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Bushfire Bill joins The Political Sword as a guest contributor

First, welcome to The Political Sword 2010 at the beginning of an election year that promises to be even more frenetic than the last. 

During January, while Ad astra takes a break, Bushfire Bill, who has made many penetrating and witty contributions to this and other political blogs, will be a guest contributor to The Political Sword. 

His contributions begin next week.  Watch for them.

Time to say goodbye

To me, Ad Astra, “Time to say goodbye” are among the saddest words in our language. Yet say them now we must. I chose Ad Astra as my moniker because my secondary school’s motto is ‘sic itur ad astra’, which can be liberally interpreted as: “Here is the way to the stars”. How inspiring these word...

  • 19/12/2022

Have we got a deal for you

There is a conspiracy theory that suggests that birds (in the USA at least) aren’t real. The claim is that all the birds in the USA were hunted down by the government between the late 50’s and early 70s and replaced with bird like drones to spy on you. According to the theory President John F. Kenne...

  • 12/12/2022

Get out of the gutter

You may not have heard of Mike Rinder. A Scientologist for most of his life, at the age of 52 he walked out, and as a result lost his family, friends, employment and pretty well everything else in his life. RInder has written a book on his time in Scientology, runs a website that questions Scientolo...

  • 5/12/2022

Was Amtrak Joe derailed?

Prior to becoming President, Joe Biden was a US Senator for around 36 years. He is known as Amtrak Joe as he routinely took the daily 90 minute each way train trip (on the USA’s national passenger train network — Amtrak) from his home in Delaware to Washington DC to represent his state. If you liste...

  • 28/11/2022

If employers can measure well-being...

Last September, you might have seen Qantas CEO Alan Joyce received a pay increase of $278,000 per annum. It seems that Joyce has met or exceeded the performance goals set by his employers and contractually has earned the reward. It does, however, raise a larger question. Joyce's pay increase for t...

  • 21/11/2022

Coming back to haunt you

In his recent Budget reply speech, Opposition Leader Peter Dutton laboured (pun intended) on the increasingly difficult to achieve promise by Prime Minister Albanese that power bills will be $275 less in 2025. While the government is claiming the modelling done in 2021 supports the accuracy of the p...

  • 14/11/2022

The good economic units

Wellbeing and politics have collided in the past couple of weeks. Federal Treasurer Dr Jim Chalmers has started a conversation about measuring the ‘wellbeing’ of the nation as a result of the measures in the budget. The Opposition, as you would expect, has poured scorn on the idea. On a purely lo...

  • 7/11/2022

Do you want to smile or frown

Recently, in what could be described as an epic fail in recruiting practices, the Essendon Football Club hired and accepted the resignation of the same CEO within a day. The issue was that the CEO was also the Chairman of ‘City on the Hill’, a church that seems to promote some conservative views on ...

  • 2/11/2022

We can do it better

It was probably co-incidental that the Australian Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) was held in Sydney around the time the NRL and AFL finals were occurring. CPAC originally advertised the conference would be at Luna Park — until Luna Park claimed they had never had a booking. The Conf...

  • 24/10/2022

The voice

Foreign Affairs Minister Penny Wong recently addressed the United Nations General Assembly in New York. Accompanying Wong on the trip was Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen and ‘Special Envoy for Reconciliation’ Pat Dodson. Wong told the General Assembly that Australia believed the UN an...

  • 17/10/2022

Kicking climate down the road

You’re probably aware of some who don't see the need to reduce emissions. They have a lot of different reasons or excuses for the position, including the current systems have served us well in the past, we’re only a small population so our changes won’t mean much or just a general reluctance to cons...

  • 10/10/2022

A home amongst the gumtrees

A local real estate agent rings me every couple of months asking if I am willing to sell my house. So far he's tried the 'look how much you could get' strategy, 'the market is moving, you don’t want to miss out’ strategy and telling me he could help me buy another house if I did sell; to which my re...

  • 3/10/2022

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9 COMMENTS

Sir Ian Crisp

8/01/2010Perhaps Bushfire Bill’s first ‘contribution’ should be his (or her) full and frank explanation as to why a people smuggler like Abraham Lauhenapessy is welcome in Australia. BB describes Lauhenapessy and his cohorts as ‘resourceful people’ (TPS, Oct 16th, 2009). I would’ve thought that Lauhenapessy and his gang might fail the character test. I wonder if BB thinks it prudent to flood the country with other undesirables like Pol Pot, General Pinochet, and GW Bush?

Bushfire Bill

8/01/2010Nothing so blunt as that, Sir Eric. I'm thinking more along the lines of the epistomological significance of hierarchical guarantees in politics, with particular attention drawn to the role of stakeholder and/or doppelganger dialectic in the iterative and post-iterative processes of evanescent relevance (of which you are not). Should be a ball-tearer.

Ebenezer

9/01/2010I have no idea what you just said BB, but Fu(k it sounds impressive, can't wait. Welcome back all to the new year. Cheers Eb. :)

BH

9/01/2010I second Eb. Sounds as tho BB is going to make Sir Ian think before he writes. Onya BB

janice

11/01/2010LOL Bushfire Bill - hopefully SIC will enjoy your lesson in philosophical thinking and analysis. Looking forward to reading your first contribution as 'guest contributor'.

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11/01/2010This seems like the most comprehensive blog on this niche Regards Romero

Colen

11/01/2010Poor "Old" BB. "Common" sense and "Plainspeak" no longer part of his repertoire. He has been afflicted by the Rudd Syndrome. Colen

lyn1

14/01/2010Hi Bushfire Bill Happy New Year. Anxiously looking forward to your first column, I am sure will be quality reading. Thankyou Ad for inviting Bushfire Bill to write for us while you are away. Happy New Year Ad.

Sir Ian Crisp

17/01/2010Given the latest developments surrounding the cargo onboard the Oceanic Viking it might be best if AA invited Wilson Tuckey to write the next comment piece. It was Tuckey who said we should remain circumspect when dealing with alleged refugees and asylum seekers. Tuckey has 100% more credibility than BB who said those onboard the Oceanic Viking were ‘resourceful people’ (TPS, Oct 16th, 2009). Just what makes people smugglers and those ASIO considers a security threat ‘resourceful people’ is something which exercises the mind. I’d be very troubled if a loudmouth like Tuckey had more respect than me.

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