Prof Geoff Hanmer

Italian government gives final approval for bridge linking Sicily to mainland €13.5bn allocated for 10-year project to build longest single-span bridge in the world across the Strait of Messina

Underwhelming. You’d think the Italians could do better.
www.theguardian.com/world/2025/a...

Australia is trying to build 1.2 million homes, but they’re getting stuck Never have so many homes been delivered over a five-year period – but there could be a better solution.

…could focus on delivering the pipeline, such as improving productivity and making homes faster and cheaper to build, while maintaining quality.” What a load of bollocks; we can’t build apartments properly now, and have been messing this up for over 40 years. www.smh.com.au/property/new...

The Trump cabinet are not serious people.

Dozens of public housing residents now in private homes ahead of demolition Almost one in five households displaced by a controversial plan to redevelop Melbourne’s public housing towers have been placed in the private market, a parliamentary inquiry has heard.

Such gross incompetence by Victorian Govt re public housing towers & estates;
-Demolishing without considering several viable adaptation proposals, with huge environmental & cost savings
-Failing to first build new public housing on their estates to manage transfer
www.abc.net.au/news/2025-08...

FFS. They’ll put The Onion out of business.

The rockets red glare.

The key reason NSW Police told Harbour Bridge protesters to turn around I believe it’s not fair to judge the police response simply because no disaster occurred, but they didn’t get everything right either.

Bollocks. About the riskiest strategy was to turn people around. The northern end of the bridge has two major exit points; one to Milsons Point Station and one to North Sydney Station and the Metro via the Pacific Hwy (6 lanes!). What were they thinking? www.smh.com.au/national/nsw...

Minns so wrong, too often;
“Hey, Chris Minns – whose bridge? Our bridge!” protesters shouted as they marched.

A placard carried on to the bridge also called out the premier: “Hey Minns. Walking on a bridge won’t starve us, but blocking aid starves Palestinians. We will survive, they won’t.”

Questioned about the pro-Palestine protest in Sydney, Susssan Ley reached deep in to her soul and brought forth… nothing.

I say again. The US President is a delusional fool, aided and abetted by cowardly Republicans. He should not be running a hot dog stand, let alone the US government.

Joyce and Canavan call for new coal plants to replace renewable energy projects Coalition opponents of net zero spruik coal, nuclear and gas as emissions policy divides opposition

Determined to be irrelevant, the LNP looks to be headed for the wilderness. A dud opposition makes for bad government, so don’t celebrate even if you think the LNP are a pack of bastards. www.theguardian.com/australia-ne...

Birds are dumb. Blame Tony Martin.

Notably, hardly any of them using books. Great place to be.

Cruel, but fair.

Rising more slowly than house prices now.

Inserting a new tall building into an established context is more challenging than building houses at the fringes. The root cause of slow housing construction is the rate of house price increase. There is no incentive to complete quickly, which means that developers build within their cash flow.

YouTube video by The Tom Lehrer Wisdom Channel Tom Lehrer - We Will All Go Together When We Go

Tom Lehrer was a clever fellow.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=frAE...

Dan Tehan’s RN interview this morning is excruciating. Surely he must be an internationally-listed moron.

Opinion | How Israel’s War Became Unjust

Not many people, including this author, seem to remember that Bibi allowed Qatar to fund Hamas to split them from the PA. Also, this isn’t a war; its become the human equivalent of shooting fish in a barrel. Genocide. www.nytimes.com/2025/07/26/o...

Rolex Fastnet Race - Start of the 100th Anniversary Edition YouTube video by RORC

It’s a great race. I remember the start on Jumbalaya in 2011; a fantastic experience. I’ll be back one day; two handed I hope. youtube.com/live/bWK109H...

Ousted Sydney council CEO blindsided by shock dismissal, inquiry hears John Ajaka’s contract was terminated weeks after he told Mayor Ned Mannoun to “shut the f--- up” in a meeting.

Ajaka was a director of property developer Deicorp until late 2023. While he was a Director, his former boss, the leader of the LNP opposition in NSW Peter Debman, was the chair of the North Sydney Planning panel approving a 6 storey height bonus for a Deicorp project. www.smh.com.au/national/nsw...

And here’s the one for Melbourne, Australia

Is ‘office air’ to blame for your limp hair and spotty, flaky skin? | Antiviral Air conditioning, heating and poor ventilation in the office can contribute to drier skin and greasier hair, but other factors such as the commute may play a part too

FFS. Is this the perfect Grauniad colour piece, combining inaccuracy with irrelevance? “Office air” is not a thing, and diet is more likely to give you skin problems than low humidity. We should have standards for indoor air quality, but facts are harder to write. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Is ‘office air’ to blame for your limp hair and spotty, flaky skin? | Antiviral Air conditioning, heating and poor ventilation in the office can contribute to drier skin and greasier hair, but other factors such as the commute may play a part too

FFS. Is this the perfect Grauniad colour piece, combining inaccuracy with irrelevance? “Office air” is not a thing, and diet is more likely to give you skin problems than low humidity. We should have standards for indoor air quality, but facts are harder to write. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

At least 32 Palestinians killed in Gaza as IDF fires on crowds seeking food Witnesses say scenes near Gaza Humanitarian Foundation aid hubs in the south of the territory resembled a massacre

Disgusting. www.theguardian.com/world/2025/j...

Tell me again how planning laws, rather than the tax system, that are behind the housing crisis…$1.2m tax free in a year…

Australia needs to rein in exemptions and concessions from capital gains tax and spend more public money building the kind of houses, in the kind of places that need them most

Could well be. He also seems to have an insufficient oxygen supply to his brain; maybe all the blood is stuck in his legs. We might have called this heart failure, but as he doesn’t have one, that can’t be the problem.

To defend our democracy, PM must disavow and abandon Segal report Combating antisemitism is a noble mission, but Jillian Segal’s report risks stoking it.

Accurate. www.smh.com.au/national/to-...

Prototypes essential. From the images so far, NSW not quite reaching the design level of Knutsford Freo, which integrates roads and streetscape. If we’re going to dream, let’s dream big.

Antisemitism Envoy Plans to Make All Australians Complicit in Gaza Genocide The antisemitism envoy’s plan to eliminate the manufactured ‘antisemitism crisis’ involves silencing voices that are critical of atrocities perpetrated by the Israeli state.

"—the public was not merely dumbfounded as to the draconian nature of the plan the ASCECA unveiled, which is supposed to combat antisemitism, but this shock shifted to questions about how the PM had allowed this matter to develop so far."
www.sydneycriminallawyers.com.au/blog/antisem...