You’ve no doubt seen the proposed question for the Australian cultural and ideological purity control test over the weekend: link here in case you haven’t.
Some of the questions are, as John Quiggan puts it, nothing but “Carmen Sandiego” questions like “Australia’s national flower is…”. It’s very hard to see what they have to do [...]

There’s nothing worse than waking up in the morning with no memory of the previous evening only to find you’ve founded an independent nation during a drunken rampage. Reading this NY Times book review I came across an interesting snippet – the founding fathers of the United States were actually motherless drunk when they [...]

This was in the Oz today: British teachers are allegedly avoiding teaching their students about the Holocaust and the Crusades because this might offend Muslim sensibilities:
These kids are told at home or by Muslim preachers that the Holocaust never happened. Teachers aren’t challenging that misinformation, they’re shutting up so as not to disturb a world [...]

You may have read the bizarre story about Chinese scientists developing radio-controlled pigeons by cracking open their skulls and jamming electrodes into them (horrifying picture here).
Related reading led me to this amazing/ridiculous story about a secret WWII project run by the United States to turn giant swarms of bats into a military superweapon by equipping [...]

I’ve always found it interesting that the United States plays baseball and gridiron whereas most of the rest of the world plays cricket and soccer. I had assumed (typical anti-Americanism, tut tut) that this was a reflection of some sort of pig-headed independent streak in the rebellious colony – that the Americans had rejected [...]

Comet C/2006 P1 (McNaught), captured over our city last night by a friend.
When beggars die there are no comets seen;
The heavens themselves blaze forth the death of princes.
Julius Caesar, Act II, scene ii
Seen a shooting star tonight
Slip away
Tomorrow will be another day
Guess it’s too late to say the things to you
That you needed to hear [...]