By the time Australia reaches the magic 80 per cent vaccine level, circumstances will have changed and new variants will be upon us. What is most unlikely to change is the monumental uncertainty surrounding this ever-mutating virus, doubts about the effectiveness of vaccines and, the most static element of them all, the failed template of endless lockdowns and restrictions

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The officially endorsed mutilation of long dead premier William Crowther's statue in Hobart's Franklin Square is typical of so many substandard cultural bureaucracies wishing to demonstrate their 'with it' relevance. What the likes of Hobart Mayor Anna Reynolds actually put on display in endorsing such vandalism is the disgrace of their windvane philistinism

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Among the many riddles of the virus, starting with the circumstances of its creation in Wuhan, we can only wonder at the especially baffling TGA edict banning ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine. A pharmacologist involved in drug development, clinical trials and drug registration for 40 years addresses those mysteries and much, much more

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As a body of opinion long grown accustomed to losing, Australian conservatives need reminding the point of a culture war is to win it, not to be regarded as a jolly good sport for surrendering so much ground so meekly. Sure, opposing Critical Race Theory in schools is a positive, but until we see colonised institutions reclaimed such efforts are all for nought

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Child abuse put Ballarat on the world map for a time, and child abuse, if that city’s civic art gallery’s best efforts succeed, is going to put it back. Why let the Ballarat 'brand' drift away on the tide of fading memory when there are grants and taxpayer dollars aplenty for an exhibition of anti-Catholic spleen?

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Chief medical officers have become the fonts of all wisdom and knowledge, gurus whose dictates our elected representatives insist must be accepted without question. Politically, it's a neat trick to offload responsibility with a shrug and variations on 'we heed the experts'. Practically, that refusal to lead has fostered a multi-faceted disaster for which no end is in sight

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It’s vital to understand that a virus doesn't shift its genetic makeup to avoid our immune system, knowingly target specific suburbs or particular ethnicities. It’s all evolution, you see, with natural selection to the fore. But hang on: if the fully vaccinated are coming down with COVID, what does that say about the level of resistance this virus has achieved?

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The West's withdrawal from Afghanistan, leaving Kabul open for a resurgent Taliban to take charge, can be viewed as a defeat. Or, as Machiavelli would have regarded it, a retreat that will free a bloody and uncompromising brand of Islam to turn its attention to sowing trouble for Russia in the weak, Muslim-majority buffer states to the north

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The news that COVID has claimed a life in Sydney is big news at the moment, and thus does the madness escalate. The fact that the unfortunate lady was in her 90s gets scant mention amid the bedlam of urgings and demands that the public roll up its collective sleeve. Me? My shirt cuffs are staying buttoned

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The awards system the Navy endured in World War II, with all decorations needing to be approved by Britain's Admiralty, is one of the most unfair ever perpetrated on Australian military personnel. It is well past time the men who sacrificed there all are officially recognised

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