highlyeccentric | Les Liens du... Jeudi! (Reply)

Current and stale affairs, hot and cold takes: -

Cameron Wilson (Buzzfeed AU), Facebook sent flowers to a politician. He reported it to biosecurity authorities. Facebook's efforts to buy political friends run face-first into Australian biosecurity law. Use interflora next time, buddy.
Ehlers-Danlos Support UK, New Research Shows hEDS and HSD 10 times more common than previously thought. As I understand it, the Ehlers-Danlos Society reacted quite strongly against this finding.
Broede Carmody (The Age), Let them be scared: Q&A panellist (Mona Eltahawy) stands by comments after complaints.
Helen Pitt (SMH), NSW bushfires: koala population 'like a cremation' after blazes
Greg Mullins, former Commissioner of Fire and Rescue (SMH), This is not normal: what's different about the NSW mega fires:
"Unprecedented" is a word that we are hearing a lot: from fire chiefs, politicians, and the weather bureau. I have just returned from California where I spoke to fire chiefs still battling unseasonal fires. The same word, "unprecedented", came up.
Unprecedented dryness; reductions in long-term rainfall; low humidity; high temperatures; wind velocities; fire danger indices; fire spread and ferocity; instances of pyro-convective fires (fire storms – making their own weather); early starts and late finishes to bushfire seasons. An established long-term trend driven by a warming, drying climate. The numbers don’t lie, and the science is clear.
If anyone tells you, "This is part of a normal cycle" or "We’ve had fires like this before", smile politely and walk away, because they don’t know what they’re talking about.

Good News:

ABC Goulbourn Murray, Purebred dingo pup dropped from the air into backyard garden turns out to be a rare breed. 'Wandi' is believed to have been dropped by an eagle, and has been confirmed to have 100% dingo DNA. He will be joining a breeding program at the Australian Dingo Foundation. There's a vr vr cute video.
Lee McGowan (Conversation AU), Australia wants to host the FIFA Women's World Cup: equal pay for the Matildas will help our chances. The Matildas secured equal pay in early November.
Cassandra Power (Canberra Times), Bees make a new home at Old Parliament House. A single hive of honeybees (not native bees) has been installed in the OPH gardens, with the aim of, if it is well-received, increasing the number over time. Intentions include contributing to stability of fertilisation, and educating people about bees.
Vanessa Milton (ABC South East), Indigenous fire methods protect land before and after Tathra bushfire. Cultural burns are at a lower temperature than hazard reduction burns, and protect key habitats.

Amusements:

McKayla Coyle (Electric Lit), 20 Fiction prompts culled from Florida Man headlines:
Florida Man Threatens to Kill Man With ‘Kindness,’ Uses Machete Named ‘Kindness’ (poetry collection)
Florida Man Finds a WWII Grenade, Places It in His Truck, Drives to Taco Bell (picaresque novel)
Florida man throws burrito in woman’s face, cops say. And this has happened before (bildungsroman)

Notable DW content:

siderea, The risks of talking about your health online. Particularly pertinent for USians, in view of likely ACA rollback, but given the increasing centrality of private health cover in Aus, worth considering here, too.
If they can prove that you knew you had the condition, but didn't disclose it on the application, they can cancel your insurance policy retroactively. Their legal theory is that you defrauded them by enrolling under false pretenses – by not disclosing the truth of your health status to them – so the contract is null and void. It's a pretty good legal theory.
Oh, they won't prosecute you for insurance fraud. Doing that would move the matter into criminal court, where, I'll note, the standard of proof is "beyond a reasonable doubt". They'll just declare themselves free of their contract with you, and if you feel they have wronged you, you're welcome to take them and their army of lawyers to court – civil court, where, I'll note, the standard of proof is much lower, merely "preponderance of evidence."
It used to be that it was usually pretty challenging for insurers to find ways to prove ("prove") that someone knew prior to applying that they had had a condition they were now presenting for treatment. It wasn't like people were writing down their every thought about their health and publishing it in public where anyone could see it, ha ha ha.
Used to be, they had to – and did – hire investigators, to investigate individuals, on a case-by-case basis. This was (is) laborious, and therefore expensive; and it wasn't too likely to work to turn up evidence that someone had an undisclosed pre-existing condition because you're basically hoping that someone threw away their diary; so it was reserved for cases where they had some sort of lead or suspicion to look into. It simply wasn't cost effective to try to investigate manually all – or even many – high-claim cases for evidence that could get them out of paying the claims.
The social media sure changed that, hasn't it?
See, the thing about definition of a "pre-existing condition" being a condition you knew you had before you applied, is that the question of whether or not a condition is pre-existing becomes the question of when did you know that you had it?
And the thing about social media is it's a hell of a record of who knew what when. Often in public. Often right under folk's wallet names. You know, the name on one's insurance card. That you signed up for insurance with.

Longer political and/or climate science pieces

Michelle Grattan (Conversation AU), Attorney-General Christian Porter targets Market Forces in push against environment groups. TL;DR the Aus govt is trying to ban third-party boycotts, specifically the kind that list 'who invests in fossil fuels' and makes that information available. (I note also this will impact the less-well-organised campaign to boycott companies that provide services to detention facilities.)
Lorena Allam (Guardian AU), NSW child protection authorities regularly mislead court and needlessly take indigenous kids: report:
The review found “widespread noncompliance” with law and policy by family and community services (Facs) caseworkers and managers. Facs staff routinely ignored the requirement to consult regularly with Aboriginal families and communities, and routinely chose removal over other, less intrusive, options available. Willing and available Aboriginal family members were routinely ignored and siblings, including twins, were separated unnecessarily.

Longer cultural / historical / scientific / other

John Elledge (New Statesman, 2015), Guy Fawkes wasn't a freedom fighter, he was a religious terrorist, and not even one of the good ones. "The Gunpowder Plotters weren’t freedom fighters at all. They wanted to replace an oppressive Protestant regime with an oppressive Catholic one, and were willing to commit mass slaughter to do it. In other words, Guy Fawkes was a religious terrorist, and not even one of the most important ones. He was the Jacobean equivalent of one of the minor characters from Four Lions."
Caroline Reilly (Bitch Media), Caitlin Doughty is helping kids - and adults - ask questions about death.
Michael Flood (Conversation AU), Forceful and Dominant: men with sexist ideas of masculinity are more likely to abuse women. Today in the department of 'data proves what theorists have known for a long time'.
Brendan Keogh (Overland), The goose came first: game development as a cultural project:
When I try to explain how these communities are different to how we traditionally understand the videogame industry, I typically find myself falling back on analogies to other cultural industries. We are used to thinking of videogame studios as structured somewhat like tech or software companies, as many of them indeed are. In these new scenes, however, we see gamemaking groups come together more like music bands, both in the ways they collaborate and cross-pollinate but also in the ways they talk about their craft and future ambitions. Many are content to do their creative work on the side of a day job, rather than jumping in the deep end of starting a formal company. Just like a successful rock band doesn’t hire ten more drummers after a breakthrough album, many of these game development teams are more interested in keeping the team than in growing into a larger studio. The members of these videogame scenes are simply approaching what it means to be a game developer from different perspectives, thus creating videogame works of a different flavour.

Doesn't really dig into what, if anything, this change in video game (sub)culture might mean for industry diversity.
Joan Westerberg (Archer), My Catholic Guilt: the regrets of a former youth leader
Kristen Hanley Cardozo (Electric Lit), How Lolly Willowes smashed the patriarchy by selling her soul to Satan. I found a copy of Lolly Willowes in the children's section of a second-hand bookshop shortly after reading this. o_0
Whit Taylor (The Lily), cartoon, How to overcome creative burnout. More about 'fallow periods'.