The launch of Shaun Tan’s graphic novel ‘The Arrival’ will be on Friday 10 November at the Perth Zoo at 6pm. Australian broadcaster and social commentator Phillip Adams will launch the book. Copies will be available for sale and signing by the author.
RSVP Essential. Please call the library on 9474 0800 or email library@southperth.wa.gov.au

The Squid has been pretty savage on the right wing of politics recently. Now it’s time to turn to the left. This post was inspired by an unlikely source — bear with me on this — a link from Making Light to a piece by Dean Baker on Prospect Online and from a comment listed [...]

Perhaps I know best why it is man alone who laughs; he alone suffers so deeply that he had to invent laughter.
And so, to my new favourite diversion, The Nietzsche Family Circus.

The fifth issue of Bruce Gillespie and Jan Stinson’s fanzine Steam Engine Time is now available in PDF at eFanzines.com.
Contents include James Doig’s article about famous Western Australian fan Roger Dard and his fights against Australian censorship; Gillian Polack and Harry Buerkett on Cordwainer Smith’s Norstrilia, Paul Kincaid’s in-depth analysis of Chris [...]

Ticonderoga Online is hosting a reader survey.
We want to know what you read.
We want to know what you think.
Unfortunately, they don’t have the budget to launch mind probes into the community, so a survey it must be. The purpose is to help small press reach out to readers more effectively. This is a Good Thing [...]

In her classic “The Origins of Totalitarianism”, Hannah Arendt notes that the brutal techniques of totalitarian governments often begin in overseas military adventures, in keeping conquered populations suppressed. The techniques and institutions (and personnel) that develop on the fringes of Empire are then brought home and unleashed on the domestic population. George Orwell described the [...]

Stephen Unwin (Wikipedia entry) is a physicist and mathematician, but he is most famous for his book The Probability of God, in which he uses Bayesian analysis to conclude that there is a 67% chance that God exists. Without going into great detail about Bayesian analysis, it would be fair to say that Unwin’s use [...]