The Short, Short Version Here’s a Cliff’s Notes summary: -All games have rules.-Society has rules as well.-It’s much easier to win a game if you cheat.-It’s possible to mistake cheating for ignorance, incompetence or ineptitude once or twice, but not when it’s obviously habitual and deliberate.-Nevertheless, supporters tolerate or even encourage and model this behaviour […]
As the next federal election draws inexorably closer we’re seeing a rapid increase in the amount of partisan and hyper-partisan sentiment on social media. The most vitriolic and abusive examples of this commentary aren’t between supporters of the right and the left, however, they’re between the ALP and the Greens. I’ve grown tired of pointing […]
To say that vaccine supply and distribution in Australia is opaque is putting it mildly. [2021-09-13] Since I first published this article in late July there have been a number of revelations regarding disproportionate distribution of vaccines. Some have been made, we’re told, with the agreement of State premiers, however others have only emerged as […]
CW: sexual assault and violence My argument is simple: right now we have an unprecedented opportunity to effect social change, most specifically to redress large gender inequities in Australian society, and we risk squandering this opportunity if we concentrate on the symptoms and not the disease. What are the symptoms? “Mansplaining” is a symptom. Gender-unequal […]
Against health advice, again, I have parsed another Morrison speech; this time his address as an honorary woman on the occasion of International Women’s Day 2021. Excerpts from Morrison’s speech are in italics, and the speech is reproduced in full below if you really want to check that he said these things. Buckle up. Trigger […]
Most readers have the attention span of a gnat. Which is why the headline and the lede—the initial paragraph—are so critical to a story, and are often all that a reader will see. The impressions gained there are usually all that is left from “reading the news”. So headlines with emotive language and stories with […]
$3.57 a day? Don’t Spend It All At Once! Or, buy a weekday copy of The Australian for $3.50 to find out how much of a dole bludger you are. Morrison’s cruel, unnecessary drop in benefits.
Translating Morrison’s Presser: what do ‘situation’, ‘issue’ and ‘event’ all mean?
Trigger Warning: Sexual Assault*
Translation: they all mean ‘being raped by a man’
Morrison’s train-wreck press conference.
There’s less than three weeks to go before Australia’s largest, most complex and most crucial public health initiative, and all we’ve got for answers is four PowerPoint slides8. Where are all the details? We don’t know.
How can five different statements about the efficacy of the same vaccine all be technically correct, while at least four of them are misleading, probably intentionally? Easy.
“The first casualty of war is the truth”
For months I’ve watched with growing alarm the obvious bullshit being fed to us by politicians on the subject of Covid-19 vaccines. Even more alarming sometimes has been bullshit from government health experts. For politicians to lie, obfuscate or evade is second nature, but when experts and scientists start playing fast and loose with facts, or decide that “you can’t handle the truth” then it’s past time to call it for what it is.
Imagine, for a moment, that you and your partner bought a home on a road leading to an industrial estate. Trucks rumble and roar back and forth on the road both day and night. It’s not ideal, but it was one of the factors you considered before buying the house. Nobody could say you’re happy […]
The operation of the new Brisbane airport runway has sparked public outcry, anger and furious debate. While that debate rages, however, a simple truth is being ignored; it’s a truth that no doubt the Brisbane Airport Corporation and the airlines are hoping that nobody notices, while instead they talk endlessly about Air Traffic Control rules […]
Current airport operations in Australia are built on a breathtakingly simple—and ridiculous—proposition: that it’s “fair” that we should suffer aircraft noise “equally”. It’s a wonderful piece of logical sleight-of-hand to suggest that it’s somehow fair and egalitarian for a particular heavy industry to be allowed to spread noise pollution over all Brisbane suburbs “equally”. That’s not the only illusion we’re being asked to believe, however. […]
Letter requesting help from the Honourable Trevor Evans, MP, regarding new and excessive aircraft noise over Teneriffe.
