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"Luke Ford reports all of the 'juicy' quotes, and has been doing it for years." (Marc B. Shapiro)
"This guy knows all the gossip, the ins and outs, the lashon hara of the Orthodox world. He’s an [expert] in... all the inner workings of the Orthodox world." (Rabbi Aaron Rakeffet-Rothkoff) LATEST POSTS:
- Robert Putnam: The Man Who Counted What America Lost
- W. Bradford Wilcox: The Sociologist Who Tells America to Get Married
- Peter Moskos: The Cop Who Talks to People
- Julius Krein
- Ryan Burge: The Numbers Man in the Empty Church
- Emily Oster: The Economist in the Delivery Room
- The Most Ridiculous Story Ever Told
- Tanner Greer
- Economist Tyler Cowen
- Richard Reeves: A Life in Institutions
- Jake Adelstein: The Reporter Who Became His Story
- Jim Goad (1961-2026)
- Moira Greyland
- Robert Oscar Lopez: The Inconvenient Witness
- Two Ledgers: Decoding the Gurus and the Price of Talk
- The Pervert’s Progress: Costin Vlad Alamariu and the Making of Bronze Age Pervert
- Curtis Yarvin: A Life Against Democracy
- Mark Helprin: Against the Current
- Mark Brandt: The Man Who Asked Who Else Is Prejudiced
- John T. Jost: The Psychologist of Acquiescence
BEST POSTS:
- * The Enlightenment Wasn’t Enlightened (6-23-26)
* Mr. Burge Draws The Line (6-23-26)
* 'Improving on Democracy' (6-17-26)
* People Leak To People Who Are Fun (6-11-26)
* Why Does Australia Produce So Many Great Journalists? (6-11-26)
* Steve Wynn and the Press: Power, Litigation, and the Contest Over Las Vegas (6-3-26)
* Sheldon Adelson and the Journalists (6-3-26)
* The Vigilant Animal: Thinkers Who Reject the Myth of Human Gullibility (6-2-26)
* The Cost of Refusing the Misunderstanding Myth (6-2-26)
* Show Me How It Travels (6-2-26)
* The Norm Explainers (6-2-26)
* Centering Marginalized Voices (6-1-26)
* What would it look like if the Washington Post put its reader first? (6-1-26)
* What would it look like if the Financial Times put its reader first? (6-1-26)
* What It Would Mean for the Los Angeles Times to Put the Reader First? (6-1-26)
* What It Would Mean for The New York Times to Put the Reader First? (6-1-26)
* Why Wembanyama Lives on the Perimeter (5-31-26)
* The Emotional Palettes Of San Diego, Los Angeles, San Francisco & Sacramento (5-27-26)
* The Administrative Capital: Sacramento Legal Culture (5-27-26)
* San Diego - The Quiet Republic (5-27-26)
* The Quiet Bar: San Diego Legal Culture (5-27-26)
* SF v LA Legal Culture (5-27-26)
* Why Talent Travels Poorly Between San Francisco and Los Angeles (5-27-26)
* San Francisco and Los Angeles as Rival Models of Urban Access (5-27-26)
* Social Cliques in New York, 2026 (5-25-26)
* Social Cliques in San Francisco, 2026 (5-25-26)
* The Rival Courts of Washington (5-25-26)
* The City of Private Rooms (5-25-26)
Category Archives: Australia
The Jurisdictional Wars Alliance Theory and the battle for authority at Crikey
Crikey journalists do not compete for authority by declaring a desire for power. They compete by invoking moral languages that frame their claims as independence from Australia’s concentrated media system, loyalty to exposing how power operates, and responsibility for saying … Continue reading
Posted in Australia, Journalism, Rupert Murdoch
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The Jurisdictional Wars Alliance Theory and the battle for authority at The Australian Newspaper
Journalists and editors at The Australian do not compete for authority by declaring a desire for power. They compete by invoking moral languages that frame their claims as fidelity to serious national journalism, loyalty to economic realism, or responsibility for … Continue reading
Posted in Australia, Journalism, Rupert Murdoch
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The Lucky Country and Its Benevolent Overseers: Safety, Paternalism, and the Australian Difference
Australia banned social media for children under sixteen on December 10, 2025, becoming the first country in the world to enforce a nationwide restriction of this scope. Within a month, 4.7 million accounts had been deactivated or restricted. The communications … Continue reading
The Skittle Boy Problem: Weber, Bureaucracy, and the Crisis of Liberal Democracy
Max Weber never intended his analysis of the 1905 Russian crisis to serve as a forecast. He thought he was describing a limiting case, a political situation so extreme that it clarified the general mechanics of bureaucratic power in ways … Continue reading
The Jurisdictional Wars: Alliance Theory and the Battle for Australia’s Master Institutions
Australia’s high-status actors do not compete for power by openly claiming it. They compete by invoking moral languages that frame their authority as practical, responsible, and necessary for stability and prosperity. This is the core insight of David Pinsof‘s Alliance … Continue reading
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Australia’s Fuel Crisis
Australia’s fuel crisis looks, from the outside, like a logistics story. Ships are arriving, contracts are honored, the minister is calm. But the real story sits one layer down, where the architecture of a system built for stable times meets … Continue reading
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Australia Is The Most Vulnerable Developed Nation In The World To A Fuel Cutoff
Australia exports coal, liquefied natural gas, and raw materials in quantities that make it one of the world’s significant energy producers. The public largely assumes this means the country is energy secure. The assumption is wrong. Australia imports roughly 80 … Continue reading
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Australia may be the most fuel-import dependent advanced economy in the world
Australia is unusually dependent on imported fuel for a rich country. The vulnerability comes from three layers. First, import dependence. Australia imports roughly: 70 to 80 percent of its refined petroleum products almost all of its jet fuel most of … Continue reading
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SMH: Trump officials ‘asked why Australian Jews aren’t carrying guns’
Viewed through Alliance Theory, this story is about competing security cultures and alliance expectations between three different coalitions. The question from Trump officials, why aren’t Australian Jews carrying guns, reflects the American minority self defense model where minority communities have … Continue reading
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Decoding Australian Shock Jock Kyle Sandilands
Kyle Sandilands became Australia’s biggest shock jock because he mastered three things at once. Outrage, intimacy, and ratings discipline. Sandilands sounds unscripted in a medium that is usually tightly scripted. He swears, interrupts guests, insults callers, and says things most … Continue reading
Posted in Australia, Kyle Sandilands, Radio
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