Mastodawn

I live in a country (Ro) that went from a horrific Stalinist dictatorship to being a self titled 'original democracy' to being a full EU member state, and all these in only one generation.

And now I realize the more democratic the country became, the safer protests became.

From machine gun shooting, to isolated incident, to being safe to take a kid to a protest.

@Remittancegirl

David Penington 1d ago

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Cosmin Oprescu 🇪🇺3d ago

@Fishercat

Here you're absolutely wrong. Dictators are those who kill; thousands of people or more.

In democracy you might see tear gas or even rubber bullets but no mass shooting by police.

When protesters like Renee Good or Alex Pretti are killed, you know a country took its first step towards a totalitarian regime. The fact that people can still protest against those killings means it was *only* the first step.

@Remittancegirl

David Penington 2d ago

Drop Bear 2d ago

In the 1980s, I worked in Australia's Commonwealth Employment Service. I came to the conclusion that, with few exceptions, people want to feel that they're contributing to their community. The “Dole Bludger” is mythical.

Totalitarian Capitalism does not serve the nation well. Australia is rich enough to afford every resident the necessities of life and opportunities to do something that's meaningful to them.
“They felt a higher degree of trust in their own future but also in their fellow citizens and public institutions.”
…
“… how can global capital maintain its momentum if the workers with bad jobs in bad places are given the chance to plan for a better future?”
…
“People want to work. And that includes work that’s not itemised or valued by capital.”
https://thepoint.com.au/opinions/260311-what-if-we-just-gave-people-money-the-economics-of-time-and-freedom
#AusPol #UBI

What if we just gave people money? The economics of time and freedom

The idea that there’s only so much money to go around makes a bastard kind of sense to the poor. If impossible decisions abound in their lives, it must be true of governments, too. Certainly, that’s how federal budgets are framed. But beyond impressionism, we know the household budget is not analogous to state budgets in any meaningful way.

David Penington 2d ago

Joshua Byrd 2d ago

The reason that cutting the CGT discount will lead to a big increase in supply of homes for owner occupiers is not that it will make builders build faster, but because it will make hundreds of thousands of property speculators decide they don’t want to hang on to so many houses. https://thepoint.com.au/opinions/260312-australia-actually-has-more-than-enough-houses-theyre-just-owned-by-investors

Australia actually has more than enough houses, they’re just owned by investors

Over the past 10 years, the number of new homes has been growing faster than the population. Read that sentence again if you need to, but doing so won’t change the facts.

David Penington 3d ago

Graham Palmer 3d ago

If you’re not Australian you’d be wondering what this weird display was. We Victorians know it’s a male Lyrebird, trying to attract a mate. Sadly, photos don’t carry sound - his repertoire of other birds’ calls was impressive - and included a chainsaw!
#Photography #NaturePhotography #AustralianNature #BirdsOfMastodon #Lyrebird #LyrebirdDisplay #VictorianForest #CoolRainforest #MenuraNovaehollandiae #SuperbLyrebird

David Penington 3d ago

anders d 3d ago

#SouthAustralia daily energy generation stats for the day, with renewables contributing 104% of demand. Hatched areas are the curtailment of solar and wind production given we’re awash in energy; over 12 GWh that couldn’t go anywhere… #renewables #energy

David Penington 4d ago

Ian M. Mackay, PhD (he/him)4d ago

There's never been more a more leverageable moment & to exemplify the need for more renewables projects & improved grid performance: energy independence from fossil fuels.
Will we use it & hammer home the need for these projects to be fast-tracked?
Queensland says 'No way!'
#auspol

David Penington 4d ago

The Animal and the Machine 4d ago

People wondering about Russian ‘escalation’ should learn and be very clear about one thing.

Russia is already doing everything it thinks it can get away with. It literally can’t escalate.

David Penington 4d ago

Kim Zetter 4d ago

Iranian hacktivists hit US medical device maker Stryker with a "severe" attack that wiped systems and shut down global operations for the company. The hacktivist group, Handala, claim they hit the company in retaliation for the US bombing of a girls' school in Iran and that they struck more than 200,000 of Stryker's servers, systems and devices and remotely wiped many of them. https://www.zetter-zeroday.com/iranian-hacktivists-strike-medical-device-maker-stryker-in-severe-attack-that-wiped-systems/

Iranian Hacktivists Strike Medical Device Maker Stryker in "Severe" Attack that Wiped Systems

Stryker, a leading maker of medical devices, was hit early this morning with a cyberattack that has reportedly caused the company's systems to shut down globally. A known Iranian hacktivist group named Handala posted messages on hacked systems and on social media taking credit for the hit, which they say

ZERO DAY

David Penington 4d ago

InfoSecSherpa 5d ago

"As agent frameworks move from experimentation into real operational use, organizations are discovering that traditional #IAM, secrets management, and access controls were not designed for autonomous systems that act continuously, hold credentials, and operate outside formal identity boundaries."

"OpenClaw and the Security Wake-Up Call for Autonomous AI Agents" by Suresh Sathyamurthy| Akeyless| February 10, 2026. https://api.cyfluencer.com/s/openclaw-and-the-security-wake-up-call-for-autonomous-ai-agents-25664