There’s a technique I am beginning to see more and more (1). The inevitably laughable COP26 looms, and yet another “we’re screwed” climate report [e.g. IPCC WG1 6AR] is out. In response, fossil fuel companies are either heading for the exits as best they can OR they are claiming that they are part of the... Continue Reading →
COVID, the media, New South Wales. pending international outrage and what else comes next.
Today New South Wales recorded 466 new cases of COVID. I heard the "press conference" (I will come back to those scare quotes) with the Premier, Gladys Berejiklian a while ago and a couple of things struck me, which are probably old hat to most folks, but I've seen them written anywhere else, so here... Continue Reading →
Sisyphus does his cardio. But no koalas in sight
Koalas are fantastically dim. Their brains used to fill their cranium, more or less, but in the absence of predators requiring them to be able to think, the expensive (in terms of protein and energy) wetware got selected against. Koalas are therefore even more fantastically dim than they once were (when your 'prey' is eucalyptus... Continue Reading →
“Big Fish, Little Fish, Box”: Social movement organisations and their lifecycles.
What goes up must come down. Sooner or later, the laws of political/social movement (1) gravity re-assert themselves. Your movement organisation goes from big fish to little fish and then, unless it can institutionalise itself (i.e. get charitable status, and carve out a niche in the existing ecosystem that it came to overthrow) it simply... Continue Reading →
Film review: “Old” is just that, old hat…
Take a bit of Westworld (the Yul Brinner movie, not the TV show). Take a bit of the forgotten 1996 medical thriller Extreme Measures (Gene Hackman, Hugh Grant, Sarah Jessica Parker). Take a bit of an even-more forgotten schlock novel from the 1970s called "The Glow" and a few other old off-cuts. There, you've got... Continue Reading →
Scenes from the long yomp in Adelaide
My first decent length yomp in a month (quarantine and lockdown having slowed things down). About 15 or 16km around the city, in roughly three hours (28ish kilos in the backpack). Some photos.
So much podcasting and jaw-flapping, so little “this is how we bell the cat”-ting
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh. I get that it is easier and safer to keep saying the cat should wear a bell. I get that it is easier to celebrate occasions on which the cat didn't get to kill quite so many mice. BUT WHAT THE ACTUAL... Why are people spending time on creating podcasts, or holding zoom calls... Continue Reading →
Intelligence Deficit or Empathy Deficit? Of “Covidiots” and the Voight-Kampff test
Hands up if you've ever changed your mind on a topic after someone called you stupid? [crickets] Yeah, me neither. I am not "stupid" (blah blah scholarships, degrees etc etc etc blah blah) but omfg have I done more (far more) than my share of stupid things. And the root cause of most of those... Continue Reading →
Scenario-building – The month(s) ahead for the Commonwealth… “same boat,” “spotfires” and “deep moat.” COVID #auspol
Let's say that there are three scenarios (all of which involve NSW losing control of the shituation - you could have other scenarios too, if you like, where Delta goes easy on us). Let's call them "same boat" "spot fires" and "deep moat" I think spot fires is most likely. Same boat In two months... Continue Reading →
Resisting resisting – the abyss stares back so well…
So damned tired. It is hard to care, when it seems so very late, when resisting seems so very futile. This is what those determined to kill us all (they see it differently, obvs) want. They want us to desert the field. It's so much easier for them, then. There’s a quote from near the... Continue Reading →
