Another antipodean philosopher's blog

Note the careful ambiguity there: this is not a blog of another antipodean philosopher, but another blog of this antipodean philosopher. The ins and outs of Australian politics and policies are not of interest to much more than 0.3% of the world, so my asseverations are even less interesting to you all. Hence I have started an intermittent blog, The Drought Resistant Philosopher, wherein I will whine (or as we say here, whinge) about the latest stupidity from our representatives and public service, and so on. All ISP filtering posts will go there from now on.

No more mister nice silverback. I even have an ugly photo of me as I am (or was a while back): no mercy at all!

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Damn it's hot. Around here, snow is at a premium, which means our solstitial celebrations are less active than those oop north. Anyway, I got interviewed last night on national radio, the ABC's National Evening show, talking about the early ideas of philosophy to presenter Rhys Muldoon. Nice fellow…
Or, "philosophy advances one funeral at a time"? Oddly, no-one has ever said that (<checks Google> - no, I'm right: no-one ever has) because of course it doesn't fit. Philosophy isn't like science, with clear progress that rather leaves the Emeritus behind it3. DP says otherwise in his…
I've been spending a lot of time with family and friends lately, something I don't often get the chance to do. And while I'm not happy about the reason for it, I'm still thankful for all the friends I sometimes forget I have. One thing I found out from many of my friends is that if I post a…
In which we look back on the ninth full year of this blog, and one of the most unpleasant incidents in the whole run, which nearly ruined what was otherwise a good year. ------------ This is probably going to be the longest of these posts, at least in terms of the number of links included-- I've…

So I now have to read two blogs to soak up all that Wilkins goodness?

Only if you care about Australian stuff, and what I have to say about it. But (and here's a Blogger advantage over Scienceblogs) I have put a feed widget there with the last post, so you can see this blog from that point.

I sort of liked seeing those posts here. It does us provincial types good to see that there are actually other parts of the world where politics happens. And that people there care about their own local politics more than they care about ours.

Plus, it's good for morale to see that we're not the only ones with some real morons in government.

I will quite happily admit to having been an information junkie all of my life, its probably why I ended up being a historian, and whilst I was originally lured to this antipodean den of sin and iniquity by a posting on the history of science I love the tit-bits that we get served up on Aussie culture and politics. I find it particularly stimulating when that band of international desperadoes who hang around in your comments column chime in with comparisons of the situation in Canada, Britain, Germany, Patagonia or Outer Mongolia; it's much more stimulating than reading the newspaper or watching the nine o'clock news. Please reconsider your decision and give us back our window on Van Diemen's Land.

I'll second (or third or whatever) the non-bored non-Aussie sentiment -- hell, I read American polly-blogs like Brayton, too! The shenanigans of venal politicians, aided and abetted by sundry religious bullies (and vice versa) is an affliction of all Western society to some extent, and I like to keep abreast of it wherever it occurs. But that's OK: adding one more entry to the RSS subs is a trivial exercise, thus "one more blog to read" is not meaningfully a burden.

I agree with Mike. Coming to this blog for some hardcore philosophy and reading about Australian politics instead was like those days back in elementary school when you grudgingly made it to class that day just to happily learn that the teacher was sick and you could run around the classroom at will.

Now this what Australian philosophy ought to be like: lean, tanned, blunt, no-nonsense Bruce-ism with lashings of sheep-dip.

By Ian H Spedding FCD (not verified) on 04 Dec 2008 #permalink