Jean de La Fontaine would be feeling seen today.

THIS ONE'S A REAL EMERGENCY EPISODE: THE END OF THE WESTERN ALLIANCE - Behind The Lines with Arthur Snell Behind the Lines with Arthur Snell is a new geopolitics podcast. Every week we give the listener access to the best informed people to help you understand this turbulent world and get a feel for the t...

@snellarthur.bsky.social thank you for this episode with Mike Martin, which though terrifying is surprisingly optimistic (not sure what that says about my starting point).

Everyone else: if you haven’t found this podcast this is a good episode to start with.

I used to love Lotus Notes email but I think I may be the only person ever to do that.

The four stage strategy YouTube video by Marblescollector

The short version is they did this, isn’t it? #YesPM

youtu.be/nb2xFvmKWRY?...

It’s a puzzle. If you squint hard enough there’s cattle there somewhere?

Melbourne.

I grew up seeing doctors who were peers of my family members, or taught by them or their peers, or who knew them by reputation. Until I went to a doctor where there was no connection at all I had never experienced this. But it is common. When you find a doctor who listens, stick with them.

Great. But all those people should be wearing new N95 masks with the particulate matter in the air. This is also an opportunity to teach how masks work which will help mitigate respiratory viruses.

From Secret Ballot to Democracy Sausage: How Australia Got Compulsory Voting, book by Judith Brett It’s compulsory to vote in Australia.We are one of a handful of countries in the world that enforce this rule at election time, and the only English-speaking country that makes its citizens vote.Not o...

If you love this topic as I do I thoroughly recommend this book which us about far more than compulsory voting. www.textpublishing.com.au/books/from-s...

Preferential voting How does preferential voting work?

For Australia this is helpful. Note that although a kind of preferential, the Senate is primarily proportional. www.aec.gov.au/learn/prefer...

You may have to look up Hare-Clark separately, no one outside Tasmania really understands it anyway 🤣 but it is a hybrid of the single transferable vote.

NZ has a form of PR, often ends up with a coalition so incompatible that no one satisfies their core constituency. One Ardern government was an exception. Rather than copy non-Westminster style European governments have a look at Aus (non-PR) and NZ (PR) examples more similar to yours.

Australia has PR in our Senate and every general election we are thankful you don’t draw the executive from there, but from the lower house. It’s a recipe for instability and fringe views.

I can see why you’re pessimistic but to limit the goal to PR seems defeatist and counterproductive. I don’t know how badly the AV was explained in 2011 but Australia gave you secret ballots and our preferential voting is so simple 5 yo use it to elect class captains + understand why it’s best.

Why do you think voluntary voting via PR would be any different? The answer to turnout is compulsory attendance. The answer to the silly FPTP system is either PR or Australia’s preferential system or Hare-Clark or something else. It’s not clear proportional would work well in a Westminster system.

Now I need to think of easy snacks for a horde of teenagers coming to play RPG on the weekend. Guacamole and corn chips? What else? Fried halloumi bites? Cheesy muffins? Chilli cornbread?

You are awesome. And your house is much tidier than mine. In any case, no one who visits you is there for any reason other than you- so as long as you are there it’s perfect. Though I do wish I’d talked you into buying that big rambly house near me.

When lawyers work over the Christmas holiday 🎄❤️

So I made these little pastries for dinner accompanied by leftover roast beef from lunch and also chickpea salad with lemon tahini dressing and now apparently there’s too much food? Merry Christmas everyone! 🎄🥂

Australians, every year.

Especially Saturdays for some reason. Thanks Jane Hirschfield. Well, I’d better get on.

1am in Australia on a school night so I will have to catch up later. But when China is the hegemonic superpower, how will they manage this kind of thing, given they like past superpowers will have an increasing reliance on world stability?

I ❤️ the jacaranda time of year and always have, exams or no exams.

@drkatybarnett.bsky.social is this what you would like next July? If so, do you have a format of choice?

“Ha! I have the paperback which is best of all” called Bishop Trumwine from the corner. (Coincidentally, this is also what I have).

This week it was amazing to meet Anna Funder at the #IAPP #ANZSummit2024, she’s very impressive.

Alliance Française Melbourne Christmas Market at Abbotsford Convent in the warm rain. But with our trusty gumboots we bought gorgeous things, ate cheese and crepes, and researched student exchange.

@drkatybarnett.bsky.social

People who say that are the same people who will jump up and down about a 1% morbidity in another context. Thats 280,000 people they were fine about dying from covid. Instead, we lost only 900 lives in 2020 thanks to mask mandates, lockdowns, and quarantine.

Luckily my GP just let me get vaccinated in the second cohort anyway. But I could go to the state clinics that just needed to tick a box. Trying to stay a #Novid as long as I can.

Hope you feel better soon!

And I didn’t even fit any of the categories for early vaccination! Because people don’t see hydrocephalus. I don’t look like I’m vulnerable or have a pre-existing condition. In fact there aren’t that many like me of my age, since they didn’t routinely shunt infants with hydrocephalus in the 70s.