Chimera638

I am what I am. Book reader, gardener, cook, animal lover, humanist

[Ryan Dally @Ryandally08]

UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women just dropped some truth bombs Australia’s elite desperately don’t want to hear.

Reem Alsalem told a Melbourne surrogacy conference:

International law does not give anyone a right to a child “using whatever means.”

No right to a child with your genetic makeup just because you want one.

Full stop. Heterosexual, gay, single - doesn’t matter.

She also:

- Called for the Sex Discrimination Act to be rewritten so “sex” means biological sex

-Said Australia is “absolutely out of step” with the evidence on puberty blockers and medicalising gender-distressed kids

- Fully backed an independent inquiry into the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency’s cosy relationship with transgender lobby groups and its targeting of whistleblower doctors

- Condemned the death threats against women’s rights advocates Sall Grover, founder of the women only app Giggle and Kirralie Smith as having “no place in democratic societies”

On surrogacy itself she was blunt:

“it’s a patriarchal industry that commodifies and exploits women’s bodies, with clear parallels to prostitution, the demand must face consequences.”

Meanwhile the Albanese appointed Australian Law Reform Commission president and Labor’s own Assistant Minister for the Prevention of Family Violence both snubbed the conference.

When the UN’s own expert on violence against women is saying the quiet part out loud, maybe it’s time Canberra stopped pretending the emperor has clothes.

And actually listened for once.

[Scott Marsh @Scottie_marsh]

“A gift from Gina”

🗺️ The Sneaky Possum in Chippendale.

[Chimera638 @chimera638]

This is Ser Walter. He is my love of loves. He will be very very missed 😭💔

[Sam Connor @criprights]

Holy hell.

[Tom Rowsell @Tom_Rowsell]

Is this the most based theme park in the world?

[Amazing Physics @amazing_physics]

The Devil Horns Solar Eclipse
Is one of the rarest sunrise ever photographed and was stunning.

[Sall Grover @salltweets]

To be “inclusive” of men in women’s sport, women are excluded. If you’re OK with that, you’re not progressive, you’re a good old fashioned misogynist.

[MJ Murphy @hothingsgirlsay]

5 reasons to abandon preferred pronouns:

[Jenny Difficult-Frecklington-Jones 🇵🇸🇱🇧🇮🇷 @JonesHowDareYou]

Wilcox. #slop #auspol

[Chimera638 @chimera638]

@lesstenny Add some fried tomatoes and that's a winner!

[Purplepingers ☭ @purplepingers]

The liberals’ response to the shitty housing standards everyone is paying exorbitant amounts of rent for: “deal with it peasants”

[Chimera638 @chimera638]

I have noticed over the last few censuses the number of questions have decreased exponentially...

[Australia, Explained @AusExplained]

Dear ABC,

If you're looking for opinions on the Census Data, here's mine.

I'm a former data analyst (crime), but I also designed a data matching algorithm still used today by Victoria Police because of its effectiveness, so I have some professional skin in the game.

I am unable to defend the 2026 prioritisation of Census questions.

How does "We urgently need nationally exhaustive information about whether someone identifies as straight, gay, bisexual or another sexual orientation"...

While we didn't obtain nationally exhaustive information about whether households can access a GP,

whether they have unmet childcare needs,

whether working people commute three days rather than five,

whether households are involuntarily overcrowded because they cannot find housing.

Or these types of questions, which would surely be hard to argue against from a prioritisation perspective of best value for data capture, and best opportunity for Australians to provide a holistic picture of their lives;

Citizenship / visa or residency status (because Country of birth doesn't tell government whether someone is a citizen, permanent resident, international student, temporary worker, etc. Those populations can impose quite different infrastructure/service demands).

Year a non-Australian-born person obtained permanent residency/citizenship (because there is much better longitudinal information about settlement and integration than birthplace alone)

Primary mode of transport normally used (Census asks about journey-to-work circumstances, but hybrid/WFH has made a single Census-day travel snapshot much less informative than it once was).

Housing capacity/occupancy pressure (Bedrooms alone is crude. Ask whether people are sharing bedrooms, using converted garages/studies, or accommodating people who would otherwise live elsewhere. That's enormously relevant during a housing shortage).

Reason adults remain in/shared household (Understanding drivers of Financial necessity, caring, cultural preference, disability, housing unavailability etc...would distinguish genuine housing stress from chosen multigenerational living & inform other pressure points th Government can focus on).

Internet quality/access (As infrastructure in its own right, particularly with WFH, telehealth and online government services).

Household energy characteristics (Solar, battery, EV charging, gas/electric heating etc... would be extraordinarily useful for electricity-grid infrastructure planning)

Many of these variables have extremely obvious relationships with hospitals, roads, rail, schools, housing, childcare, workforce participation and infrastructure investment.

The ABS also removed “number of children ever born” from the 2026 Census (it will return in 2031).... while introducing gender and sexual orientation.

From a strategic-planning perspective, fertility and family formation are among the most consequential long-term variables imaginable. They affect future school enrolments, workforce size, dependency ratios, healthcare demand and population ageing.

This missed opportunity to capture all those above mentioned data sets to inform in policy/planning areas isn't just a shame, it's borderline failure of professional judgement.

We removed access to data that could inform those things, and replaced it with gender questions.

Who managed to convince a ABS strategic review board
“We don't have enough justification to collect fertility information every Census, but sexual orientation warrants universal national collection every five years”??

I'd love to see the cost-benefit/consequences methodology behind that decision !

The reality is the Census can only ask so many questions, and we should prioritise the ones that provide the greatest benefit for planning Australia's future, not pander to the "feelings" of a tiny majority of people that got warm and fuzzy because a national census survey "affirmed" their gender.

Thank you, if you read this.

[Chimera638 @chimera638]

n oldie but a goodie!!!

https://t.co/MTkFGnKMr6

[Chimera638 @chimera638]

@NeuronX1905 You always leave one alive to tell the tale...

[The Compass Report 🧭 @Compass_Report]

SEEDS OF REVENGE

ABC News, 1967. Bob Young reports from a refugee camp in Amman:

"Most of the refugees here are women and children... Virtually all of them bring stories of Israeli brutality. Several of their villages were deliberately destroyed so that they would have to move. They don't believe that the Western world wants to know that story. They say that Israel is the fifty-first state of the United States, and American imperialism is the cause of their misery."

Then, the closing line that echoes through the decades: "The only thing growing here are seeds of revenge."

Some stories don't age. They just get deleted and rewritten. 🧭

[Chimera638 @chimera638]

Just wow!!!

[Hugh Riminton @hughriminton]

Polish prodigy Marcin Patrzalek has been accused of faking his playing. His response is worth a couple of minutes of your day.