Tag: crikey

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Poll Dancing: a first impression

Cover of Poll Dancing by Mungo MacCallum

Having read Mungo MacCallum‘s acidic commentary on the federal election in Crikey, I was eager to read his newly-released “campaign diary” Poll Dancing: the story of the 2007 election. The first sentence tells me I’m in for a great time:

One morning in his tenth year as prime minister, John Winston Howard awoke in the master bedroom of Kirribilli House to realise that he had become not only omnipotent but invincible.

Ah, Mungo! I think I’ll be spending a relaxed Christmas afternoon with you, once I’ve finished reading Judith Brett’s Quarterly Essay, “Exit Right: the unravelling of John Howard”. Yes, I’m making sure I learn the lessons that are to be learned.

One hint to Black Inc Books, though. Please provide an obvious permanent link to your current titles, so the links I’ve just created won’t need to be edited down the track.

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This year’s Crikey articles

Crikey logo

I’ve just noticed that Crikey makes its subscriber-only articles freely available after a while. So here’s links to what I’ve written for them this year — though the last one isn’t “free” yet. I’ll do a longer version for you soon anyway. Fret not.

Howard should be au fait with this internet thingy by now (20 June)
Blackle: a “green computing” furphy? (31 July)
Why MySpace for grown-ups won’t fly (13 August)
Failing the Citizenship Test (27 August)
Wikipedia and the PM — the trail is still hot (4 September)
Kirribilli house: yours for $15 (15 September)
Sputnik 2: The space age Australia never had (3 October)
Coonan kicks own goals over ICT strategies (5 October)
2007: The (second) last TV election (29 October)
Social media goes mainstream (except for business and politics) (17 December)

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2007: The (Second) Last TV Election

The next time someone says we’re experiencing Australia’s “first Internet election” or our “first YouTube election”, slap them. Slap them very hard.

Our politicians only see the Internet and the emerging social media as a different kind of TV. YouTube is a place to post commercials, MySpace and Facebook for media releases. Their use of social media is so clueless that geeks attending PodCamp in Perth this Saturday were laughing.

Far from this being the “first Internet election”, it’s more like the The Last Television Election. Maybe the second-last.

Continue reading “2007: The (Second) Last TV Election”

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Hyacinth goes shopping!

From Friday’s Crikey: Obviously a sense of foreboding in the PM’s household. Seen shopping in the women’s section of Target at Chatswood — Janette Howard. Does this tell us something about her fiscal outlook!

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Published twice in one day

Scan of New Scientist piece

I’m happy. I’ve been published twice today, thrice this week.

As I mentioned before, Crikey was happy for me to cover today’s panel discussion with IT minister Senator Helen Coonan and her Labor opponent Senator Stephen Conroy. They were joined this morning by Democrats leader, Senator Lyn Allison.

My Crikey story points out that Coonan scored at least three own goals. I’m chuffed that it was selected as a “top story” for subscribers.

My other Crikey story was about Australia’s contribution to the Space Age, published on Wednesday and including my comments about the spaceport we never seem to get.

I’ll do a public version of both those stories tomorrow.

And the third piece was a little snippet for New Scientist, which I sent them on 24 June. There’s a picture (right), but here are the words for search engines to find.

The label on reader Stilgherrian’s Australian-made Starmaid ice-cube trays reassures him that they are “freezer safe” — which he says is “handy”.

But right now it’s Red Wine Time…