Fish Lips

Johny Miller @jmil400 dropped a great post of Pauline Hanson going full "Dive Dive Dive", see it here: x.com/jmil400/status… Great find Johny! We just had to sink the Hanson silliness: Watching Pauline Hanson interrogate Rear Admiral Greg Sammut is like watching a toddler lecture a brain surgeon on open-heart surgery while waving a lollipop. She tosses out “pump jet submarines can only stay underwater for 20 minutes?” like she just cracked the Da Vinci Code, and poor Sammut is sitting there, blinking, wondering if he accidentally stumbled into Bizarro Navy 101. The absolute comedy gold is that she literally thinks submarines are just glorified fish and chips fryers. Pump jets? Endurance? Classified requirements? Nope. She’s decided she’s got the nuclear secrets of the ocean at her fingertips, and if Sammut doesn’t immediately capitulate, she’s going to lecture him on operational mechanics like he’s the intern. Every time she opens her mouth, it’s “I don’t think it’s classified!” as if that overrides decades of naval engineering and national security. This isn’t a debate; it’s a full-blown circus where the main act is her ignorance and the poor Rear Admiral’s blank stare. You can almost see him mentally writing “just smile and nod” in invisible marker. The Barracuda line is the cherry on top, “there’s still one on the slipways in France that hasn’t been tested.” Yeah, Pauline, congratulations, you’ve just summarised every DIY IKEA project I’ve ever abandoned halfway through. Naval engineering doesn’t respond to gut feelings, and yet here she is, lecturing someone who literally designed and commanded submarines like he’s her sous chef. Hanson’s submarine strategy could be summed up as: “I have no idea what I’m talking about, but I will yell loudly enough that maybe the Atlantic will surrender.” And Sammut? He’s doing the military equivalent of slowly nodding while calculating the fastest escape route from this clown show. Honestly, it’s less a “challenge” and more a live-action meme: “Pauline Hanson vs. Physics and Common Sense.” She's cooked.

Inspired by our scheduled @Space_Station link up with the Crown Princess of Sweden, I set my camera lens on my mother’s home country (I have dual citizenship with Sweden!). With the inclination of the ISS orbit, we never pass directly over Scandinavia, but I was lucky enough to catch some aurora dancing in that neighborhood, just a few days before our call. Heja Sverige! The timelapse shows city night lights but settings optimized for aurora, air glow, stars. :06 Norway appears at right edge of screen :10 Sweden appears at right edge of screen :19 Sweden in center of screen :28 Moscow appears on right of screen :37 Moscow in center of screen In the first image, you can see part of each of the Scandinavian countries – Sweden is in the center of the image (looks like some clouds over Southern Sweden, so lights look a bit blurry there), the air glow of the atmosphere at night, and the aurora (and the edge of an ISS solar array). In the second image, you can see parts of Norway and Sweden (again a bit blurry in Southern Sweden due to clouds). The large bright spot in lower right area of image is Stockholm. Both photos were taken on March 11, and the timelapse taken on March 13.

Thank you @AlboMP for taking a selfie of me with Jodie and yourself today at the @PressClubAust . I was bowled over by the warm Aussie-Irish welcome you both gave me and delighted to hear about your Irish roots. Éire agus an Astráil – chairde go deo!