National Observer - Australia and World Affairs articles from March 2008

National Observer - Australia and World Affairs archives from March 2008

If deep in debt, should I spend and borrow more?(Editorial comment)
March 22, 2008... The cause of the present financial crisis is, at bottom, debt. The governments of the world, in response, advise the public to spend more, and their central banks lower interest rates dramatically, in panic mode, to tempt their citizens to...

The Mumbai attacks and the use of torture.(Editorial comment)
March 22, 2008... The sole surviving jihadist of the group who attacked the Taj Mahal Hotel and other sites in Mumbai recently has been singing like a canary, probably as his toenails were pulled out one by one. If the FBI knew that an individual it had...

Barack Obama: merited nemesis of the "neocons".(Editorial comment)
March 22, 2008... They were not conservatives at all, but a mixed group of idealists, former Trotskyists, social engineers and beneficent imperialists, with no particular attachment to tradition, who wished to remake the world in America's image. Their project...

The future of Mr Kevin Rudd.
March 22, 2008... Eleven months (at the time of writing) into his prime ministership, what are we to say of Mr Kevin Rudd's performance? Given that performance, what of his future? In what follows I argue that with (as always) some qualifications, the...

The rule of lawyers, not law.
March 22, 2008... In the federal parliament there are far more lawyers than any other group, even union officials. The proliferation of lawyers reflects the proliferation of laws, implemented by a bureaucracy that has never been larger, and a legal system that...

Global jihad and the evolution of terrorist-training doctrines.
March 22, 2008... The terrorist attacks in Mumbai occurred just two months after the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad was devastated by a huge truck bomb, and trials of terrorists in Britain and Australia revealed plans for atrocities in those countries. Taken...

The global power shift: defending Australia's Independence.
March 22, 2008... The world is witnessing a new form of strategic dominance. Countries that excessively depend on foreign borrowing risk losing their sovereignty, being "colonised by purchase rather than conquest". --Warren E. Buffett, Fortune, 26 October...

How the Liberal Party can rebuild itself.
March 22, 2008... The Liberal Party has never been an ideological party. The contrast with Labor could not be clearer. And yet it was only by presenting himself as leading a party little different from the Liberals that Kevin Rudd was able to win the November...

Scoring high grades by mirroring the teacher's mistakes.
March 22, 2008... Note-taking is particularly important if your teacher or lecturer is competent, capable or talented. However, note-taking is even more important if your teacher or lecturer is incompetent or in error. Unfortunately, when this is the case, many...

The Blogging Revolution.
March 22, 2008... THE BLOGGING REVOLUTION by Antony Loewenstein (Melbourne University Press) Paperback: 304 pages Rec. price: $32.95 Occasionally on local television there appears a trailer for that grunge-laden reality show, America's...

The Whisperers: Private Life in Stalin's Russia.
March 22, 2008... THE WHISPERERS: Private Life In Stalin's Russia by Orlando Figes (London: Penguin) Paperback: 780 pages Rec. price: AUD$29.95 There are many books about different aspects of the Stalin era (1928-53) in the USSR. They...