Hi Mona and Jay

I don't know quite how to express it, but each of your podcasts leaves me feeling somehow uplifted and reminded of the nobler virtues, despite the gloom of the topics you treat.  I have a growing reading list thanks to your recommendations, and I would like a classical music 101 listening list.  It's time I found out what the fuss is about.  Can you give me a couple of leads?  

Thanks so much for your podcasts.

Ask him to itemise his own diet so that you can assess if he will be alert enough to be teaching your daughter.  After all, you don't want a hungover pot head teaching math.  Give him a taste of his own medicine to help him see what a jackass he is.  Go get him!

I think  that the way to turn things around is to try to pull the rug from under the left's feet by appropriating the subjects/constituencies they regard as their own.  For example, where the left has cornered the market on helping the poor by policies that redistribute wealth, conservatives could take over the same ground by talking not about what causes poverty but how to create wealth.  Instead of "republicans want to push down your wages so that the bosses get rich" we need to turn the game upside down and say "with freer regulation and reduced taxes, you could become a business owner yourself" or, more negatively, "Democrats/leftists want to keep you as a slave to the boss by making it prohibitively costly and risky to start up on your own".  I'm sure that one by one, each sacred cow of the left could be taken by stealth, and won over to a conservative point of view.

There's always the chance that the cards could result in more apparent surveillance but less actual surveillance, if the school comes to rely on it too much. Could the kid attach his card to a wandering dog, for example, to throw authorities off the scent? How different is it to my swipe card at work to get in and out of the building?

Well said Fred, and Merry Christmas!

Whoever picks the music track at the end of each podcast does a great job finding something topical - always brings a smile to my dial :)

When are we going to wake up and do something about it?  We can't afford to tolerate intolerance when it puts policemen in hospital.  will we wait as long as the US (who still seem to be waiting) before we do anything?  What if they drag an Australian ambassador's body through the streets?

Watching from Australia, I sure hope the US administration wakes up soon...what will it take for a reaction if dragging a diplomat's corpse through the streets won't do it?  Come on, guys!!

I don't think we need to understand other cultures to get our heads around this; we need to understand our culture, and recognise that our culture will not tolerate barbarism, and have the courage to do something about it.

Just do it James - if it doesn't work out come back to Australia and be pm here!

great work, thanks

thanks! good idea to highlight failed examples.

I agree - arguments about affordability of separately plumbed sinks or logical arguments about nutrition are  all playing into the hands of the totalitarians.  Once you agree to argue on their terms, you've lost the argument.  Just keep serving the food and doing what's right.

That's just the trouble - he's had no difficulty finding other things to stuff up, like our National Broadband Network (a $43bn white elephant that is rapidly becoming obsolete as wireless technology takes over), a bungled tender for overseas broadcasting, a review into media influence and concentration that threatens free speech...I'd better stop to get my heart rate back down...

$15! I paid $60! but I got a free beer :)

Claire, an intriguing post, you've put a handful of topics in and shaken them all around.  Can't wait to see where it spins off to.  Which will be the runaway theme: German world domination, political correctness, the debt thing, Paris and Parisians (I lived there too, for a while), or something else?

Exactly.  A self-centred outlook that can't see the inherent inconsistencies, which are inumerable, and the reality of mortal existence, which demands a life of toil for food, shelter and clothing, whether you've got it easy, like the protesters, or you've got it hard, like the third world.