Quantico by Greg Bear

Greg Bear has written some of my favourite SF novels in the past but for the last few years has been moving more into the mainstream with his fiction. That’s fine with me as I’ll read anything I can get my hands on and Bear’s thrillers are different to most, but I admit I’m looking [...]

Remembering September 11

I’ve been wanting to write a poem to mark the 6th anniversary of September 11 but I wasn’t able to finish it in time to post it today. I couldn’t get it to sound the way I wanted it to… to say everything… and then today I came across this video and I think I [...]

When does protection go too far?

This hasn’t been a good period for John Howard. Howard forgot a Tasmanian Liberal candidate’s name on air, and then the ridiculous upgrades to the government’s VIP aircraft were revealed: $100,000 worth of upgrades, including $9000 in silk wall panelling and $6200 in almond-coloured leather added to the ceiling (refits that were later dropped). The [...]

Nation of convicts or second chances?

You know, some people really should learn to keep their mouths shut. But maybe Sheik Hilali isn’t capable of it. He went on Egyptian television, saying that Australian Muslims were more entitled to be in Australia than Anglo-Saxons because they hadn’t come here as convicts. This coming from the man who had previously compared immodestly [...]