I’ve been meaning to do a new open thread for a while (last Salon was 12 January). When I saw news of the first entry below I thought it was too good to pass up!
His agent described him as “virtuous globalisation mastermind”
That is a Thai new year’s greeting which means means:
On a personal level that would help. I think most people feel well rid of 2021, and hope for better in 2022.
Andrew Leigh, they say, is always the smartest man in the room, and one of the nicest. Since entering parliament in 2008 he has now launched his 8th book. This Saturday Paper article (no doubt pay-walled) is an interview with Andrew Leigh on humanity’s one-in-six chance of ending. Continue reading Weekly salon 7/1: 2022 new year edition
Last week our PM, one Scott (“Scotty from Marketing”) Morrison, scrambled to wrest control of our borders from a disruptive new Premier of NSW, one Dominic Perrottet, who effectively sidelined the PM, while announcing that he will indeed go to Glasgow to spruik our newly minted policy on climate change, that is, if his recalcitrant coalition partners, the Nationals, agree to have one.
Laura Tingle’s AFR opinion piece The most abject failure of leadership in living memory (published under a less pungent title at the ABC) asks “Who is in charge now?” since the states and the Nationals seem to be running the show. Continue reading Morrison goes to Glasgow: what’s new?
Paul Strangio asked the equestion Who were Australia’s best prime ministers? We asked the experts.
He and colleagues asked 66 political scientists and historians. Here’s the top 10:
I’m going to take one more shot at PM Scott Morrison, because I think he bullies women in circumstances where if the person were male he would act differently. Bullies are instinctively drawn to perceived weakness, or one might say, soft targets.
The first is from the Michelle Grattan article John Davidson linked to ie Scott Morrison finds strong women can be tough players, the case of Christine Holgate from Australia post:
Grattan on Friday says Prime Minister Scott Morrison has three pressing problems:
Bernard Keane at Crikey says Morrison continues to see everything as a political problem to manage away. Keane was referring to his tearful mea culpa and apparent change of heart on the issue of women and the intemperate attack on Sky journalist Andrew Clennell, claiming that in Clennell’s own organisation there was an incident of harassment of a woman in a women’s toilet being pursued by their own HR department.
There wasn’t. Continue reading Weekly salon 8/4
Dennis Atkins in Scott Morrison’s antics show Australia is going to the polls in 2021 tells us that PM Scott Morrison likes to look busy during Question Time.
It looks like the height of rudeness, but it is actually worse than that: Continue reading Performative PM
Lance McCallum, newly elected Labor MP for Bundamba now joins Cynthia Lui, Labor Member for Cook and Leeanne Enoch, Member for Algester and Minister for Environment and the Great Barrier Reef, Minister for Science and Minister for the Arts in the Queensland parliament:
Climate experts who spoke to Guardian Australia said they were “bewildered” the emergency had grabbed little attention during the final parliamentary sitting week for the year, which was instead taken up by the repeal of medevac laws, a restructure of the public service, and energy minister Angus Taylor’s run-in with the American author Naomi Wolf.
That’s according to Paula Matthewson at the New Daily. She says he’s doing fewer TV interviews and holding fewer media conferences than we’ve come to expect from a prime minister, but is bursting out all over on social media, where, she says, it will be almost impossible to enforce ‘truth’ online.
(From Hurricane Dorian: devastation and destruction in the Bahamas – in pictures)
John Schwartz at the NYT (posted at Lethal Heating) asks How Has Climate Change Affected Hurricane Dorian?
Michael Mann and Andrew E Dessler respond in Global Heating Made Hurricane Dorian Bigger, Wetter – And More Deadly. With warm seas and more moisture in the atmosphere hurricanes can intensify faster, contain more moisture, more wind power and move slower. This means greater flooding and a increased possibility of coinciding with high tides. Continue reading Weekly salon 7/9
