August, 2011
Crikey Says: The border protection bottom line
Keane has crunched the numbers across budget and ANAO documents and calculated that our politicians’ fixation with asylum seekers arriving by boat has cost taxpayers nearly $2.4 billion since 2000.
Stone the crows! HST’s savage response to a Rolling Stone fan
More than four decades after it was written, the Huff Post has confirmed that a vitriolic expletive-laden letter to a Rolling Stone fan was penned by legendary gonzo journalist Hunter S Thompson.
13 unfairly maligned comedies
The old saying is true: it’s easier to make viewers cry than it is to make them laugh. The Huffington Post has trawled the backwaters of critically slammed comedies to come with a list of 13 of the most (allegedly) under-appreciated.
RIP MySpace
MySpace is not technically dead, but it might as well be. The website Rupert Murdoch purchased for US$580 million is steadily fading into oblivion. On its 8th anniversary, the staff at Mashable share their MySpace memories.
ACDC wine: a no brainer or no brains?
Steve Donohue, general manager of buying for the Woolworths Liquor Group, thinks selling ACDC themed wines is a “no-brainer”. Perhaps he might like to remember that the lead singer of the band died of alcohol poisoning, writes Richard Farmer.
The slimy decline of the modern monster movie
Hollywood is now capable of amazing feats of technological prowess, so why do all its monsters tend to look the same? Give me the clunky shark from Jaws any day, says Phelim O’Neill.
Does capitalism and globalization lead to economic oblivion?
Politicians are running out of rabbits to pull out of hats when financial disaster hits. It seems Karl Marx was at least partly right in his arguments against globalization, writes Nouriel Roubini.
What’s Kristina Keneally up to?
After the NSW election wipeout former Premier Kristina Keneally dropped off the radar completely but is now back in the media spotlight. It all began with a new hairdo…
Pressure will continue for aged care reform
Most stakeholders have broadly welcomed the recommendations of the government’s Caring for Older Australians report, although concerns have been raised in relation to the capacity of the workforce, writes Rebecca de Boer.
The slowing growth of the developed world
Economic growth has slowed even in Europe’s German powerhouse. New figures show that Germany GDP grew by just 0.1% in the March quarter which was less than the 0.2% Eurostat reported for the continent as a whole, reports Richard Farmer.
Of boats and votes
Nielsen struck a blow for transparency yesterday by releasing comprehensive data for their polling on asylum seekers, featuring detail on the questions and how they were asked, breakdowns by state, location, gender, age and voting intention, writes William Bowe.
It’s time for real figures from Qantas
This morning’s media is crammed full of claims that the full service Qantas international operation is going broke. It is time for Qantas CEO Alan Joyce to prove it, writes Ben Sandilands.
TV review: SLiDE — worthy of the hype
SLiDE is an urban-set youth dramedy that centers on five high school aged teens as they get into mischief and deal with authority figures. It’s a good looking show that should play well with a 15-23 year-old audience, says Dan Barrett.
For Qantas staff, it’s death by a thousand cuts
Qantas released the first part of its international restructuring this morning, cutting its frequencies into London Heathrow by almost half in favour of handing Bangkok and Hong Kong services to British Airways, and says this will save it the need for four Boeing 747-400s and about 1000 jobs.
Rick Perry: can the south rise again?
Now, for perhaps the first time since George Wallace in 1968, a true son of the Confederacy is in the running for the presidency.
Mitch’s new public policy paradigm is just the old one continued
The public policy process has changed significantly in recent years, but not in the way our most prominent rentseeker claims.
PHI: costs for public, private the same, so they should compete for funds
Once casemix is considered, there is no evidence of significant cost differences between private and public hospitals, writes Ian McAuley, lecturer in public sector finance at the University of Canberra.
The Power Index: # 9 on the Political Fixers list, and the contender to watch…
There are plenty of similarities our Top Ten Most Powerful Political Fixers all share but there’s one thing that’s particularly difficult to miss: they’re all men.
Possum: polling trends — spring session edition
With the Parliament set to start its spring sitting session today, it might be worth taking a look at the current state of play on the polling trends using our Pollytrend system.
Flawed cybercrime bill begs for attention
A wide-ranging bill aimed at enabling foreign governments to access Australians’ online and telecommunications data is expected to emerge from committee this week.
Bartholomeusz: bouncing off a commodities pothole
During last week’s roller-coaster ride on markets, most of the focus was on the wild swings in the value of equities, bonds and currencies. Almost overlooked was the fact that commodities also had a shocker of a week.
