YouGov brings more good news for Labor, its latest federal poll crediting them with a two-party lead of 53-47, out from 52.5-47.5. The primary votes are Labor 33% (up one), Coalition 33% (down half), Greens 13% (steady) and One Nation 7% (down one-and-a-half). Anthony Albanese is nonetheless down two on approval to 43% and up two on disapproval to 49%, while Peter Dutton is up two to 40% and down three to 50%. Albanese leads 48-38 on preferred prime minister, little changed from 48-37 last week. The poll was conducted Friday to Tuesday from a sample of 1506.
Natalia Viana of Agência Pública (courtesy of World Crunch with a translation by Irene Caselli) writes that it’s the Global South that has been pushing back on American Big Tech companies.
It’s undeniable: The land of the free is no longer a free country.
For those living there, it’s an exasperating realization — one we incorporated generations ago in Latin America — that an authoritarian regime isn’t upheld only by decisions made at the top, but by how that authoritarianism seeps into the fabric of society. This is how the hunger for power goes to the head of the policeman around the corner, or to the so-called good citizen next door, who under a far-right government, suddenly decide to keep an eye on you.
Although the neo-fascists in the White House want the world to believe they wield absolute power — not just over the United States but over the globe — the truth is, politics doesn’t play out solely in palaces. Americans are about to learn that resistance begins in the everyday; that surrendering your liberties out of fear is the first step toward total defeat. There are already early signs of resistance, as Brazil expert James Green pointed out in Agência Pública.
But for those who see no escape from the nightmare of authoritarianism fused with techno-oligarchy, let me remind you: the world isn’t standing still, waiting on a handful of white men. I bring a few words of hope
https://worldcrunch.com/eyes-on-the-us/american-oligarchy-world/
53-47 is 2007 Rudd territory. I knew 83 seats had a ring to it !
WB: The poll was conducted Friday to Tuesday from a sample of 1506.
Me: Do it covers Campaign launches, Dutton’s inclusion of his son into Liberals campaign, Dutton calling Indonesian President announced about Russia military base on Indonesian soil.
Another remarkable thing about this poll. ALP and LNP PVs are same @ 33%
Oh wow, polls keep going up for Labor. Now comes the long Easter weekend, followed by a 3-day week, followed by another long ANZAC day weekend.
If Labor actually loses from here from getting a 53-47 poll toward them on an increased momentum without some sort of justifiable event, I’ll have my doubts entrenched in polling to the end of my days.
Realistically – the blowback on the Indonesian nuttery wouldn’t have been too widely known until Wednesday.
As I said on the previous thread …
I know it’s Thursday, but it feels like Friday, so …
Imagine the Earth as a perfect sphere exactly 6400km in radius. There is a ribbon around the equator, seamless, that exactly touches the surface all the way around. Now we magically increase the length of the ribbon by 20 centimetres and lift it so that it’s equidistant from the surface of the Earth at all points.
To one significant figure, how far is the ribbon from the surface? Bonus points if you can explain how calculus allows you to do it in your head.
(Yeah, it’s not really a logic puzzle, really a maths puzzle, but I’m running out of logic puzzles.)
Morrison 2019: ‘ I don’t carry a hose’
Dutton 2025: ‘ I’m not a scientist’
Continuing from @11:50 pm
How The Global South Is Pushing Back Against Big Tech
While disinformation and authoritarianism grow stronger in the U.S., countries across the Global South are leading the charge for regulation and resistance. It may be the beginning of a worldwide reckoning with Silicon Valley’s dominance.
https://worldcrunch.com/in-the-news/how-the-global-south-is-pushing-back-against-big-tech/
I am repeating a my post from the previous thread.
I live in a community that has male and female homosexuals , now we have a person who dresses in womens clothes as he is a man who is a woman. A problem has now arrisen as this person insists on using the women’s toilets.
Some women are offended and frightened of this person. After being approached and told that using the women’s toilet is offending and frightening them, this person says that he wants to use the women’s toilet as he is a women.
My reaction to this is that these people exist and have always existed. If we were to accept this fact we would all be free and no longer be frightened. So, accept these people exist and they are not there to harm us, we would all be free,
But I guess this means I am woke
Mashed potato with schadenfreude.
Ante M at 12.01 am
To one significant figure, how far is the ribbon from the surface? Bonus points if you can explain how calculus allows you to do it in your head.
(Yeah, it’s not really a logic puzzle, really a maths puzzle, but I’m running out of logic puzzles.)
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Ante,
Didn’t anyone remind you that puzzles are not allowed on PB after 12 midnight on Good Friday until 12 midnight on Tuesday after Easter.
98.6 @ #715 Thursday, April 17th, 2025 – 11:00 pm
ScromoII,
One of the few people who understands Mark Latham when he said most don’t understand how horrible for a straight man to have made a pass on by another male.
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There’s a nightclub in the Valley (Brisbane) called the Beat which is frequented by gays and straights about 50/50 and women and men 50/50.
It wasn’t uncommon to be hit on by gay men even if you were with your wife or girlfriend and it didn’t matter if you were good looking or not.
Ms 98.6 would purposely watch from afar with a laugh if she saw it happening to me.
Admittedly, we haven’t been there for years but it’s been going for over 40 years.
_______________________________
Just catching up, the whole ‘awful get hit on by a guy cause i am a big tough straight man’ thing is sailing pretty close to the good old ‘gay panic’ defense where one could beat up someone and then claim, “oh he hit on me i was so scared” and then get away with it.
A common theory from psycs is that those most insecure about their own sexuality have the greatest fear and often violent response.
I can’t tell you the number of times guys have tried to hit on me, I must have a faulty gaydar but it used to happen alot – and mostly I didn’t much notice it
as I am comfortable with what I am. There were a few overt propositions but thats easy enough to say, sorry not into that.
Anyhow traveling in the US as well, what is it with them and young Aussie blokes, I encountered it a few times but instead of shrieking in panic i was nice, what happened?, people are nice back, in fact so nice I got flight upgrades of the, there’s a spare seat in business class type, or upgraded meals, free drinks and all sorts.
And you know what, it is exactly the kinda thing that happens to pretty girls from straight guys and it is harmless.
Getting onto toilets, I have used the wrong one by mistake but that was in France and they were labelled M and H. An you are wrong, every toilet has a urinal, it is called a sink. As a noted intellectual one said “I am a man and the world is my toilet”.
53/47 is very good. Very, very good. But the run to Labor is not over. When voters read their ballots, the words ‘Proxy for Trump’ will be subliminally printed alongside the name of every Lib candidate. Australian voters will overwhelmingly reject Trump and his alternates, interns, trainees and agents now standing as Liberal candidates. Few things have ever been more certain in Australian politics.
The Liberal vote is decaying very quickly. Their support has transferred to both Labor ( indicated support lifting from the high 20s to a level above the 2022 result) and to 3rd voices. This will certainly accelerate, and the split of 3rd voice prefs will also increasingly favour Labor. When a swing is on, where PVs go so prefs will follow.
We will soon see an array in which Labor’s PV exceeds that of both the consolidated Reactionaries and the aggregated ‘others.’ This will translate into a preferred counter-Reactionary vote some way above 60%, and will deliver substantially fewer than 50 Reactionary members to the House.
The swing is on.
Can potatoes believe in climate change?
I am far too much into my 12 pack of cider to do puzzles.
I assume you “roll out” the line and then do another line on top and then move the lines until they match the distance or something. idk.
33% primary ALP, 33% Coalition …. if those numbers hold up, it’s going to be a bloodbath.
Last election the ALP primary was 32.58 to the Coalition’s 35.69%.
53-47 to Labor.
Potato famine?
98.6 says Thursday, April 17, 2025 at 11:21 pm
I’ve seen some feedback on these reports on BlueSky (I follow a number of astronomers).
On Earth the molecule found is typically produced in biological processes. However, It’s a relatively small organic compound and it’s possible that it could be produced through non biological (abiotic) processes. So, it’s an interesting find, but it’s not proof of life.
I suggest checking out @planetdr.bsky.social.
Bludgeoned Westie at 4.11 and 4.14 pm
See detailed comments at the end of the previous thread.
Briefly, Bullwinkel is Labor gain due to swing in WA on BT. Labor have never lost Lingiari and won’t now.
Bennelong and Gilmore are likely to stay Labor due to candidate factors and the strong swing back to Labor.
That swing also diminishes Dai Le’s chance of retaining since she beat blow-in Keneally only marginally.
Add those 5 to your 70 = 75. Then you are not seeing a Labor majority only because of hypothetical Greens gains in Macnamara and Wills. Unclear why Greens are favourites there. They are more likely to retain seats in Brisbane than gain seats in Melbourne.
Despite Trump and some journos, the election is being fought largely on domestic issues, not favouring Greens.
davidwh says Thursday, April 17, 2025 at 11:19 pm
I know this is an important issue to people in the trans community, but the longer the right can keep this on the agenda and provoke a reaction, the worse it’s going to be for those affected. Don’t let your enemies choose their battlefield.
https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/the-coalitions-nuclear-plan-is-raising-questions-about-water-heres-why/vfeyig743
Darren Chester is now tipping a bucket of water, literally, over Dutton’s nuclear fantasy.
It’s also good that Dutton’s comment about “exercising Commonwealth powers” may make it into the “news cycle”. This is surely another tie in with the Trump way of doing things and needs to be hammered by the ALP.
sustainable snail says Thursday, April 17, 2025 at 11:46 pm
Has anyone told the Tiger Snakes?
Doctor, West Australians know just how useless the Liberals actually are. Our counter-parts in other States are forming the same view.
The Reactionary Dutton has been campaigning against himself non-stop for several months. He will help Labor to a colossal win.
i dunno about calculus because 8am lectures at wallace was cruel and unusual punishment for a teenager but if the circumference is forty million seventy five thousand meters then the length of the ribbon is forty million and seventy five thousand point two meters and its radius is that divided by 2π which in the case of the planet is six million three hundred and seventy eight thousand one hundred and thirty four point three four meters and in the case of the ribbon is six million three hundred and seventy eight thousand one hundred and thirty four point three eight meters, so the height of the ribbon off the surface is three or four centimeters
why am I doing this
bc at 12.21
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I can’t comment on your post as ‘I’m not a scientist’.
Well done, Omar.
It’s about three and a bit centimetres.
Which is a lot more that most people guess.
leftie Brawler at 12.02 pm
Two comments are not equivalent because Dutton’s is not “cut through”.
A closer comparison would be to paraphrase what Dutton meant, and what is the import of his policies:
“I don’t follow the science”.
That is obviously what motivates him but it doesn’t have the big clang of ProMo Morrison shirking his duties (while being a closet multi minister).
Don’t worry Dutton has 2 weeks left to make a rhetorical fool of himself.
Circumference = pi x Radius
C = Rpi
dC/dR = pi
dR = dC / pi
The change in circumference is near enough to infinitely small compared to the radius, so the change in radius is near enough to the change in circumference divided by Pi.
Ante Meridian is it supposed to be related to sea level rise? and can you explain the calculus in a way that makes me happy rather than angry? and are we going to be banned?
Labor’s basic appeal is based on ‘safe hands’. This is valid not only in relation to sometime-LNP voters. It also extends to could-be Green voters. It is most unlikely that voters will want to elect an unstable Parliament in uncertain times. When it comes to filling out their ballots, voters are going to prefer Labor to the alternatives, which all promise to deliver decidedly wobbly results.
Confessions says Thursday, April 17, 2025 at 8:04 pm
I don’t agree with all of AOC’s policies, she’s a little bit too radical on some things. But I think she’s a great public speaker, especially off the cuff. She has a great story to tell and she tells it well.
I don’t know if she can ever be president, I’m sure the right will be framing her negatively well before she gets a chance (just as they did with Hillary).
Note, the talking head interrupting the video was irritating.
> Circumference = pi x Radius
circumference = pi x diameter, this is what happens when you attend calculus lectures
Hack, woke, Partisan at 12.28 pm
Yes, WA is in the Labor vanguard, to use an old-fashioned term.
It was a good choice for Labor to do their launch in Perth again. Very likely to be + 1 in seats at least, with Canning still a possibility. That result matters a lot in a close election.
Whether the Labor win must wait upon WA count is less clear. Trend toward Labor is national but looks strongest recently in NSW and Victoria, so Labor gains in WA may come after Antony Green has spoken.
I’m not getting too mathsy while typing on my phone with a beer in the other hand, so here goes.
Let c be circumference, r radius. From high school c=2.pi.r. Pretend d is Greek delta (small change), dc=2.pi.dr, and dc is 20 cm, so dr is dc/2.pi or (10/pi) cm, about 3 cm.
Seems to work unless it’s one of those trick questions?
Ante Meridian says Friday, April 18, 2025 at 12:38 am
I know I’m getting on and my memory is fading, but doesn’t C = 2πr?
A month is a long time in Australian politics.
A bit over 4 weeks ago Sussex st had decided to quietly abandon any hope for majority pathways and instead cut seats like Bennelong and Gilmore loses to try and sand bag seats in the hunter and the Sydney outer metro ring.
Fast forward to now and Labor are more likely than not to hold those 2 seats and they’ve now gone on the offensive in TNQ and dropping serious folding money in Dutton’s own electorate.
I just can’t see any sort of circuit breaker to strategically derail this Labor momentum. Dutton is out of tricks and nothing is sticking or hitting the mark.
The way it’s going the current member for Fowler will end up working the typing pool in a sympathetic coalition frontbencher’s office to pay the bills post election night.
Junie Morosi was an interesting character.
Bugger, circumference is Pi times the diameter, not the radius. But it’s still three and a bit centimetres, trust me.
What was the question? Sea level rise? No, it just has to do with me asking inane questions late at night. Or playing misic – that’s an option too.
Well i’m no mathematical expert in changes in imaginary lines, who knows if they are getting longer and floating 3cm above, in say the jungle of Bolivia, i am no expert, it could just be natural line elevation. I will just take advice of the mathematicians that supports my point of view.
“Fowler will end up working the typing pool in a sympathetic coalition frontbencher’s office to pay the bills post election night.”
She’s already double dipping on Fairfield Council. So she’ll keep that $50k a year (plus whatever secret kickbacks from property developers that I’m sure are still going on that she can find if she felt the need to do so).
Funny how you can do that as a Federal MP, but you can’t as a NSW State MP.
Also, why isn’t that considered an “office under the crown”?
so I’m squinting hard at what you wrote and I’m seeing … hang on let me take a couple panadol here
ok that’s better, now I’m seeing … differential calculus… work with me here
yeah that’s definitely a differential. Never let it be said that I wasted thousands of my own money and tens of thousands of government money on not becoming an electrical engineer.
It’s the change in circumference divided by 2 x Pi, of course. Duh.
But you knew that.
Paul Keating must be seriously chuffed with how it’s starting to mimic 1993.
But he’d also be equally furious that it was a Marrickville-special from the NSW left that did it.
If the Great one can ever get over his ‘china is no threat to us’ new toy I’d like to hear what he has to say about the recent turn of events in the campaign.
AM: Actually, that doesn’t even need calculus, as circumference is linear to radius. If you had a giant blanket lifted 20 cm instead, that would involve some little deltas.
Hack, woke, Partisan says:
Friday, April 18, 2025 at 12:41 am
Labor’s basic appeal is based on ‘safe hands’. This is valid not only in relation to sometime-LNP voters. It also extends to could-be Green voters. It is most unlikely that voters will want to elect an unstable Parliament in uncertain times. When it comes to filling out their ballots, voters are going to prefer Labor to the alternatives, which all promise to deliver decidedly wobbly results.
I like your reasoning, Hack, but if uncertain times are leading towards comforting strength, then you’ll see it in the primary votes. Labor’s PV is still at a low ebb, even as their 2PP is trending clearly up.
Dr Doolittle says:
Friday, April 18, 2025 at 12:43 am
Hack, woke, Partisan at 12.28 pm
Yes, WA is in the Labor vanguard, to use an old-fashioned term.
It was a good choice for Labor to do their launch in Perth again. Very likely to be + 1 in seats at least, with Canning still a possibility. That result matters a lot in a close election.
Whether the Labor win must wait upon WA count is less clear. Trend toward Labor is national but looks strongest recently in NSW and Victoria, so Labor gains in WA may come after Antony Green has spoken.
Labor can make larger gains in NSW, QLD and Victoria because there it has more ground to make up….and it will. In WA anti-Trump sensitivity is high. He has declared economic war on our best customers. The Liberals hold Canning, Forrest, Durack and O’Connor. Moore is held by a break-away Lib, the political mute, Ian Goodenough, arguably the worst member ever sent to Canberra from WA while Bullwinkle is a new marginal. Of these, Labor could conceivably win all except O’Connor.
There is a very subdued feeling in the community about the general situation and about the electoral choices. I think this suggests voters are thinking things through quietly and seriously. We have a recent history of electing successful Labor Governments by huge margins for reasons of community safety. I think this will be repeated very emphatically in WA.
> It’s the change in circumference divided by 2 x Pi, of course. Duh. But you knew that.
lol!
I mean yeah, of course, that was totally obvious, which is why I wrote a forty thousand word essay, just to throw you off the scent
Now here’s another fun fact. There’s a mountain in the Andes with a summit further from the centre of the earth than Mt Everest. Reason: the earth as a sphere is slightly flat at the poles and sharp at the equator, the Andes are closer to the equator than the Himalayas, so that one is planet earth’s pointiest bit.
bob because NSW ICAC is the OG .
They have real teeth, legislative power and true structural and organisational independence.
They conduct wire taps of sitting premiers and aren’t bothered or phased by it.
It doesn’t require calculus, but calculus means you can do it in your head. Provided you haven’t consumed a bottle of pinot and a dram or two of scotch first, or course.
And I’d just like to thank everyone who responds to these posts of mine and takes them seriously. Or sort of seriously. I do appreciate it.
And they said it was impossible: https://edition.cnn.com/2025/04/15/science/3d-brain-map-mouse-mammal-breakthrough/index.html