There’s been lots of lively discussion on a range of topics during the week. I’m particularly pleased to see old posts like the one on economic rationalism being opened up to new debate.

Now it’s time for your comments on any topic (civilised discussion and no coarse language, please).

If I can overcome the jet lag that’s causing me to scramble names in my posts, and generally to operate in something of a fog, I’ll be back to normal blogging this week. To start the week off in the traditional fashion, it’s time for Monday Message Board, where you can post your comments on any topic (civilised discussion and no coarse language, please).

I’m on the move again, to Montreal, so I don’t know when I’ll next be able to post. In the meantime, there’s the home-made fun and entertainment of the Monday Message Board. Post your views on any topic (civilised discussion and no coarse language, please!).

Suggested discussion starter: Collective blogs – is the whole more than the sum of its parts?

I’m not sure if it’s time for Monday Message Board, as it’s still Sunday in Maryland. But I guess blogging has its own time, and this is an Australian blog. So open up with your comments on any topic (civilised discussion and no coarse language, please).

Roll up yet again for the Monday Message Board. All topics welcome, civilised discussion, no coarse language please.

Suggested discussion starter 1: Why do the great majority of visitors read blogs, but never comment?

Suggested discussion starter 2: What’s your favorite self-referential paradox?

Update Although others came close, Chris Sheil gets the prize for recognising the subtle link between my two topics. Anyone who comments on topic 1 instantly disqualifies themselves, since I want to find out what motivates non-commenters.

Further update Controversy rages in the comments thread, with some participants maintaining the c8to should have been given the prize, and others rejecting the identity politics inherent in my supposition that commenters are not qualified to comment on the motivations of noncommenters. All this makes James Russell’s head explode. Read, enjoy, and comment!

It’s time, once again, for the (original and best!) Monday Message Board, where you get to comment on any topic (civilised discussion and no coarse language please).

It’s time for the regular Monday Message Board when you have your chance to have your say on any topic whatsoever (as always, civilised discussion and no coarse language, please).

I’d be interested if any readers wanted to say something about where and why they read this blog.

It’s time for the regular Monday Message Board when you have your chance to have your say on any topic whatsoever (as always, civilised discussion and no coarse language, please).

Although I begged off this job in my birthday message, I’ll probably end up doing a “state of the blogosphere” piece before too long, so any suggestions/opinions/predictions of imminent collapse will be of particular interest to me. But, as always, anything goes!

Update I wasn’t sure if there would be much interest in the new GG. But judging from the Message Board there’s heaps, including Rob Corr’s brush with fame.

Drawn from life by Stella Bowen, kindly lent to me by reader and fellow-economist, Nick Gruen. Bowen was an Adelaide-born painter who, like most artistically inclined Australians before the election of the Whitlam government in 1972, left for Europe at the first opportunity and never returned. She took up with the American writer Ford Madox Ford and sacrificed her career to what she perceived to be his greater talent. I haven’t read any of Ford’s books, and I guess we can’t know what Bowen would have produced given a free run, so I’m not going to make a call on this for the moment.

Inevitably, I’m also reading Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. My son Daniel devoured it on the afternoon of its release and now I have to read it as well if I’m to remain au courant with the younger members of the literary world. As always, JK Rowling does an excellent job, and its a pleasant read, with the trend to ever-longer volumes seemingly having levelled out after The Goblet of Fire.

It’s time for your comments on all topics. As always, civilised discussion and no coarse language please.

I’d be interested on views about the way forward (if any) for Federal Labor.