• The rest of the world is in disbelief at what the gambling industry has pulled off in Australia. We need real reform | Tim Costello | The Guardian: Countless voluntary trials have already shown that when it is not universal, criminals using pokies to launder money move to the 90,000 machines that can be played without a card. So will problem gamblers who will avoid a card out of shame. To be free of shame, it must be universal.
• Twitter officially bans third-party clients with new developer rules - The Verge. Slow death of Twitter continues.
• COVID modelling suggests how governments should respond to future variants and outbreaks - ABC News: Where the modelling differs from previous research from around the world, Dr Szanyi said, is that the economic effects of policies were weighed up against health outcomes such as deaths and hospital capacity. The effects of long COVID were also factored into the model. Spoiler alert - faster vaccination and earlier restrictions are better all 'round. In other words the opposite of what most of our goverments do.
• 'That Girl is Going to Get Herself Killed' - Longreads: There is risk in the wilderness — even in mild adventures — and yet we still seek to reason with it, to assign order to it, to control it, and to tempt it.
• M&M's Tucker Carlson controversy: Maya Rudolph replaces spokescandies : NPR: Carlson, who spends much of his time telling viewers he's a champion of victims of cancel culture, waged a culture war campaign against the candies until they were, literally, canceled. Which is so unbelievably stupid it's hard to believe this isn't parody. But yes, Carlson really did get M&M's to destroy almost thirty years of successful branding because he no was no longer turned on by the Green M&M.
• A small radioactive capsule has been lost in Western Australia. Here's how authorities plan to find it - ABC News.... aaaaaand Missing radioactive capsule found in WA outback after frantic search - ABC News.
• Alan Tudge's adviser placed stories in 'friendly media' to 'shut down' robodebt scandal, royal commission told | Royal commission into robodebt | The Guardian: Miller said the plan she devised meant placing stories in “more friendly media”, which she described as “rightwing media”, naming the Australian newspaper and “the tabloids”, as well as A Current Affair and talkback stations such as 2GB. [...] She said Tudge “requested the file of every single person who appeared in the media … so we could understand the details of their case”. She claimed Tudge also directed her to obtain other case studies that were also used to create “datasets” for the tabloid media. [...] Miller said she was aware of media reports that connected the robodebt scheme to the suicide of debt recipients. She said those cases were “tragic” and that, in general, there was a “lack of empathy” in the office. ...and she should certainly know, as emails have pretty clearly shown her lack of empathy: Robodebt royal commission: Ex-minister Alan Tudge gives evidence | news.com.au: Ms Miller signed off the email, which was written to several colleagues, that it was “a nice start to the weekend!”
• Former social services minister Christian Porter takes responsibility for Robodebt failures at royal commission - ABC News... except he doesn't, really, he still insists other people should have told him it was unlawful. Christian Porter became ATTORNEY GENERAL just after this.

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