Irene Lomis
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irenelomis.bsky.social
Irene Lomis
@irenelomis.bsky.social
870 followers 1.5K following 530 posts
Humanist, avid reader, dog-lover. The standard you walk past is the standard you accept.
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Reposted by Irene Lomis
ronnisalt.bsky.social
Right up there with one of the best things @nickfeik.bsky.social has ever written.

A must read.

👉 nickfeik.substack.com/p/a-rare-win

*cough-former730host-cough*
December 13, 2025 at 11:59 PM
Reposted by Irene Lomis
alangnixon.bsky.social
#Austerity for the people is a choice. We could cut back so many corporate subsidies and #TaxTheRich. Instead #NeoLiberalism chooses to slog 'we the people' of #auspol. Time for change #Australia.

@jimchalmers.bsky.social
the-russell.bsky.social @THE-Russell - You don't like opinions? Here's mine! @the-russell.bsky.social · 21h
Chalmers has had to cut government services to claw back $20B and keep the government's 'promises'.
At the same time, that same government is squandering $400B on 5 secondhand, beyond serviceable life, ready for scrapping, Virginia subs.
#FFS!
#AUKUS will #FAUKUS
#auspol
December 13, 2025 at 11:01 PM
Reposted by Irene Lomis
philgorman.bsky.social
Nothing to see here.

The Shadow Cabinet: How Encrypted Lobbying and the Erosion of Record-Keeping Are Undermining Australian Democracy theaimn.net/the-shadow-c...
The Shadow Cabinet: How Encrypted Lobbying and the Erosion of Record-Keeping Are Undermining Australian Democracy
This article examines a developing crisis in Australian public integrity: the systematic use of encrypted and unminuted communications between lobbyists and the highest levels of government to evade t...
theaimn.net
December 13, 2025 at 10:11 PM
Reposted by Irene Lomis
davemilbo.bsky.social
Last episode of Sunday Shot starts at 9.

Doug Cameron and Zoe Daniel join us on the panel, plus we reflect on 2025 with @ronnisalt.bsky.social, Grace Tame, Purple Pingers, @thomasmayo.bsky.social, Nasser Mashni, @amyremeikis.bsky.social, @cherylkernot.bsky.social and more
The Year That Was - December 14 - Doug Cameron, Zoe Daniel, and many more!
YouTube video by The Sunday Shot
www.youtube.com
December 13, 2025 at 9:32 PM
Reposted by Irene Lomis
johnmenadue.com
We think we outgrew religion, but AI now fills the imaginative space once held by the divine. Algorithms shape our fears, hopes and search for certainty, writes Adrian Rosenfeldt. #AI #Religion #Philosophy #TechCulture
Trembling before the religion of AI
We like to think we have moved beyond religion, yet our reliance on AI reveals a new metaphysics shaped by imagination, projection and fear. Adrian Rosenfeldt explores how digital systems have taken on the psychological role once held by the divine.
johnmenadue.com
December 13, 2025 at 10:00 PM
Reposted by Irene Lomis
amyremeikis.bsky.social
When rules and reality collide, there's only one winner – not us (plus some future senate fun)

www.thenewdaily.com.au/opinion/2025...
When rules and reality collide, there's only one winner – not us
That’s the thing about politics. It’s all in the rules because those who benefit from it all, write the rules.
www.thenewdaily.com.au
December 13, 2025 at 9:44 PM
Reposted by Irene Lomis
grogsgamut.bsky.social
The ALP need to realise they will be criticised whatever they do, so how about do things that are good? And do things to please those who voted for you not those who never will.
grogsgamut.bsky.social Greg Jericho @grogsgamut.bsky.social · 1d
The AFR run a 2 year campaign to get the ALP to weaken the changes to super tax concessions to make it easier to avoid paying the tax.

The ALP does it.

The AFR criticises the ALP for weakening the policy because people can avoid paying the tax.

My column #ThePoint

thepoint.com.au/news/251213
The rich get tax advice; the poor get lectures: super tax saga lays bare a skewed system
A new report on the amount of revenue expected to be raised by the changes to superannuation tax on balances over $3m highlights yet again how the tax system is weighted in favour of the rich and that...
thepoint.com.au
December 12, 2025 at 11:04 PM
Reposted by Irene Lomis
migaloo1.bsky.social
Seriously? Now that she is declared bankrupt that’s it.

Surely she can now start a fresh and rebuild her life and bank accounts.

What about a private trust with her as the beneficiary?

The trust can be in anyone’s name and she can be the beneficiary.

Let’s help her rebuild her life.
December 12, 2025 at 8:26 PM
Reposted by Irene Lomis
margaretmorgan.bsky.social
'There has always been a floor to Trump’s base—the group of a little more than a third of Americans who have been loyal to him no matter what kind of crazy s--t he was up to.

'No longer. He has pierced what we might call the “Darwin Threshold.”'
thedailybeast.bsky.social The Daily Beast @thedailybeast.bsky.social · 1d
OPINION | Trump is deteriorating rapidly before our eyes, it's hard to know if he's falling apart faster than his own MAGA movement, writes @djrothkopf.bsky.social.

trib.al/KozSIpV
Trump Is Triggering His Very Own MAGApocalypse
The horror! The horror!
trib.al
December 12, 2025 at 10:11 PM
Reposted by Irene Lomis
richarddenniss.bsky.social
Did you know those over 55 can sell their house, buy a bigger, more expensive house, and use the ‘downsizer’ scheme to put $300k extra into their super

its called the ‘downsizer scheme’ but…you don’t have to actually downsize…FFS

Not sure that passes ‘the pub test’

thepoint.com.au/news/251213
The rich get tax advice; the poor get lectures: super tax saga lays bare a skewed system
A new report on the amount of revenue expected to be raised by the changes to superannuation tax on balances over $3m highlights yet again how the tax system is weighted in favour of the rich and that...
thepoint.com.au
December 12, 2025 at 9:56 PM
Reposted by Irene Lomis
polybiorf.bsky.social
1/ PolyBio supports research & treatment for children with Long COVID. This year, a study by our team at Harvard Medical School found that neutrophil immune cells from children with Long Covid were hyperactive and associated with pro-inflammatory pathway signaling.
December 12, 2025 at 7:04 PM
Reposted by Irene Lomis
thecovidinfoguy.bsky.social
"COVID Vaccines Slashed Kids’ ER Visits by 76%, Study Finds"

Effectiveness of COVID Vaccines in Children (compared with unvaccinated children):

🔹76% reduction in ER or urgent care visits (ages 9 months–4 years)

🔹56% reduction in ER or Urgent care visits (ages 5–17 years)

Source: archive.md/roPXg
A screenshot of a Scientific American article titled “COVID Vaccines Slashed Kids’ ER Visits by 76 Percent, Study Finds.” The subheading notes that a CDC report reaffirms the effectiveness of COVID vaccines at preventing severe disease in children. The article is dated December 11, 2025 and credited to Tanya Lewis, edited by Andrea Thompson. Below the headline is a photo showing a child’s hand pointing at a row of colorful Band-Aids laid out on a medical table. The Band-Aids come in various bright patterns—zebra stripes, red with shapes, blue designs, cartoon-style prints, floral prints, green camouflage, and two yellow ones. The table has a white medical pad, and nearby are some clinic items such as a phone or device and other equipment. The caption states that the image shows a child picking out a Band-Aid before receiving a COVID vaccination in San Jose, California in 2022.
December 11, 2025 at 10:15 PM
Reposted by Irene Lomis
ronnisalt.bsky.social
I would dearly love a long, extendable stick with a stuffed boxing glove on the end, or a rubber hand that I could use in coffee shops to slap people who insist on amplifying whatever loud crap is on their mobile phones or just yelling their convo on speaker as if we all need to join in too

SLAP!!
two cats are playing on a white couch and one is standing on its hind legs
ALT: two cats are playing on a white couch and one is standing on its hind legs
media.tenor.com
December 11, 2025 at 7:12 AM
Reposted by Irene Lomis
ketanjoshi.co
This is a since-deleted LinkedIn post from the marketing agency that created the since-deleted AI-generated McDonalds Christmas ad, and all I can think of is how the energy consumption must've been about on par with a small suburb or heavy industrial load to produce 30 seconds of slop everyone hated
Gardening.club 556 followers 1w Our team at The Gardening.Club have been pouring in the hours to achieve something that we finally feel ready to put our name to, and while Al film might be dividing opinions, we want to open the process up and reveal just how much human expertise and craft went into this campaign. There's this idea floating around that Al will do all the work for us. Let's set the record straight: the man-hours poured into this film were more than a traditional Production. Yes, this ad is 100% Al. But it was built with the same care that we bring to any live-action film. The brief was tightly prescribed, with a clear mandate for every single scene, so complete control of each shot was essential and pulled off by our team using proprietary workflows, and pulled off spectacularly well, this was not a prompt-and-pray process. Just like a traditional shoot, the film needed a director, real storytelling instincts, and intentional casting, we selected and shaped each Al performer, their look, energy, and emotional presence, to meet the brief just as we would in live action film. It required virtual location scouting, solid references, screen tests, and a countless amount of takes to maintain true cinematic continuity. Our in-house Gardening.club Al and Post team, spent seven intense weeks refining every single frame. They rebuilt shots, debated composition, shaped shadows, and tuned emotional microbeats with precision all overseen by Sweetshop director duo MΑΜΑ. Many scenes had ten or more specialists, with each shot running through a tightly engineered pipeline, Google Earth base plates, style-transfer passes, pixel-level refinements, custom LoRAs, control nets, and bespoke ComfyUl workflows. We composited, fixed physics, balanced lighting, and cleaned artifacts in Flame. New tools, same goal: a film that feels real. Of course, we came across roadblocks. There were many times we were challenged, but the team was able to problem-solve on the spot. This project demanded a team willing to push further than the tech was ready to go. But that's exactly why it works. So no Al didn't make this film. We did.
December 11, 2025 at 5:27 PM
Reposted by Irene Lomis
cathywilcox.bsky.social
Put it down.
My @smh @theage cartoon.
Single frame. Left: man and woman at kitchen table having drinks. Woman pointing to her phone, saying: “Immigrants are causing the housing crisis, the environmentalists want to ruin our lifestyle, and our children’s minds are being poisoned by woke!” Right: Young teen girl walking through doorway carrying drink and plate with sandwich, says, “Omigod Mum, put that thing down, can’t you see what it’s doing to you?”
December 10, 2025 at 8:42 PM
Reposted by Irene Lomis
michaelwestbiz.bsky.social
NACC has no cred, nor chair Brereton, but unless both major parties move to fix it, Australia stuck with it for another year. @kimwingerei.bsky.social #whatsthescam Brereton hearing today
#auspol
michaelwest.com.au/nacc-inspect...
NACC Inspector Furness states the obvious while Brereton obfuscates - Michael West
Today's Joint Parliamentary Committee meeting examining the performance of the NACC made it clear that Paul Brereton just doesn't get it.
michaelwest.com.au
December 11, 2025 at 4:28 AM
Reposted by Irene Lomis
anthonyklan.bsky.social
🚨Antisemitism Envoy Jillian Segal is refusing to tell the Senate if she disclosed she was an official at pro-Israel lobby group ECAJ before taking the role.

Comes as we reveal the lobby group has quietly changed Segal's bio on its website.

Explosive...
theklaxon.com.au/cabp
Jillian Segal shuns Senate over lobby group ties - The Klaxon
Antisemitism Envoy Jillian Segal is refusing to tell the Senate whether she disclosed she was a senior official of a pro-Israel lobby group before taking the role.
theklaxon.com.au
December 11, 2025 at 2:17 AM
Reposted by Irene Lomis
kazcooke.bsky.social
Ugh. Discordant message on the Sydney Harbour bridge photographed for the NYTimes story on social media ban for under-16s. Not just Lego green & ick flouro yellow but sanctimonious 'Let Them Be Kids' from a country which jails Indigenous kids & hasn't held the childcare industry to account.
The Sydney Harbour Bridge: the top curve and horizontal crossing lines are illuminated in green and an ugly, lazy projection on a tower-end says 'LET THEM BE KIDS' in white capital sans-serif font on a background of Lego green and fluoro yellow, bisected by diagonal line.
December 11, 2025 at 1:10 AM
Reposted by Irene Lomis
australiainstitute.org.au
“You’re not alone in thinking that Australia is getting taken for a ride.” – Dr Richard Denniss, co-CEO, The Australia Institute

✍️ Add your name to the petition calling on the government to fix our gas export laws: nb.australiainstitute.org.au/fix_gas_expo...
December 11, 2025 at 12:28 AM
Reposted by Irene Lomis
thecovidinfoguy.bsky.social
🧵(1/3) NSW respiratory surveillance reports: Week ending 6 December 2025

🔸COVID positivity rate: 2.5% (-0.2%)

🔸Number of laboratories reporting COVID: 2 out of 4

🔹COVID: 711 (-6.2%)
🔹Influenza: 3,966 (+6.7%)
🔹RSV: 373 (-6.8%)

@NSWHealth

health.nsw.gov.au/Infectious/c...
A screenshot of the NSW Respiratory Surveillance Report for the week ending 6 December 2025. At the top is the NSW Government logo and the website link (health.nsw.gov.au/coronavirus). A boxed statement reads: “Influenza is at a moderate level of activity. COVID-19 is at a low level of activity. RSV is at a low level of activity.” Below, under the heading Summary, text explains that influenza activity continues to increase and is unusually high for this time of year, driven mainly by influenza A and a new variant of subtype H3N2, subclade K. COVID-19 and RSV remain at low levels. A section of the NSW Respiratory Surveillance Report titled “Notifications of COVID-19, influenza and RSV.” Text explains that notification data comes from laboratory testing. An interpretation note states: “In the past week there was a decrease of 6.2% in COVID-19 notifications, an increase of 6.7% in influenza notifications, and a decrease of 6.8% in RSV notifications.” Below is Table 1, showing notifications for the week ending 6 December 2025 and year-to-date totals. The table has three main columns: COVID, Influenza, and RSV. COVID: 711 cases this week; 80,597 year-to-date. Influenza: 3,966 cases this week; 175,561 year-to-date. RSV: 373 cases this week; 70,435 year-to-date. The row shown is the Total for all genders. A bar chart titled “Figure 5. Weekly notifications of COVID-19, Influenza and RSV by date of test and type of test performed, NSW, 1 June 2024 to 6 December 2025.” The chart shown is specifically for COVID-19. The vertical axis shows weekly notifications ranging from 0 to 8,000. The horizontal axis displays test dates from June 2024 to January 2026. The bars show a steep decline from around 5,500 weekly COVID-19 notifications in June 2024 down to around 2,000 by late 2024. Numbers fluctuate between 1,500–3,000 through early 2025, then rise sharply again in mid-2025, peaking at about 4,500–5,000 in July 2025. After that peak, notifications steadily drop into late 2025, reaching low levels around 500–1,000 by November–December 2025. A section from the NSW Respiratory Surveillance Report. At the top, an interpretation note states: “In the last week COVID-19 test positivity decreased to 2.5%. Influenza test positivity increased to 14.2%. RSV test positivity decreased to 1.0%.” Below is Figure 12, a line-and-bar graph showing weekly COVID-19 positive tests at NSW sentinel laboratories from June 2024 to 7 December 2025. Light blue bars show the number of positive tests, generally declining over time with small bumps mid-2025. A grey line shows percent positivity, with labels such as 9.2%, 6.6%, 5.4%, 9.6% (peak in Jan 2025), then mostly lower through 2025, ending around 2.5% in December 2025. Under the graph is Table 2, summarizing four weeks of COVID-19 PCR results: Week ending 16 Nov: 223 cases, 2.5% positive, 8,848 tests, 3 labs reporting. Week ending 23 Nov: 235 cases, 2.7% positive, 8,825 tests, 3 labs reporting. Week ending 30 Nov: 229 cases, 2.7% positive, 8,584 tests, 3 labs reporting. Week ending 07 Dec: 196 cases, 2.5% positive, 7,802 tests, 2 labs reporting (circled in red). Red circles highlight the 2.5% positivity for 7 December and the drop from 3 to 2 laboratories reporting that week.
December 11, 2025 at 12:30 AM
Reposted by Irene Lomis
grogsgamut.bsky.social
Were I in a govt that really cared about kids, I’d be banning new coal and gas mines with rather more fervour than the current ban on social media.

Probably wouldn’t get the same boasting front pages in the Herald Sun and Daily Telegraph though…
grogsgamut.bsky.social Greg Jericho @grogsgamut.bsky.social · 4d
The November monthly temperatures have been released and 2025 looks set to be the 2nd hottest year on record.

Remember when warming apparently stopped in 1997?

That is more than 0.5C ago.
Chart showing the global land sea temperature anomaly from the 1880-1901 average - it shows in the past year to Nov temperature were more than 1.4C hotter than that base and are heating faster than the 1965-2010 range.
December 10, 2025 at 8:10 AM
Reposted by Irene Lomis
njbbari3.bsky.social
And yes. I would wear a mask in my own house… cos spreading flu is not love.
December 10, 2025 at 11:07 AM
Reposted by Irene Lomis
njbbari3.bsky.social
I haven’t had the flu in ages… because I use all the tools, however, if I did, the chance of finding me anywhere except somewhere between the kettle, the medicine box, the kids, and my bed… is ZERO.

Rest is important for recovery. Spreading bugs no one wants is anti-social.

I get sick leave tho.
elhopkins.bsky.social Esther @elhopkins.bsky.social · 4d
Now we have advice to say go to work when sick, possibly with the flu in a gappy surgical mask. This is not health advice at this point. I don’t believe it isn’t politically driven. No one should work with the flu or COVID. Both are serious infections that can kill people. The flu is not a mild cold
December 10, 2025 at 11:06 AM
Reposted by Irene Lomis
georgemonbiot.bsky.social
There is one overriding political problem, from which all others follow. Until it is addressed, every policy advanced by governments is window dressing.
www.theguardian.com/inequality/2...
Just 0.001% hold three times the wealth of poorest half of humanity, report finds
Data from World Inequality Report also showed top 10% of income-earners earn more than the other 90%
www.theguardian.com
December 10, 2025 at 7:09 AM
Reposted by Irene Lomis
ketanjoshi.co
If i can just be a bit blunt: we don't need to do the ecomodernist nuke-bro [overconfidence -> failure] trajectory for solar+batteries

We can just skip it and plan for a more diverse and optimised system that takes full advantage of both resources, for the lowest emissions and system costs.........
December 10, 2025 at 8:34 AM