I have no idea why Kmart is being singled out.

I think the answer to this would be A) because Kmart is more easily targeted, and B) Kmart pulling the product would have an outsized impact.

Kmart is more easily targetable because they’re a well-recognised brand that operates only in Australia and New Zealand, and it’s a small proportion of their shops in NZ. So a public opinion campaign by an Australian organisation like GetUp has a chance of creating real pressure on the company. This wouldn’t be the case for companies like Amazon or Temu that sell to many countries.

As for Kmart’s impact, as a large retailer they presumably have capacity to sell quite a lot of these glasses in Australia, but I think probably more important is that a prominent retail chain in Australia selling a product has an impact in normalising that product. You can buy all sorts of stuff on the internet, for example the ‘peptides’ that people have been ordering lately (though who knows what they actually receive). If you see a product ‘in real life’ in a retail setting, though, I’d expect that to have some effect in legitimising the product in the public mind, compared to only seeing it online. That Kmart is selling a particularly cheap version of the product - under their own Anko brand - and thereby making the product more accessible could be an aggravating factor.

Strange that AB- is good.

I’d guess that’s related to the fact that AB- blood can only go to patients with an AB+/- blood type (and AB+ only to AB+ recipients). Also, AB+ is 4% of the population and AB- is 1%. So probably for those reasons there’s a lower demand for whole blood of the AB+/- types.

By that logic, though, you’d expect AB- would be in shorter supply than AB+. So I don’t know!

I also have no idea why supply of B+ is ‘Good’ either, since it’s compatible with the same number of recipient types as A+, and you’d think percentage of the population for any type would balance supply with demand (that might be an incorrect assumption, though).

This is a good reference for percentage of each blood type in the Australian population, and donor-recipient compatibilities: https://www.lifeblood.com.au/donors/blood-plasma-platelets/learn/blood/blood-types

Blood supply levels by type today:

Source: https://www.lifeblood.com.au/donors/blood-plasma-platelets/blood-supply-levels

Probably an honest mistake - I’d guess the ‘Was’ price is entered manually on the sticker printer. I might’ve tried asking at the checkout for the $5.50 discount to be applied to the real ‘was’ price, though 😆

I think you should try to look on the bright side! As @tau mentioned, if the money remains in your accounts all year, it can be earning you interest in a HISA, or reducing your mortgage interest if you keep it in an offset account. It might not be much interest, but the idea of getting one up on the ATO makes it feel more fun, anyway!

Obviously being surprised with a tax bill isn’t ideal, though, so you might want to set up a separate, untouchable HISA (assuming you don’t have a mortgage offset account) and have a regular automated transfer (scheduled as close after payday as will be reliable). That way you effectively have ‘forced savings’, with the bonus that you get interest instead of the ATO. A lot of banks have crappy HISA rates, or require you to remember to meet some account activity requirement to get a ‘bonus rate’, so it’s worth considering finding the best one that you can set and forget.

It might sound like more hassle than it’s worth to set up an account with a new bank, but I found it pretty easy to do online when it was just a savings account (i.e. not credit), and for the purpose of ‘forced savings’ having the account with a different bank to your usual one helps keep the account out of sight and out of mind.

Finder has a sortable list of high interest savings accounts in Australia (link is sorted by base interest rate, not the maximum/bonus rate): https://www.finder.com.au/savings-accounts/high-interest-savings-accounts?sort=AUFSA.RECORD.VARIANT.DATAPOINT_STANDARD_VARIABLE_RATE_COMPV2_L+DESCENDING

What do you think of the violence in America?

Is this in relation to something specific, or just generally?

Also I am missing something what outlets or channels do you use to keep track of your countries.

You mean keeping track of Australian news, or keeping track of other countries?

If you mean for Australian news, you can take a look at the posts over on !news@aussie.zone or !australianpolitics@aussie.zone to see which outlets people link to. The majority of links posted there are for:

• abc.net.au
  • the national public broadcaster (i.e. government funded, but notionally editorially independent, unlike a ‘state broadcaster’)
  • YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@ABCNewsAustralia
• sbs.net.au/news
  • partially government funded, with a mission of providing programming for minority linguistic and cultural communities
  • YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@SBSNews
• theguardian.com/au
  • privately owned, but with a generally ‘progressive’ readership and editorial line
  • YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@GuardianAustralia

You often can read articles on Substack without needing to sign up or anything. I did get hit with an age-verification wall a few weeks back but it seems to have stopped doing that for me.

But if there are problems for you, you can often access it through archive.org (Wayback Machine) or archive.today.

Here’s a Wayback Machine snapshot of the page: https://web.archive.org/web/20260730214427/https://ozhistoryandpolitics.substack.com/p/40-interesting-facts-about-australian

It’s more the mining communities, like the people in Muswellbrook they quote in the article.

It’s not surprising to see the persistent denialism of residents when they, or their families, draw a wage from the mines. But we have to continue making the case to them that the transition is inevitable, and their only real options are a) to organise to demand a ‘just transition’ while they still have influence, or b) to continue to live in denial and take whatever they’re given once the industry is gone.

These renewable and storage projects, and the associated interest from other industries, are a great help in making the case for demanding a just transition and showing what it might look like.

We need more, though. Hopefully the ALP’S fear of PHON gaining a foothold in these areas will drive them to put more money into supporting new industries.

Rinehart, who spoke after being introduced by Pauline Hanson, also said the land could be provided to skilled Israelis and their families to build “advanced war drones, and or other advances in defence, and or improve upon their Israeli style domes, and manufacture them here to sell to our country to help make our people and critical infrastructure safe”.

I guess she love genocide as much as her father.

I’ve often used the part of Rule 1 that says ‘If an article isn’t from an Oceanian news outlet’ as a guide. I figured that was in there because if it’s reported by local news outlets then a journalist/editor has considered it of interest to Australians.

While Australia is continuously participating in these conflicts, and while I believe that’s an important political and economic issue for Australians to grapple with, general updates on conflicts we’re involved in are more suited to other global news communities.

I think there’s value in sharing articles that address global events from an Australian perspective, and discussing those events from an Australian perspective.

I’d also say from a more practical standpoint, this community averages less than a post a day. It’s not like we’re being flooded with articles.

We know that feeling!

(Photo from December 2019)

Can you explain for us Australians?

In 2021, the Morrison Coalition Government and Labor Opposition agreed to restrict the names of political parties. ‘Frivolous’ party names are forbidden, which kills the Count Binface Party stone dead. That’s despite a long history in Australia of joke parties, like the Sun Ripened Warm Tomatoes Party, the Surprise Party and the Deadly Serious Party.

Australia also places other barriers in the way of candidates. Count Binface needed the endorsement of 10 residents of Clacton to run in the by-election; an Australian independent would require 100.

In Australia, party candidates do not need any nominators (another advantage the incumbents have given themselves), but registering a party requires 1,500 members. That is prohibitive for parties focused on local or regional issues. In the UK, you only need two members: a treasurer and a returning officer.

Might be better to use the URL on DeepCut’s own domain:

https://www.deepcutnews.com/p/shoebridge-demands-segal-correct

Viewing anything on the Substack domain requires age verification now.

The US isn’t a signatory to the Rome Statute.

From the article linked in the post:

The international court, headquartered in The Hague, can only investigate crimes committed in states that are party to the Rome statute, the 2002 treaty that established the ICC. The United States has not ratified the treaty, nor has the court opened investigations into crimes committed on American soil.

The US also has a law known as the ‘Hague Invasion Act’:

The act gives the president power to use “all means necessary and appropriate to bring about the release of any U.S. or allied personnel being detained or imprisoned by, on behalf of, or at the request of the International Criminal Court”[3] (ICC), located in The Hague, Netherlands.

Personally I do think there should be a minimum number of preferences you need to fill out. It forces parties to be clear on who they would like you to preference on their how-to-vote cards.

It doesn’t force them to. I’ve seen HTV flyers that say something like ‘Vote 1 for PARTY X and number boxes 2-6 as you like’. I don’t think it really has any bearing either way.

The Senate system of instructing voters to number at least 1-6, while still counting ballots with only a first preference, seems a pretty reasonable balance.

Besides, you shouldn’t rely on party names, as we’ve seen recently.

Full segment with transcript: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-07-09/is-the-middle-east-ceasefire-over-/106898464

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Rarotonga

The treaty bans the use, testing, and possession of nuclear weapons within the borders of the zone.

they did this with another gop, she was a memory care facility, but they kept it secret(i think it was a GOP house member)

Yeah, GOP Rep. Kay Granger: https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2025/03/14/kay-granger-dementia-dc-media-00210317