Malcolm MacKerras is trying to persuade the people of New Zealand to scrap their MMP voting system and replace it with a better one.
March, 2010
Diary of a Surgeon: Waiting lists — fact or fiction?
Surgical waiting lists are comprised of two elements. The list of patients seen, assessed and awaiting their planned surgery — and the other, hidden list explains Professor Guy Maddern.
Guy Rundle: Rundle’s UK: are these the most passive, fatalistic people on the planet?
Are these the most passive, fatalistic people on the planet? asks Guy Rundle of the British. Maybe it’s because the bad stuff is so ever-present, and the good stuff can often recede from view.
SA election scandal to taint Rudd’s campaign?
Labor’s election fraud — falsely distributing how-to-vote cards for Family First indicating preferences should go to ALP — in South Australia last Saturday has broken state borders, writes Hendrik Gout.
This day in Crikey: Friday March 26, 2004
March 26, 2004, Is Bob Carr thinking of the Paris option? asks Boilermaker Bill.
Daily Proposition: Learning German is a Stone’s throw away
It’s hard not to fall in love with Berlin, which is full of everything that is good and wonderful in the world (beautiful people, art, parties, fashion). But learning the language is a little more work, says Jess Hopcraft.
Tips and rumours: Tips and rumours: More from Myer and The Age
More snippets on the goings on in Myer — with their designer fuel program — and The Age with it’s new strange supplement on the ‘New Melbourne’.
Bono: the worst investor in America
U2 frontman Bono is part of the investment team behind Elevation Partners: “the worst run institutional fund of any size in the United States” according to 24/7 Wall St, which details how the fund has lost hundreds of millions of his hard earned.
Bin Laden threatens to kill Americans. What’s news?
Osama bin Laden has threatened to kill any Americans captured by al-Qaeda if Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is found guilty for 9/11. But as the Christian Science Monitor points out, it rings pretty hollow when they’ve already been killing captured Americans for years.
Sinead O’Conner: How I was abused by the Catholic Church
In an op-ed for the Washington Post, Irish songstress Sinead O’Conner recounts the horror of her childhood years spent in one of the infamous church-run “Magdalene laundries”.
Europe’s financial crisis: driving straight men into gay porn
A detailed look inside into Prague’s porn industry, where the world’s increasing appetite for gay porn is being fed by growing numbers of cash-strapped straight young men
Could journalists be replaced by robots?
Damn: researchers in Japan have created a “journalist robot”, which detects when interesting things are going down, takes photos, asks questions, and uploads it all to the web. Looks like we’re stuffed.
Forget about Sir and Madam: how to write a great cover letter
Smashing Magazine speaks to company owners about what makes a captivating cover letter — and what will see your job application sent straight into the waste paper basket.
Film review: The Spy Next Door — Jackie Chan plays the kung fool
The Spy Next Door is just the latest in a seemingly endless array of embarrassments for former kung fu movie master Jackie Chan, says Luke Buckmaster.
Don’t blame cows for your own emissions
Cows have been copping a lot of the blame for climate change lately, but a US scientist claims the UN’s “cows create more emissions than cars” mantra is a myth, based on some sketchy science.
How to climb over the Great Firewall of China
China puts millions of dollars and employs tens of thousands of people to keep its internet heavily censored — but enterprising citizens have still found ways around it. The Guardian explains how it’s done.
Tobin: And they’re off… Guy Rundle: Catholic collapse started long before the kiddie-fiddling
Recent revelations of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church are hardly the institution’s first catastrophic moral collapse, says Guy Rundle: its accommodation of the Holocaust was the end of its real existence.
Galaxy: NSW loves Keneally — but not enough to vote for her
The latest NSW Galaxy poll has Premier Kristina Keneally’s approval rating up eight points to 53%, but the Coalition is still dominating the ALP in the two-party preferred vote 57-43, reports William Bowe.
Why the CIA baked a birthday cake for a suicide bomber
CIA officers in Afghanistan threw a big birthday bash for a spy they thought could help them crack al-Qaeda — but he missed the party, because he was busy blowing himself and seven CIA officers up.
leaked China’s instructions on reporting on Google
Straight from the Ministry of Truth: the WashPo has a leaked copy of the Chinese government’s instructions to news sites on how to report on Google’s decision to stop censoring its search results.
