"onomatopoeia" is itself an onomatopoeia for the sound noise makes

Our paper analysing academic staff experiences of administrative burden at Australian universities recently got accepted for publication. It should be available online soon. This is quite a chunky paper focusing on what these staff view as the key dimensions and drivers of admin burden at work.

If you don't want to be compared to the Gestapo, one neat trick is to not engage in a campaign of terror around the country wherein you kidnap people off the streets to slave dungeons in accommodation of an autocratic fascist and his nationalist movement's desire for racial purity.

wtf I love negative polarization now

"Masked security forces captured an opposition leader in the coastal province of New Jersey as regime officials continue their months-long crack-down against pro-democracy elements in the embattled United States. The arrest comes as the regime issued calls for summary detentions without trial."

Marco Foster@marcofoster.bsky.social · last yr.

HAPPENING NOW: Newark Mayor Ras Baraka was just taken into custody while protesting outside the Delaney Hall ICE detention center

Being constantly validated is bad, actually. This is the unifying takeaway of several prominent pieces of online discourse from this weekend alone, including this one, but more generally speaks to something that’s been apparent for several years now. www.rollingstone.com/culture/cult...

People Are Losing Loved Ones to AI-Fueled Spiritual Fantasies

Marriages and families are falling apart as people are sucked into fantasy worlds of spiritual prophecy by AI tools like OpenAI's ChatGPT

rollingstone.com

Hugh Hutton on Hitler promising prosperity, but actually offering xenophobia, racism, cultism... Los Angeles Illustrated Daily News, 4/24/1933.

me on the hedonic treadmill: man it's gonna feel so good when i get off this treadmill!!!!!

This moment when the penny drops that trying to implement bathroom bans is an impossibility for the former Tory Chief Secretary Simon Clarke is delicious.

Very good visualisation for anyone teaching Australian Politics

casey briggs@caseybriggs.com · last yr.

This humble little triangle explains the big shift in how we vote over 50 years. My latest: www.abc.net.au/news/2025-04...

Just putting this here so we can use it when it happens.

A short article of mine on civil-military relations and democratic backsliding had been accepted for publication in the journal "Connections". Then I received an email that the editors can't publish the paper unless I "remove the case study/examples of the United States" (1/x) #CivMilSky

a man in a suit says this is ridiculous in white letters

ALT: a man in a suit says this is ridiculous in white letters

media.tenor.com

Unconcealed authoritarianism, straight from the White House. Anyone who demands they prove that an accused person is a terrorist must be, themselves—you guessed it!—a terrorist. Conservative and Liberal Americans reject this pigslop.

MeidasTouch@meidastouch.com · last yr.

JUST IN: Deputy Assistant to the President and "Counterterrorism Czar" Sebastian Gorka says anyone advocating for due process for Kilmar Abrego Garcia could be viewed as "aiding and abetting a terrorist" and be federally charged. (h/t Philip Germain)

Whether you love or hate tariffs, you can't help but be impressed at the detailed policy planning, the transparency of the policy process, the credibility of Administration announcements, relentless attention to detail, flawless execution, and the thoughtful predictability that business demands.

Around here, we use more subtle and long-winded dog whistles like "Let's get Australia back on track."

Nick Feik@nickfeik.bsky.social · last yr.

Bona fide idiot

Federal spending is *up* under Trump according to the Wall Street Journal. Chaos is not actually the same as cost savings. Actual budgeting is a kind of actual policy-making and takes real work spread over real time. Running around breaking stuff isn't that. www.wsj.com/politics/pol...

Trump is claiming the powers of a tyrant. Not an exaggeration, not a joke. Literally what his administration has argued in court. www.nytimes.com/2025/04/09/o...

City of Moreton Bay harasses the homeless, removing tents www.theguardian.com/australia-ne...

‘Where am I going to go?’ Dismay as Queensland council begins tearing down tent encampment

Homeless residents given an hour to move belongings as City of Moreton Bay brings excavator to Eddie Hyland Park in Lawnton

theguardian.com

one explanation is that chemicals in the air or water are making everyone stupider every year and we haven’t noticed because we’re all too stupid. this hypothesis would help explain why everything and everyone is really stupid now

man I hate it when all that is solid melts into air

This is really unfair to everyone who just voted for him for the racism.

This is great news for Australia

Australia is the anti-America when it comes to polarisation

If you feel this is the most 'meh' election you've witnessed, you are not alone. New research shows Australian voters are not deeply polarised or highly enthusiastic; instead, they are both uncertain ...

abc.net.au

Just published (open access): In our article, we explore the key institutional forces that have led to casual academic employment being regarded as legitimate and normal element of university activity in Australia: link.springer.com/article/10.1...

The rise of a “casualised” workforce: A conceptual account of the institutional forces legitimising contingent academic employment in Australia - Higher Education

Contingent academic employment has become a salient feature of many higher education systems over recent decades. At the same time, there remains limited understanding of how such employment has come ...

link.springer.com

'They were careless people, Tom and Daisy—they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made.' - F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, 1925

Utterly moronic decision-making by BOTH duopoly parties - sacrificing the hugely important education sector when it should be thriving, all because they’re incapable of tough decisions on real estate investment rorts. Cutting students is not the solution to housing. amp.abc.net.au/article/1051...

🎆JOB ALERT🎆 Come work with me & my lovely colleagues at Monash in Politics & International Relations - 3 year Level B Lecturer role, balanced 40/40/20 profile. We want someone to start in Semester 2 (i.e. July). Closes April 17. Happy to chat! careers.pageuppeople.com/513/cw/en/jo...

There’s gonna be a million tiny tragedies like this coming from tariffs over the next few months. A small business that grew out of a passion project and just explodes through no fault of their own because one part happened to come from China or Vietnam or the EU.

Coyote & Crow Games@coyoteandcrow.bsky.social · last yr.

Coyote & Crow Games full statement on the tariff announcement yesterday. (copied in alt text)

Australian higher ed would be in a great position to benefit from this mess if not for the bipartisan delusion that international students are a significant cause of the housing crisis.

Robert Kelchen@robertkelchen.com · last yr.

I don't think much of the higher ed community realizes the extent to which international student enrollment is at risk right now. It seems crazy to think of nearly all international students being banned, but colleges and students need to prepare for that possibility.

Unironically, the finance world being caught off sides by this is why they should hire less economists and more political scientists.