Kalimna

• New site

  I have a new site at WordPress:
  
  [www.harryrclarke.com]
  
  Readers please adjust your browser settings.
  
  It is goodbye Blogger for at least a while. I have got to express my sincere thanks to Goggle.com for making the incredible Blogger software available free. It is amazingly simple [...]
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  Posted: March 29, 2009, 3:37am EDT
  

• What the Welsh do at night

  This is power shepherding.  Literally brilliant.
  Thanks Bernd [...]
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  Posted: March 27, 2009, 7:47pm EDT
  

• Joel Fitzgibbon

  Defence Minister Joel Fitzgibbon's friendship links with a Chinese national seem to have gone well beyond the point of occasional, friendly personal encounters. Free trips to China and gifts from someone also making hefty financial contributions to the ALP seem completely over the top. Particularly when Fitzgibbon lies' [...]
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  Posted: March 27, 2009, 6:55pm EDT
  

• Accident-prone Liberals

  This pessimistic - though I think accurate - piece from conservative columnist/journalist Doug Conway appeared in today's Manly Daily:
  
  ANNA Bligh's historic win in Queensland extends to 25 the number of consecutive state and territory elections where conservative parties have either lost to Labor or won fewer seats.
  
  [...]
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  Posted: March 27, 2009, 6:50pm EDT
  

• H.E. Seyed Mohammad Khatami

  I heard this remarkable man - ex president of Iran 1997-2005 - speak at La Trobe University this evening.  Mr Khatami is a Muslim cleric whose main interest is political philosophy.  I found his prepared speech, which ran for half an hour, academic and rather dry.  [...]
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  Posted: March 26, 2009, 7:49am EDT
  

• World trade collapse

  The value of world trade will fall 9% in 2009 compared to growth of a miserable 2% (not 4.5% as forecast) in 2008 the WTO said on Monday.  World production will fall by 1-2% in 2009, the first fall since the 1930s.  Further falls in trade can be anticipated [...]
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  Posted: March 25, 2009, 4:51pm EDT
  

• Visualising the financial crisis

  Jonathon Jarvis provides this exceedingly clear view of the global financial crisis.  One of the best I have seen. [...]
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  Posted: March 24, 2009, 5:58pm EDT
  

• Stuff white people like

  This is a fun blog that has been operating for a bit more than a year.  I'll add it to the blogroll.
  
  Moleskine notebooks - expensive without additional functionality.
  Coffee - particularly fair trade coffee - that $2 makes a difference.
  Asian girls' [...]
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  Posted: March 24, 2009, 12:33am EDT
  

• US vs. China on climate change

  Given that the US has been so slow to come to the party to even think of seriously addressing climate change it seems almost hypocritical of it to threaten retaliatory tariffs on Chinese carbon intensive exports if China does not adequately price carbon.   Europe had already threatened to do [...]
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  Posted: March 23, 2009, 7:05am EDT
  

• In praise of economics

  Both of my university-age kids are studying economics.  When intelligent young people ask for advice on what to study at university I often advise them to study economics.  This often raises a wry smile given that people often know that all I have done all my life is work in economics.  [...]
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  Posted: March 23, 2009, 3:10am EDT
  

• More nostalgia - Fairport Convention

  Fairport Convention is one of my all-time favourite bands. They still perform although their early album with Sandy Denny Liege and Lief remains my favourite. Denny died tragically in 1978 after skipping through a number of groups. Liege and Lief is monumental folk-rock music:
  
  'To rouse the' [...]
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  Posted: March 22, 2009, 7:17am EDT
  

• Labor to be returned in Queensland

  7.59pm: Despite some good swings to the new LNP I believe Labor will be returned with a much-reduced majority.  In the old Parliament Labor had a huge majority of 37 seats - LNP 23 seats, Labor 63. It was a huge ask for the new LNP to win.  My prediction is [...]
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  Posted: March 21, 2009, 5:11am EDT
  

• Long pictures

  I enjoyed this oldie from BoingBoing. [...]
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  Posted: March 20, 2009, 9:18pm EDT
  

• Einfeld goes to jail

  Former head of Human Rights Commission and perennial liar Marcus Einfeld has gone to jail for at least two years.  The left loved him as a personality judge. But he lied about a $77 fine (he had lied about traffic convictions several times before), lied about his academic qualifications (he bought [...]
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  Posted: March 20, 2009, 6:54pm EDT
  

• Nostalgia - Norman Gunston & Frank Zappa

  I had forgotten how good both of them were. Here goes Zappa on the Illinois Enema Bandit. And a totally disgusting version (with Captain Beefheart) of Willie the Pimp.  We miss you Frankie. [...]
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  Posted: March 19, 2009, 8:44am EDT
  

• Tiger Woods to come to Oz

  Tiger Woods will play in the Australian Open this year in Victoria.  He will be paid $4.5 million for his 3 day effort half of which will be subscribed by the Australian taxpaper.  This is his appearance fee and ignores possible winnings. The event will be [...]
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  Posted: March 19, 2009, 7:17am EDT
  

• Martin Feldstein & AIG

  The famous Harvard-based economist Professor Martin Feldstein is on the board of the American insurer AIG that received $200 billion in handouts from the US government and which has just paid over $160 million in bonuses mainly to those managers responsible for its massive financial failure.  The bonuses were 'justified' [...]
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  Posted: March 18, 2009, 5:18am EDT
  

• 1992 St Hubert's Cabernet

  Last year I reviewed one of the best wines I drank that year, a 1991 St Hubert's Cabernet.  I thought I had exhausted my stock of these great old wines when I found, this evening, a 1992 St Hubert's Cabernet-Merlot nestled away, the sweet thing that it is, in [...]
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  Posted: March 18, 2009, 4:54am EDT
  

• Executive remuneration

  Here are the Terms of Reference for the Productivity Commission inquiry into executive remuneration in Australia.  It is a sensible inquiry because remuneration practices are part responsible for the excessive risk-taking and greed that has led to the current financial mess. 
  
  My kneejerk reaction - the type [...]
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  Posted: March 18, 2009, 3:22am EDT
  

• Papal bull

  The Pope has reiterated his opposition to the use of condoms in AIDs ravaged Africa. The inhumanity of the Pope's position is self-evident. My basic comment - how can anyone take anything this man says seriously?
  
  22 million people in Africa have HIV. In three Southern African countries' [...]
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  Posted: March 18, 2009, 2:54am EDT
  

• Jokes

  A former boss of mine (now deceased)* collected jokes. He wrote them down and filed them and, on having enjoyed a few drinks, could recite joke after joke until the bar shut down.  I envied him intensely as although I love good jokes - particularly vulgar ones - I can [...]
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  Posted: March 17, 2009, 7:06am EDT
  

• Chinese debt worries

  China is 'worried about' its $1trillion holding of US Treasury Bills.  The Chinese Prime Minister, Mr Wen, complains that the US has spent too much and saved too little - without mentioning that the consumption boom was funded in large part by Chinese lending.  Mr Wen can't sell the debt' [...]
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  Posted: March 16, 2009, 3:12am EDT
  

• Bushfire damage

  I drove along the Hume Highway going to and from Albury over the past two days following a teaching assignment there. The fire damage along the highway runs for nearly 20 km north from about the 50 km point north of Melbourne. It is striking that, for 12 km, the [...]
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  Posted: March 14, 2009, 2:09am EDT
  

• Commercial-in-confidence

  For the right to operate the Australian Grand Prix in two weeks time the Victorian Government will pay Bernie Ecclestone $47 million.  In a civilised society politicians who abuse public trust in this way should be sacked and then jailed.  It is a totally disgraceful waste of public monies. [...]
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  Posted: March 14, 2009, 1:54am EDT
  

• Newspaper futures

  A lot of printer's ink has been spilt on the issue of the future of newspapers.  I buy three each day (The AFR, The Australian and (on a discount offer) The Age), My wife likes the Herald-Sun.  Our families' purchases are a ridiculous exception to the standard view that newspaper demands [...]
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  Posted: March 12, 2009, 5:56am EDT
  

• Rejected submission on lemons

  In my youthful past when I sent an article to an academic journal and it was rejected my reaction was often one of fury.  This was often amplified by the fact that many referee reports are dismissive and careless*.  These days I still occasionally get angry but I have also become [...]
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  Posted: March 12, 2009, 12:20am EDT
  

• Capitalism beyond the crisis

  An elegant and incisive attempt to put the current financial crisis in perspective is provided by Amartya Sen.  How should 'capitalism' evolve and what are the implications for economics? A related piece by Sen concentrating on the misinterpretation of Adam Smith's views is here.  No-one who has read Theory' [...]
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  Posted: March 11, 2009, 7:01pm EDT
  

• Asymmetric libidos & the right to say no

  I am interested in - though rather late in responding to - Bettina Arndt's view that a few year's after having children 'most' women don't particularly enjoy sex but that most men do.  Indeed the claim is that once a woman has a secure relationship her sex drive ebbs quickly.' [...]
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  Posted: March 11, 2009, 8:22am EDT
  

• Rudd Government - a bad joke

  The Rudd Government was elected in November 2007 with a me-tooist approach to policy. Policies were replications of those of John Howard. There were two exceptions - climate change policy and industrial relations.
  By 2007 John Howard had designed an ETS but Rudd promised to get 'really' serious [...]
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  Posted: March 09, 2009, 2:44pm EDT
  

• Labor's job destruction package

  Julia Gillard's moves to reregulate Australian labour markets should be rejected by the Senate. The proposed moves helps trade unions but will destroy jobs in vulnerable industries such as hospitality where huge wage increases are about to occur. Regulating huge increases in holiday rates for restaurant staff has a' [...]
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  Posted: March 09, 2009, 2:22pm EDT
  

• Climate change policy pessimism & policy

  Its only a small sample but 78% of Australians still have climate change concerns despite the economic crisis - only 35% want action deferred because of the crisis.  However at the current conference in Copenhagen prominent scientists from the Tyndall Centre for Change Research believe that an effective cooperative global agreement [...]
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  Posted: March 09, 2009, 7:48am EDT
  

• Earthquake in Melbourne

  
  I'd got back from Canberra last night about 8-30pm.  It had been a long day and I was wearily sitting in my office at home in the north of Melbourne when, at around 9-00pm, I heard what sounded like a motor outside the window - weird enough for' [...]
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  Posted: March 07, 2009, 1:52am EST
  

• Gloom in the markets

  The extraordinary massacre on US equity markets continued Thursday with a 4% decline to levels not seen for 11 years. The Aussi market (above) declined 1.4% today. It is still inaccurate to call the current dip in the US the worst recession since the [...]
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  Posted: March 06, 2009, 6:33am EST
  

• Cricket & terrorism

  The attacks on the Sri Lankan cricket team in Lahore cannot be condemned too forcefully.  Very plausibly it is Islamic terrorists who have killed 8 innocents (civilians and police officers) whose committed no crime at all.  A number of prominent cricketers were injured.  What a tragedy - cricket is [...]
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  Posted: March 03, 2009, 9:03pm EST
  

• Mitigation contagion

  An issue I have addressed in some of my recent research is whether having an additional country commit to mitigating their carbon emissions increases the pressure on or improves the net rewards to other countries if they mitigate.  Is the incentive to mitigate contagious? In the game theory models I have [...]
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  Posted: March 02, 2009, 3:34pm EST
  

• Gillard's use of our tax dollars to promote the ALP

  I've praised Julia Gillard's abilities in the past but, at core, she is just a politician. In fact a politician who seeks to use our taxpaper dollars ($14.7 billion!) to promote her own political party. This is what recipients of Education Revolution packages must do for Ms. Napoleon in order to get their tax-payer [...]
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  Posted: March 01, 2009, 10:45am EST
  

• Creeping socialism in America?

  I don't agree with the gist of the message here - the US need a more inclusive healthcare system, probably need more public spending on education and the globe certainly needs US GGE controls to bring about an effective international agreement. But I enjoyed this cartoon that sums up the' [...]
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  Posted: February 28, 2009, 7:45pm EST
  

• World economic growth

  (Correctly measured, quarter-to-quarter) Chinese economic growth in final quarter 2008 was zero or negative.  The US economy shrunk at an annual rate of 6.2%. The Japanese economy is shrinking at 12.7% annually with exports falling 45% on a year ago.   European data suggests a more severe contraction [...]
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  Posted: February 27, 2009, 5:20pm EST
  

• Carcinogen sales remain strong

  Despite the global financial crisis sales of carcinogens remain strong with BAT profits growing 20% in  the year to December 31.  BAT is the world's second largest producer of carcininogens. Quote, The Financial Times:
  "Although tobacco consumption is declining worldwide, tobacco companies have continued to grow profits during the past'" [...]
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  Posted: February 27, 2009, 3:49am EST
  

• Limits of redistribution

  Barack Obama has an enormously expansionary fiscal program to get demand moving but promises to halve the budget deficit by the end of his (first) term.  This is a tricky promise to deliver on since he has also guaranteed not to tax US households earning less than $250,000US an extra cent.  3.8 [...]
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  Posted: February 26, 2009, 5:39am EST
  

• Barack Obama's speech to Congress

  I heard the economist Professor Ed Leamer's rapturous appreciation of the Obama speech (& here, here, here, here) (on the 7-30 Report) before I saw the speech myself.  But this is an inspiring speech on a par with anything by J.F. Kennedy.  Obama sees the need for' [...]
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  Posted: February 25, 2009, 6:29am EST
  

• Sri Lanka & the defeat of the LTT?

  My colleague Prof Sisira Jayasuriya made some sensible and balanced remarks on the current disasterous situation facing the Tamils in Sri Lanka in this YouTube. The LTT currently face a significant defeat but, according to Sisira, will stage a recovery - the civil war will not [...]
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  Posted: February 24, 2009, 7:09am EST
  

• Scrapping private health insurance rebates a poor proposal

  The Age reports this morning that the Government has been urged to scrap the 30% private health insurance rebate and to, instead, spend the money on public hospitals.  One can argue about the scale of this rebate but the subsidy makes sense in terms of standard economic theory.
  
  [...]
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  Posted: February 23, 2009, 9:33pm EST
  

• Instrument instability & the global economic crisis

  Robert Holbrook in 1972 drew attention to the issue of policy instrument instability.  Essentially an economic policy can become infeasible if policy needs to adjust more intensively to offset past effects of policy - the policy itself becomes an unstable process.  This type of instability is particularly likely if [...]
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  Posted: February 23, 2009, 7:25am EST
  

• Wong not wrong on case for an ETS

  Generally I found Penny Wong's support for an Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) based on 'cap and trade' to achieve a specific level of emissions reduction over an equivalent tax persuasive.  If we knew exactly how the world operated then it wouldn't matter at all.  One could set a quota to hit [...]
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  Posted: February 23, 2009, 3:20am EST
  

• Auckland & its traffic

  I am visiting Auckland New Zealand for the 27th Economic Theory Workshop at Massey University. The weather is humid and warm and the coastal scenery is attractive - after the dry year in Melbourne I even enjoyed walking around in light rain. I am surprised to find that Auckland [...]
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  Posted: February 20, 2009, 8:11pm EST
  

• Costello is right on Rio

  Despite some silly protestations over at Catallaxy I think Peter Costello is quite right to oppose the deal by Chinalco to purchase key Rio Tinto assets.  BHP-Billiton, for a time, valued Rio Tinto shares at somewhere north of 3.4 times the value of BHP-Billiton script.  They are now [...]
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  Posted: February 18, 2009, 5:16am EST
  

• Thoughts of depression fade to long white clouds

  I haven't been posting as trying to prepare for my teaching year - research and golf had high priorities this summer and the procrastination finally caught up with me. Also I am heading off to New Zealand tomorrow for a few days for the annual Economic Theory Workshop at Massey University' [...]
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  Posted: February 17, 2009, 11:34pm EST
  

• Bushfire insurance

  I was intrigued to learn from a current affairs show that those insured in the bush-fire crisis paid about 40% of their property insurance premiums to government to fund the CFA. Those uninsured - there were many - paid nothing to the CFA but, of course, received the assistance of [...]
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  Posted: February 16, 2009, 5:13am EST
  

• Suntech's Shi Zhengrong

  From being the son of a dirt-poor Chinese peasant, Shi has built one of the world's biggest solar power companies, Suntech. He learnt his stuff at the University of NSW. Suntech is threatened somewhat by the global financial crisis and by entry from competitors but still a great force.  This [...]
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  Posted: February 15, 2009, 6:58am EST
  

• 5 new bird species for H

  In my 5 days in Cairns during the last week I observed 6 bird species that were new to me.
  
  Laughing gull - a resident of north and south America that is a very rare vagrant to Australia.  It may have taken a wrong turn across the [...]
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  Posted: February 15, 2009, 3:53am EST
  

• Pointless fiscal expansions that swamp us with debt but don't reduce unemployment

  I liked this article by Henry Ergas on the likely ineffectiveness of the $42 billion fiscal package introduced by the Rudd Government as it accords with my own macroeconomic priors. For a small open economy like Australia fiscal actions make sense in a standard Mundell-Fleming macroeconomic context if the exchange [...]
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  Posted: February 14, 2009, 10:26am EST
  

• Cost efficient terrorism control

  The Chinese show how to deal with a terrorist blackmail threat.
  Thanks Sir Henry [...]
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  Posted: February 14, 2009, 6:14am EST
  

• Baggage handlers strike

  45 baggage handlers struck at Melbourne airport today. Thousands of commuters who pay the salaries of these irresponsible shirkers were maximally inconvenienced by this immoral wildcat strike. Passengers were told that:
  Passengers were told the bag handlers stopped work because they wanted more money for breathing in smoke from [...]
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  Posted: February 14, 2009, 4:18am EST
  

• Bushfire tragedy hits home

  La Trobe University academic Dr Richard Zann - an internationally reknown ornithologist - his wife Eileen and their daughter Eva all perished in the bushfires in their Kinglake home. RIP.
  
  Five La Trobe staff have seen their homes destroyed and nine students have been left with no housing.
  
  Meanwhile police believe [...]
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  Posted: February 12, 2009, 7:30am EST
  

• Satellite images of the Victorian bushfies

  Here. An update on the continuing, raging fires is here - the confirmed death toll is 181 but this is expected to increase. [...]
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  Posted: February 10, 2009, 4:08pm EST
  

• Cairns in the wet & birding

  I flew to Cairns this morning - I love this place but its the first time I have visited it in the 'big wet'.
  
  Without ado I headed that afternoon down to the Esplanade mudflats which were 0.5 km from my hotel. Met a Swedish birder there and then [...]
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  Posted: February 09, 2009, 7:38am EST
  

• Fires in Victoria & floods in Queensland

  The fire scene in Victoria has become both tragic and dramatic over the past day. These are the worst fires in Australian history. As it stands at least 66 people have died and 700 families have lost their home. It is a tragedy beyond belief for those concerned [...]
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  Posted: February 08, 2009, 4:57am EST
  

• Climate change - who caused the damage?

  This paper by David Weisbach provides a provisional answer. It depends both on how you measure emissions and how you allocate responsibility. The presumption that rich countries caused most damage is generally unsupportable.
  
  Abstract:  This paper examines the data on responsibility for climate change due to past emissions. It [...]
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  Posted: February 07, 2009, 6:34pm EST
  

• David Cross cracks me up every time

  Ronnie and Kayla's date song - a daggy, vulgar piece that entertains. David Cross is a funny man. Here he is on religion.
  HT to Coreopsis. [...]
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  Posted: February 07, 2009, 4:48pm EST
  

• High temperature

  Melbourne is overcast and windy today with an amazing record-breaking* temperature now of 45.7 46.4oC or 114.26115.52oF for those of us still used to gauging temperatures in the old F scale where 'bloody hot' described temperatures above 100. The wind is coming from the west at 18 kph with gusts [...]
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  Posted: February 07, 2009, 12:35am EST
  

• Taxes vs. expenditure stimuli - on the one hand & on the other...

  Paul Krugman slams the moves for tax cuts arguing that the US economy is about to fall into an abyss*.  The question really is the size of the cuts - if big enough they can provide as much stimulation as a fiscal expansion.  At times Krugman allows his [...]
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  Posted: February 06, 2009, 6:35am EST
  

• The Treasury critique of Turnbull

  The Treasury isn't adding much by saying that it supports Kevin Rudd's package and rejects that of Malcolm Turnbull. It would have designed the Rudd package and so, in essence, is saying that it stands by its design. In essence this means supporting a large package rather than a [...]
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  Posted: February 05, 2009, 4:54pm EST
  

• Shutting down Detroit

  John Rich on Shutting Down Detroit. Its a great YouTube - the music is at about 2'50".  The Anthem of the US Recession is discussed and the lyrics to the song provided..'" [...]
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  Posted: February 04, 2009, 6:46am EST
  

• Bird photography - Black Grouse

  The winning images of the International Wildbird Photographer 2008 Award were announced this week. They include gentoo penguins, a graceful whooper swan in midflight, and the inside of the huge bill of a dalmatian pelican. The above is a Black Grouse - it won the [...]
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  Posted: February 04, 2009, 6:24am EST
  

• Turnbull opposes Labor $42 billion package

  I am sympathetic to Malcolm Turnbull's rejection of the Rudd stimulus package and to his proposed more modest alternative of bringing tax cuts forward. I think the recession does have a long way to go and that disposing of all available fiscal ammunition immediately is unwise - a conservative' [...]
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  Posted: February 04, 2009, 12:57am EST
  

• Iraq elections

  Ex-president George Bush's Iraq surge seems to have been a success.  Free elections in Iraq where Sunni arabs participated in force and where there was widespread participation - was one of the positive outcomes that can be attributed to the surge.  Contrary to popular opinion Iran is weakened by a strengthened [...]
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  Posted: February 03, 2009, 5:24am EST
  

• Rudd's big package

  It is $42,000,000,000 distributed among 21,580, 428 people or around $1,900 per capita.  It will not create but it will 'save' 90,000 jobs which is something short of $500,000 per job. Can we celebrate?
  
  Well the budget will be $22 billion in deficit this year and $35 billion next [...]
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  Posted: February 03, 2009, 3:50am EST
  

• Australian economy & Labor

  Australia is a small open economy that takes economically what is dished out by the world economy.  We don't significantly affect world events.  The world has dished us out a really bad serve. The terms of trade we face have moved against us -despite a recent tick upturn - so we' [...]
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  Posted: February 02, 2009, 4:11am EST
  

• Sunday night & medical cannibalism

  Western civilised countries routinely used human body parts in pharmaceutical preparations up to the end of the 18th century.  The practise was widespread. Blood, meat the lot was tried with varying success. The potions didn't always work:
  "In 1492, when Pope Innocent VIII was on his deathbed, his'" [...]
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  Posted: February 01, 2009, 5:40am EST
  

• Rudd banalities & handout disease

  Rudd’s critique of neo-liberalism of course goes too far. His plan is probably to convert the global crisis into a historic failure of Liberal Party philosophy and its allegedly pro-market ideas. That’s a useful output for Rudd from a few hastily drawn-together conclusions that are vague enough to be [...]
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  Posted: January 31, 2009, 5:11pm EST
  

• Olivier Blanchard on uncertainty & the financial crisis

  Blanchard's solution: commit to expansionary policies now and, if necessary, in the future so that people will no longer believe that a financial apocalypse is around the next corner.  In addition, recycle the proceeds of government security sales into riskier assets and get the government to spend more on retail [...]
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  Posted: January 30, 2009, 4:37pm EST
  

• Wrong Wong

  The miserably hot conditions in southern Australia (it got to 45.1oC* at 4-30 pm in Melbourne as I write) over the past few days have attacked the brain of Climate Change Minister Penny Wong.  She claims the conditions confirm the warnings given by scientists about climate change.  They do [...]
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  Posted: January 30, 2009, 12:28am EST
  

• Uncertainty & irreversibility of climate change

  Most commentators on climate change issues recognise the uncertainty attached to specific climatic forecasts. A few denialists even question the AGW hypothesis itself. Fewer scientists have commented on the irreversibility issues associated with AGW. In today's press there are reports on this latter issue - this one interestingly from' [...]
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  Posted: January 28, 2009, 7:46pm EST
  

• IMF forecast worst world economic performance for 60 years

  The IMF revise their growth forecast for the world in 2009 from 2.2% two months ago to 0.5% now.  Growth has virtually stopped.  50 million jobs will be lost globally.
  
  The developed countries will experience major declines. The US economy will contract by 2%, Britain by 2.8% ([...]
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  Posted: January 28, 2009, 10:46am EST
  

• Business-people who reduce capitalism's appeal

  Maureen Dowd shows justifiable contempt for the greedy 'masters of the universe' who have destroyed the lives of millions - 80,000 extra unemployed globally in one day this week - and yet still cretins like former CEO of Merrill Lynch Mr. Thain - a man who in [...]
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  Posted: January 28, 2009, 4:41am EST
  

• Hot hot hot hot

  There are forecast to be four days (Wednesday-Saturday) of 40oC+ temperatures in Melbourne this week.  Melbourne has not had 3 days above 40oC since 1959.  The heatwave, defined in this way, is the worst since 1908.  The whole of Victoria is sweltering.
  
  Checking out the records I find that [...]
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  Posted: January 27, 2009, 7:55pm EST
  

• People who caused the global financial crisis

  This Guardian survey sounded at first to me like a dumb idea but it is interesting. The wide range of people surveyed suggests the diverse origins of the current mess.
  
  I'd foregotten all about Abby Cohen - the perpetual stock market 'bull'. But, yes, she makes' [...]
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  Posted: January 26, 2009, 4:23am EST
  

• Australia Day

  26th January 1788 was the day the British initiated their settlement of Australia. As a celebratory tribute I am off to play golf in the morning at Yarrambat – the aboriginal name for ‘high hill’ which pretty much summarises my attitude to Australia. After that I’ll have [...]
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  Posted: January 25, 2009, 2:28am EST
  

• Monetary mop-ups

  This graph shows the US monetary base - the 'high powered' money that generates the money supply - for the last 100 years.  I assume that this base is generating a less than proportionate growth in the US money stock - M3 grew in 2008 at only [...]
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  Posted: January 24, 2009, 9:30pm EST
  

• Ethics & Merrill Lynch executive remuneration

  The real bonuses and the phoney profits have been a feature of Merrill Lynch's US operations.
  
  But ex CEO John Thain's actions seem to me to show the moral bankruptcy of Wall Street.  Merrill Lynch paid out $15 billion to executives in 2008 which just matched the controversial 4th quarter [...]
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  Posted: January 24, 2009, 6:35pm EST
  

• GPS’s for cars & for golf

  I have long-enjoyed my car GPS system. It is a useful device particularly when I travel interstate and hire a car but don’t know where I am going. My knowledge of my former hometown, Sydney, is fading which isn’t surprising – despite visits I have not lived there for [...]
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  Posted: January 23, 2009, 3:50am EST
  

• Barack Obama's presidential acceptance speech

  
  Gracious and serious this is a speech worth listening to. There is much sense amid the rhetoric and Obama is - as everyone now knows - a talented man of enormous charisma. But as I stressed a few days ago the difficulties facing the [...]
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  Posted: January 21, 2009, 1:07am EST
  

• Harry Nicolaides

  As a past resident of Thailand a number of people have asked me what I think of the Harry Nicolaides case. Nicolaides has just been jailed for 3 years for lèse majesté - specifically for insulting the Thai monarchy.   Generally I am puzzled at what has occurred as Nicolaides has [...]
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  Posted: January 20, 2009, 1:58am EST
  

• First sharkgull spotted in Australia

  Long believed to be extinct in territorial Australia - but occasionally seen on off-shore islands that do not lie in Australian territorial waters - this great snap of Accipiter selachimorpha (the Common sharkgull) was taken by C. Marter while the bird roosted on the roof of a local [...]
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  Posted: January 19, 2009, 8:21pm EST
  

• This little girl wants more Nazis

  Despite the ceasefire (which now even the Hamas terrorists have agreed to)  thousands of Palestinians marched in Melbourne yesterday condemning Israeli violence. I wonder if the caped crusader to the left of the little girl is her history teacher. For the following photo HT Tim Blair.
  
  [...]
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  Posted: January 19, 2009, 1:02am EST
  

• Optimism & the Obama Presidency

  Barack Obama will become the 44th President of the United States tomorrow.  Despite the exceedingly tough economic times Americans overwhelmingly see Obama as something positive for America.
  

  'a New York Times poll found 79% think Barack Obama will improve the nation – a level of support that is higher [...]

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  Posted: January 18, 2009, 10:39pm EST
  

• Confused thinking on the environment at Catallaxy

  A post over at Catallaxy suggests that policies of preventing the exploitation of oil and gas reserves near national parks in the US harm the poor (mainly blacks) and are therefore unacceptable - there is even the suggestion in the original news story* that such policies are racist . It [...]
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  Posted: January 16, 2009, 4:59pm EST
  

• A break in Syd

  I am relocating to Sydney for a few days R&R – escaping forecast temperatures in Melbourne of 39oC tomorrow for a more moderate 29oC in Syd. I’ll post if Bondi beckons less than I anticipate it will but I doubt it.
  
  

  Son William: ‘Dad, those ladies over there [...]

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  Posted: January 13, 2009, 4:52am EST
  

• Keep wages high to increase misery

  As unemployment in Australia looks ominously set to soar the mindless are at it again endorsing preservation of real wages in the face of the most serious threat to employment Australia has faced since the Whitlam and Keating years. The reason they claim – keeping wages high will [...]
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  Posted: January 12, 2009, 3:28pm EST
  

• The Brothers Karamazov

  I have re-read Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov after more than 30 years. I remember being almost spellbound by the novel when I first read it – it led me into The Idiot which I also found a revelation. A curious feature of my reading of both books [...]
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  Posted: January 11, 2009, 4:13am EST
  

• Buffett's Snowball

  I have just read the massive 900 page biography of Warren Buffett, by Alice Schroeder, The Snowball, Warren Buffett and the Business of Life. I was thinking of reviewing it but after as couple of drafts I gave up because my review seemed so narky and negative in what [...]
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  Posted: January 09, 2009, 10:29am EST
  

• Promotiong test cricket

  My colleague Dr Liam Lenten has some controversial ideas on promoting Test Match cricket.
  
  " it may be that what we need is more draws, or at least the chance of more draws...
  
  ...the modern-day version of Test cricket is characterised by quicker scoring and wicket [...]
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  Posted: January 08, 2009, 6:22pm EST
  

• Trade union policies for increasing unemployment

  The Whitlam-inspired wage breakout in the 1980s drove unemployment to 10.4%. Another Labor-driven wage breakout in the 1990s exacerbated the recession we 'had to have'. This was Labor's economic legacy. I remember my left-wing mates at the time telling me that 30% wage increases given to metal workers would boost [...]
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  Posted: January 08, 2009, 4:15am EST
  

• Way of the Tao

  Professor Terry Tao (born 1975) is an Australian mathematician now working in the US. Tao was a child prodigy who taught himself arithmetic at age 2. He received his PhD at age 20, was appointed a full professor at UCLA at age 24 and won the Field’s Medal [...]
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  Posted: January 07, 2009, 3:25pm EST
  

• Windy gets hoaxed

  My paper on climate change correcting the climate change denialist drivel Quadrant has been publishing over recent months may not have been rejected as much for its content than because of the lack of judgement of its editor Keith Windschuttle. Windschuttle has been comprehensively hoaxed by a fictitious author [...]
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  Posted: January 06, 2009, 4:32am EST
  

• Pessimistic views on the global economy

  Stock markets have been strong in recent weeks – in anticipation of an Obama fiscal-led recovery - and many financial analysts are predicting the end of the panic and a reversal toward economic normality. That is a false perspective – the US, Chinese and European economies are in free [...]
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  Posted: January 05, 2009, 3:27pm EST
  

• Israel lauches ground attack into Gaza

  The widely-predicted ground attack by Israel into Gaza occurred on Sunday.  The response of the media and mealy-mouthed politicians has been predictable.  On the one hand a section of the media, backed up by supporters of terrorism around the world, has been to attack the immorality of the Israeli [...]
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  Posted: January 04, 2009, 5:02pm EST
  

• Frost/Nixon

  Yesterday I saw my first movie of 2009 - Frost/Nixon - the stylised account of the lead-up to and the actual interviews between the British interviewer David Frost and disgraced US President Richard Milhous Nixon. There were a few much-criticised historical inaccuracies in the film (many relating to the [...]
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  Posted: January 02, 2009, 6:11pm EST
  

• Denialist stupidity

  I am astonished at the The Australian newspaper for suggesting that cool temperatures in 2008 might provide a ‘serious blow to global warming alarmists’. It is my bolding on the word ‘alarmists’ – an unusual turn of phrase since it includes almost all figures in climate science and the [...]
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  Posted: January 01, 2009, 5:19pm EST