March 2021

It feels like the less actual impact people have on political decisions, the more strident their views become on places like Twitter. Like a compensation. As if these little dialectical ideas wars online can substitute for actual political organisation.

@robbie_buck enjoyed yours and Wendy's segment on GM crops this morning. George Monbiot pointed to something a while back - precision fermentation - that might make even GM obsolete, together with most farming. Staggering what's going on: https://t.co/ETlwMeiNNZ

@billbowtell @CrabbBrendan @MarylouiseMcla1 thought this was interesting. Countries who made great play from 'opening up' often also have the highest stringency ratings. Goes to show the lockdown/'live with the virus' binary is false? The restrictions needed can't be avoided. https://t.co/ZkqDhEYlxN

@CrabbBrendan NSW has eliminated Covid? Extremely unlikely we'd go this many days without a new case if there was still Covid circulating? Barring HQ accidents. https://t.co/ehwewS0TAV

@normanswan what happens to the (presumably) billion or so multi-dose vaccine vials once they're done with? Are they recycled during the rollout for multiple use?

Superb read from @billbowtell, one of the very few in this pandemic who understood and kept bringing us back to the basic fact. Nature makes viruses, but people and politics make pandemics. (My own two cents - the cause of this pandemic? What we call the 'Economy'.) https://t.co/8uQ5YsJEaQ

@TurnbullMalcolm increasingly it seems democracy is being gamed by voter suppression? A longstanding trend. https://t.co/CDMHovQ0JM

Wonder if this was one of the anti-lockdown loon bridage's KPIs. https://t.co/CrKSeBYDx4

@AntonyGreenABC this tells a worldwide story stretching back many decades? https://t.co/cwZR4Vy85p

#auspol what we're not hearing as much in this week of passion for the 'rule of law', is that a situation is usually dysfunctional well before it becomes a legal matter. If people are forced to use the legal system to rectify injustice, much more work needs to be done elsewhere.

Hey, infections are dropping, let's open up! The same moronic refrain, with the same predictable outcomes. https://t.co/UjmcQ3Fe8C

Left and Right aren't the problem. Masculinity and femininity aren't either. Both distractions. The gap between the red and blue lines is the problem. https://t.co/eg86XCV828

Republics have home-grown heads of State. I'm not seeing the big advantage. https://t.co/qV8pw1Jr8W

@profmiketoole @CrabbBrendan I find this ongoing attempt to adopt a UK-type narrative around Covid disturbing. Vaccinate high-risk groups, then 'open up'. This fault-line still there, with the 'economic' forces pushing against public health measures. https://t.co/uifykjlclO

@CrabbBrendan @profmiketoole @billbowtell still copying the UK, first restaurant and entertainment vouchers (NSW), now travel. Targeting highest risk areas for spread, border-busting. Also targeting marginal LNP seats. https://t.co/pTPIP7GLwo

Modern conservative parties are hollowed-out shells, occupied by business lobby groups. Unions floated this prioritisation idea in the UK - it was flatly refused. The only priority is getting people back to work and money flowing back to business owners. https://t.co/JeqrWUVtIS

Has NSW had one nice word to say about any other State in this pandemic? https://t.co/ygWoCoXcMF

Some events in life bring home sharply how real it is. Like this morning. The cat pissing down one of the gas heating vents.

@GMegalogenis @TurnbullMalcolm @samanthamaiden Waleed's essay is era-defining? A masterpiece of diagnosis, showing that what look like opposing forces in national debate are actually all wallowing in the same hall of mirrors of late-stage liberalism. https://t.co/MR3tSZHhGB

@normanswan fair to say that when an entire (or near as) population is being vaccinated, just about every medical condition in existence will manifest itself during the rollout? And be portrayed as potentially vaccine-caused?

I sit here every day listening to basic political questions being re-routed through 'economic' framings. The great victory of the conservatives worldwide, in the past 50 years, to substitute a weighted statistical construct - The Economy - for society.

@MichaelWestBiz @BernardKeane how is the NSW $500 million 'Dine and Discover' program not just another grants rort? Tourist destinations and hospitality venues seem to have been packed solid for months, you can't get a booking. Just election bribes under cover of Covid relief?

#qanda what a pair of jibbering idiots Foster and Creighton are.

#qanda I think Stan may not have actually read Camus.

@simonahac while I'm also eager to see more electric cars, I think we need a foundational conversation about cars, roads and urban design. Like this one, how roads actually create traffic. A phenomenon agnostic to type of car. https://t.co/LXkarphWFI

The seductive simplicity of this graph is what allowed the substitution of an economy, or market, for society. That equilibrium point is said to be 'society', without need for government or regulation. Probably our greatest delusion. https://t.co/zpckDoMZjt

#insiders the LNP already has quotas, they're implicit rather than explicit. If you're a bloke, you'll get the seat. Power is nearly always an implicit thing, if you have privilege, you rarely need to speak it. That's what power is.

My chance of catching COVID from a vaccine seem about the same as Phase 2a arriving before Christmas. https://t.co/tKSSeedPWw

@Peter_Fitz saw this online and assumed it was a joke. But it may be legit? Probably covered in your book, which I haven't read, oops. https://t.co/e0q0QGhBIC

I wonder if this appointment was meant for Thursday. April 1. https://t.co/Q8CdMzpaRL

Those hopeful that a reshuffling of the ministry may bring justice for women, might remember that the current government has had a Minister for Climate Change for many years.

P.S. and let's stop people from getting sick, hey. https://t.co/M9hm1Q5cE8

@dtsmith_sydney what are the chances of the filibuster being dismantled under Biden?

@GidMK am I interpreting this correctly? The log scale shows rate of change? Suggesting Australia's rollout is actually hitting its straps and may even be faster than the initial US and UK rollout? https://t.co/47NlJ6Voue

With incredibly complex problems to solve, humanity retreats to comfy old binaries to channel the helplessness. Left vs Right. Man vs woman. Black vs white.

All true. But I wonder if this happened because of our underlying ideas about hierarchy. Societies love and need hierarchy. If what you offer them to create one is money, they’ll use that to create the hierarchy. We need a richer idea of hierarchy. https://t.co/u5vC8AUDsH