I mean, besides politics and big tech, but yes. "There's no other sector in the country where failure is rewarded so handsomely and with so little scrutiny." www.abc.net.au/news/2025-09...

So, THIS is happening "Rewild the Internet: How to Resist Big Tech" will be published by Simon & Schuster in NY and Bloomsbury in London. Every bit of power we take from Big Tech takes it away from autocrats like Trump. Showing how is what I'm doing to meet this moment. (tk u @robin.berjon.com)

I find this extremely chilling: I spoke w a reporter this morning about Kimmel. (Reporter was / is great) They got back to me a short while ago to say they sought White House comment & WH demands to know first which experts they spoke with. I told reporter I'm happy to be quoted IN THE STORY but 1/x

generally speaking, and with the glaring exception of november 2024, the more directly democratic an institution has been, the better it has checked Trump (eg grand and petit juries); the more elite and insular, the less effective (the Senate, the Supreme Court, big business)

"Where is the world? Where are the Arab nations?" This Palestinian girl broke down as she described an Israeli attack that targeted her family’s shelter in Gaza City.

"Can they truly be so ignorant to the words of a man they have so rushed to memorialize? I don’t know. But the most telling detail in Klein’s column was that, for all his praise, there was not a single word in the piece from Kirk himself." Ta-Nehisi Coates, with receipts.

Signs you might be a far right authoritarian party (#3228):

Bringing out a classic in the genre of climate change denial - denying the existence of broad consensus

Worth noting the timing: this was released after the North West Shelf and billion-dollar Scarborough project was nicely squared aware, Woodside was given a cosy deal over the rock art, and the Prime Minister has returned from his tour of the Pacific to try and promote regional security partnerships.

New from myself and Walker Bragman. Perhaps the most defining part of Kirk’s legacy is his role as a gateway to right-wing radicalization.

It will never not be amazing to me that journalists and other people in positions of public influence willingly stay on a site that is being openly manipulated on every level by one of the worst human beings on Earth.

Wow www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

NEW: No, Charlie Kirk was not practicing politics the right way. That's what Ezra Klein said. We can condemn this heinous assassination but also recognize that with his 2020 election denialism and extremist rhetoric, Kirk built his movement with falsehoods and in a wrong and divisive manner.

NT Environment Protection Authority chair Paul Vogel was involved in key decisions around the Darwin Liquefied Natural Gas plant (DLNG) without disclosing his paid role with the lobbying firm representing DLNG shareholder INPEX. www.abc.net.au/news/2025-09....

there's surely a better URL for this story

probably could have done with not reading this

Australian universities are in a governance crisis. VC pay blowouts, scandals, mission drift — these aren’t random, they’re structural. This new working paper with @marijataflaga.bsky.social & Keith Dowding digs into why the system is broken, and how to fix it. doi.org/10.25911/MWW... A thread:

Sky News Australia gives neo-Nazi centre stage with uninterrupted press conference | Weekly Beast

You could bring the UniMelb Vice Chancellor's salary down out of the stratosphere to internationally comparable levels, fund Meanjin, and still have some spare change.

All of this was basically said during COVID but what they're asserting is the right to kill other people, not just themselves. They want the freedom to get sick AND the freedom to participate in society without limitations, where they can make other people sick. If you don't like it *you* get out

surely no one buys this, right - like, why bother?

Minister for protecting gambling is now minister for wrecking FOI

3-year, full-time post-doc position with my ‪@griffith.edu.au‬ friend & colleague, Ferran Martinez i Coma. Ferran is one of the key people who has made our department the top comparative politics research cluster in Australia. Please apply, share, etc. jobs.smartrecruiters.com/GriffithUniv...

I worry that the decades it took to build anti-racism norms are unravelling quite quickly. Clearly the protests/social media drumbeat has created a permission structure that makes people think they can behave like this. Hard to see how it can be easily re-bottled.

The age assurance tech trial report has been released. www.theguardian.com/australia-ne...

This does say a lot about the Labor Party, but at the same time, the broader environmental movement in Australia has played about 3 decades of non-confrontational 'insider politics' with the ALP and look where it's got them. Might be time for a change (that doesn't involve $13k dinners).

NEW SUBMISSION CATEGORY ADDED! AJPS invites Reform Notes from practitioners and/or academics that set out proposed innovations about (or relevant to) aspects of Australian politics practice - e.g. proposals for or modifications to existing political institutions, procedures, laws and practices 1/4

I really think we need to have some mechanism in place for being able to say, in print and in the media, that a problem with a public figure is that they are insane. Not in a hyperbolic way. RFK Jr is a maniac.

'Immigration doesn't bother me but it seems to bother everyone else' – Everyone. This is what happens when the media runs away with Hard Right narratives.

"If there is any way out of the present crisis, it it unlikely to come from current university leaders, who have shown little capacity to manage complex change." theconversation.com/universities...

The start of the algal bloom off the South Australian coast began like a horror film and only grew worse from there. I took a direct look at the role of climate change in making this disaster in my home state for @drilledmedia.bsky.social.

Newsletter: My 16,000 word opus - How To Argue With An AI Booster, a comprehensive guide to arguing with AI boosters, addressing both their bad faith debate style and their specific (and flimsy) arguments as to why generative AI is the future. www.wheresyoured.at/how-to-argue...

What the screaming fuck is it going to take before western governments do more than furrowed eyebrows www.abc.net.au/news/2025-08...

Interesting. Even more interesting if link had been included - would have shown the headline had changed because of one exception. Still remarkable though. www.abc.net.au/news/2025-08... bsky.app/profile/davi...

Remember folks, productivity is the ratio of output to inputs. You'll hear a cascade of bullshit this week around productivity and 90% of it will be policy lobbying, grifting, shareholder maximisation, public relations and political positioning -with nary an ounce of substance on changing that ratio

Why exactly should our laws be rewritten to support the "AI industry"? Aside from a relentless barrage of hype and lies, what exactly makes it so special?

"Australia has the second-lowest public expenditure on tertiary education institutions in the OECD…This has resulted in an endless chase for dollars (international students & “the next big thing”) rather than thinking about what an educated Australia should look like” www.smh.com.au/national/nsw...

A nice Treasury chart that shows who benefits from the largest tax concessions in Australia by income quintiles from the Economic Reform Roundtable's Budget sustainability and tax reform paper. Shows why these tax concessions need to be overhauled #auspol

The Climate Change Authority, the 'independent' agency tasked with giving the Australian Govt 'independent' climate advice is also a member of Australia's carbon offset lobby. Makes sense when the CCA board is stacked with carbon offset interests I guess(no allegations of impropriety etc) #auspol

The Abundance book sucks and the only thing worse is the cult it’s created around it t.co/qWiCELTXn5

put street trees everywhere you can in a neighborhood, make curb cuts so that their roots can absorb storm water from the street, grow native plants around their base, check back in five years and count how many welfare and health measures have improved

Great article that also gives a great case study in how so much other reporting and opinion pieces - on gender and generations in particular - have shaky foundations at best

The initial smear was bad enough. The attempt to hide it was utterly reprehensible. Why did the @sydmorningherald.bsky.social let Knott completely rewrite the story to correct his embarrassing "stuff up" & claim it had merely been "updated"? And why is #Insiders not interrogating this properly?

with what's been going on at ANU, UTS, Macquarie, etc. seems like an appropriate time to again post this 2021 study. Gives some good hints as to where some alternative savings might be found link.springer.com/article/10.1...

It is absolutely incredible how our elites fall for every bloody scam the world throws at us--AI for productivity! Abundance! Nuclear subs! Ban kids from social media! Neoliberalism!--and they have the nerve to accuse other people of living in a bubble.

No one would have any confusion about what is happening if they saw it in another country.