we suffer from political correctness, cancel culture and even infantilisation by the governments we have elected supposedly to represent us. As a result of these various subterfuges we […]

August 1, 2021

Become What You Want To Be


For some time I was on the Council of my local University, the University of Central Queensland. CQU’s motto is Be what you want to be! I was somewhat bemused by this well-meaning but misguided maxim. No doubt it was supposed to promote learning and the notion that University study provided a path to our […]

July 11, 2021