Mark Dando

the thing that gets people on transit isn’t free fares it’s not having to check a schedule. a bus that costs $2 and comes every 6 minutes will outperform a free bus that comes every 30 minutes every single time. frequency is the product. the fare is a rounding error

The "right to exist" of a state has no basis in international law and no precedent in diplomatic practice. Simply put, a state's right to exist does not exist. If Israel nevertheless proclaims a "right to exist", the only reasonable basis for the existence of such a right is that it is a universal one, equally applicable to every other state at the time it was first raised, and particularly applicable to those whose legitimacy, like that of Israel, was also challenged. If it is a right that applies to Israel alone, it is not and cannot be a right. It bears recalling that there were at least two other states that had a similar claim to a "right to exist" when Israel first invented it, on the grounds that their legitimacy and continued existence were also challenged: Rhodesia and the USSR. Yet neither the Soviet Union nor Rhodesia claimed a "right to exist". Nobody and no other state ever claimed either of them had an inherent right to exist, or claimed any fundamental rights would be violated if these states ceased to exist and disappeared from the map. In the case of Rhodesia, there was in fact an international consensus that it cease to exist. This succeeded and Rhodesia was replaced by Zimbabwe, to universal acclaim. It is also important to recognize that Israel's claims of a "right to exist" have nothing to do with achieving a peaceful resolution of the Question of Palestine, and are fundamentally about preventing one. Israel's "right to exist" was first raised precisely because the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), recognized by the international community as the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people, appeared to be amenable to accepting earlier demands by the United States in exchange for recognition of its mere existence: PLO acceptance of United Nations Security Council resolutions 242 and 338, renunciation of armed force, and recognition of Israel. The demand of a "right to exist" was proclaimed by Israel precisely in order to prevent Western recognition of the PLO, and in the expectation that the PLO would reject it out of hand as an unacceptable absurdity. Needless to say, Washington and its Western partners eagerly embraced the Israeli innovation, and never required Israel to define the borders within which the entity was supposed to enjoy a right to exist. When the PLO formally accepted Israel's "right to exist" in the context of the 1993 Oslo Accords, it was careful not to formulate it as an absolute right: "The PLO recognizes the right of the State of Israel to exist in peace and security". Palestinian negotiators had wanted to add "within the 5 June 1967 borders", but this was categorically rejected by Israel. It was made unambiguously clear that addition of this clause would have made agreement impossible. Israel demanded and the PLO accepted the above formulation, but it changed absolutely nothing. Several years later, Israel began demanding that the Palestinian not only recognize its "right to exist" but recognize "Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state". It once again did so on the presumption that this would be embraced by its Western sponsors and allies but that the Palestinians would reject the absurdity of this innovation. Israel's objective was to make negotiations and thus a diplomatic settlement impossible, and to ensure that the Palestinians rather than Israel were held responsible for the stalemate. It largely worked, as Western leaders and "mediators" once again embraced the Israeli demand and tried to pressure the Palestinians to accept it. I would not expect Tucker Carlson to be aware of this history. I would however expect Zanny Minton Beddoes, the Editor-in-Chief of The Economist, to be at least generally familiar with the issue, particularly since she made a point of interrogating Carlson about it. Yet, once again, when it comes to Israel, journalists believe themselves perfectly entitled to be zany, and virtually always get away with it.

@Mark_Graph Right at the moment I can see a compelling defence justification for maintaining high population growth. Increasing GDP via population growth or any other factor multiplies the $ available for defence expressed as a % of GDP

I'll be direct: I can't construct a compelling economic justification for running population growth at the current pace. That volumetric debate deserves to be had honestly. But immigration is not the cause of the housing crisis. Decades of visible, foreseeable demand have simply exposed a supply system that was never allowed to function properly. Fix the planning system, and Australia can absorb its population growth. Leave it broken, and no immigration target will solve the problem. #auspol #ausbiz #ausecon #more" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">markthegraph.blogspot.com/2026/03/why-ho…

1/ There are intensifying pressures on the cross-Strait status quo and debates in Washington about how US should respond. To interrogate options for adapting American policy, Jude Blanchette and I convened a diverse group of US experts on Taiwan. (🧵). brookings.edu/collection/cro…

@BernardZuel @buckleyxbutler Thanks for the tip. What talent

Saturday read #3. The TV talent show is a distant memory, the Oscar win a very fresh one, but between them came a superb album of torch-and-more songs from Jessie Buckley & Bernard Butler (@buckleyxbutler). WindBackWednesday hits play again. bernardzuel.net/post/nobler-in…

Severe Weather - Southeastern NSW and ACT - Monitor Conditions The Bureau of Meteorology has issued a severe thunderstorm warning for heavy rainfall that may lead to flash flooding and possible large hailstones in the warning area over the next several hours. If you need support during storms and floods call the ACT State Emergency Service on 132 500. The weather situation can change rapidly, check bom.gov.au/act/ for weather updates and warnings. More � esa.act.gov.au

Breaking: Donald Trump says he was surprised Australia "said no" to his request for help with the war in Iran "because we always say yes to them" smh.com.au/world/north-am…

From Haaretz in Israel. A description of an IDF commander murdering a 4 year old. For fun. It's beyond demonic. haaretz.com/opinion/2024-1…

JUST IN: Iran is charging $2 million per tanker to pass through the Strait of Hormuz. The Financial Times reported the payment. The IRGC confirms it by radio. And the world’s most important chokepoint has been converted from a military blockade into a toll road. The mechanism is precise. A tanker operator contacts intermediaries. The intermediaries negotiate with the IRGC. A fee is agreed, reportedly up to $2 million per voyage. Payment is made in cash, cryptocurrency, or barter. The vessel receives clearance. The IRGC hails the tanker on VHF radio, verifies its AIS transponder data, and grants passage. The tanker transits. It arrives. Roughly 89 to 90 vessels, including 16 oil tankers, successfully transited between March 1 and March 15 under some form of IRGC clearance according to Lloyd’s List Intelligence. Not all of them paid. Some were Iranian or allied ships. Some were Indian tankers that received diplomatic safe passage after government-to-government negotiations. Some were shadow fleet operators running dark with transponders off. But the Financial Times report confirms that at least one tanker operator paid the toll explicitly. The commercial precedent now exists. The $2 million sits on top of war-risk insurance that has surged to 3 to 5 percent of hull value where coverage exists at all. A VLCC valued at $120 million pays $3.6 to $6 million in war-risk premium for a seven-day single-voyage policy. Add the $2 million toll. Add the quadrupled charter rate of up to $800,000 per day. The total cost of moving a single cargo of crude through Hormuz now exceeds what it cost to move an entire fleet through the strait six months ago. Every dollar of that cost arrives at the consumer. The toll does not stay on the water. It enters the price of every barrel, every LNG cargo, every tonne of urea, every container of pharmaceuticals that the tanker carries. The $2 million is not a bribe. It is a tax levied by the IRGC on global commerce, collected at the narrowest point of the world’s most concentrated energy transit route, and passed through to four billion people downstream. The strategic innovation is that Iran has found a way to fund its war effort through the war itself. The IRGC closed the strait. The closure created scarcity. The scarcity created desperation. The desperation created willingness to pay. The $2 million per voyage funds the same provincial commands whose sealed packets created the closure. The feedback loop is self-financing: the blockade generates the revenue that sustains the blockade. The United States will frame this as state-sponsored extortion funding terrorism. The sanctions response is predictable: penalties on operators who pay, expanded designations on intermediaries, accelerated naval escorts under the six-allies pledge. But the enforcement faces a paradox. If the US sanctions every operator who pays the toll, it removes the only vessels currently moving oil through Hormuz. The molecules that are getting through, even at $2 million per transit, would stop entirely. The toll is extortion. The extortion is also the only functioning supply mechanism. The IRGC did not just close the strait. It reopened it selectively, on its terms, at its price. The blockade was the leverage. The toll is the monetisation. And the distinction between a military operation and a protection racket has collapsed into a radio frequency and a bank transfer. Full analysis: open.substack.com/pub/shanakaans…

Shapiro is one of the worse examples. But if you thought the British imperial hangover has been a little taxing, you definitely aren't prepared for the American equivalent, while it slowly plays out over decades, maybe a century. Freedom fries were just the beginning.

Australia's PM Anthony Albanese was booed and called a "genocide supporter" during Eid al-Fitr prayers at Sydney's largest mosque, as protesters voiced anger over his stance on Israel's war on Gaza.

Sea lanes, straits & subs: How many nuclear subs to open Hormuz? Can 8 AUKUS subs protect Australia's extended sea lanes in 2056, given America's 53 or so can't open Hormuz in 2026? Time to end magical thinking.@EwenLevick strategicanalysis.org/sea-lanes-stra…

Today I$rael tried to kill me in a targeted airstrike in southern Lebanon as I was reporting on was the targeting of bridges and the forced displacement of 1 million people, an ethnic cleansing operation on a larger scale than the Nakba I have absolutely no doubt that this was deliberate. Despite claims there were no warnings ahead of the strike and no notifications sent to the Lebanese Army who allowed us to film As we have seen in Gaza they want to silence journalists who document and report their war crimes It is the western powers who provide political and military support for I$rael, arming it to the teeth to carry out genocide in Gaza and ethnic cleansing here in Lebanon. They are not simply complicit, but active participants and should be held accountable for their actions. But if I$rael thinks today’s strike will silence us and keep us out of the field they are very, very mistaken

Did YOU want to watch CCTV's AI Martial Arts cartoon about the Straits of Hormuz crisis? Complete with fighting Persian Cats? Well I subtitled it for you so you can enjoy it in all its trope-laden glory! Remember kids, the mountains will stay standing while the green water flows, and the true art of war is not figuring out how to fight, but how to stop!🥷😼🦅

@AngelicaOung But unknown unknowns should not have any impact on markets because they're things we don't know we don't know

My theory of why gold cratered recently on bad Iran news: gold is something you hold when there are unknown unknowns. You have a spidey sense. Things are gonna be bad. But you don’t know precisely how who where or when exactly. You buy gold. You know it is something you can quickly liquidate for value in an emergency. Well guess what? For a lot of people, that emergency just arrive and they are selling their gold for the liquidity to buy stuff they actually need cuz nobody actually needs gold as gold: they need gold to convert to other stuff. Others may not be in a desperate straits but they have visibility now that a clear crisis has arrived what stuff is definitely going to be coming up short and will be highly valuable. That might also cause them to be out of gold. In short, my thesis is unknown unknowns are bullish for gold while an actual crisis draws down golds value at least for the short term.

SAVE PALESTINIAN CHRISTIANS. Taybeh, the last entirely Christian village in the West Bank (1,300-1,400 residents), faces mounting threats of de facto Israeli annexation and displacement. New gates installed at the entrances to towns in the West Bank—including one recently added near Taybeh—allow Israeli forces to regulate movement at will. Entire communities can be effectively sealed off, sometimes without warning. A growing number of Palestinian Christian families are considering leaving the Holy Land amid repeated settler attacks, severe movement restrictions, rising insecurity, and deepening economic hardship. The risk is not only that Christians will leave, but that one day they will be remembered as having once been there. What is being asked, therefore, is not limited to prayer. Local clergy in Palestine are calling for concrete intervention: international monitoring of incidents, legal protections for civilians, guaranteed access to farmland, and sustained economic support capable of anchoring families in place. savewestbankchristians.com

A group of Israeli soldiers filmed themselves looting homes in Lebanon – like they did in Gaza. Israel’s assault on Lebanon has forcibly displaced over 1 million Lebanese people in less than 3 weeks.

@FetchStep @sydney_ev I'm no expert but does this answer your Q? thedriven.io/2026/03/18/it-…

@sydney_ev Good Idea but .. 250 * 15amps requires 3750 amps if all spots are filled . That's a massive addition to the buildings infrastructure . What happens if one charges trips the circuit breaker , do they all go offline ?

This is brilliant. So many against EVs as they can’t be charged at home by people living in units. They never offer solutions, or even criticise solution. Well now we have a solution that works!

Cities are for people. George Street, Sydney. After busses.

Again with the freaking “reverse Nixon.” Just completely delusional.