Prof Geoff Hanmer

Don’t worry; the boys and gals will be home by Christmas! (year not stated)

Four frames. Title: “The rules”. Albo and Penny Wong at a lectern. 1. Albo: “Some of you have asked if rules still apply, so we’d like to clear things up.” Wong: “Obviously we shouldn’t kill!” 2. Albo: “However, if you hurt or kill someone and enough people agree they were bad, then the rules aren’t up to us.” Wong: “It’s a ‘matter for them’” 3. Albo : “Also, if you get someone else to do the killing for you and someone accuses you of it, that’s ‘a conspiracy’” Wong: “Against the rules!” 4. Plus, if thousands of innocent people get killed when you kill the bad person, you must focus on the six people you saved.” Wong: “That’s the rule!”

The rules.
My @smh cartoon.

China pledges billion-dollar spending boost for science Funding for national laboratories and important research projects would increase under the government’s plans.

Hmm. www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Oh so agree. Still not providing right advice here in UK also. Got short sharp rebuke from my GP surgery when I stated in Feb this year I wouldn’t go for an annual blood test ( monitoring only) until they were masked. Ahhhhhh hospitals at that time screaming they were overwhelmed!

I’m sure the only impact of the fine will be to make it harder for St Basil’s to afford staff training. Meanwhile, the boneheads in the Commonwealth Department of Health who failed to advise St Basil’s that COVID is an airborne disease have not been investigated.

Read more: theshovel.com.au/2026/03/11/n...

My heart goes out to all the Iranian students in Australia. They should be treated the same way as the soccer team. I’m sure the government has not thought about this cohort before going to war, but they ought to think about it now.

Is Australia at war? Legally, the answer is yes It's a reasonable question for Australians to ask given the government is sending a sophisticated reconnaissance plane — crewed by dozens of military personnel — to the Middle East. And legal experts ...

We’re at war. Great. www.abc.net.au/news/2026-03...

Shrödinger’s President.

Cosplay coal-king Matt Canavan is only going to make it harder for the Libs to win seats. The Nats seem intent on making the Coalition impossible.

Wtf? ABC?
Instead of 4 Corners, we have that drip David Speers on ‘National Forum’ … unsurprisingly on Jewish people’s experiences of antisemitism & violence …
Surely, like that RC, should have been on racism & prejudice more broadly??

Memo our ABC;
1332 Iranians killed
“Human Rights Watch said attack on a primary school in southern Iran that killed at least 160 people, many of them schoolchildren, should be investigated as a war crime. Al Jazeera’s investigation has also found that targeting the school was likely “deliberate”…

Revealed: The developer supersizing tactic rewriting Sydney’s skyline At Concord West, 698 units have turned into 1300. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

“Under the HDA process, developers first submit an expression of interest, after which the planning minister determines whether to declare the project state-significant.” I can’t see any way in which this “process” can be corrupted, can you? Suggestions welcome. www.smh.com.au/national/nsw...

Opinion | The Popcorn Resistance of ‘One Battle After Another’

I absolutely agree with this reviewer. But I also observe that the US has been flirting with violent social upheaval since the Civil War. It has got some serious issues to resolve. www.nytimes.com/2026/03/08/o...

The US sank an Iranian warship and didn’t rescue the survivors. Is this legal in war? These rules have developed over centuries as states sought to regulate the conduct of conflict at sea while still allowing navies to operate effectively.

For the record. It was a terrible decision, legal or not. theconversation.com/the-us-sank-...

Robert Duvall's Epic Intro | Apocalypse Now (4K) YouTube video by JoBlo Movie Clips

Disturbingly relevant. youtu.be/SKLYny1re70?...

Quite possibly. Really appalling act. We know the Iranian regime is despotic, evil and awful, but descending to barbarism is never acceptable. And, on a purely practical level, sinking this ship makes no military sense. It is just terrorism that has upset Sri Lanka and India.

Has it occurred to you that the attack itself was disgraceful and cowardly? There’s no honour in blowing people to smithereens and then rescuing the pieces.

This ridiculous statement from a vodka soaked frat boy who never learned that “western civilisation” rests on the footings of Ur or that humans came from Africa. How can this total moron be running the US military? “Clown Car” does not go close to describing the US cabinet. FFS.

Read it carefully, esp. item 2. The key reason submarines don’t rescue survivors is that they are very vulnerable on the surface. Also, if you’ve ever been in one, you’d realise that space is at an absolute premium. Bombers don’t fly down and pick up the people that they’ve bombed. War is bad.

These memes have got to stop.

Really? When has a submarine done that in combat? My point is that if this is not a war the sinking was most definitely illegal, and if it is a war, it still may be illegal.

I suspect no naval ship is ever completely unarmed, but sinking it seems completely unjustified either morally or militarily. To paraphrase Roosevelt on Pearl Harbour, the whole operation against Iran reeks of infamy.

Fired Denise, not dropped and submarines never pick up survivors. The question is; if this is not a war, which the US says it is and it isn’t, was it legal or right? The Nuremberg trial charges were about “aggressive war” which appears to be exactly what the US is indulging in. They attacked Iran.

I’ve been watching the UK COVID inquiry and feel seen for the first time as a bereaved family member. Not being able to be with Dad (who died from a non-COVID event during lockdowns); the restrictions on funerals; not being able to be with family in the aftermath — this stuff stays with you.

Beggars belief…

All too believable.

What with all this talk of signal fires and Armageddon, it’s doubly sad that Robert Duvall has died. He’s the only person I can think of who could play Pete Hegseth. Bring up the Wagner.

Republicans Toil to Avoid Saying ‘War’ as Iran Conflict Widens

Is special military operation. www.nytimes.com/2026/03/05/u...