Dr Elen Shute

Palantir staff working in Defence offices. Removing standard audit requirements. Watering down cyber-attack reporting. That’s the deal that the surveillance giant got with the Australian government.

Read the report here: www.crikey.com.au/2026/03/09/p...

It sure does talk about itself a lot.

Israel is demolishing Lebanon

Starting to think the Iran stuff was actually purposefully a distraction for this because they know how brutally unpopular Gaza has been, Because the news is covered up in Iran but there is zero coverage of this. It’s so fucking bad yall it’s Gaza 2.

Yes, hide glue is traditional, but cheap modern ones may be stuck together with ordinary wood glue.

Cello with its back removed

One of the most surprising things about stringed instruments is that you can take them apart with nothing more than a butter knife 🎻

Oh.

“We have agreed” — how nice of them! Surely they’re doing this work pro bono right?

Ah, how I envy you eastern-staters 😂

The sound of unskilled, strangled warbling from a young kookaburra is one of life’s delights. For months.

Greens overtake Labour in sensational poll The Greens have polled higher than Labour in the latest poll by YouGov, which puts them only two points off Reform UK and five ahead of the governing party.

"Of those who voted Labour [in 2024], just 37% would vote Labour again".
Read that again to absorb the full, astonishing weight of what it means.
Starmer, Reeves and co have burnt their house down.
news.sky.com/story/greens...

Who's watching while we shop? Coles has partnered with CIA-linked surveillance corporation Palantir. Who's watching while we shop?

Do you want to be surveiled (video, audio, mobile devices, purchase history) by an evil tech company while you shop at Coles No? 👇📝

getup.to/L8PgmuECyzeU1

Adelaide University cancels literary festival event with UN Gaza investigator Francesca Albanese Festival organisers criticise the university for last-minute booking cancellation of event headlined by special rapporteur for Palestinian territories

Because the event organisers did not follow the proper venue booking procedures for Elder Hall 😂 What a pissant excuse.

www.theguardian.com/australia-ne...

Musk’s fossil data centres are undoing Tesla’s climate benefit I know you already know the data centres built to power the generative AI software running on X are intensely harmful and wildly polluting, often in breach of rules and regulations. You may not kno…

It's a simple way of putting it, but I hope the fact that one group of data centres powering one shitty, evil chatbot for one crappy little social media site undoing most or all of Tesla's entire global climate benefits puts in perspective how WILDLY bloated genAI is as software

Bar graph comparing emissions from Grok's fossil-fuelled data centres to avoided emissions from Tesla's products for the years 2023 and 2024.

Comparison of emissions from manufacturing xAI's chatbot responses (5,127,553 tonnes CO2e) versus all Tesla products (1,056,000 tonnes CO2e) with respective analyses.

*New short blog* - finally (with help) got around to getting a total estimate of Grok's climate pollution 🫠

- Once all fossil gas online, = to between half and all of Tesla's ANNUAL GLOBAL avoided emissions

- Currently, 5x the emissions of Tesla's total manufacturing

ketanjoshi.co/2026/03/02/m...

Free-roaming lobbyists in Australian parliament could face tighter restrictions, Albanese says Prime minister outlines ‘security’ review of conditions for coveted orange passes that allow unrestricted access

Australians really dislike the unfettered access lobbyists have to politicians in Parliament House. Every day Parliament sits, hundreds of lobbyists roam its halls. We can't know which Ministers they meet with, or how they influence government decision-making.

Oh. Is this another ‘sure there are some actual conspiracies but still, anyone who believes in them or points them out is a conspiracist nut job’ piece? I thought they had quietened down in light of… actual information.

Now THAT is cool!

What do you do with said sediment?

Imagine being gifted Morrison, Dutton, Ley and Taylor then turning into John Howard

#SavioursOfWomen #Afghanistan #Iraq #Libya #Iran

"How can you oppose war when Khamenei was evil?"

Simple. If you killed Donald Trump by nuking Washington DC, I would not mourn Trump but I'd still say you're an evil war criminal who belongs in the Hague. It's really not hard.

It’s all energy of one kind or another. (Yesterday I went to turn on the kitchen tap with my house keys…)

People really struggling with the idea that the Iranian government sucks but we shouldn't be bombing them can both be true, eh?

A U.S. official said American military strikes on Iran were underway.

Remember when Congress authorized the use of force against Iran?

Me neither.

Any U.S. attack on Iran would violate U.S. and international law.

To be fair, I have also heard pro-environmental folks suggest using AI generated comments on government socials to boost policies they want. It’s fraudulent, anti-democratic nonsense whoever does it.

I remember how the “shock and awe” of the US attack on Iraq ended in decades of broken cities, broken people and broken promises. Trump’s and Netanyahu’s bombs today can only produce more of this in Iran. Australia must reject this illegal attack.

Australia, don’t demonise immigrants. Just thank them The contribution of immigration to this country is not just positive, it is formative. Migrants are who we are.

‘Australia was not a “guest-worker” country, unlike many of our peers in Europe. Migrants to Australia were seen as new Australians, with access to the same protections and services.’
Sadly, that’s no longer the case.
Needs to be fixed.
www.smh.com.au/national/aus...

Difficult women, comfortable power When women refuse to soften their demands on violence, inequality and unpaid labour, the response is often to question their temperament rather than the broken system they are challenging.

"Women who organised mass protests were called difficult. Women who refused to accept apologies as reform were difficult. Women who demanded structural change not symbolic proximity to power were called difficult.

What that word really signals is non-compliance."
johnmenadue.com/post/2026/02...