Welcome to 2026. (BTW, the Nazis are rallying & marching under the banner of 'March For Australia' on January 26.) www.youtube.com/watch?v=zvgZ...

Renee Nicole Good is ALL OF US open.substack.com/pub/contrari...

Windmills have been around for centuries - remarkable ignorance

And it really is a basket case industry. Investors will run a mile from any oil company who tries to get Venezuela's rusty oil infrastructure going again

"Why do the Israelis hurt olive trees?" There's nothing remotely 'complex' about the Palestine/Israel situation. It's straight-up colonialism, land theft, ethnic cleansing, and now genocide of the indigenous inhabitants: the Palestinians. This powerfully written piece captures the essence.

Weekly Roundup: Jan. 9 open.substack.com/pub/publicwi...

The Cowardice of Mark Zuckerberg open.substack.com/pub/thebulwa...

Israel unleashes wave of deadly attacks in Gaza; Border Patrol shoots married couple in Portland; Senate votes to limit Trump on Venezuela open.substack.com/pub/dropsite...

Fighting Breaks Out in Aleppo, Pushing Syria Back to the Brink open.substack.com/pub/dropsite...

We Have the King That Thomas Paine Feared open.substack.com/pub/thebulwa...

ICE Is America's Gun and We Are Occupied open.substack.com/pub/ahmadibs...

The Distance Between Renee Good and Ashli Babbitt Is Fascism open.substack.com/pub/thebulwa...

Stephen Colbert on the ICE murder of Renee Nicole Good: “The message from this administration is clear. Only they determine the truth. And when their forces come to your city: obey or die. And if you die, you clearly didn’t obey. This should be an alarm bell for the entire country.”

‘Toughest conditions imaginable’: Victorians urged to shelter inside from heatwave as tropical cyclone heads for Queensland www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Total fire ban in the ACT, 40km wind gusts, top temperature 37 degrees, State of emergency in Victoria, blessings on all the emergency service workers & firefighters, hope you all return home safely

Trump's Lies Are Killing Us: The Deadly Consequences of Big and Little Lies Everywhere open.substack.com/pub/robertpj...

Looking forward to the 2026 Adelaide Writers Hour

If we are to make Australia a safe place to live in freedom and safety, we must be very careful about what freedoms we remove in pursuit of safety. History suggests removing the right of diverse voices to be heard does little to ensure safety or freedom of any of us. thepoint.com.au/opinions/260...

Not apocalyptic looking at all

Scores of fires, many that are huge, spanning the state of Victoria. Thank you to all the firefighters, you are heroes! No thanks to politicians that continue to ignore scientists & our evidence-based & urgent warnings about climate change, placing the lives of humans & others species at risk.

3/ I don't give plaudits lightly, BTW, but it's actually quite an extraordinary achievement by the Board. Has any literary festival imploded in such a short space of time on the basis of such spurious reasoning? This is such a world-class PR disaster for Adelaide, it deserves an award, surely.

Thredbo is a town in Australia's Alps. Australia's current bushfires are destroying dozens of homes, fires so intense that they are generating their own weather systems. The heatwave across the country has temperatures in the mid to high 40s. So brutal.

“ICE is a federal agency shaped by white nationalist thinking, built to police brown bodies, and shielded from accountability.” Chris Scott, Mennonite Pastor

Thredbo.

I hope we're all learning lessons about the politics of enforcing cultural sensitivity now that it's being weaponised against the left and people who say 'genocide is actually bad'. Free speech matters people, even when it's uncomfortable <insert the ghost of Voltaire etc>. Contestation is human

2/ ‪'How To Destroy A Writers' Festival In 24 Hours Or Less' by Tracey Whiting, Alison Beare, Leesa Chesser, Mary Couros, Brenton Cox, Nicholas Linke, Daniela Ritorto, Donny Walford & Jennifer Fuller (Adelaide Festival Corporation Board Press, 2026).

Kathy Lette's out?! The Adelaide Festival Writers' Week is no more! It has ceased to be! It's expired & gone to meet its maker! It's a stiff! Bereft of life, it rests in peace! If Malinauskas hadn't nailed it in the press it'd be pushing up the daisies. Its literary processes are now history! It's

Unusual conditions for a La Nina.. And in case it needs to be said: “Global warming means all our heatwaves and associated fire weather are made at least 1–2C hotter than they would have been due to the higher background temperature” www.afr.com/policy/energ...

January 8, 2026 open.substack.com/pub/heatherc...

Hope someone will make a submission to the Royal commission with Adelaide Writer's Festival as a case study - currently thinking about what needs to be said to make sense of the cliche of "social cohesion" & prevent it becoming a too to enforce intellectual conformity

"South Australian independent publisher Pink Shorts Press said there has been “a lot of interest” from writers and stakeholders to organise a guerrilla festival or protest event after numerous writers announced a boycott of Adelaide Writers’ Week" www.indailysa.com.au/news/just-in...

'Premier Peter Malinauskas has backed the board’s decision and told ABC Radio Adelaide on Friday it was “for some good reason” that Abdel-Fattah be removed.' Good point & well-argued, Mr Malinauskas: I look fwd to its elaboration in yr next academic treatise. www.indailysa.com.au/news/just-in...

If you object to ICE, you’re the enemy. Read the details of the Stephen Miller interview you may have missed earlier this week. They’re important. open.substack.com/pub/joycevan...

About three miles from where Renee Nicole Good was shot and killed Wednesday by a federal agent, the Minnesota Timberwolves held a moment of silence for the woman before Thursday’s game against the Cavs. Full story: www.nytimes.com/athletic/695...

100%. We’ve seen the dossiers on individual targets that get compiled and sent to institutions in coordinated assaults. They’re incredibly detailed. The intended effect is overwhelm, and most institutions are not equipped to understand or resist it.

ICE activity is no longer about immigration law enforcement, if it ever was. ICE is about harassing and terrorizing blue states and cities. It is about racism & xenophobia. In my state of MN, the rampant ICE terrorism is about Trump’s hate for Gov. Walz and the Somali community. #FDJT

We know climate change drives heatwaves, and we know we will see more of them in the future. Reaching net zero emissions – whenever that might be – would offer some hope. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

There are some apocalyptic photos coming out of Victoria right now. All good wishes to anyone affected by these fires. www.abc.net.au/news/2026-01...

"But what is clear is that the Board and the Premier both believe adults in Adelaide can’t be trusted to decide for themselves whether to wander over to hear the thoughts of an Australian academic of Palestinian origin, or whether to wander somewhere else."

Some of the new friends made this week

The world is a fiery mess, and my heart breaks But my partner & I spent much of this week deeply immersed in nature, making friends furry, scaley & leafy, skinny dipping in rivers & bays & ocean, and the grief subsides. If more of us got our kit off and jumped in the water, the world would improve

"The Australia Institute’s decision to withdraw its involvement in, and sponsorship of, Adelaide Writers’ Week was easy to make but raises difficult questions", writes Dr Richard Denniss in The Point. Read the full piece here: thepoint.com.au/opinions/260...

Question for legal minds...if ICE agents refuse to provide identification, doesn't that make it legal for citizens to act out in defense? We dont know who they really are. They refuse to provide identification. Fighting back seems beyond legal to me.

2/ Maybe, having successfully dispensed with the services of some obviously troublesome (& uppity) writers, the Board could sit around a (medium-sized) table & regale the public with some creative tales of their own: on the themes of Cultural Sensitivity, Public Relations, & The Yartz in general?

Definite End of the World vibes here. dark clouds, ravens and hawks weaving above us, weird swirling gusty wind. going to be a long night.

Reviving memories of the 2009 fires www.theguardian.com/australia-ne...