walked with 9yo past the queen square law courts. a bit disappointed, she expected courts to have "more flags and trumpets"

Man accused of 'river to the sea' offence tells court he wants to 'plead insanity' Jim Dowling is charged with one count of publicly displaying a prohibited expression after displaying a sign reading "from the river to the sea, Brisbane will be free of Boeing."

70yo man charged with hate speech for sign calling for Brisbane to be free of Boeing from the river to the sea.

Tells the court he wants to plead insanity, because "the charge is insane".

www.abc.net.au/news/2026-04...

real wages are down in every industry Dec 2019 to Dec 2025 (down 3.9% overall). a failure for wages to return to baseline over six years has almost never (I think never) happened in Australia before.

The terms were that Israel gets to keep committing genocide.

Tho this is a somewhat niche economist use of language and you’re right it’s not the usual definition of “social insurance” in public policy.

To me it meets the most broad, Nicholas Barr-type, definition of insurance (which I'm sympathetic to) as it pools risk. People can have different definitions. I'm more interested in whatever is the pragmatic goal is of saying it's not welfare.

Welfare is good, actually. We should aspire to having the best welfare system in the world

welfare? bad, it is known.

insurance? good. it is known.

"It's not a welfare scheme... It's an invaluable piece of social insurance."

What do those words mean exactly? What information is communicated by saying it's not a welfare scheme?

Buttigieg: "For the leader of this country to make a nakedly genocidal threat against another civilization as if the US was a death star that was going around blowing up civilizations, of course that is a new low ... the whole country is being judged just for tolerating that kind of thing at the WH"

4yo: “there are Five Types of Vehicles - cars, helicopters, submarines, trains and motorbikes”

overheard in martin place: thank goodness the ceasefire was announced, i just listed my house

That can’t just be brushed off as “ohh trump and his offensive tweets”

Trump literally made the largest scale credible threat of genocide in human history. I feel this should be far more shocking to public discourse than it has been.

bad regime bad, 90% will support us etc etc

It’s funny at the start of this war I had people who should have known better tell me this time it’s different. Yeah it’s dumber, but they meant the opposite.

Love the principled West nations all initially praise the illegalTrump/Netanyahu attacks, then U turn when Iran showed it could put up a (costly) fight.

that the president is making unhinged threats of war crimes on easter sunday should be an immediate presidency-ending scandal and that the media is rewriting this as just a normal negotiating tactic should be a career-ending scandal for everyone involved

Australian tax discourse needs to move beyond the fixation with budget neutrality and "compensation". The most important tax reform priority now is to get more of it.

More revenue is necessary to meet existing social policy obligations in the coming years, let alone expand them.

Add to this the baumol effect, costly health tech, and the fact that many human services (health, education), largely provided by the government, are luxury goods. That is, as our incomes rise, we want a larger share to go on these goods. But that means a larger share of our income must go to tax.

1. One of my biggest frustrations is the #auspol discourse about tax & spending ignores that regardless of what we do costs are going to increase because of structural factors (geopolitics, climate change & demography). The choice is how we distribute the cost, not whether we can avoid paying for it

the "peace president"

Again not the most important story but it is a reminder that webs of alliances tend to embroil you in conflicts, and this is so even if you’re providing ostensibly benign support for one side.

Minor part of what’s at stake but if they do get significantly hit and formally enter the war as an active party against Iran, as seems increasingly likely given the escalation they advocate, presumably the plausible deniability around the Australian E-7 ends.

would seriously harm geopolitical stability and likely result in severe oil disruption; it’s the height of reckless from uae given Iran is likely to do reprisals for any attacks on its critical infrastructure with similar hits on the gulf. Not only an oil calamity, but mass destruction if desal hit.

Gulf allies privately make the case to Trump to keep fighting until Iran is decisively defeated Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and other Gulf allies of the United States are urging President Donald Trump to keep prosecuting his war against Iran, saying the month of strikes has not weaken...

UAE leaders are hawks in this conflict, calling for Trump to escalate until there’s transformative change in Iran, including advocating for ground invasion.

apnews.com/article/trum...

I don’t doubt.

The real big winners of 2026 are the commentators who have spent several decades warning about the Real Risk of Stagflation in the imminent future. Your time has come dudes! I'm sure in those decades you came up with a coherent response!