The Magnificent Socceroos

 That was easily the best performance I have seen from australia  playing football.

There was not a bad player on the field. The defence was tight with Soutar again showing his best performances are at the world cup. The midfield was hardworking and the attack always threatened on the breakaway. Bos showed absolute class on a number of occasions.

Almost all of Poppa's choices worked out well. Beach was superb, Okon strong with a brilliant through pass ( I confess I would not have had him in my squad!). His first substitution was mystifying and he was lucky turkey didn't score from his mistake.

Playing toure and Irankunda from the start paid off when the big I scored a very good goal.

I suspect neither will start against the USA but come on as subs.

I cannot wait for 5am on saturday.

Whoopsy I forgot to mention ONLY Harry Soutar had played in the world cup before!!

Around the Traps 12/6/26

 It is time again for Around the Traps.

Aussie,Aussie,Aussie,Oy,Oy,Oy

• inflection points on against-affordable-housing thanks nick
• Sam Roggeveen on sub-text thanks nick
• Jennifer Parker on why-is-australia-buying-used-submarines-a-naval-expert-answers-key-aukus-questions
• Chris Wallace on reform-is-hard-albanese-and-chalmers-need-to-stay-the-course
• Mark the Graph on capital-gains-tax-good-reform-or-bad , a-tour-of-microeconomics-of-housing
• Greg Jericho on australia-housing-house-prices-falling-data
• Kevin Bonham on independent-australia-worst-website-in-australian-politics

OZ Climate

• significant-milestone-off-grid-mine-runs-155-consecutive-hours-on-100-pct-renewables-and-engines-off 
  
• anatomy-of-a-renewable-finance-deal-developer-lands-equity-for-states-largest-solar-battery-hybrid
  
• solar-projects-to-be-hit-by-big-increase-in-costs-due-to-new-australian-anti-dumping-decision
  
• batteries-and-wind-are-crushing-evening-peak-prices-and-there-is-more-pain-to-come-for-gas-and-coal
  
• global-wind-giant-plans-to-plug-battery-storage-into-turbines-at-all-new-australian-projects-starting-in-nsw
  
• not-easy-australias-biggest-transmission-project-energised-after-delays-and-cost-overruns
  
• passive-home-batteries-deliver-enormous-benefit-to-the-grid-says-aemo-even-if-not-orchestrated-in-vpps
  
• big-and-small-batteries-fundamentally-changing-the-grid-and-its-planning-blueprint-says-aemo-boss
  
• i-would-like-to-see-a-change-in-behaviour-rule-maker-wants-retailers-to-act-before-it-has-to-intervene
  
• depleted-batteries-and-very-expensive-gas-how-a-two-day-heatwave-caused-near-doubling-of-quarterly-prices
  
• golden-moment-australias-biggest-wind-farm-becomes-first-to-reach-1-gw-of-output
  
• the-quiet-battery-what-household-batteries-reveal-about-flexibility-before-full-orchestration
  
• Chris Brack on are-australias-carbon-farming-schemes-just-hot-air-hardly-forests-are-regrowing-almost-everywhere
• Donna Lu on australia-rooftop-solar-panels-households-business
• Nick Toscano and Mike Foley on green-energy-is-shielding-australia-from-a-global-power-price-shock
• Timothy Neal and Ben Newell on climate-change-has-already-made-australians-in-one-state-much-poorer-and-mores-to-come
• Graham Readfearn on climate-crisis-science-emissions-good-news-corp-misrepresentation 
• Dennis Muller on a-right-mess-how-mining-media-and-politics-interests-are-combining-to-influence-public-debate-in-australia
• Alberto Meucci et al on good-news-for-renewables-southern-australias-offshore-winds-will-stay-strong-even-as-the-climate-changes

Northern America

• kruggers on comments-on-a-freaky-friday , a-gesture-of-contempt , money-and-machismo-are-undermining-america , breaking-the-heart-of-the-heartland , social-security-is-facing-a-political-crisis , elon-musk-human-ponzi-scheme
• David Frum on democrats-have-choose-between-character-and-power
• Hayes Brown on trump-irs-audit-ban-family-profits 
• Joshua Keating on trump-netanyahu-iran-war
• Fred Kaplan on trump-iran-israel-ukraine-war-foreign-policy , trump-iran-war-news-strikes-venezuela-oil
• the conversable economist on chair-jerome-powell-an-early-retrospective
• Michael Angeloni and Beau Tremitiere on year-later-military-personnel-police-american-streets
• Justin Glawe on trump-cognitive-impairment
• Noah Berlatsky on todd-blanche
• Stephen Robinson on trump-madness
• Dahlia Lithwick on todd-blanche-news-republicans-attorney-general-senate-hearing
• Clint Smith on black-military-patriots-hegseth
• John Quiggin on final-five-and-u-s-competitiveness
• dead for tax reasons on same-recession-opposite-jerseys
• Brad De Long on crosspost-renee-diresta-red-mirage-blue-shift-online-cope , so-far-inflations-return-limited-to-energy
• Ian Millhiser on supreme-court-callais-trump-doj-disparate-impact
• noahpinion on insurers-arent-the-main-villain-of-the-US-healthcare-system
• Brad De Long on earnings-sentiment-or-this-is-nuts , crosspost-arindrajit-dube-a-minimum-wage-experiment-has-beeb-happening-for-over-a-decade
• Dahlia Lithwick and Mark Stern on supreme-court-analysis-kbj-amy-coney-barrett-congress
• Quinta Jurecic on trump-doj-judges-lawfare
• Alex Tabarrok on here-comes-the-sunscreen

Europe

• Charles Lane on oosterhoff-netherlands-teen-euthanasia thanks nick
• Ian Hill on armenia-the-next-ukraine
• noahpinion on why-europe-should-put-up-trade-barriers
• Anne Applebaum on ukraine-war-momentum-shift
• mainly macro on trends-in-uk-inequality-and-poverty
• Indrees Kahloon on uk-productivity-economy-reform-party
• Chris Dillow on what-bond-market-constraint

Asia

• Brad De Long on hormuz-trump-and-the-140bbl-question
• Mehdi Hasan on uk-us-champion-free-speech-war-palestine
• Amin Saikal on iran-dragged-out-the-1979-hostage-crisis-to-humiliate-the-us-it-may-try-to-do-the-same-to-trump-now
• Peter Chai on as-japans-popularity-booms-a-new-survey-shows-strong-anti-foreigner-sentiment
• Seong-Hyon Lee on xi-s-visit-to-pyongyang-did-not-revive-denuclearisation-diplomacy-it-buried-it
• Henry Storey on china-s-industrial-policy-confronts-fiscal-reality
• Andrew Arsan on unmaking-the-middle-east-what-really-went-wrong
• Khang Vu on xi-draws-a-line-on-north-korea-s-alliance-demands

Wonk

• institutional economics on mind-the-gaps
• equality by lot on the-deliberative-transformation thanks nick
• Thomas Lambert on i-failed-as-a-novelist thanks nick
• Tim Harford on chatbots-make-stuff-up-why-do-we-believe-them-anyway
• Tyler Cowen on is-work-from-home-bad-for-your-mental-health
• Brad De Long on thoughts-springing-from-ronald-meek
• Marta Khomyn on as-spacex-openai-and-anthropic-plan-blockbuster-launches-will-it-make-ai-giants-more-accountable
• Al Hynes on actually-the-un-is-broken-and-that-s-exactly-why-reform-matters
• Francisco Trujillo on i-used-sound-waves-to-make-espresso-it-could-cut-coffee-brewing-energy-use-by-75
• Mick Ryan on modern-war-and-the-systemic-learning-deficit-in-western-military-institutions
• home and away on bombs-away
• noahpinion on are-you-finally-ready-to-admit-its-the-phones
• the conversable economist on geoeconomics-and-rethinking-the-logic-of-trade

General

• Anna Goldsworthy on love-sex-and-intimacy-in-the-time-of-ai

Climate

• David Appell on el-nino-is-coming-on-strong
• ocean acidification on assessing-recent-anthropogenic-carbon-dioxide-and-acidification-in-the-ross-sea-antarctica
• Javier Vide on a-very-strong-el-nino-may-be-approaching-heres-what-it-could-mean-for-the-worlds-weather
• open mind on acceleration-in-the-lower-troposphere
• Kareen McVeigh on un-world-ocean-assessment-severe-stress-sea-level-rise-doubles-pollution-fishing-climate
• Luke Bennetts et al on how-waves-ponds-and-green-algae-are-accelerating-sea-ice-melt-in-antarctica
• skeptical science on how-many-people-does-heat-kill
• Jonathan Watts on record-winter-temperatures-in-antarctic-raise-fears-over-speed-of-climate-breakdown
• Eva Plaganyi and Laura Blamey on climate-change-is-causing-fish-to-move-to-cooler-water-but-what-if-their-escape-route-is-blocked
• Moyhu on may-global-surface-templs-down-004-from-april
• open mind on co2-good-news-and-bad-news
• Graham Readfearn on antarcticas-west-coast-missing-an-area-of-sea-ice-the-size-of-france-as-temperatures-peak-20c-above-average

Andrew Gelman ( mainly stats)

• when-is-detecting-ai-generated-text-worthwhile
  
• scott-alexander-as-a-modern-day-edmund-wilson
  
• steins-method-learning-and-inference-or-how-to-really-monitor-convergence-and-thin-chains 
  
• naming-a-jail-after-a-convicted-criminal 
  
• survey-statistics-should-mrp-workflow-include-loco-cv
  
• from-a-message-i-sent-to-a-potential-co-blogger
  
• the-data-analysts-guide-to-cause-and-effect
  
• adjusting-for-nonrepresentativeness-in-continuous-norming-using-multilevel-regression-and-poststratification
  
• jazz-and-quantum-mechanics-eventually-dmitri-realized-that-they-are-kind-of-similar
  
• statschat on small-modular
• econometric sense on who-is-john-galt-second-handedness-ai
• Kaiser Fung on know-your-data-49-the-risk-of-story-telling-with-data

Dianne Coyle (quirky + book reviews)

• machines-are-not-the-enemy
  

Vox Wonk

• market-implied-inflation-expectations-during-iran-shock 
  
• us-consumer-savings-shale-gas 
  
• making-sense-conflicting-labour-market-signals
  
• why-some-digital-payment-systems-replace-cash-and-others-dont
  
• fighting-misinformation-truth-why-mainstream-news-matters-social-media
  
• pension-funds-unlisted-firms-and-europes-capital-markets-union 
  
• increasing-employment-pre-retirement-years-slows-cognitive-decline
  
• when-private-insurance-buys-faster-access-public-care
  

The next administration has a hellva job reforming the DOJ

 The DOJ has been severely degraded un Trump 2.0

 They have lost regularity and have been found to lie before judges and conduct grand juries in an unlawful way. Indeed it would not be uncommon for charged people to ask to see grand jury transcripts or ask that a magistrate judge examine them. Quite clearly the Lindsay Halligan incident was NOT a one-off.

Apparently the DOJ have lost around 10,000 in either sackings or resignations. Things have got so bad the DOJ have to offer financial incentives just to gain new graduates. The quality of people in the DOJ has naturally declined.

I could go on but I have no need to. The AG and DAG in the nest admisitration has a lot to do to get back experienced personnel back to the DOJ and political hacks out of the department. There has to be a concerted push to have people whose primary asset is what they know NOT who they know!

the energy market is changing

 David Leitch has a great article out today. It shows how the wholesale market is changing. ( It also indirectly show how much better we are off by having so much renewable energy. Imagine where prices would be if the climate denialists had their way. just look at europe).

Commercial and household batteries are changing demand and price! 

will One Nation's vote continue right up to the election ?

 A lot of people are talking about the rise of one nation's vote in the polls.

Let us be accurate however . This has mainly come at the expense of the Liberals and Nationals. Thus the question is will those disillusioned voters remain with one nation or eventually go back to the LNP.

Before the rise we could make the wholly generalised statement that one nation voters were not that smart. They like Hansson because she was like them. not very smart and not very eloquent.

However one cannot make that statement of the punters who have gone to one nation recently. I think we can assume a few things. yes they know a lot of one nation's policies are stupid BUT it seems what they do like is the party is firm on their policies even if they are daft and not costed..

Will these people go back to the LNP or stay with one nation. It depends. Certainly thus far one nation is particularly poor when pressed on policies even when they are clearly soft interviews. one can only speculate on what would happen when the interview is not soft. Of course they may not occur.

We should also be cognisant about the poor procedures one nation has for examining candidates and staff. They also indulge in a lot of in-fighting.

I suspect if only a bit of this occurs then the former LNP voters or a  majority of them will return to the fold. Of course as my wife frequently tells me I could be wrong.

the King's honours list

 This is a complete joke. As Nick Gruen said a long time ago these awards are given to most people for simply doing their job. Isn't that why they were paid?

enough said

Around the Traps 5/6/26

 It is time again for Around the Traps.

Aussie,Aussie,Aussie,Oy,Oy,Oy

• Gary Mortimer et al on supermarkets-back-to-the-future
• Kelly Hine et al public-trust-in-australian-police-is-declining-covid-sparked-it-but-theres-more-to-the-story
• Toni Brakin on payday-super-is-coming-on-july-1-workers-will-be-thousands-of-dollars-better-off-long-term 
• Jonathan Barrett on property-prices-budget-negative-gearing-capital-gains-investors
• Saul Eslake on house-prices-falling-australia-sydney-melbourne-good-housing-basic-human-need 
• John Buchanan on almost-3-million-workers-will-get-a-4-75-pay-rise-in-july-but-wages-cant-catch-up-with-inflation
• Albert Palazzo on australia-has-been-the-victim-of-an-aukus-bait-and-switch
• Adrian Westerman on how-flu-overtook-covid-as-australias-deadliest-respiratory-virus 
• Emily Foley et al on hansons-gas-policy-follows-the-far-right-playbook-attack-elites-and-push-for-drilling
• Patrick Commins on one-nation-norway-gas-tax-plan-pauline-hanson 
• Greg Jericho on australia-datacentres-destroying-jobs-climate-economy-gdp
• Stella Huangfu on australias-economy-slows-as-households-tighten-their-belts-while-ai-investment-surges 
• Mark the Graph on q1-2026-gdp-soft-quarter-above-potential-year 
• Dorini Pojani on kerbside-parking-is-great-for-drivers-but-terrible-for-everyone-else-could-we-get-rid-of-it
• Jennifer Parker on aukus-virginia-class-switch-is-a-fix-not-a-failure
• Chris Sidoti on australia-response-to-israel-legal-obligation

OZ Climate

• proposal-for-high-fixed-network-charges-is-wrong-on-home-batteries-dynamic-pricing-and-impact-on-cer 
  
• pogroms-american-style 
  
• australias-spent-billions-on-renewable-gases-with-little-to-show-this-is-how-to-do-it-properly
  
• new-1660-mwh-battery-reaches-full-output-but-it-may-soon-have-a-new-owner 
  
• spot-prices-along-the-journey-to-a-competitively-priced-coal-free-grid-but-we-still-need-a-lot-of-wind 
  
• whats-the-difference-between-a-four-hour-battery-and-an-eight-hour-battery-not-a-lot-it-turns-out 
  
• stop-taxing-the-transition-why-fixed-network-charges-get-consumer-energy-resources-all-wrong
  
• households-still-going-big-on-solar-and-storage-but-new-battery-rebate-settings-calm-red-hot-market 
  
• the-kardashev-scale-australias-staggering-energy-transition-and-its-untapped-opportunity 
  
• what-is-the-value-of-energy-efficiency-and-flexible-demand-a-new-tool-will-help-us-find-out 
  
• ai-giant-choose-australias-first-100-pct-net-renewable-grid-to-build-countrys-biggest-data-centre 
• Graham Readfearn on gas-usage-australia-structural-decline 
• Ben Jefferson on australias-spent-billions-on-renewable-gases-with-little-to-show-this-is-how-to-do-it-properly
• Michael Vardon on how-much-water-and-power-will-ai-data-centres-use-in-australia-ironically-we-dont-have-the-data-to-know

Northern America

• Menzie Chinn on canada-imminnent-recession
• noahpinion on america-needs-liberal-nationalism-back , im-kind-of-over-the-whole-anti-monopoly-movement
• Hayes Brown on doj-grand-jury-charges-misconduct
• Brad De Long on when-median-take-home-pay-packets-rise-once-in-a-generation
• Kruggers onlearning-from-a-mentally-ill-president , pogroms-american-style , stop-your-chirping , trump-has-given-up , illegal-tariffs-round-3 , america-the-inessential-nation
• Zack Beauchamp on trump-weaponization-fund-suspended-republicans
• David Frum on bill-pulte-hayek 
• the conversable economist on does-leniency-for-first-offenders-pay-off 
• Ian Millhiser on supreme-court-gerrymandering-allen-milligan-alabama-republicans , todd-blanche-attorney-general-trump-goon
• Dahlia Lithwick and Mark Stern on sonia-sotomayor-exposes-supreme-court-lies 
• Jonathan Chait on trump-superficiality
• Jeet Heer on trump-july-4th-fair-cancellations
• Barbara McQuade on bill-pulte-intelligence-nomination-trump

Europe

• Kruggers on europe-versus-america-a-response  
• Brad De Long on paul-krugman-qui-bono-and , the-viking-raager-further-gels 
• mainly macro on immigration-numbers-and-media
• Chris Dillow on fetishising-fiscal-rules

Asia

• Jared Modschein on is-the-quad-dying-a-slow-death-even-with-trump-it-still-has-a-vital-role-to-play
• Beth Spacey on israeli-forces-capture-lebanons-beaufort-castle-a-crusade-era-site-once-held-by-the-knights-templar
• Hunter Marston on shangri-la-washington-southeast-asia-talked-past-each-other
• Fred Kaplan on trump-iran-war-news-peace-talks-off-what-next
• Asher Kaufman on in-iran-wars-shadow-israels-renewed-lebanon-campaign-risks-repeating-failed-lessons-and-occupations-of-the-past 
• Michele Burgis-Kasthala on is-israel-planning-to-reoccupy-the-gaza-strip-this-is-whats-happening-behind-the-yellow-line 
• Amy Crew on anwar-s-coalition-is-fracturing-and-the-islamist-opposition-is-waiting 
• Piper French on to-break-the-siege-gaza-flotilla 
• Ishaan Tharoor on the-iran-war-and-the-end-of-the-middle-east

Wonk

• autopoesis on on-and-against-agency thanks nick
• Felix Martin on open-source-spectre-haunts-ai-feast thanks nick 
• Alex Crary on philosophy-in-the-time-of-techno-fascism thanks nick 
• institutional economics on immigration-and-living-standards
• Katherine Te on critical-minerals-west-learning-wrong-lesson-china 
• Tim Harford on rage-in-the-age-of-x
• Brad De Long on mike-beggs-zombie-marx-partial-reading, the-transformation-problem-was-not-something-marx-overlooked
• Nicholas Bryan on aukus-sees-the-sea-not-everyone-will
• noahpinion on how-much-more-software-do-we-really-need
• David Peetz on politicians-have-long-misunderstood-the-working-class-the-rise-of-the-far-right-shows-how-mistaken-they-have-been
• Evan Bloom on antarctic-diplomacy-hits-another-iceberg

General

• Russell Bicknell and Julien Kumig on 500-million-year-old-fossil-helps-fill-a-strange-gap-in-our-record-of-life-on-earth 
• Kovi Rose on mysterious-signals-keep-coming-from-space-we-have-found-their-rosetta-stone

Climate

• exponential view on the-rooftop-revolution thanks nick
• real climate on the-arctic-council-is-not-dead
• Sharkar Sharma et al on cities-are-making-it-rain-more-but-not-as-much-as-scientists-thought
• ocean acidification on tropical-cyclones-may-soon-flip-from-releasing-carbon-to-absorbing-it
• Mohammed Rahman on trees-and-greenery-can-cool-cities-by-as-much-as-18-c-but-only-if-theyre-the-right-type
• skeptical science on solar-wind-evs-knocked-out-rcp85
• Timothy Raupach and Steven Sherwood on climate-change-may-shift-hailstorms-towards-earths-poles-new-study
• Katherine Hendy on extreme-weather-is-making-antarctic-research-harder-but-new-technology-is-providing-some-answers-new-study

Andrew Gelman ( mainly stats)

• 15-new-articles-on-statistical-workflow
  
• rationally-turbulent-expectations
  
• noems-razor-and-why-i-think-the-concept-of-unintended-consequences-is-overrated 
  
• hey-its-more-plausible-than-the-hyperloop-or-the-idea-that-ufos-are-space-aliens 
  
• survey-statistics-it-is-still-the-people 
  
• epidemiologist-donna-spiegelman-sez-sutva-is-mostly-not-necessary-for-valid-causal-estimation-and-inference-most-of-the-time
  
• against-shallow-humanism
  
• old-posts-on-the-monkey-cage-blog
  
• Kaiser Fung on rearranging-deck-chairs

Dianne Coyle (quirky + book reviews)

• Alex Tabarrok on 80000-hours-the-book
• Greg Mankiw on what-ive-been-reading
• Tyler Cowen on the-republic-of-love

Vox Wonk

• impact-geopolitical-risk-euro-area-economy-past-experience-and-future-prospects 
  
• literature-support-and-capabilities-autonomous-research-agents 
  
• transatlantic-divide-labours-share-income 
  
• global-minimum-tax-more-winners-losers-even-without-us
  
• europe-suffers-not-so-much-flight-savings-insufficient-allocation-equities 
  
• european-public-goods-european-safe-asset-pragmatic-roadmap 
  
• new-coins-block-digital-currencies-and-financial-system 
  
• what-we-lose-when-women-do-not-get-tenure-evidence-natural-experiment 
  
• cheaper-machines-costlier-buildings-drag-long-run-growth
  
• why-post-pandemic-us-immigration-surge-barely-moved-inflation 
  
• not-all-foreign-exchange-reserves-are-created-alike 
  
• early-takeoff-space-innovation