Hassett: "People are spending more on gas, but they're also spending more on everything else -- not just groceries, but restaurants and so on. I think that's a sign you see when people are optimistic about the future."

If there is a higher achievement of man than the kimchi toastie with cheese and Kewpie mayo, I actually don't want to know.

Poll not published (yet?) and reported in a weird scatter shot way that makes me question the key points. People have the shits with legacy parties? and default think their budgets are bad? Lol, Gen z not aware of the budget? None of this is surprising, and is being over interpreted here I think

I'm not sure people -- including people inside oil futures markets! -- really get it: this is all going to get much worse. If you won't listen to me, listen to f'ing Exxon!

As someone who tries to make it work repeatedly, no, AI does not do data entry well. It can help you with coding. *Help*. But if you can't tell from looking at it then it's no good. That means basically all research

Looking forward to palliative care to be honest

YIKES! NACC Commissioner Paul Brereton has resigned. www.nacc.gov.au/news-and-med...

Provided the party doesn't whip them like some do ahem, probably good?

Most Caribbean countries have restrictions on entry. Bahamas will only allow felons who have *completed* their sentences. A total of 38 countries will not allow felons to enter. #ProudBlue

ICYMI last month we did a quick @drilledmedia.bsky.social 3-episode miniseries on 200-ish years of fossil fascism, starting with this episode: open.spotify.com/episode/0md3...

Open the streets. Cars out

Colbert guest hosted a public access TV show in Monroe, Michigan a day after the Late Show ended. Guest star: Jeff Daniels Special appearance by: Eminem Musical director: Jack White Genius. youtu.be/jJTXB5uT_C4?...

Pakistan got almost all of its gas from Qatar. It is in the shit right now. But, they have built out solar so quickly in the last five years they pre war they actually wanted to use less gas but couldn't because of contracts. Pakistan is a cautionary tale of the highest order for LNG expansion.

Just discovered this album. Think max cooper and rival consoles with more squelch and wackiness. datacluster.bandcamp.com/album/coales...

What a fantastic off-the-cuff sermon from our funniest Catholic.

Bicycles are hugely space efficient, which is why they make a lot of sense in congested cities. This video demonstrates why there aren’t traffic jams in bike lanes. Just imagine the traffic queues if every bicycle here was a car.

We have *never* before seen consumer sentiment this low.

The demonstration saw dozens of distressed millionaires waving handmade signs reading “HOW MANY INVESTMENT PROPERTIES IS ENOUGH? LET THE MARKET DECIDE” and “FIRST THEY CAME FOR OUR DISCRETIONARY TRUSTS”. theshovel.com.au/2026/05/21/f...

UC Berkeley Law creates new AI policy that bans AI for "conceptualizing, outlining, drafting, revising, translating, or editing any work submitted for credit" or exams because "thinking remains the sine qua non of good lawyering (and of a quality legal education)." That's what I'm talking about.

Labour lost almost four times as many voters to the Greens as they did to Reform UK in the local elections, according to new YouGov polling

Underwritten by the Australian taxpayer. Meanwhile funding for electrification is cut back.

Some good news for once. Coal power went down globally by 0.6% last year. Decade high new installations in China, but actual generation went down, undercut by booming low cost renewables. www.carbonbrief.org/new-coal-pla...

After telling an Adelaide oil and gas conference "we need to get busy digging and drilling", Opposition Leader Angus Taylor bats away questions about the SA Liberal Party's resistance to fracking in the state's South East.

Albanese’s department among those blocking 80% of FoI requests, scathing report finds Report finds culture of ‘resistance and delay’ in the Australian parliament with more than 60% of requests having longer response times than mandated 30-day deadline www.theguardian.com/australia-ne...

The CGT shit is driving me nuts. The 'small business types' can't do maths, and the press won't call them out. 🧵

So apparently the actor who plays the Cyclops in Nolan's Odyssey has two eyes 😬

Kimchi toasties are a reason to live

China switched on the world’s largest open-sea offshore solar farm in late 2025. 2.3M panels. 2,934 steel platforms. Built offshore to survive force-11 gales & sea ice. Powers ~2.67M people. And yes… they’re farming fish underneath it too. Solar above. Food below. Fossils below both.

We will definitely get those subs from this country

*hammer to skull* This just proves we need more hammers

In 55 countries, wind and solar generated more electricity than coal in 2025. 34 of them have near-zero coal left. Spain crossed over in 2009. The UK in 2016. The USA last year. Different grids, different politics, same pattern. Want more of this? Sign up here janrosenow.substack.com

I'm not going to say it but I will nuke Iran

Australia, your Prime Minister has gone full gas shill. Here's the transcript...ON HIS OWN WEBSITE. www.pm.gov.au/media/radio-...

Just incredible

What does this even mean?? "I think it's extraordinary at at a time like this that the government has cut support for older Australians' private health insurance and yet there is welfare for Anglo-Australian citizens."

my favorite genre of international dialogue

In the world's biggest fossil fuel crisis, govts across Asia are responding by accelerating the transition. Our government gives multi billions to imported oil while cutting funding to electrification and increasing tax on renewables. Just crazy.

Old white bloke fact checks another older white bloke on gas tax. The PRRT is ramping up? lol wut.

Pocket as the place of financial impacts, even the hip pocket nerve "It comes as..." as a way of connecting two unrelated things

Extremely niche surfer take, but for Surfer Magazine to run an article about the coming El Niño that doesn't salivate over the potential for monster surf but instead focuses almost entirely on risk to human life feels like a significant inflection point.

Political journalism has so many strange turns of phrase Reports are handed down (from where?) Probes are launched (into where?) There is always pain at the "bowser", a term I think most Australians wouldn't recognise What are your favourite (most hated, most curious) examples?

Absolutely wild scoop: Australian gas company Santos demanded recipients of disaster funding help supply the company and the broader oil/gas industry with good PR in hilariously explicit terms Read the whole amazing story here: drilled.media/news/santos-...

Without freedom of information, government scandals would go unreported. Here's eight ways freedom of information law held governments to account in just the last two months: thepoint.com.au/explainers/2...

The budget contains no significant policy to move away from fossil fuel dependency. Between the lack of new support for electric transport and the apparent cut to DCCEEW, seems to be business as usual. Compare: the French announced €10bn euro a year to electrify the economy.

My friend who used to say the final stage of corporate greed was demanding to be loved is never, ever proved wrong.

I think budgets are mainly about the long news cycle and stakeholder management.

Catastrophically shit. I mean, they actually CUT funding for Electric Vehicles, and announced nothing new (a few sheckles aside). In the middle of a fuel crisis! Nothing to get off imported fuel!

My favourite part of every budget - and it will be in all of them, for ever. Chevron's carbon dumping project at Gorgon only got built because the commonwealth promised to write them a blank cheque if anything went wrong once they're done with it.

The 2026-27 Federal Budget has just been announced. And the gap between PRRT and beer excise is getting even bigger… The PRRT is broken – and it needs to be fixed. ✍️ Sign the petition calling for oil & gas multinational corporations to pay their fair share: https://theaus.in/48RnFvV

i think this budget kinda sucks to be honest, even the housing tax changes are mid, but good on Chalmers for serving the dumb political questions back with deft irony