Carnival of Podcasts

Arnold Kling Calls Advanced Placement Economics `Horrible'

High Wire: The Precarious Financial Lives of American Families

Hassett Says Media's Economic Coverage Favors Democrats

Phelps Says Rising Oil Prices May Discourage Production

Wieting Sees U.S. Corporate Profits Rising 5% Next Year


Private spooks
The use of private military companies is now widespread, but now there are also private intelligence organisations working closely with government. Business is booming and the worlds biggest private equity company, Carlyle, has just bought part of the big intelligence company, Booz Allen Hamilton

Counselor: A Life at the Edge of History

Banking on gas
Australia's sitting on some of the biggest natural gas fields in the world - and other energy-starved, ravenous nations are starting to bid for it. Australia will have to do some soul searching about how much we keep for ourselves and who to sell it to.

Slavery in Australia

The Economic and Strategic Rise of China and India: Asian Realignments after the 1997 Financial Crisis

Bill of Rights in Australia
Supporters of a Bill of Rights say all that is being proposed is a list of neutral rights to be interpreted by an impartial judiciary. However constitutional laywer Greg Craven argues that proponents of a Bill of Rights seek major social changes without consulting voters.

Understanding the Correlation between Oil Prices and the Falling Dollar- Brad Setser

Educating Talented Scientists for Africa

John Micklethwait: The Economist and globalisation
Globalisation has its many critics but John Micklethwait isn't one of them. He's the current editor of The Economist, the sixteenth since it was first published in 1843, and is one of the leading proponents on globalisation's positive impact and potential.

The story of Morgan Tsvangirai and the Movement for Democratic Change

Alcohol in Australia: a history of drinking


The Muslim Brotherhood of Egypt

Carrots and sticks
These days the carrot and stick approach can be applied to parenting or prison inmates or even employees, but its origins are, of course, in trying to get a horse or donkey to comply with human commands.
How sensible is that approach in the field of animal training today, given what we now know about the language, intelligence and social skills across various species? And does it depend on whether your training is intended to teach them to perform for humans, or to simply not urinate on the lounge?

Starved of science? Agriculture in Africa

The father of radio astronomy

Courage: Guts, grit, spine, heart, and verve.

Health controversies surrounding milk
A1 and A2 are names used to identify different proteins found in milk. the idea that A1 milk may be detrimental to health has been around for a while. Some suggest that there is a link between A1 milk consumption and Type 1 diabetes and some other illnesses. Professor Boyd Swinburn from the School of Health Sciences at Deakin University in Melbourne discusses his review into A1/A2 milk claims for the New Zealand Food Safety Authority.

'Good American Speech' comes from Melbourne
How an Australian invented 'Good American Speech' in the golden age of Hollywood. The historian Desley Deacon tells Jill Kitson about Australia's own Henry Higgins.

Who's a lesbian?
On the case heard last week, in a court in Athens, about the word 'lesbian', in which the plaintiffs are claiming that the prerogative to the term belongs to the inhabitants of the island of Lesbos. They are seeking for a ban to be placed on its use by the gay organisation, the Homosexual and Lesbian Community of Greece.

Burning books

Dan Ariely: Confronting Irrationality

Glenn Loury: The Missing Voice of Jeremiah

Queer Science
Simon LeVay, neuroscientist at the epicenter of the biological basis of homosexuality debate

Ice Sheets and Sea Level Rise: How Should IPCC Handle Deep Uncertainty?


The scientific basis for projections of climate change (in a nutshell)

Global Financial Regulation: The Essential Guide

Pop Finance

Why Civilisations Can't Climb Hills: a political history of statelessness in Southeast Asia

Fixing Failed States

Financial Market Stability

Skills, Rights and Resources in the East Asian Path to Development

Gene Epstein on Gold, the Fed, and Money

Don Boudreaux on Energy Prices