Patrick Allington
@patrickallington.bsky.social
Reader. Lapsed this and that.
All of the dystopic novels assured me our leaders would be more charismatic than this
Geologist Reunited With Beloved Rock He Studied 20 Years Ago https://theonion.com/geologist-reunited-with-beloved-rock-he-studied-20-years-ago/
Here it is. My manifesto for the 2026 Clacton By-Election. It's a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Join me, clean up Clacton and let's make 13th August Bin Day! #VoteBinface #VoteyMcVoteface #YesWeTinCan
I'm so disillusioned, I almost don't even care who gets the FIFA Peace Prize next year
Don't believe every housing headline. Or, as Chief Economist Greg Jericho puts it, maybe it's time to calm the farm. The latest data shows the outlook for house prices is more nuanced than the doom-and-gloom commentary suggests. Read the full analysis on The Point: https://theaus.in/4b7wym4
The greatest Mexico v England tweets you will ever read. 😂 As you were.
Not only did the AFR let AI invent its fictional graph, but the journo (whether or not "assisted" by AI) got the story wrong by not getting the difference between preference flows & transfers.
Antony Green@antonygreenelec.bsky.social · 2mo agoThe graph below with its non-existent parties caused much mirth. But the analysis in the article has a number of faults including assertions about strong flows of Green preferences to One Nation at the SA election. antonygreen.com.au/the-financia...
Probably my all-time favorite quote about editing is, some clueless individual asked Martin Scorsese's editor Thelma Schoonmaker how such a nice lady could edit such violent movies, and she replied "Marty's movies aren't violent until I edit them."
Bunnings, a giant retailer in Australia just dropped their updated privacy policy, and boy. they like collecting data: customer identity (gore PII), credit history, income details, images of you in store, online activity/habits/interests and of course, use cookies to track you across the web
![Mamdani's eagerness to avoid Charles was clear, his team distancing themselves from the king from the moment the 9/11 ceremony, at the World Trade Center, was announced. "The mayor will not meet privately with King Charles. But the mayor will be at the wreath laying ceremony today," Joe Calvello, the mayor's press secretary, said in a terse statement on Wednesday morning.
[photo]
(a King Charles meets first responders who were involved in the rescue efforts after the 2001 attacks, at the 9/11 memorial. Photograph: Samir Hussein/PA)
It was hardly the treatment Charles is accustomed to, but as the day unfolded it seemed he may have gotten lucky by avoiding a private audience. Asked on Wednesday morning what he would say to Charles if they were to spend time together beyond the ceremony, Mamdani said: "If I was to speak to the king separately from that, I would probably encourage him to return the Koh-i-Noor diamond."](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:qjzrpzlcmir3bkss4b5nh6ox/bafkreibsivsbubu2seqjo4dsbeb5sb35cam6377e5i2jdqob4prf3zql5e)
"Even the most high-art novel is still a commodity to be traded for money—and literary fiction is only sacred when such business is invisible." Tom Williams on Laura B. McGrath’s “Middlemen”: https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/middlemen-literary-agents-american-publishing-industry-laura-mcgrath
The Power of Fit | Los Angeles Review of Books
Laura B. McGrath’s new book looks at how the largely invisible work of literary agents shapes American literature.
lareviewofbooks.org
BREAKING: The Pentagon has fired the Stars and Stripes ombudsman — the role Congress created to protect the military paper's editorial independence — after she publicly criticized the DOD's overhaul of the publication. w/ @liamjscott.bsky.social www.washingtonpost.com/business/202...
Pentagon fires ombudsman overseeing military newspaper after calling it ‘woke’
Stars and Stripes ombudsman Jacqueline Smith said the Defense Department dismissed her without giving a reason, according to an email reviewed by The Post.
washingtonpost.com
John makes the key point about the NDIS “rorts”: the system was designed from the ground up around unaudited private provision
John Quiggin@johnquiggin.bsky.social · 4mo agoThe "wild west" here means the competitive market, central to PC thinking about human services, and failing as usual. What is really needed here is public provision as the default.
Vale David Malouf, a great Australian writer. My favourite Malouf books are the novel The Great World, his lectures on Australian consciousness, the short stories in Every Move You Make, & the poetry in Typewriter Music. His words will endure. #auslit textjournal.scholasticahq.com/article/2608...
Provocatively calm: on David Malouf as essayist | Published in TEXT
By Patrick Allington. This article focuses on the political implications of Malouf’s calm but opinionated approach to his essays, as well as on how Malouf sets out to persuade readers.
textjournal.scholasticahq.com
Come along to the @gleebooks.bsky.social launch of @janecaro.bsky.social’s Vantage Point essay. You’ll laugh, you’ll get mad, and be reminded it was a series of choices that got our public education into this state and we can choose to correct course
Jane Caro@janecaro.bsky.social · 4mo agoSydney launch of my latest book ‘Rich Kid, Poor Kid: The Battle for Public Education’ details here. Do come if you can. www.trybooking.com/events/landi...?
Funny how the law and order guys never think it applies to them 🙄 He’s again blaming the courts, the protesters and those attacked by police all for his appalling and illegal attempts to ban dissent
Two things we can do to stop the next pandemic: 1️⃣ Reduce wildlife trade.* (👉 *But: criminalization drives trade underground, and we find that illegal trade accelerates spillover. We need new ideas.) 2️⃣ Ramp up disease surveillance in wildlife markets, farms, and supply chains.
I've completely lost track of what I'm supposed to be distracted from.
"One paper’s acknowledgements thank 'Professor Maria Bohm at The Starfleet Academy for her kindness and generosity in contributing with her knowledge and her lab onboard the USS Enterprise'."
John Rogers@johnrogers.bsky.social · 4mo agoBloody hell. Researchers invented a disease, published two fake papers to see if LLM’s would ingest them and kick them up as fact — and then it broke containment and all the major AI’s bought in. Information pollution. www.nature.com/articles/d41...
"You're alienating half of your audience by being political!" The half:
This is the most delightful thing I’ve ever read
RM@dorsalstream.bsky.social · 4mo agoThe horse op-ed is an instant classic. I can't tell you how much joy this piece gives me. It should be taught in every introductory writing class in no small part because the horse arguments are so compelling. "I have noticed that human children get to eat cake. But I am bigger than the children."
Anyone posted this yet ... thought I'd get in early. From the always hilarious (and much missed) @kudelka.bsky.social
Under a proposed gambling shakeup, children will only be able to access their Sportsbet accounts at recess and after school.