Germany is still in denial about the Berlin terror attack
Ghost Font, and the race to hide human communication from AI
Despite working with artificially intelligent databases in a former life, I retain a dim view of modern AI projects that…
The AusAlert conspiracy
News of the AusAlert conspiracy resulted in a head-tilt from me. To be honest, I was not aware it was…
Mainstream media deserves its fate on the scrap heap of history
Well, that was an interesting week in politics. I’m disgusted but not surprised by the media storm that deleted all…
Pauline Hanson offers Angus Taylor support to stop ISIS fighters returning
According to Credlin on Sky News Australia, Pauline Hanson has written to Angus Taylor offering One Nation support for any legislation…
From ‘narcissist’ to ‘shrekking’
The words we invent for dating tell us more about modern relationships than any survey ever could. In 2020, TikTok…
The tyranny of the Census
You’ll receive your instructions soon… Sorry? When did I join the army? The Australian Bureau of Statistics is gearing up…
Robert Menzies: appeaser?
Earlier this month, Defence Industry Minister Pat Conroy stirred controversy during a speech at the National Press Club. In pitching…
Crimson Conservatism
For as long as I can remember, I have been at odds with myself. I am disabled, yet I do…
The legal right to disobey unjust law
In an age of social chaos and moral confusion, as in times of tyrannical government, there will be a desperate…
Remembering Ithaca
The temptation to review The Odyssey is strong. Stronger still is the temptation to wail about the casting, the incorporation…
What 20 One Nation converts told me
Based on all available polling, it seems that if an election were held today, somewhere close to a quarter of…
Preserving the Institutions of Western Civilisation in the Age of Populism
The following is a speech delivered by the Shadow Minister of Defence, Liberal Senator James Paterson, at the Ramsay Centre.…
What did I miss?
Those who allow Labor press releases to act as their sole source of truth wouldn’t imagine that Australians are caught…
Labor: funding failure with another $25 million to the Palestinian Authority
Foreign Minister Penny Wong insists Australia’s foreign policy is guided by international law, moderation, and the pursuit of peace. Yet…
Grifters, spivs, and thieves
It’s the Labor Party’s National Conference in Adelaide at the moment. I was hoping to be invited to MC the…
A Coup-ee from Canberra
Recent discussion at the Labor National Conference has revived debate about an Australian republic. Much of that debate focuses on…
Multiculturalism is a crisis of self
Just as a person without convictions is easily swayed to differing and conflicting positions, so is a country without convictions.…
The Odyssey: the film that launched a thousand tweets
Christopher Nolan’s Odyssey has attracted a lot of attention for its DEI casting. Elon Musk is especially aggrieved and taken…
Jacinta Nampijinpa Price, the ABC, and the Celebration Parallax
Earlier this month on Insiders, Patricia Karvelas told the nation that Prime Minister Anthony Albanese ‘wants to make all those…
Bronze statues are not threatening Australia’s future
If intelligence could be measured in bronze, some of the people campaigning to tear down Australia’s colonial statues would struggle…
Australia’s eSafety Commissioner loses again – A victory for free speech | Celine Baumgarten S3 Ep 18
Celine Baumgarten (Celine Against the Machine) has celebrated her SECOND victory against the eSafety Commissioner. This wasn’t only a personal…
Did Donald Trump conquer the world with witty insults? | Joel Gilbert S3 Ep 17
Did Donald Trump conquer the world with witty insults? I’m joined by Joel Gilbert to discuss the genius of humour…
Digital tyranny or ‘child safety’? 😵 & the bitcoin revolution | Efrat Fenigson S3 Ep 16
When Australia’s Under 16 social media ban started locking adult political writers out of #Substack – it was just the…
Plumbing vs climate change
We had the plumber in the other day, and were grateful that he even turned up. Although he charged us…
Who you gonna trust, baby?
If you were asked to boil down today’s Australian and British right-of-centre politics to one short question, this would be…
A constitution to rule them all
Last week was about scrutiny, with Barnaby Joyce declining, as One Nation’s Treasury spokesman, to commit to costing One Nation’s…
The lessons our schools need to teach
Earlier this month, America marked the 250th birthday of its Declaration of Independence. This anniversary should also matter to Australians.…
The coming AI bust
Nearly 200 economists including 15 Nobel laureates and tech leaders this month issued a statement that warned artificial intelligence poses…
Racketeering on an industrial scale
When the 50th anniversary ALP national conference kicks off in Adelaide this week, Labor’s ties to the trade union movement…
The monetisation of murder
Invited to address a rally in defence of Beijing’s victims on a freezing day in Sydney, I referred to media…
Cool it, lefties, we all need air con
This summer, Europe has experienced a wave of record-breaking temperatures. Southern France hit 44 degrees Celsius. Naturally, the French took…
Macron could’ve done more to stop the Bordeaux fires
Firefighters in France have spent the weekend trying to save Bordeaux from an immense conflagration. On Monday morning, the city’s…
Germany is still in denial about the Berlin terror attack
The annual Christopher Street Day, as Pride parades are known in Germany, has been a fixture of Berlin’s cultural calendar…
Should we let women out of jail?
Andy Burnham has a problem. Desperate to ensure that his government isn’t defined by releasing killers and sex offenders early,…
There is nothing surprising about the Berlin pride attack
Sky News proudly posted a clip of their reporter in Berlin struggling to explain the latest car ramming attack, this…
Burnham will struggle to stop the early prisoner releases
In 2019, a police officer, Andrew Harper, was killed while on duty. After responding to a burglary he chased after a…
Is Andy Burnham really ready to hand power to Reform councils?
Keen to keep up the momentum on his big (or not so big) ideas, Andy Burnham will apparently announce on…
Why this wasn’t Italy’s George Floyd moment
For a brief moment I thought that the death this week in Bologna of a Moroccan, face-down on the tarmac,…
Why is Ireland lecturing Germany about the Ulm 5 trial?
Ten months into his detention, Irishman Daniel Tatlow-Devally and his fellow pro Palestine activists have spent 22 hours a day…
I invented Nixonmaxxing
The kids call it ‘Nixonmaxxing,’ and I invented it 30 years ago. ‘I think that his historical record is enjoying…
Is Elon Musk wrong about Britain and civil war?
Do you think that Britain is heading towards civil war? If you spend too much time in certain nooks on…
Andy Burnham is a joke
Can I shock you? I like Andy Burnham. Not in a gay way. More that, when he comes on the…
We sacrifice the humanities at our peril
Another month, another of our great universities making brutal cuts. At Exeter (motto: lucem sequimur, ‘we follow the light’) over 500…
A New Zealand republic in Jacinda Ardern’s lifetime?
New Zealand’s former Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, believes the nation will become a republic within her lifetime. We have heard…
The row over English becoming an official language of New Zealand
Parliamentarians in New Zealand have been limbering up for an oddly unedifying debate over what ought to be the most…
What they don’t tell you about Christmas in New Zealand
‘I still think New Zealand the most beautiful country I have ever seen,’ Agatha Christie marvelled in 1922. Evidently she’s…
What will Jacinda Ardern do next?
When I first met Jacinda Ardern in the early 2010s, the notion that the young MP with the toothy smile…
Christopher Nolan’s Odyssey is a triumph
High Antipodean
The death of that fabled cricketer Sir Garfield Sobers – one of the greatest all-rounders who ever lived – is…
A Treasury on YouTube
It’s strange how much we take for granted the world we inherit, which is available to us on YouTube for…
To be trans Hamlet or not to be
Is there something strange about seeing a great comedian who identifies as a trans woman do a solo Hamlet, the…
Tip-Toeing in Manchester
The world knows that Andy Burnham, the ‘King from the North’, was a very successful mayor of Manchester. There have…
Unlucky break: All In, by Claire Powell, reviewed
Claire Powell’s first novel, At the Table (2022), delineated a year in the life of the Maguire family from south…
New York crime caper: Cool Machine, by Colson Whitehead, reviewed
Cool Machine, the final novel in Colson Whitehead’s Harlem trilogy (following Harlem Shuffle and Crook Manifesto), is another tour de…
Why spiders deserve our respect, not fear or disgust
I had not thought much about spiders until I read Maria Tatar’s Arachnomania; now I can think of little else.…
Adolescent anxieties: Schoolgirl, by Osamu Dazai, reviewed
In June 1948, the writer Osamu Dazai and his last love, Tomie Yamazaki, drowned themselves in the Tamagawa Aqueduct near…
When Mum went marching with the EDL
Nicola Wilding is a documentary film producer, whose family was originally rural working class. Aged 60, her mother, Sandra, prompted…
Why Cicero’s life and times have never seemed more relevant
How should we think about Cicero? He was the orator who claimed that he did his best to save the…
Will any lone fanatic soon be capable of bioterrorism?
In the summer of 2020, while the country was between ‘waves’ of Covid, Dominic Cummings convened a meeting at my…
An alternative Paris: Château Rouge, by Amit Chaudhuri, reviewed
Nearly ten years ago, the author, critic and classical Indian musician Amit Chaudhuri took up a visiting fellowship in Paris.…