Bin Chicken

Australia is no longer promising to ban domestic trade of elephant ivory
https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2026-10-03/domestic-trade-ban-of-elephant-ivory-abandoned/107165470

Ivory trade is still happening in Australia, and our government's attitude is negligence bordering on contempt. This article highlights a double standard: we prevent illegal trade of body-parts of endangered Australian wildlife, but we back-off from commitments about overseas animals.

Ivory now has an "ick" factor in most countries. It's like clothes made with animal fur. I've heard some folks get high-end musical instruments restored/rebuilt to have ivory inlay replaced with ethically sourced, sustainable materials prior to selling the instrument secondhand.

Most other countries acknowledge that buying and selling elephant tusks and rhinoceros horns is a global problem. They want to work together to stop it because wherever in the world it happens, it supports the business of hunting and killing elephants and rhinos.

#Ivory #IvoryTrade #Elephants #Rhinos #Rhinoceros #EndangeredSpecies

This morning, Jacinta Allan stepped aside as Premier of Victoria, and Ben Carroll was sworn-in promptly.

Ben Carroll becoming Premier is a regressive step for Victoria. He's a Shoppie who used to work with Stephen Conroy.

I'm tipping Victorians can expect Ben Carroll to offer:

• Talk about caring for the working-class, while actually suppressing wages and rights of workers, especially young and low income people.
• Centrist concessions to RWNJs.
• Erosion of the rights and protections for minorities such as LGBTQIA+ people.
• Pandering to conservative religious dogma on issues such as women's health, contraception, and abortion.
• Ignorant meddling with Tech, such as censorship, NBN/broadband, and whatever is happening with AI.
• Bizarre legislative carve-outs and gifts to big business.
• Further entrenchment of the gambling industry.

#AusPol #VicPol #JacintaAllan #BenCarroll

If you act like a total piece of shit by using an LLM to extrude a wall of text (ironically, about Marx and the means of production), cram it into an "infographic" image, and then try to cover your arse by saying it's "AI-assisted" in the Alt-Text, but doing little else to describe the image — which is the entire fucking reason for Alt-Text, you nincompoop — then I'm going shove a couple of my handcrafted em-dashes where the sun don't shine, and block you.
Get in the bin.

#AISlop #LLMs# #AltText #RichardMurphy

Answer in 10 seconds or lose your fleet: The e-bike row dividing Yarra
https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/answer-in-10-seconds-or-lose-your-fleet-the-e-bike-row-dividing-yarra-20260730-p60k3i.html

Previously: @BinChicken@theblower.au

Streets Alive Yarra president, Jeremy Lawrence, campaigns for safety, usability, and efficiency of streets and transport. I applaud his work and usually agree with him. In this case I think his observations are good but his conclusions miss the mark.

The conditions the council stated are reasonable requirements. Eg: removing dumped hire-bikes in 60 minutes, and any "dangerously placed" in 30 minutes.

Jeremy Lawrence said: "In my view, it was so onerous [that] no share bike operator, even if it was Lime … could make it work in a financially viable manner."

He's correct. But, it doesn't mean we should give a free pass to hire-bike companies, cut safety standards, or give public land to a company to use as parking-space. I think it's time we accept that the hire-bike business-model does not work.

#AusPol #VicPol #CityOfYarra #Melbourne #Lime #EBikes