PhD Students: Living below poverty line

There used to be a time when Australia had the title ‘the clever country’ and it seemed, in many ways, it was.  The nation was at the forefront of research in many field, our scientists were paid big money to work overseas and education actually seemed to be important.  I doubt few could argue that [...]

Personal rant: 8 Things That Are Bad

Like all people, there are certain things and types of people that tend to get me a little irrate.  I am sure each and every reader has some as well (heck, I may appear on some people’s lists even!).  So this particular blog entry is a brief examanition and list of eight things, it is not [...]

Voluntary Student Unionism: Guess what? Results are in

Way back in the depths of time … well, October 2006, I wrote about a measure the then Federal Liberal Government were bringing in called VSU (Voluntary Student Unionism). In short, it shifted University student unionism from a requirement to a choice. Students across the country rallied against it, University administrations were [...]

Aussie Politicians: Pandering to Fundamentalists.

Australia, like many other western nations, is a secular nation.  One where no religion is meant to be proclaimed over any other or given unfair advantage.  This is especially useful when you consider that Australia is quite the multicultural (at least in theory) society and different cultures hold dear different religious beliefs.
If that is the [...]

Teacher summer schools: not nearly enough

Last week, all teachers in Australia received the following letter from Federal Minister of Education Julie Bishop. Kindly read the letter and think about the contents for a short time.

Money for Catholic Youth Day. Why?

The Catholic church is pretty wealthy by any standards. The Vatican is technically it’s own country, the assets owned are huge to the point of being near uncountable while the liquid assets are massive indeed (including all that cash placed in collection plates every service). So why, if the Catholic Church is so [...]

Darth Howard

In the Star Wars prequel films, as awful as they generally were, the villainous Darth Sidious created havoc and misery in order to impose his vision of peace and perfection. He caused war and over-ruled the Senate to get what he wanted, ending with himself in complete control of his new empire.