A historic turning point for clean heating in Europe: For the first time, in the first half of 2025 sales of heat pumps in Germany have surpassed those of gas boilers. This is a big milestone, demonstrating that the transition away from fossil fuels in our buildings is not just a future ambition.

RIP John Laws

Raising a glass of Valvoline tonight. You know what I mean (if you’re an Aussie of a certain age…)

Does anyone happen to recall a case from a few years ago where a person of Chinese origin (can’t recall if they had Australian citizenship) was killed execution-style in their home (think it was in Sydney) for no obvious reason? Or am I misremembering things ? #auspol

Judging by the history of GOP and Tory sex scandals there’s a lot of conservatives here for it too… (Australian conservatism sadly a bit third-rate on this criterion as well…)

Color anyone that’s ever watched “The Wire” as unsurprised.

My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings. Did you know that the federal government is offering rebates for solar and battery systems?

To be specific: Russia has the world’s nuclear arsenal, on public estimates China is growing but isn’t going to catch the USA or Russia’s any time soon, and neither have conducted nuclear weapon tests since the test ban treaty or shown any inclination to.

1. It's fascinating to see, as you can from the responses to the post below, how many daft things people believe, to justify their continued meat eating. So let's examine a few of the common myths in the following thread. 🧵

Activism is easy until you have to get something done. More people should let that roll around their thought orbits.

Why do private school fees rise so fast? It's the ultimate first-world problem, but it's a topic that a) generates an unbelievable level of angst in Australian upper-middle class circles, and b) the reasons why it's inevitable are not widely understood. greengaps.substack.com/p/why-your-s...

There are some quibbles here (to wit, solar economics looks a lot worse in polar regions that get not much sun for months on end that coincide with peak energy demand) but the basic point is sound - space solar power is a pipedream without radically lower launch costs.

This was great, and quite relevant to Australia. My takeaway - the assumption that there is endless profitable demand for Australia's LNG over the medium term - may well be completely false.

The difference between David Pocock and the rest of the Cwth Parliament is that as a professional athlete he was required to appreciate interest conflicts and integrity risks (especially re. gambling). In Australia the federal level is unique in not doing this: States and Councils must handle risk

This kind of thing gives me the absolute screaming shits. It’s the same as Qantas and the bloody chairman’s Lounge at a smaller scale: www.theguardian.com/australia-ne...

Earnest post, but: a thing I like here is it’s okay to have moments of happiness in public without being broadly scolded, and I believe that sustaining this kind of humanity will be very important as we resist fascism. We have to sustain each other. Making joy isn’t denial, it’s how we will survive

This is the best news I've heard all week. Remarkable.

Throwing this out there to see if there's any sim racers here...have a look at this crash. Did I (leading car) do anything wrong? I know I'm slow - that's not the issue. But the crash was down to the following driver, wasn't it? #iracing #simracing

A long-ish thread on this scandal and why it's so bad, which military historians and people interested in historiography may find interesting even if you're not Australian. www.theguardian.com/australia-ne...

Personally, I tend to think that that Russia launching drones into Poland was a much bigger deal than the murder of an American conservative activist. But that story seems to have entirely disappeared. What about you?

Listening to the Chaser’s Eulogy Song. Still on point after all these years.

Geez, Bob Carr on a right tear about recent US events at The Other Place.

Might be a good day to log off. (Thinks a little more, sets up a bot to repeat this post once per day…)

I have spent most of today helping a highly educated, well paid immigrant woman escape from a deeply abusive marriage. Her husband, also an immigrant, has weaponized the new immigration regime. Ask me why I hate Usha Vance so much.

There's a increasingly wide gulf between what you might call "local abundance"—which largely consists of liberal and progressive activists and local electeds trying to do YIMBY-type things—and "DC abundance," which hosts conferences where Oren Cass is a speaker for some reason.

As an activist who helped lead the campaign against Robodebt, I can only think back to the days when legal scholars told us we had no chance of winning in court, and how I thought, fuck it, we’ll keep fighting anyway The Robodebt class action payout is now the largest *ever* in Australian history

starmer is doing all the anti-immigrant and anti-trans "popularism" stuff the centrists are demanding US dems do and this is the predictable result:

Primary source.

Interesting. But if I recall correctly most of Australia's LNG is sold on long term contracts.

If all these data centres went ahead, that would represent around 5% of Melbourne’s water usage, or around 0.2% of the water we extract (mostly for agriculture) from the Murray-Darling. This seems like a bit of a red herring to me.

It sounds like what’s going on is the same number of gun owners owning more and more guns. Not ideal, but less of an issue than more and more gun owners.

Advice on Australian politics? From Tim Smith? www.theguardian.com/australia-ne...

And who will be reviewing this CCTV? On what devices? With what storage procedures and data protection?

He hardly needs the boost but Ezra Klein’s discussion with lawyer and author Philippe Sands, entitled “When Is It Genocide?” is well worth your time. Impossible to summarise but one takeaway is that the question should perhaps not have the significance it does: podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/t...

Unpopular opinion but I don't think this is the right way to frame this discussion. The bigger question is whether AI, particularly GenAI, actually delivers productivity benefits exceeding the investment, including in energy. The evidence thus far is very mixed at best.

Hey @jon.turningfortune.com you got the TA2 racing in Oz on your schedule this weekend?

My Magnus Bropus: "I'm a crypto bro who throws sex toys at WNBA games. Why am I so lonely?" www.usatoday.com/story/opinio...

I've had a listen and this is indeed excellent, and not just because it references CSIRAC: www.theguardian.com/music/2025/a...

In other news, water wet, Pope Catholic, bear defecates in woods. www.theguardian.com/australia-ne...

If the benchmark results don’t reflect the real world, maybe, just maybe, the benchmark is bad? www.theguardian.com/australia-ne...

Arrived in Amsterdam after a long and occasionally stressful train trip and we found Dutch dubbed Bluey on the hotel TV. Can confirm it doesn’t hit quite the same without Melanie Zanetti and especially Dave McCormack voicing Chilli and Bandit.

Nowhere in this article is it mentioned that these diseases are still very rare in younger people. An essential piece of context, methinks.

This is dead-on in my view. There is ample evidence of the awfulness of many small-scale landlords; if you want them to behave better, make them compete for tenants:

So this was Volvo’s corporate entry in the Munich pride parade. If this was Australia I’m not sure “electric trucks are gay” would be considered good marketing (NB: both electric trucks and Pride are good, in case it’s not obvious)

Vibe check at the Munich Pride Parade, as best I can tell.

By pure coincidence, our apartment for our stay in München is right on the Pride Parade route and the warmup is already starting to get noisy. Sign on third floor gets the tick of approval.

Just visited Rorschach. Strange place - I think you could it in many ways depending on your state of mind at the time.

Contemporary “sedan“ vs contemporary “SUV”.