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2 weeks ago | 
aliensideboob.substack.com | John Birmingham
I had another melanoma cut out this week, this one from my face. I’ve had enough of these chopped out over the years that I’ve become a bit meh about them. This one, however, seems to have put the zap on my head, and I’m having trouble holding onto coherent thought. All week I’ve been sitting down to write and mostly just getting lost in the fog.
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3 weeks ago | 
aliensideboob.substack.com | John Birmingham
A long time ago, in an alternate universe far, far away, I was shadowing Kim Beazley for The Sydney Morning Herald, watching him wind his big, genial self around the country like a hopeful blimp full of happy gas, squaring up to John Howard in the steel cage death match of the 2001 federal election. It was fun. I thought Beazley might actually win.
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4 weeks ago | 
startupdaily.net | John Birmingham |Harrison Polites |Simon Thomsen |Sarah Bentley
“Empathy is for losers”, says the guy whose lack of empathy has lost him about 250 billion dollars in the last couple of weeks. Sorry, make that $260 billion…$270 billion…No, wait. $280 billion…Well, I could go on, just like the sell-off in Tesla shares.
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4 weeks ago | 
aliensideboob.substack.com | John Birmingham
It’s always the most important election we’ve ever faced, isn't it? Your vote has never counted more than it will now, right? The old and timeworn incantations, but this time, not a lie. Both Albanese and Dutton will mouth some variation on these themes today, and both men will speak the truth, as far as that goes - which isn't far at all. Because neither of them can bring themselves to tell the truth this time. This guy can, though. This is Mark Carney, the guy running for Justin Trudeau’s old job.
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4 weeks ago | 
startupdaily.net | Harrison Polites |John Birmingham |Simon Thomsen |Sarah Bentley
Final Fantasy XIV Online’s latest patch (7.20) is out today, so I figured this is a good a time to repost this review from July last year. For those not in the know: Live service games like Final Fantasy XIV Online tend to update every few months with new content. This keeps players coming back. It lands in the form of a patch – a downloaded update to the game. This is what makes them ‘forever games’. They just keep going.
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1 month ago | 
aliensideboob.substack.com | John Birmingham
“Empathy is for losers”, says the guy whose lack of empathy has lost him about 250 billion dollars in the last couple of weeks. Sorry, make that $260 billion… $270 billion…No, wait. $280 billion…Well, I could go on, just like the sell-off in Tesla shares.
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1 month ago | 
aliensideboob.substack.com | John Birmingham
The news cycle ate my homework. Hand on my fucking heart, I was totally going to do this week’s column about whether Trump should be an issue in the Australian election, and it was going to be so cool, guys. I was going to be so far ahead of Das Kommuntariat that I would enjoy the entire winter smug-hugging myself for being so absolutely right, so totally fucking early. Yet here we are, Friday morning, and here I am the only pundit in all of Vegemiteland who has not yet done his Trump bit.
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2 months ago | 
aliensideboob.substack.com | John Birmingham
Trump declares AUKUS a disaster, a horrible, corrupt Joe Biden deal, and insists that only he can fix it. His solution? Upfront payment of the entire $368 billion, in cash, no questions asked. Albo and Richard Marles launch themselves into an exhausting series of national meat tray raffles, only for Trump to then demand $500B worth of mineral rights. Peter Dutton runs on ‘saving the alliance’. Upon taking office, Prime Minister Dutton orders Treasury to invest the entire AUKUS budget into Trumpcoin.
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2 months ago | 
aliensideboob.substack.com | John Birmingham
I’ve been on the road since last Sunday, driving down the east coast from Brisbane to Sydney with stops at Bellingen and Newcastle. I’m in Sydney now, catching up with some old friends this evening, and I can already tell that I am in the wrong place to be cranking out a column for this week. So let’s do that on Monday. It has been very pleasant to get aw…
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2 months ago | 
aliensideboob.substack.com | John Birmingham
Has anybody checked on Australia’s national security establishment? I’m a bit worried about them. Last I heard, they were hiding out under an abandoned freeway ramp, huddled around an oil drum fire, trying very hard not to be noticed by the giant, authoritarian toddler stomping all over the Western alliance system, biting the heads off random Canadians to see if any maple syrup came out.
