Posts on sundry matters of life the universe and everything: Culture, Environment, Life, Politics & Government, Science, Social Science and Society, Technology etc.
Malcolm Turnbull has announced a $60 million package to rescue the Great Barrier Reef. If you believe him!
Here are two headlines, the first from an article from last year by scientists from the Australian Institute of Marine Science:
The second is from the New Scientist (probably pay-walled):
And it’s all coming out of Melbourne, according to the Betoota Advocate. You can see what they mean!
Betoota, as you may well know, has a population of zero, in the middle of nowhere, but has an air strip and a race track. Each year Betoota hosts the Channel Country Ladies’ Day, which I think is actually three days. Continue reading Saturday salon 2/2
In fact the aim is to “bring greater satisfaction than human interaction” without the interruptions that are apt to come from real people, and the virtual one can be turned on or off at the flick of a switch. Continue reading Saturday salon 27/1
Back in 2013 when I wrote the post Deep origins: language I had intended to follow with an examination of how patriarchy emerged within the societies that adopted the Indo-European language group. It is mind-boggling that so many languages from Iceland to Russia, to India, Iran and Mediterranean Europe speak languages evolved from the same source:
The exceptions in Europe are Basque, Estonian, Finnish and Magyar (Hungarian).
This posts gathers some thoughts towards that end, stimulated by the discussion on the Saturday salon 6/1 thread from about here. Continue reading Deep origins: patriarchy
I’m posting early, because I’m heading out to Dulacca today, returning next Tuesday. I’m not expecting to be online.
Bitcoin and just about every other cryptocurrency has taken a dive. There’s more at the ABC. Falls have been 20 per cent for Bitcoin and more than 40 per cent for some of the others.
Here’s an explainer on what’s behind the Bitcoin mania. Continue reading Saturday salon 13/1
Found this interesting article where some experts argue that Sydney train problems could be fixed by halving car registration and removing tolls. It reverses the normal mantra in favour of active and public transport. My take is that the article is asking the wrong questions. The key question that should be asked is “Why do we continue to allow Australia’s mega cities to grow instead of creating new, properly planned cities?” This post looks at other questions that might be asked if we want to make the transport systems of Australian mega cities more workable. Continue reading Questions for Mega Cities
People all over the country were gutted when they heard that 14 year-old Amy Everett, known as “Dolly”, committed suicide after being bullied on social media. The father took to Facebook to suggest Dolly’s tormentors attend her memorial:
Dolly had been the face of Akubra hats back in 2009:
Mark has again used this Thai new year’s greeting. It means:
Last year the spelling was Sawatdi pi mai khrab!. Presumably the latest is correct. Continue reading Saturday salon 6/1
I remember when we crossed the Simpson Desert back in 2014 how wonderful it was not to hear anything about politics for days at a time, and then turn on the TV news in Birdsville to have Tony Abbott talking to camera. He looked like a plastic man, and it was hard to re-establish that what he had to say may have consequences for our lives.
I think Tony Abbott has made a significant contribution to degrading the tone and content of political speech in Australia.
In the US people have spoken of the “Trump effect” – a shift in norms since Donald Trump entered politics. Now Rishab Nithyanand at Data & Society, a research institute in New York, and his colleagues at the University of Massachusetts have undertaken a study to see whether discourse has actually worsened. Continue reading Degrading political discourse
Crikey runs an Arsehat of the Year award. This year the nominees included:
David Leyonhjelm for welcoming Milo Yiannopoulos into Parliament House.
Daniel Andrews for eroding civil liberties in Victoria.
2017 was a brilliant year for arsehattery. Worthy contenders who missed nomination included: Continue reading Saturday salon 30/12
Last year around this time I did a post Will Turnbull be PM this time next year? Clearly he’s still here, but it seems a lot of people wish he wasn’t. Is he a dead man walking in politics?
The polls were diabolical back then – Turnbull had just chalked up his eighth losing Newspoll in a row. Now that has blown out to 25 and the situation has gotten worse. Back then the TPP vote was 52-48 in favour of Labor, now it is 54-46. Last year the Labor primary vote had nearly overtaken the Coalition, rising from an election deficit of 34.7-42.1 to 37-39. Now Labor leads 37-35.
Simon Benson writing in the Australian says Coalition close to a point of no return. In January 2001 John Howard was a dead man walking. Yet in November that year he won. Can Turnbull do the same? Continue reading Malcolm Turnbull has led us to a strange place
When we think of worst prime ministers, the completely useless Bill (Sir William) McMahon comes to mind, followed by the negative, sloganeering bully Tony Abbott. However, if you are looking for a PM who did actual damage to the country’s economic and social fabric it’s hard to go past John Winston Howard.
Mike Seccombe has a brilliant article on the topic in the Saturday Paper, where you are allowed one article a month free, or can take out a sub for about $1.90 per week.
