I have a piece coming up on Quadrant Online about hate speech, free speech and Islam (now up). Henry Ergas covered a similar theme in Friday’s Australian newspaper under the heading of “Hate Speech underlines how Islam has changed.” Surprise-surprise, his is more erudite. On the other hand, mine is understandable by the common man…

RUPERT DARWALL ON THE BRITISH EXPERIENCE Offshore wind was never going to happen here due to the real cost and also the wind droughts at sea demonstrated by King Island which still draws half its power from diesel despite megabucks spent on wind, solar and batteries.

History has seen many countries and geographical areas divided by partition. In Europe, two recent examples are Belgian and Luxembourg. Both countries were established by partitioning off southern parts of the kingdom of the Netherlands in the 1800s. Historical and present-day geographical partitions are usually due to existing ethnic, religious, cultural and language divisions and…

You may have seen the 1996 movie Ransom starring Mel Gibson playing Tom Mullen. Tom’s son is kidnapped and suspecting that even if he pays the ransom his son will be killed he gives the kidnappers two options. Return his son and that will be the end of the matter. Alternatively, if his son is…