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Public-private partnerships

At the beginning of his famous essay, Politics and the English Language, George Orwell cited five passages of text as examples of mental vices. Each of the passages had faults of its own, but Orwell noted two qualities common to them all: 'The first is staleness of imagery; the other is lack of precision.' This 'mixture of vagueness and sheer incompetence', Orwell argued, was 'the most marked characteristic of modern English prose, and especially of any kind of political writing'. Today, the word 'partnership' has become an unlikely if pedestrian instance of Orwell's complaint. 'Partnership', as used in the policies known as 'public-private partnerships', has been employed in a slovenly and inaccurate way by state governments generally to describe their private infrastructure policies.

Does this matter? Who cares what the policies are called? After all, virtually every utterance of every government today seems at least partly the work of spin-doctors, public relations firms, communications strategists, perception managers, info-tainers, focus groups and opinion polls. Instead, should we not direct our attention to analysing the substance of the policies? This essay stands with Orwell, who urged everybody to be 'constantly on guard' against the 'invasion of one's mind by ready-made phrases'. This was not just because 'every such phrase anaesthetises a portion of one's brain', but because he believed political decay is connected with the decay of the language. Orwell accepted that the 'swindles and perversions' in the English language ultimately have political and economic causes. But he argued that 'an effect can become a cause, reinforcing the original cause and producing the same effect in an intensified form, and so on indefinitely'. His crux was that language is a place where vigilant resistance is both feasible and regenerative.

You can read the rest of this essay here.

Keith Richards, Gram Parsons, etc

Tribute concerts can be fun to attend, but generally don't make good albums, or films. The recently released DVD, Return to Sin City: A Tribute to Gram Parsons, is a partial exception for one reason and, finally, one reason only: Keith Richards.

You can read the rest of this post here.

________

It's easy enough to see, or rather to hear, why the latest offering from the Rolling Stones, A Bigger Bang, has been so well received by the critics. Before we come to this, spare me arguments about the Stones canon. Long ago Lester Bangs declared Black and Blue the first insignificant Stones album, and celebrated the fact. A Bigger Bang is merely the latest meaningless Stones album, and it's a beauty. The reason?

You can read the rest of this post here.

Fear, loathing & Mark Latham

In the great tradition of no-one ever having voted for Nixon after his impeachment, let it be known that Mark Latham was never this blog's choice. BP has always been in the Rudd camp, with a fallback to the 'wimp' rather than the 'lunatic'. Congratulations however go to Cast Iron Balcony and friends back in December 2003, when Latham was elected leader. Go read.

Posted elsewhere:

September 28: What really undermined Labor

September 22: Diary, or diatribe?

September 21: Truth, lies & Mark Latham.

September 20: Grasping for historical perspective.

September 19: Are factions really the ALP's problem?

September 18: Are The Latham Diaries really 'diaries'?

The best year in music?

In a break from the news, I can report a productive weekend. With rigorous assistance from other self-appointed and absolutely dogmatic authorities, I have established beyond doubt that it’s now official: the single best year for music in all human history was 1970.

You can read the rest of this post here.

Blogging & politics

Amid all the discussion over the impact of the new forms of media on mainstream outlets, little analysis has been offered of the practical consequences for political opinion making. These will be significant, at least in Australia. The rise of alternative online media, especially the extraordinary growth of the blogging phenomenon, may finally disturb a structural advantage long enjoyed by the conservative side of Australian politics.

You can read the rest of this column here.

My stalker

As longstanding visitors to the 'sphere probably know, the right-wing blogger and journalist, Tim Blair, takes an unusual interest in everything I write, whether this is an article outside the 'sphere, a post inside, or even a casual comment on a blog somewhere. Sometimes Blair finds an error, perhaps a spelling error or a typo – nothing is too small for Tim – and generally he writes a critical reference about it on his blog. More typically, he falsifies something I've written and then takes down the falsification, adding abuse and mockery. I'm thinking of Blair, for this week he supplied a classic example, baldly misrepresenting a column that I'd been commissioned to write about my blog as a male ego-driven exercise in boasting about my blog because I wrote about, well, my blog.

You can read the rest of this post here.

Following the proud highway

Back in February this year, I was commissioned by the Age to write a column for the first issue of a new section of the paper, titled "Creative and Media." The column was envisaged as the first in a series by people discussing an idea they had made work; a weekly, interactive, so-called "Zeitguest" column. I interpreted the job as an opportunity to take the Back Pages story told in my parting post, "Blog fast, die young", a step further. As it happened, the new section was much delayed, and then appeared much reduced in conception, notably minus interactivity and the notion of the "Zeitguest" column. In the meantime, I had, rashly, told a lot of folks to look out for the article, mostly because I had also been requested to list my ten favourite Australian blogs, and I imagined alerting the so listed a courtesy. As some folks have expressed an interest in reading the piece, and because it belongs here at BP if it's not to appear where originally intended, the column is posted under the fold.

The ambiguities of Bob Carr

Some years ago, Bob Carr wrote a critical review of Conor Cruise O'Brien's book on Thomas Jefferson and the French Revolution. Carr objected to O'Brien's argument that Jefferson qualifies as the patron saint of white supremacists and is a symbol for present-day violent libertarian fanatics. Yes, Jefferson had a passion for revolutionary blood, agreed the premier, but his naivety in this is easy to see with the benefit of hindsight. Yes, Jefferson built his career on the back of black slave labour, but in this he was a prisoner of his times.

Carr was correct. History is a discipline of context. We don't have to concur with Jefferson's racism to agree with Carr that concepts such as "white supremacist" cannot be cut, raw and bleeding, from the side of the present and retrospectively applied to the past. More to the point, the premier's appeal to the need for historical judgements to be informed by an appreciation of the wider social context is a useful place to begin assessing his own record. Let me offer a few thoughts.

You can read the rest of this post here.

Globalisation, revisited

Globalisation is a notoriously difficult word to define. There is no 'proper' meaning for the term. 'Globalisation' is not a settled part of our language, but a site of unresolved conflict. Indeed, after following the debate for a couple of decades, one might even be forgiven for concluding the term is meaningless. This is not to suggest that there are not important, substantive issues caught up in the concept. There are, and we will come to them. In this address, we will pass through some of the main rhetorical puzzles associated with 'globalisation'. The trip will take us into history, which is my discipline, and the rival philosophical positions and political tactics that underlie the various meanings projected onto globalisation. But my overall argument will be that the term is, broadly speaking, spent, at least for the moment. Not only has 'globalisation' been deeply marked by the conflict over its meaning; it has meanwhile also been sidelined in the post-September 11 world. President George Bush is fond of saying that the world changed after September 11. One bit that changed, I will argue, is 'globalisation', such that we might soon discharge the term from active service altogether.

You can read the rest of this address here.

On postmodernism

I'm not going to try to referee the debate, which, predictably, regularly collapses, as everyone discovers there's no agreed definition of postmodernism, even among its famous philosophical adherents. I've read slabs of Derrida and Foucault, but I'll leave them largely aside, along with the right-wing postmodernists, Alexandre Kojeve and Francis Fukyama. Others are better able to swim in these contentious philosophical circles. These are merely brief impressionistic reflections on postmodernism and my own discipline of history. So, what are we talking about?

For practical purposes, the ever-present hallmark of postmodernism is the self-conscious, knowing reflex within contemporary representations, whether this be architecture, literature, painting, film, television, whatever. The 'knowing' reflex de-naturalizes or de-sacralizes the representation, acknowledging that it's not a window on reality or an alterior 'truth', merely a pre-supposing human-made representation that constitutes, not reflects, meanings.

You can read the rest of this post here.

Transient mutuality

Frank Tobias Higbie's Indispensable Outcasts is a good book, and a timely one. Higbie takes us into the world of the hobo in the American Midwest during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Higbie's subject is the millions of young, predominantly white, immigrant and American-born men who supplied the labour for seasonal industries such as crop harvesting, logging and construction. Long romanticized in popular culture—today there is a National Hobo Association with a website and newsletter catering for middle-class would-be hobos—the original 'hobo' wandered to find work, and was often distinguished from the 'tramp', who only worked to wander, and the 'bum', who neither worked nor wandered.

You can read the rest of this review here.

Abandoned love

Hope to be back, sometime before the year's out.

Bomber still fails to land

Kim Beazley remains the hot favourite, but as yet has been unable to clinch the Labor leadership. The weekend closes with no-one claiming the numbers, and Kevin Rudd has decided to stay in the race until tomorrow, at least. The public numbers are of course no more than strategic bids. One Saturday round gave KB 40 votes, KR 25 and Julia Gillard 12, leaving 10 votes undecided in the 87-strong caucus. Glenn Milne gives Kim "high thirties", KR at least 30 and Gillard "about 20".

Update: Jozef has an exclusive picture of KR at the point of decision.

Update: Yet another delay for KR, as the Beazer makes his first claim to have the numbers (disputed, of course).

Update: OK, he's out, and that's that. I don't buy the so-called 'wimp' line. To run when he knew he couldn't win "would be a monumental act of political indulgence," as Rudd said. Fair enough, although caucus has made a wrong turn and it's a great shame, in my view. While I can't help but feel he's the comatose option, good luck to the Beazer, a nice guy, who we can only hope has learned a few things since his last time as leader.

That's that for me too. It was great to blog again, but my book is too demanding to keep it up. I'll leave the comments open, in case people want to discuss the race. Until next time, cheers.

No more Mr Nice Guy

Australian politics has restarted, earlier than I would have hoped or predicted. With an ALP leadership vote suddenly on the table and debate underway, it's difficult to pass on having a say ... if you happen to have a blog just lying around, invitingly dormant, that is.*

Blog fast, die young

Back Pages opened for business on 18 November 2003 and died on its birthday, aged one. This is the last post. The comment facility has been turned off.

Not everyone will be sad at Back Pages' passing. But many will; and no-one more than me. I've been mourning this moment ever since I accepted closure had to happen. Sorry for dropping the announcement out of the blue. It was the only way to go out, once I knew there was no room for discussion.

The reason is straightforward. Blogging is incompatible with the business end of producing a book. Blogging works wonderfully with teaching, another defined event-orientated activity. Blogging works well with research, from which it provides a compatible break. But – for me at least – blogging doesn't work with the sustained concentration required to bring a serious book home, which is what I must do over the next six months.

The problem is the mental – not the physical – time that blogging claims. Generally I've been able to confine my physical blogging to a daily budget during the working week. But blogging is also intellectually engaging, which is not nearly so easily contained. I have a book contract and a pile of research I must now bring together. I must do this alone. I don't expect readers to be happy. Know I had no choice.

Last words

This being the last post, it's traditional, or it should be, to indulge some last words. Back Pages scarcely set the blogosphere on fire, but was much more successful than I originally expected or dared hope. Bloggers have diverse more or less worthy motivations. I only measure the success of Back Pages in my own terms, which are those of a writer. People have described me as a historian, an academic, a 'political blogger', and worse, sometimes much worse. In my own mind, I didn't blog under any of these identities. I blogged as a writer; no more, no less, nothing else. That's how I was always described in the first line about the author on Back Pages' home page.

I don't mean that I blogged as a creative writer (or any other writer sub-category), who tried to do in the blogosphere what he does elsewhere. Many bloggers use the 'sphere to draft ideas or practice writing they'll publish elsewhere, or hope to publish elsewhere. I never did. Nor did I try to be a distinctive stylist, in the enviable way of many of my favourite bloggers. I never wrote as I otherwise do, or hope to do, professionally.

The writing puzzle I worked on in my own blogging mind was that of trying to figure out how to write specifically in the blogosphere. Perhaps the answer is obvious. Make your posts short, original, important, hilarious, topical and controversial. No worries. Then again, maybe it's not so obvious. My point of reference (cited here) has always been one of James Carey's observations:

The telegraph … restructured everyday language through its effects on popular journalism, as it demanded a new economy of writing style and made the concept of objectivity central to reportage over the 'wire' … The telegraph also changed the way in which communication was thought about, providing a new conceptual model – the 'transmission model' of communication as a social practice. In this sense, the telegraph was not only a new tool of commerce but also a thing to think with, an agency for the alteration of ideas.

Taking this as my cue, from a writer's perspective, blogging intellectually intrigues and challenges in that it holds the promise of a new writing ball game; a new field of pressures and limitations that offers the potential for reshaping the way we write and, in turn, the way we think – in similarly profound ways to those accomplished in response to the telegraph, ways that continue to dominate the form of print media today.

This is to say that my preoccupying, overriding, intellectual interest in blogging was to try to pick the lock on the best way to write in the 'sphere, employing the traditional research method of trial and error. My subject matter was found almost exclusively among the interests – or obsessions – that lie in the zone between my personal and professional lives. My measure of success was the number of readers I attracted.

For twelve months I studied Back Pages' statistics. I watched carefully to ensure I wasn't distracted from reading my main game by comments, links, and thread and inter-blog controversies. I wanted to know which posts really worked. To recognise not only comments but readers at large, I instituted a monthly list of the top-10 most popular posts that was updated daily, and an all-time top-10 updated monthly. I also added a list of recommended posts to recognise sleepers – those wonderful posts that don't necessarily constitute hits, but keep on keeping on paying Back Pages with readers.

All of which is only to say that readers were king at Back Pages. Working out what writing worked with you – 'out there' – was what mattered to me over the past year, and the only thing that finally mattered in maintaining the blog. My aim was to allow you to shape my writing. My hypothesis was that I would gradually derive what particular form of writing works in this specific medium from your response, and hence gain some idea of the writing form(s) the medium itself tends to promote, in turn providing a basis for speculating on the larger potential and meaning of the blogosphere.

When I say 'readers', of course I include readers who also comment. Readers writing back, and writing back immediately, are a confronting discipline for any writer to accommodate, as well as the most fun, rewarding, stimulating and distinctive aspect of the medium.

In these terms – my terms – Back Pages was an unqualified success. In its short life, as of this last post, Back Pages published 605 posts and 17,341 comments. In response, the blog received 1.9 million hits or, for those who prefer the absolute measure, 0.9 million page views. Every month brought new and more readers, with the sole exceptions of the two months when I took blogging breaks. The record is set out in graphic detail here, here, here, here and here.

Given the necessarily slow start (from nothing; and, yes, just like everyone else, I went through months with practically no comments!), I'm sure next year would bring comfortably more than two million hits, even allowing for no election – if there was to be a next year. If I was free to blog the way I'd really like – as a part-time job – I bet Back Pages could give double this number a shake. Alas, there's no point in thinking about that.

So, what have I learned? A successful blog is the sum of a very large collective and ever accumulating effort. There's no getting away from this. Clearly, the aim of a blogger who wishes to be read must be to create a collective virtuous circle. As this blog attracted more readers, it attracted more comments, which attracted more readers, making Back Pages more widely known, leading to the accumulation of over 2000 referring sites, bringing more readers, who brought more comments, bringing more readers, and so on.

All well and good, but how do you make the circle virtuous, as distinct from still or vicious? For all my dedication, I can't say I positively know why BP was successful, let alone claim to have discerned the potential and meaning of the blogosphere. Leaving the larger James Carey-style questions aside for a more appropriate time and place, identifying the reasons for success at even the most basic level is hazardous. This is because, between analysing my own more or less successful writing and the site statistics, falls the shadow of imperfect guesses about cause and effect. Perhaps readers really came to Back Pages because of the blog's clever name, or sexy design. Regardless, for what it's worth, based on my year's experience, I'll outline BP's 10 rules on how to do good blog.

No, I'm not so presumptuous as to suppose these rules are relevant for established, experienced, successful bloggers. Nor do I pretend to have consistently followed them myself, even in this last post. No-one should try to always follow them. Still, as I did aim to work out a formula for success, and enjoyed some, below are the basic rules I gradually derived, and increasingly tried to follow. They constitute the best practical advice I distilled from my year of blogging dangerously, for the possible benefit of the many new bloggers who, happily, have sprung up in the meantime. They might also assist readers thinking of blogging.

To be crystal, let me say again that these rules are only relevant, if they are relevant at all, for people like me; that is, for people who blog primarily because they are writers in search of the elusive end of that most illusive of all rainbows; that grail sought by writers through the ages world over: readers. As I've stressed, there are a multitude of reasons why people blog, most of them at least as – or more – worthy than my humble if time-honoured objective of writing for readers. If you blog for its or your own sake, or to do your own stylistic or personal thing, or as a way of thinking or socialising, or to be politically or academically active, or to pursue a dear hobby, or to become a cult figure, or to fill in spare time, or for whatever other damn reason at all, the rules don't presume to apply to you.

What made Milwaukee ...

Poor Jeff. He stuffed up, and not just himself. But haven't you ever been there?

Can buy me love

Today Gerry has a predictable rightist interpretation of critiques of Australia and the US by Boyer lecturer Peter Conrad. I'm not familiar with Conrad, but here's a classic hendopropism:

In lecture five, Conrad says "the happiness America dispenses must be purchased". He adds: "So long as you have money, you can get fast food, carbonated drinks, Prozac, cocaine, Viagra, innumerable channels of trash beamed into your brain from a satellite, and a pin emblazoned with the Stars and Stripes to wear above your heart." Interviewed by Kerry O'Brien on the 7.30 Report, Conrad was asked whether this was "really the heart and soul of America?" He replied: "On the ideology, yes." But what is ideological about a commitment to soft drinks?

Conrad didn't say "commitment" (can you be committed to soft drinks?). He said the ideology of the US commodifies happiness. As Coke adverts exemplify, carbonated drinks supply an example of this ideology at work. It's tiresome reading such blatant obtuseness. Nobody with a weekly column in the broadsheet of Australia's largest city can be this dumb. I conclude Gerry writes this badly deliberately so that he will be discussed at blogs like Back Pages:

A hendopropism (from French hendo à propos, "hendo to purpose") is a blatantly incorrect right-wing statement, often so obtuse it has a comic effect intended to ensure the statement is discussed in the blogosphere. The term comes from the name of Gerard Henderson, a character in an Australian broadsheet whose name was combined with a derivation from the existing English word malapropos, meaning "inappropriately".

Cream, not so fresh

Getting the old band back together is of course an idea we love to think about from time to time, even if we're really only imagining a night with all our oldest and closest friends. It's never the same of course, and it's impossible to imagine Cream re-capturing the power and excitement of the original supergroup.

Debate aborted

So much for the abortion debate. If you adhere to the 'Tony Abbott is sincere' theory, you'll mark this down as a defeat for the devout one. Alternatively, if you're an appalling cynic like Back Pages, and are inclined to think Abbott was only aiming to muster leadership support from 'moralists', by associating himself with an issue that will trump their concerns about a certain pre-marital skeleton, he probably did OK. The real games continue. Your move Pete.

Spectator sports confusing

Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson, Oxford-educated classicist, editor of the Spectator, married father of four, author of the novel Seventy Two Virgins, and Tory MP for Henley-on-Thames, was sacked as the UK's shadow arts minister yesterday. The dismissal followed lurid tabloid revelations of an affair with Petronella Wyatt, a columnist on the Spectator. Boris initially dismissed the allegations as "an inverted pyramid of piffle", and received the backing of Tory leader Michael Howard, who last week praised his performance and urged him to "keep it up!" Boris was subsequently unfortunately dropped in it by Petronella's mother, Lady Verushka Wyatt, who, when asked if the two were having an affair, replied "Not any more." Lady Wyatt also claimed that Petronella had "just one" abortion. "This is nothing to do with personal morality", said a Tory spokesperson. "Last weekend when all this came up Michael stood by him and said shadow ministers can live their lives as they want, it was not a matter for him." But "it is a matter for him when shadow ministers don't tell the truth". In daring to separate matters of private from public morality, the British conservatives appear to have radically overlooked the admonishions of Australia's Cardinal George Pell, failing in their woeful ignorance to realise that secular democracy can only be "a constant series of 'breakthroughs' against social taboo in pursuit of the individual's absolute autonomy". Or perhaps Pell's counsel is also irrelevant in this case because Britain isn't a secular democracy either.

Live in Paris

France is entitled to favouritism for tomorrow morning's big match. The cheese-eaters were the form team of the world cup, before England bundled them out in appalling conditions. Joining discipline and structure to their characteristic flair, the six-nation champions haven't lost a game since - while the Wallabies have become world-class losers, with the Bledders and the tri-nations lost along the trail of woe in this most woeful of all years in recent world history. Australia hasn't won a major match overseas since 2001, has only won three tests against France in France in 30 years, and lost the last encounter 13-14. Still, hope springs, as it always will when your team has players like Georgies Smith and Gregan, Bernie Larkham, Morts, Tuqiri, Giteau and Rathbone. Latham of Socks Down of course remains an everpresent risk, as do Crazy Eddie's substitution policies. The boys showed some first-half form against the Scots last week, but this will take a big lift on that effort. The story is likely to be told up-front, and the fly-half duel shapes as a classic. With the world champion England side now severely depleted, this is the match of the tour for mine. Go the Wallabies!

Update: France won 27-14, with two tries to one and a stronger, more composed, more disciplined performance. Will this cursed year never end! Goodnight Eddie, and take Socks Down with you. Bah! Grump! Curse! #@%&!

Kooky? You want kooky?

George Pell is as mad as a meat-axe, not to say wrong, pig-ignorant and arrogant. Figure it yourself, for I can't go near it due to boiling blood, or pop over to see Ken Parish.

Revenge of the elites

US election - go read (language warning). But I like the music. (Tks Mark McG.)

Long & winding road

While the government was getting down to its leadership struggle, Tim Gartrell didn't make a bad fist of a lousy job with his address on Labor's loss yesterday. Yet two things don't add up.

One for the Chrissy list

Something more important happened on Tuesday last week. This was released, wherein:

Fresh readings of songs never before heard on any live Stones album highlight the flawless vocal and physical fitness of Mick Jagger, the blazing interplay of Keith Richards and Ron Wood, and the peerless, swinging hands of Charlie Watts. Disc Two of Live Licks includes a steamrolling "Rocks Off", a stylish and earthy "Can't You Hear Me Knocking," the ingenious ska-flavored "You Don't Have To Mean It" and an emotional "Worried About You" ...

Bloody 60-year olds.

The real games begin

With the tiresome distraction of the election over, it's time to get down to the serious men's business of picking the next prime minister. Yes, one guy is retiring, another guy (with a related skeleton) is promoting the 'morals' agenda via abortion, and the other guy is opposing him. You didn't think it had anything to do with women did you?

Speaking of trust

Yeah, the Mad Monk was bullshitting as usual, as Gummo pointed out last Saturday.

Elsewhere: Personal blogging is the hardest blogging to do well, and often takes a lot of guts, or at least more than this scribe can usually count on. The increasingly anonymous Gianna is my general benchmark for excellence in this field, but check out these two striking pieces by Zoe at Crazybrave (indeed!) and Georg at Psephite. (Also, I guess, any blog-people who've managed to avoid Pandagate can cut through with this story, and at Robert's place.)

Elsewhere update: (Thurs, 11th) Speaking of Pandagate, bullshit, blogging debacles, etc, education expert, tim blair, thinks ancient news from big media is new again. Upcoming stories at Spleenville: 'WWII Ends'; 'Columbus Discovers America'; 'Wheel Invented'.

God is dead

Great line, you have to admit. Out of (what seems) the blue, Ken Parish has posted in preliminary praise of the author. I mention this only because last weekend I happened to go through the chapter on "Morality" in my Penguin Nietzche reader. Yes, this is true. I've never studied his work, but have always dug some of his aphorisms, and am given to browsing in his stuff, as he's always a good mind-pipe cleaner, I've found. Nietzche's wider significance is of course open to celebrated debate. Personally, I think he was in overheated pursuit of the truth, but that's bye the bye.

The point is that the odds of Troppo and BP coinciding like this strike me as rather long. The impulse evidently comes from the intellectual history and agenda of the neo-cons, and the present focus on morality in politics. It's a bit hard to accept that we are really having this debate about morality and god and politics, given that we (liberal secularists) won the heavyweight contest a few centuries ago, and have trounced the god-botherers on the issue periodically ever since. This of course brings us back to the neo-con agenda. No principle is beyond testing, I guess, and all principles should be tested from time to time, lest their basis be forgotten - even if John Ashcroft has resigned and, as Tim seems to have improbably found, god is still dead, or a least didn't really have much to do with the recent US election result.

Wonders, never ceasing, etc

I wasn't listening to the radio, until I picked up the unmistakeable bottleneck playing that opening riff. Yes, there it was this morning, on Sally Loan's mainstream morning ABC-Radio show: Robert Johnson's famous "Come On In My Kitchen". OK, it was the easy-listening EC's (great) version. But still, it happened. And now I've blogged it. Did you hear that coffin sound over in Greenwood? Or maybe you heard me when I moaned.

Lord of the non sequitur

Gerard Henderson might feel lucky he has a nice protected little column in the SMH, for I couldn't imagine him surviving the harsher climes of the 'sphere. OK, I'm sworn off the guy, but he's at it again today. No, it's not just that he's put an unoriginal boot into the liberal left well after everyone else. Rather, it's the flat contention that the Australian and US elections showed that those who disagree with Bush-Blair-Howard on Iraq are in a minority. This is possible, of course, but it doesn't necessarily follow from the election results. Arguably, the more likely message from the elections is that a sufficient number of the majority of those concerned over Iraq either didn't think Latham or Kerry would improve the situation at this stage, or had this concern trumped by other issues (interest rates in the case of Australia, 'god, guns and gays' in the case of the US). As he himself might say of his opponents, expect Gerry to sustain his self-important column. Self-delusion is rarely discounted by reason.

Taliban anyone?

Speaking on Lateline last night, visiting US neo-con intellectual, Robert Kagan, said he wouldn't mind if fundamentalists took power through democratic elections in Iraq ("I do not think that we should demand secularism as a condition for letting Shia take some power in Iraq"). Well, after last Tuesday, I suppose he could hardly object, could he?

Update: (Wed, 10th) On Monday night the liberal part of democracy in Iraq didn't matter much to Robert K. Last night at the CIS, advancing "the cause of liberalism" was everything. Who knows what these crazy neo-cons will say next?

Rollin' & tumblin'

The BP stats for October are in. Same story. Another 25 per cent increase or thereabouts on last month, this time smashing the 400,000 hits barrier to smithereens. Imagine if the Australian economy could match this growth rate! (Image below.)

Elsewhere: The Vice Regal 2004 Blog Comments Awards have been announced. No-one familiar with the 'sphere will be surprised that the big award was taken by ... Nabakov!