‘The authoritarian conduct of the government in parliament, suspending Labour MPs for rebelling over child poverty, has alienated many MPs; the party’s dwindling membership feels its programme is barely recognisable.’ James Butler on Labour’s problems, from the blog: www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2025/se...

Photocopy coupon for your associates (Source.)

this exists it is called thinking

Australia's universities are blighted by a "culture of consequence-free, rotten failure", according to the former chair of a senate inquiry examining governance at public universities. ... "There's no other sector in the country where failure is rewarded so handsomely and with so little scrutiny."

The warning: “We hope that the PNG side will continue to uphold independence and self-reliance, properly handle issues bearing on its sovereignty and long-term interests,”

Four years ago, I asked historians about their most bizarre and profound archival finds and wrote this for The Conversation, which seemed to be a popular piece! theconversation.com/i-asked-hist...

The Australian War Memorial's history award prize criteria:

Hear! Hear! Dr Holbrook 👏 theconversation.com/the-australi...

This one starts wild and gets worse quickly:

Great news out of ANU!!

The NLA has digitized heaps of PNG parliamentary debates, including from the colonial legislative council (1951-63) and house of assembly (64-75). Keyword searchable too. www.library.gov.au/news-media/p...

The only mainstream piece I've seen on the 50th brave enough to use the C word (colony). www.abc.net.au/news/2025-09...

human remains up for sale at a Hampshire auction house — it’s time the trade in body parts is outlawed, as recommended by the All Party Parliamentary Group report Laying Ancestors to Rest www.liveauctioneers.com/item/2146051...

"Readers will no doubt see the irony in a cash-strapped organisation paying an independent consultant for three months to provide strategies for financial viability, only to ignore the findings on the grounds of financial viability."

The conflicts between Tolai and their various colonisers — first the Germans, then the Australians, then the Japanese, followed again by the Australians — are remarkable not for Tolai violence but for the colonisers’ retribution.

Fifty years ago, Papua New Guinea became independent from Australia. The speech Gough Whitlam delivered on that day reminds us both of Australia's history as an empire, and how thoroughly the nation has forgotten its colonial past and the responsibilities which grow from it.

Tomorrow, Tuesday 16 September, is the 50th birthday of Papua New Guinea as a sovereign nation. “50 years without coups or dictators: how PNG built a durable democracy based on dignity and fairness” theconversation.com/50-years-wit...

I feel that some of the world’s craziest graphs include a turning point that should be marked as ‘and then the PRC decided to look seriously into this’

Moving beyond the ornamental assertion of class and patriarchy as relational, @drmeljohnston.bsky.social delivers a BIG contribution to current debates on capitalist patriarchy with this latest article in @ripejournal.bsky.social @feministonmarx.bsky.social @abieler.bsky.social

Excellent. “If we conducted monetary policy as if democracy mattered, we might consider a system of periodic reviews of the central bank. This iterative process could extend to the central bank’s mandate.” www.nytimes.com/2025/09/14/o...

Of course the Suns are sponsored by the shitty burrito company

Very excited that my new article with @andrekosvarnava.bsky.social has been published open access in @historicaljnl.bsky.social 'Transnational Whiteness and the Elite Backlash to Reforming the Australian Immigration Control System in the 1950s and 1960s' www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

Helpful tag here

Logging on to the internet today.

Any other vice chancellors feel like resigning?

Does Morena’s success in Mexico offer a blueprint for the left? An exchange between @viririos.bsky.social and myself in @dissentmag.bsky.social: www.dissentmagazine.org/article/the-...

👉 Mammoth Hog 👈

Anyone remember Astro Labe? What's he up to these days?

The design of the housing estates – childcare provision, proximity to the workplace – was seen as progressive & intended to reinforce gender equality, as laid out in the GDR’s constitution, with women & men expected to work, even if many women still ended up carrying out the bulk of domestic tasks.

This article 🤝 a cat waking up 'ohhhh big stretch!'

A perfect afternoon in Astoria.

Let's be clear: The flood of hatred sloshing across Britain right now is 100% a product of the political and media elite scapegoating minorities for the harms that those elites have visited upon the country.

Very sad to see another Australian journal go down the drain. I hope the upswell of sentiment this decision has brought about can lead to a rethink by MUP.

"Meanjin was conceived as a forum for serious literary debate &as a conduit for cultural engagement.To read through Meanjin’s archive is to trace the evolution of modern& contemporary Australian intellectual life" MUP:"on purely financial grounds".."no longer viable to produce the magazine ongoing"

If you're taking a party to court, I'm really not sure it's the party for you

Michelle Arrow, Anna Clark and Frank Bongiorno’s co-authored piece in The Conversation. @michellearrow.bsky.social @frankbongiorno.bsky.social @ouranu.bsky.social @utsengage.bsky.social #MacquarieUniversity

‬Simon Farley @sighmonger.bsky.social ‪reviews ‘Enchantment by Birds: A History of Birdwatching in 22 Species’, by Russell McGregor @scribepub.bsky.social www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

This was a real pleasure to read.

Albo: “there are some good Nazis”

Actually, Frankenstein is a doctor success at the Venice film festival

Many such cases

As govt prepares to remove children from the NDIS, the agency in charge of the scheme has been torn to shreds by the administrative review tribunal for breaking the law, 'repeated non-compliance' and conduct that constitutes contempt. A pattern emerges. www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/news/politic...

Historians who are sick of other disciplines using weird methods to 'prove' long established phenomenon should start demonstrating the existence of gravity with archival sources.

Once more, with feeling!

Cant believe that Pontypandy has become such a hot spot for the sovereign citizen movement

they’ll just move him to a different parish and he’ll do it again