![Illustration: John Shakespeare](/web/20160809151335im_/http://www.theage.com.au/content/dam/images/g/q/n/n/c/7/image.related.landscape.620x413.gqntu7.11nnj4.png/1470686095117.jpg)
LATEST COMMENT
The secret to success successful people don't like to admit
![You'd be surprised how many winners got a lucky break.](/web/20160809151335im_/http://www.theage.com.au/content/dam/images/g/q/k/v/m/i/image.related.landscape.120x80.gqo6un.png/1470747661151.jpg)
Luck plays such an important role in success, why do the successful so often want to deny it?
Crossing removals are the best entertainment in town
![Fifty level crossings are being removed across Melbourne.](/web/20160809151335im_/http://www.theage.com.au/content/dam/images/g/p/0/2/i/k/image.related.landscape.120x80.gqo80f.png/1470746888435.jpg)
Nearly everybody loves a construction site.
Trump, Clinton proof we cannot become a republic
![US presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.](/web/20160809151335im_/http://www.theage.com.au/content/dam/images/g/q/m/g/3/r/image.related.landscape.120x80.gqoszm.png/1470747745872.jpg)
The vocal republican activists in Australia have become unusually quiet of late. Could it possibly be out of embarrassment at what is going on in the US? Most certainly so.
Why democracy won in the Senate, whoever you support
![Some of your new Senators: Pauline Hanson and Malcolm Roberts.](/web/20160809151335im_/http://www.theage.com.au/content/dam/images/g/q/n/9/p/x/image.related.landscape.120x80.gqobfc.png/1470753299689.jpg)
Malcolm Turnbull likes to quote a John Howard maxim: that politics is relentlessly driven by the laws of arithmetic. It's usually pretty hard to argue with, given the relentlessly faithless way parliamentarians tend to respond to bad polling data.
The hashtag that turned the media's cheap shot into an act of love
![The father who was the centre of Gina Williams' world until she was 12.](/web/20160809151335im_/http://www.theage.com.au/content/dam/images/g/q/o/e/0/0/image.related.landscape.120x80.gqo9uv.png/1470753684398.jpg)
Noongar woman Gina Williams was one of the first to take up the viral #indigenousdads campaign on Twitter. Here's why she did.
Finding a better way to treat drug addiction than by jailing people
![<i></i>](/web/20160809151335im_/http://www.theage.com.au/content/dam/images/g/o/7/p/9/o/image.related.landscape.120x80.gqoef5.png/1470725980086.jpg)
Australia could learn a lot from the fact that a number of American cities are successfully reducing the role of criminalisation in their drug policies.
Slower - drunker - fatter - stupider: how to survive the City2Surf
![You too can be a finely turned athlete like Alan Stokes, pictured here in his fitter, more hirsute days.](/web/20160809151335im_/http://www.theage.com.au/content/dam/images/g/q/o/3/3/b/image.related.landscape.120x80.gqo2uj.png/1470721349385.jpg)
We need to sculpt ourselves. Forget Fat Bastard and sumo wrestlers; we can be even sexier.
The Bachelor isn't as stupid as it looks
![Bachelor Richie Strahan with a few of his leading ladies, women incited to judge each other and succumb to their worst ...](/web/20160809151335im_/http://www.theage.com.au/content/dam/images/g/q/k/d/8/z/image.related.landscape.120x80.gqocnf.png/1470721063304.jpg)
Maybe The Bachelor really is the perfect way to find Happily Ever After.
Pause and take part in tonight's snapshot
![What do I need to know about the census?](/web/20160809151335im_/http://www.theage.com.au/content/dam/images/g/q/k/k/y/5/image.related.landscape.120x80.gqocuy.png/1470750211178.jpg)
The data you give tonight is your chance to shape the best possible future for you, your family, your friends and your community.
In the Herald: August 10, 1974
![In the <i>Herald</i> August 10, 1974.](/web/20160809151335im_/http://www.theage.com.au/content/dam/images/g/q/e/x/9/x/image.related.landscape.120x80.gqo40p.png/1470714846280.jpg)
Richard Nixon bows out.
Trying to make sense of the census
![If I fill in my census form with all the detailed information required – including my name and my address – will it be safe?](/web/20160809151335im_/http://www.theage.com.au/content/dam/images/g/q/n/g/p/y/image.related.landscape.120x80.gqnj9q.png/1470738150524.jpg)
"Please advise. Should I fill out my religion accurately on my census form & then forever fear what happened to my grandparents? #CensusFail"
They've taken fun out of the census
![The biggest dilemma on census night used to be deciding whether to be a Frisbeetarian or a Jedi Knight.](/web/20160809151335im_/http://www.theage.com.au/content/dam/images/g/k/6/4/8/r/image.related.landscape.120x80.gqo0ks.png/1470696655014.jpg)
Thanks Australian Bureau of Statistics, you've ruined everything.
China the regional bully punishes defiance in Asia-Pacific
![Illustration: John Shakespeare](/web/20160809151335im_/http://www.theage.com.au/content/dam/images/g/q/n/n/c/7/image.related.landscape.120x80.gqntu7.png/1470686094749.jpg)
North Korea is a deeply troubling rogue state, but we already knew that. The new and disturbing source of regional bullying is a much bigger and more serious power - China.
So many photos that we don't bother to look at them anymore
![Remember the family photo?](/web/20160809151335im_/http://www.theage.com.au/content/dam/images/g/q/n/n/1/u/image.related.landscape.120x80.gqnbcz.png/1470656407656.jpg)
PHOTOS:
Trump's 'say something crazy' strategy is wearing out
![Donald Trump's free-media strategy is shaping up to be a disaster in the general election.](/web/20160809151335im_/http://www.theage.com.au/content/dam/images/g/q/m/g/0/v/image.related.landscape.120x80.gqne6q.png/1470645131960.jpg)
With the conventions over and the general election now in full swing, Trump's free-media strategy has transformed from asset to albatross.
Turning up the heat on youth detention
![Youths being isolated and strapped to mechanical chairs and six boys being tear-gassed at the Don Dale Youth Detention ...](/web/20160809151335im_/http://www.theage.com.au/content/dam/images/g/q/i/9/i/0/image.related.landscape.120x80.gqnqe0.png/1470638730939.jpg)
The controversy surrounding the Northern Territory's Don Dale Detention Centre reminds me of the frog in the saucepan story, the one that compares what happens to the frog when the water in the saucepan is left to slowly simmer with what happens when the heat is suddenly turned up high.
Stories from a long-ago war
![Grave stones of soldiers killed in the Battle of Somme at the Pozieres Memorial.](/web/20160809151335im_/http://www.theage.com.au/content/dam/images/g/q/7/3/2/w/image.related.landscape.120x80.gqng3t.png/1470633001825.jpg)
Declaring war has become far too important to be left to politicians.
Which fake issue will the new parliament focus on first?
![Malcolm Roberts: "I also want a Royal Commission into the awesomeness of my finger guns. Pew pew!"](/web/20160809151335im_/http://www.theage.com.au/content/dam/images/g/q/l/5/r/y/image.related.landscape.120x80.gqngd7.png/1470630517052.jpg)
Which is the Australian parliament's most misleading new policy?
Why I won't be filling in the census
![What do I need to know about the census?](/web/20160809151335im_/http://www.theage.com.au/content/dam/images/g/q/k/k/y/5/image.related.landscape.120x80.gqnapp.png/1470750211178.jpg)
There are those who say that we shouldn't boycott the Census because it is too important. To them I say: bollocks.
Five reasons Suicide Squad did so well ... for a film with terrible reviews
![Margot Robbie as Harley Quinn in <i>Suicide Squad</i>.](/web/20160809151335im_/http://www.theage.com.au/content/dam/images/g/q/k/r/u/m/image.related.landscape.120x80.gqnbj1.png/1470650741495.jpg)
Backed by a meticulously executed marketing campaign, "Suicide Squad" pushed through abysmal reviews to set box office records for Warner Bros. over the weekend.
Why we don't need a royal commission into banks
![ANZ, Westpac and now National Australia Bank are all caught up in the ASIC's "rate-rigging" investigations. What about ...](/web/20160809151335im_/http://www.theage.com.au/content/dam/images/g/n/u/9/o/6/image.related.landscape.120x80.gqnfe5.png/1470624513194.jpg)
Labor's demand for a royal commission into banks is a popular call. But what does Labor actually want to achieve with a royal commission? What is the problem it is supposed to fix?
America's first Olympian to compete in a hijab
![Fighting fit: United States fencer Ibtihaj Muhammad.](/web/20160809151335im_/http://www.theage.com.au/content/dam/images/g/q/n/d/7/o/image.related.landscape.120x80.gqnbdr.png/1470623201475.jpg)
Muhammad takes the traditional stereotypes of Muslim women and slashes them to bits.
Why less sex for millennials is good thing
![Unleashed and undressed: many undergo a sexual awakening at university.](/web/20160809151335im_/http://www.theage.com.au/content/dam/images/1/2/l/u/8/2/image.related.landscape.120x80.gqna2q.png/1470619383364.jpg)
Older generations always seem to fret about the sexual behaviour and romantic lives of the younger crowd. In the 1920s, there was alarm when boys stopped visiting in the parlour and started driving girls around in what one newspaper called "a house of prostitution on wheels." This worry paled in comparison to the panic evoked by the rowdy sexual revolution that began in the late 1960s.
Bail bunkum: Why does Evil 8 child sex abuser walk our streets?
![Confessed child abusers should not be granted bail.](/web/20160809151335im_/http://www.theage.com.au/content/dam/images/z/q/y/p/y/image.related.landscape.120x80.gqmyee.png/1470613790216.jpg)
Some column topics are too important not to be re-visited and should jog the public's conscience to try and ensure that that history hopefully does not ever get a chance to repeat itself.
Is One Nation merely a one state party?
![Pauline Hanson's One Nation holds four seats in the new Senate, including two from Queensland.](/web/20160809151335im_/http://www.theage.com.au/content/dam/images/g/p/z/8/1/w/image.related.landscape.120x80.gqn1ru.png/1470646215831.jpg)
Senator-elect arrived with a bang and a puff of smoke.