"Under the pressure of decades of right‑wing culture wars—which have run parallel to cross‑party support for neoliberalism—the traditional vocabulary of welfare, redistribution, egalitarianism, and class has not just fallen out of fashion; it has been demonised."
thepoint.com.au/opinions/260...
Companies that tell you you can access their services online or on their app while you are in their call centre queue: Do you really think I would be calling you and listening to your insufferable hold music and your automated voice messages if I could actually do the thing I wanted to do online?
This is a FRAUDULENT paper, AI-generated. My name was used as an author and I had nothing to do with it, never saw it until today e-pubmed.co.uk/journals/dig...
The "Editors" Angelo Rossi Mori, David Mensah, and Zarnie Khadjesari and this "Journal" should be reported.
Study: Muscle abnormalities worsen after post-exertional malaise in long COVID.
Published: 04 January 2024
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
“Just do it, and stop the crap.” 💥🔥
You can see why gas giants are worried. When the guy who wrote the book on Australian tax reform calls for a 25% gas export tax this bluntly, it would be gross negligence for the government to ignore it.
Thank you, Ken Henry. #auspol
"Using “AI” requires normalizing these forms of violence. You need to accept them in order to be able to live with yourself integrating those tools into your workflows"
And state governments running headlong into it with cargo cult mentality.
Another thing we absolutely didn’t see coming.
Shell Oil suggested they were putting $1m into the Aus Energy Producers advert campaign because its adverts need to meet "Advertising Standards" "unlike those from The Australia Institute"
So @jack-thrower.bsky.social & I decided to fact check their advert
live.thepoint.com.au
A man wearing chainmail, a sword, helmet, and shield with a large moustache and a caption that reads "Masch: da Bullo che va narrando le bravura ch' a fatto in Italia"
Fun costume idea from "Il carnevale italiano mascherato: que si veggono in figura varie inuentione de capritii" by Francesco Bertelli (1642): A tough guy who likes to brag about all his exploits in Italy
but Trump and RFK both get their covid shots, they will just get european versions - or maybe even chinese! they will be fine.
A small Australian 2026 #flu update.
22APR2026
🦠It is *not* an early start to the 2026 season. That is a really nice change from several past years.
In the ~12 days since my last update (10APR), detections have risen by 1,602. That's a daily rate of 134.
'We are black, we are white, we are dynamite'.
Moving to see children in 1970s Hackney stood up to the National Front by getting organised. A beautiful recognition of our common humanity and reminder that the push for equality has long been driven by courage like this.
Relevant messages for today.
Almost everything we argue about is a substitute for the thing we should be arguing about: the immense wealth & power of an oligarchic class, which captures governments, ruins lives and wrecks the living planet.
This class redirects our rage at scapegoats. To resist its lies is to resist its power.
It's quite something to think of the history this tree has witnessed. So how do they live so long? Read more here 👉️ buff.ly/GfFprQp
@norfickchick.bsky.social Reminds me of your work
Globe showing the Atlantic Ocean with arrows depicting the AMOC circulation: warm surface currents (pink/red) flowing northward from the tropics toward the Arctic, and cold deep return currents (blue/purple) flowing southward. The background shows sea surface temperature trends, with a prominent blue cold patch, the "cold blob", south of Greenland, contrasting with warming (orange/red) across the rest of the ocean.
1/ There's a system of ocean currents in the Atlantic that shapes Europe's #climate, drives monsoons, and keeps sea levels stable along the US coast.
In the last 5 years, the scientific evidence that it could collapse has shifted dramatically.
Most people have no idea. 🧵
The RBA’s policy deliberately creates unemployment. So why do we treat the jobless so badly?
theconversation.com/the-rbas-pol...
I have been going on about this for years - its so bloody obvious I can't believe its only now I have seen someone write about it. But the RBA is not to blame for how we treat those it makes unemployed. The Aus Govt is. They choose to beat them up for being made unemployed by the RBA. Libs and Labor
Mosaico del jabalí. Las manchas rojas y las teselas azuladas forman sombras difusas. 🏛️ Casa del Jabalí en Pompeya, también conocida como Casa de la Caza Salvaje, es una domus de la época republicana (siglo II a.C.) 📷 A. M.
#MosaicMonday
Mosaico del jabalí. Las manchas rojas y las teselas azuladas forman sombras difusas.
🏛️ Casa del Jabalí en Pompeya, también conocida como Casa de la Caza Salvaje, es una domus de la época republicana (siglo II a.C.)
#History #Roma
#RomanArchaeology
#Archaeology
#AncientBluesky
Screenshot of a post by holocene (@holo_cene). Text reads: “you cannot complain or even feel sad about an artist cancelling a show because they have a respiratory infection if you don’t mask at shows. because who do you think gave it to them?” Post timestamp: 9:23 PM, April 19, 2026, with about 4,026 views.
By holocene
"you cannot complain or even feel sad about an artist cancelling a show because they have a respiratory infection if you don’t mask at shows. because who do you think gave it to them?"
Source: x.com/holo_cene/st...
Fun’s over, guys. America’s waking up. See you tomorrow morning.
Australia has done nothing while Israel has assassinated journalists, medics, aid workers, diplomats, foreign & spiritual leaders. Through the war crimes & illegal invasions, Albanese has done nothing even to dissuade Israel – no sanctions, no support for arrest warrants.
Is there even a red line?
Graphic titled “COVID-19 vaccinations in the last 6 months.” Three age groups shown: Ages 75+: 278,000 people vaccinated (13.4%) Ages 65–74: 128,900 people vaccinated (5.2%) Ages 18–64: 121,500 people vaccinated (0.7%) Each group is displayed with an icon and percentage, highlighting significantly lower vaccination uptake in younger age groups compared to older adults.
Australia: COVID-19 vaccine rollout update – 10 April 2026
COVID-19 vaccination uptake in the past 6 months:
🔹Only 13.4% aged 75+
🔹Only 5.2% aged 65–74
🔹Only 0.7% aged 18–64
Source: www.health.gov.au/resources/pu...
Adam Morton Chris Bowen to begin Cop31 climate summit president's role remotely Chris Bowen's role as president for negotiations at the Cop31 climate summit in Turkey later this year will kick off remotely. With the fuel crisis raging and Bowen giving daily press conferences on the government's response, the climate change and energy minister said he would not fly to Berlin next week for the Petersberg Climate Dialogue, an annual meeting of representatives from about 40 countries. A spokesperson for the minister said he "considers his travel carefully" and would not fly for the meeting hosted by the German climate action ministry on Tuesday and Wednesday. "In this instance he will take advantage of the virtual attendance and continues to engage closely with all his international counterparts. Australia will also not be represented at ministerial level at the first global conference on transitioning away from fossil fuels in Colombia starting next Friday.
Australia's energy minister is skipping global meetings on accelerating the phase-out of fossil fuels because he has to stay in Australia to deal with the fallout from not phasing fossil fuels out fast enough.
"Rahmstorf, who has studied the Amoc for 35 years, has said a collapse must be avoided 'at all costs'. 'I argued this when we thought the chance of an Amoc shutdown was maybe 5%, and even then we were saying that risk is too high, given the massive impacts. Now it looks like it’s more than 50%.'"
1917 editorial cartoon in the New York Tribune
Cream-colored garment with embroidered black and blue stylized flying bats arranged in right-left symmetry from the base of the collar to the hem. Mounted on display at museum exhibit. Photographed in 2019 at The Life of Animals in Japanese Art exhibition at the National Gallery of Art DC. “In the West, bats - nocturnal in habit and denizens of dark places tend to be viewed as unlucky, but in China they have long been considered an auspicious motif (one of the characters used to write the word "bat" is a homonym for good fortune). The Kabuki actor Ichikawa Danjüro VII (1791-1859) used bat motifs in his costumes, and the perception of these animals as a chic design element spread rapidly throughout Japan in the nineteenth century. Here a great number of them are arranged in right-left symmetry from the base of the collar to the hem.” The above info is from the official exhibition catalog - the bat kosode is on p.124!
closeup of the bats on collar
closeup of the bats on hem
It’s #BatAppreciationDay 🦇 on a #FabricFriday so please appreciate this awesome 19th c. Japanese kosode decorated with embroidered lucky #bats:
KOSODE WITH BATS
Edo - Meiji, 19th century
silk twill, paste-resist dyed, embroidery; 67⅜ × 48⅞ in
National Museum of Japanese History / NGA DC
#JapaneseArt
Do those women go and beat people up/rape people/set fire to things? Or do they advocate that people should be able to do those things? If not, they just have a different opinion.
