John Quiggin

Columnist Bret Stephens (New York Times, 7/22/25) argued that Israel’s actions couldn’t be considered genocidal because many Palestinians were still alive, which is like saying the existence of the Kardashians disproved the Armenian genocide.

fair.org/home/nyt-sup...

Six traditional seasons, yes.

Informally, you start with Wet and Dry and go from there, adding in Buildup and Set-in Wet, then subdividing the Dry to get to six.

Not sure how this would work in Southern climates where winter is the rainy season - glad to be away from that.

Australia news live: Melbourne lord mayor sees value in city recognising six seasons rather than four Follow live

Melbourne lord mayor sees value in city recognising six seasons rather than four Is that six seasons per day, or for the whole year?
www.theguardian.com/...

Labor's shifting views on Gaza leave a trail of mixed messages and abandoned tactics As the evidence of genocide in Gaza and ethnic cleansing in the West Bank has grown, Labor has had to adjust its position or risk being left behind by allies and the electorate.

Labor's shifting views on Gaza leave a trail of mixed messages and abandoned tactics www.crikey.com.au/20... Par for the course from #Albo #auspol

And central point here is not the fact that the universe is finite but the fact that we are. That means we can't be aware of all possibilities, which is required if law of excluded middle is to hold.
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What if Infinity Didn’t Exist? Can “finitism” possibly describe the real world?

I'm a finitist, but not a hardliner. Infinities are useful ways of talking about limits, but you don't strictly need them. For example, you can define the square root of 2 using Dedekind cuts (see Wikipedia)

Big issue isn't infinity per se but law of the excluded middle

www.scientificameric...
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Striking that this was just a few weeks ago. Segal's anti-anti-zionist agenda dead in the water now. #auspol


www.smh.com.au/polit...

We need to apply the converse of the AIHR definition of anti-semitism as holding Israel to different standards from others. That is, we need to disqualify from public debate anyone who excuses genocide committed by the Israeli government while denouncing genocide in general #auspol

Study: Conspiracy Theorists Think They’re Mainstream Transcript: Hello there, and welcome to my YouTube channel. My name is Trevor. Well, okay, that’s not my birth name. That would be Rebecca. “Trevor” is the name bestowed upon me by my bros. You see…

Study: Conspiracy Theorists Think They’re Mainstream skepchick.org/2025/0...

Digital sovereignty is the big issue in global IT policy. Discussion of the dangers or otherwise of AI is mostly a distraction

www.opendemocracy.ne...

Small Countries Are Seeking Asylum in Europe It’s a tough time for the world’s more vulnerable nations—except in the EU’s embrace.

In a world where the superpowers (and Putin's sortasuperpower) have decisively rejected democracy, the EU, with all its problems, is the place to be.
foreignpolicy.com/20...

The Three Dreams You Need to Make a Drone: Concerning Eyeballs, Spiritual Surveillance, and Odin's Ravens In modern times, we have democratized the formerly inhuman god's eye view. We have extended to everyone the steely gaze of a god peering down upon the activities of mortals from a celestial perch, or the exalted viewpoint of an emperor regarding his holdings from the vertical fastness of his

The Three Dreams You Need to Make a Drone: Concerning Eyeballs, Spiritual Surveillance, and Odin's Ravens little-flying-robots...

Some names: Lyotard, Derrida . Deleuze. But you won't find any unambiguous statements. Postmodernist rhetoric relies heavilty on the "motte and bailey" fallacy. A strong statement like "scientific 'truth' is just another social construct" is replaced, under attack by "science is a social activity"/

And again in the 1930s. It seems like this might be the future for Libs.

Indeed, I quote Latour pretty regularly

Bad ideas don’t die on their own In his thought-provoking book, Zombie Economics: How Dead Ideas Still Walk Among Us, Australian economist John Quiggin argues that many bad economic ideas that helped create the Global Financial Cr…

Economic Zombies still walk among us, and my book is still there as a weapon against them. A nice review from PNG
lanesiaknots.com/202...

Left postmodernists in the 1990s assumed that the "truths" of the marginalised and oppressed would benefit from abandoning an epistemological commitment to objective truth. It should have been obvious that the "truths" of the rich and powerful would prevail.

Postmodern conservatism isn't defined by general skepticism, but strategic epistemic skepticism in selecting who and what to believe based on whatever feels affirming. In effect playing "choose your own truth" round the clock.

We saw that in grand style the other day.

Yes, this was my point. No Whigs, and Libs divided. I remember reading a "Misleading Cases" story by AP Herbert, in which a woman had left her estate to "the Liberal Party" and the judges had to decide which one should get it,

Picky, I know, but someone whose job is political journalism ought to be able to get basic facts like this straight. And the breakup of the UK Liberals over coalition with Tories is actually more relevant to the situation of the LNP today than electoral shift associated with universal suffrage.
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In the current climate, the Coalition looks cooked After losing government in 2022, and then suffering further big losses at this year’s election, the Coalition cannot seem to grasp a very obvious problem.

Oz analysis here is OK, but UK history is dodgy The Whigs had turned into the Liberal party by 1850. And the Liberal Party won the 1918 election in coalition with Conservatives. It still exists (now (now Liberal Democrats), although no one knows why. #auspol #libdems

www.smh.com.au/polit...
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The 2 Beliefs Driving Conservative Health Care Policy Why Republicans think that insurance should be tied to employment — and that it’s not essential to have at all.

An instance of a pattern I often see. Studies within the US show something (health insurance makes no clear difference to health, gun laws don’t reduce deaths) that is obviously false when you compare the US to the rest of the world


www.nytimes.com/2025...

He may talk rubbish but Trump has an eye for beauty, and that is a breath of fresh air | Simon Jenkins The US president promotes classical architecture and loathes ‘ugly’ wind turbines. Keir Starmer would dismiss him as a nimby, but on this Trump has a point, says Guardian columnist Simon Jenkins

Is there any commentator more reliably moronic than Simon Jenkins? Asking for a friend.

www.theguardian.com/...

We seem to be in furious agreement

Europe is breaking its reliance on American science   European governments are taking steps to break their dependence on critical scientific data the United States historically made freely available to the world, and are ramping up their own data collection systems to monitor climate change and weather extremes, according to Reuters interviews.

Disengagement will be a long and difficult process, but there is no alternative. What was the US is gone, and it's not coming back.

www.reuters.com/sust...

I don't see how this explains adopting the cuts in the first place, hanging on grimly, then changing them in the wake of a bad poll. Can you spell this out?

Feel free to wxplain it for me with reference to the Stage 3 tax cuts, and the captains call on gender questions in the census.

If by "divisive" you mean "offends News Corp" and by "material results" you mean "political benefits", that's about right.

It’s official: Portugal prepares to recognise state of #Palestine. Meanwhile #Albo dithers - it's what he does best. #auspol


www.portugalresident...