Painting Fakes

So, it seems that Scott Morrison is our new Prime Minister, less than a year out from the latest possible date from our next election.  This is hardly strange.  Each of our last four Prime Ministers has ascended to the post in exactly the same circumstances, unceremoniously booting their rival mid-term only to be booted just as unceremoniously some three years later.  The last PM not to lose their job this way, unless you count Kevin Rudd's mercifully brief second attempt at the role, was John Howard way back in 2007.  Old fashioned type that he is, he lost his job in the time-honoured manner by leading his party to a crushing election defeat and then retiring gracefully. In an immediate sense, each of these internal coups has been fuelled by dramas with opinion polls.  In each case, consistent polling over a number of months has shown that the government will lose power if it faces an election.  Mostly (especially with the switches to Rudd and Turnbul...

If you want a sympathetic, insiders introduction to Islam you could do a lot worse than Ed Husain's The House of Islam: A Global History. Husain is British-born of Bangladeshi parents, and grew up in East London.  After a youthful flirtation with Hizb ut-Tahrir and radical Islam, he returned to his parents' Sufi teachings and studied Islam in earnest, travelling to Turkey, Syria and Saudi Arabia to study under various Sufi divines and explore the origins of Islam.  In 2007 he co-founded the Quilliam Foundation , which describes itself as a counter-extremism foundation, and he also consults for the US-based Council of Foreign Relations.  In sum, he is a devout Muslim who is implacably opposed to extremism. In The House of Islam  he provides an inside look into the Islamic faith.  He aims to both enlighten Western readers as to what Islam should be about, and is about for the majority of Muslims, and to challenge the growing influence of Salafism in the Islami...