Headline from the AFR "Time to end welfare for the wealthy, says big business"

You mean the superannuation tax breaks? No?
You mean the CGT discount? No?
You mean the fossil fuel subsidies? No?
You mean the free gas for multinationals? No?
You mean the failure of the PRRT? No?
You mean the tax dodging trusts? No?
You mean the lack of a wealth tax? No?

No you mean the NDIS FFS

I think the discussion in Canada is increasingly going to be:

Does Canada have a *Donald Trump* problem or does Canada have a *United States of America* problem?

"Because they're the one party dedicated to fighting cancel culture, which stops me from getting invited to Martha's Vineyard parties, and to protecting the privacy of people in certain files, which stops you from knowing I went to other parties on another island."

Al Gore:

“This is the most corrupt administration not only in American history, but more corrupt than I could ever have imagined a president would be able to get away with to the extent that he has. It’s shocking to me.”

Retired CIA analyst Larry Johnson has revealed that Donald Trump wanted to use nuclear codes during a White House meeting on Saturday night. General Dan Cain, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, stood up and said NO

This is the level of instability in the White House.

Orange fluffy cat inside my car.

I have to go to work and this is not my cat.

Tim Cook donated $1M to Trump’s inauguration.

He fawned over Trump and gifted him a 24-karat gold plaque (as Apple lobbied for tariff exemptions).

Apple donated to Trump’s White House ballroom.

And it removed ICE tracking apps from its stores following a demand from the DOJ.

Remember this.

Those very same people who returned to their jobs none the wiser - are unaware of how looking after them has harmed those of us not so lucky, who remained unemployed. Working is a luxury really, being unemployed is hell. Poverty kills. Homelessness kills. #RaiseTheRate decades of poverty. #auspol

I have been calling for the rate of #JobSeeker to be raised for at least the last four terms of federal government in Australia. The Morrison government doubled the payment through the Covid Pandemic so regular people wouldn’t have to learn how inadequate it is. 😡 #auspol

REGISTER TO VOTE DEADLINE IS TODAY. You NEED to vote in the May local elections and TODAY is the deadline to register. It only takes 5 minutes. Do it here:
registertovote.service.gov.uk

The main takeaway here is that these 13- to 17-year olds had very nuanced, thoughtful attitudes towards self diagnosis. They understood why people their age did it, but they were cautious and somewhat sceptical, just like adults are

AbstractBackground:There is growing concern about adolescents self-diagnosing with mental health problems, with potential links to increased mental health awareness efforts and social media. However, little is known about adolescents’ attitudes towards self-diagnosis, including why they think it happensand potential consequences.Methods:We conducted online semi-structured interviews with 24 UK school-aged adolescents (13-to 17-years-old)recruited from four schools. Data wasanalysed using reflexive thematic analysis.Results:Four themes were generated. Acceptable versus unacceptable motives for self-diagnosishighlights the different reasons adolescents perceived to driveself-diagnosis, which were given a value judgement. Self-diagnosis was more acceptable when carefully researched and used for self-understanding or help-seeking, andless acceptable when used superficially to seek attention or excuse bad behaviour. Rules for determining (in)authenticityexplores the implicit criteria adolescents set for judging the credibility of someone’s self-diagnosis, including openness, severity, and gender. Self-diagnosis is the only viable route to supportencompasses adolescents’ belief that self-diagnosis is understandable given the current inaccessibilityof healthcare systems, providingaccess to informal sources of emotional, practical, and social support. Finally, modern adolescence is fertile ground for self-diagnosisdiscusses how the current context of adolescence, including social media and the widespread use of diagnostic language, facilitates self-diagnosis. Conclusions:School-aged adolescents view self-diagnosis as an understandable yet potentially problematic practice. While it may be a pragmatic response to inaccessible services, adolescents are concerned about the impact of inaccuracy. Improving access to timely mental health support and promoting balanced information may reduce reliance on self-diagnosis

Note: This version of the article is a pre-print and has not been peer-reviewed. Title:"It seems that everyone has got something”: A qualitative studyof adolescents’ attitudes towardsself-diagnosing withmental health problems Nina Higson-Sweeney1* & Lucy Foulkes1 Affiliations:1Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford, Life and Mind Building, South Parks Road, Oxford, OX1 3EL, UK*Corresponding author: Dr Nina Higson-Sweeney, nina.higson-sweeney@psy.ox.ac.uk

🌟 NEW PRE-PRINT! 🌟

“It seems that everyone has got something”: A qualitative study of adolescents’ attitudes towards self-diagnosing with mental health problems

from me and @nhigsonsweeney.bsky.social

osf.io/preprints/ps...

Title page of our paper, “The Politics of Black Classification: Sociopolitical Cues and Racial Perception,” with Lauren Davenport (Stanford) and Hunter Rendleman (UC Berkeley), dated April 14, 2026. Abstract: What makes someone Black in American society today? From Donald Trump questioning Kamala Harris’s racial identity to Joe Biden’s claim that hesitant Black voters “ain’t Black,” American politics frequently brings questions of racial authenticity and belonging to the surface. Yet political science often approaches race as a fixed attribute rather than a social construction. Here, we seek to understand how Americans define blackness in social and political life. Using a conjoint experiment with a racially diverse sample that includes Black, white, and mixed race Black-white respondents, we evaluate how ascribed and acquired traits influence perceptions of blackness. The results show that inherited characteristics—particularly parentage and skin tone, which are the strongest determinants of racial classification—play a central role, while sociopolitical cues such as partisanship, neighborhood context, and spousal race also influence racial classification. Using a continuous measure, we also show that respondents make graded assessments of blackness rather than purely binary classifications, with some individuals perceived as more Black than others. Black respondents are more likely than white respondents to classify a broader set of profiles as Black, consistent with a more inclusive understanding of racial membership, yet they also place greater emphasis on shared political identity. These findings clarify how racial categories are socially constructed and why that construction carries real political and social consequences.

Our paper, “The Politics of Black Classification: Sociopolitical Cues and Racial Perception” (w/ Lauren Davenport & @hrendleman.bsky.social), has been conditionally accepted at Perspectives on Politics!

Sharing abstract below. Long time coming, but we are really proud of this paper.

More soon!

🎯It's one thing to say (and know) that race is a social construct, it's another to drill down deep into what that means.

This is right.

This paper was first conceived during the 2015 Rachel Dolezal debate. If race is fluid and constructed, why can’t she be Black?

Well, parentage is part of that construction, & the question is how much weight we give it alongside other traits.

A decade later, here’s the full reply.

At Long Last, InfoWars Is Ours By Bryce P. Tetraeder, CEO, Global Tetrahedron

We have a deal. theonion.com/at-long-last...

… but worry not. You can do your job – excellently, no less – by just mashing this button! You’ll be finished by 10am.

Don’t worry, your job will be safe even though you’re just Homer Simpson‘s desk ornament now.

Sign up now for a free trial

This is fundamentally the business model of for-profit software since 1995.

The first hit is free, kid.

Peter Thiel is an open Nazi and his company has Nazi goals

Morning.

This is why conservatives and the ‘manosphere,’ want to do away with no fault divorce.

I don't think I'll ever get over Clarence Thomas ruling on cases related to Jan 6 knowing that his wife was an active participant in the attempted coup.

Or ruling on cases related to government regulations and a wealth tax knowing he took gifts from billionaires.

It's a disgrace.

Idk who did this comic but it's hilarious

The United States is destroying itself | Rebecca Solnit The daily news can’t adequately convey the administration’s sabotaging of our government, economy, alliances and environment

“The United States is being murdered, and it’s an inside job. Every department, every branch, every bureau and function of the federal government is being fatally corrupted or altogether dismantled or disabled.”

The quiet disappearance of Australia's rainfall observation network For more than 60 years, Frank Pritchard has diligently checked the weather, adding to a record that stretches back more than a century. But he's part of a quietly shrinking network of observers around...

Not a great outcome.
One of the government approved CEOs once said that 'old school' data capture could be replaced by a car windscreen wiper mesh network. He was, of course, an idiot.
The new CEO seems determined to destroy BOM and feed it to consultants.
share.google/N9HlLgOQiVJ9...

Whether it’s pictures of Barack Obama reading to a group of children with Zohran Mamdani or it’s pictures of Donald Trump with Jeffrey Epstein on an island full of sex-trafficked minors, occupants of the oval office are making some controversial choices about who they take pictures with.

Wild that 47 women have been killed per day for 925 days straight by Israel, Israel which continues to massacre, maim, rape, torture, kidnap, and destroy Palestinians, Lebanese, Iranians, Syrians, Indonesians, journalists, medics, researchers, diplomats, poets, the elderly, children, and babies.

A contact form reads: Subject: Checking Authenticity Body of message Hi there Beth. I have been contacted by someone who is using the email, [email blacked out], and using you name and one of your novels 'Feast of the Starving Stone: The Chef’s Five' to engage with me as a fellow author - if it is you then great, if it is not, as i suspect, then this is a fake approach. I just wanted to be sure. thanks. [signed name blacked out] You're a real person, right? No, I'm a bot. Please don't include existential questions in a contact form. Yes.

I just found out that an AI scammer is impersonating me in their spam campaign. I am LIVID.

Please, please share this post. Warn people. I’m horrified that someone might be ripped off in my name.

No one is safe from being impersonated like this.

Someone tell me who’s going to do anything about it

The new head of the Australian military is taking his first international trip to the US as part of the $375 billion AUKUS scam.

While there, he will be the keynote speaker at a $ 5,000-a-head corporate event run by former Minister for Defence Industry Christopher Pyne.

The system is rigged.