Gerrie Hoogland - Writer and Roman historian engaging in dialogue with the ever present ancient world. Rome was a gift. 🏛 ☕️https://teapaw.org/t.co/LOqb7jSM94
Antiquity
Joined January 2025
- Tweets19.8K
- Following1.6K
- Followers2.6K
- Likes41.9K
Treachery appears to have no bounds in the pursuit of money.
Taxpayers gave mining titan Twiggy Forrest's Fortescu A$308M in energy subsidies in 2025 alone, plus A$99M for an H2 project he abandoned. In exchange, Forrest gave millions for propaganda to pass @AlboMP government's censorship bill. It's a transparent, sinister quid pro quo.
Look at the UK 😳
🚨NEW: Labour extends lead
🌹 LAB: 32% (+2)
➡️ REF: 25% (+1)
🌳 CON: 21% (-1)
🌍 GRN: 8% (=)
🔶 LDM: 7% (=)
Via @DeltapollUK
LettersfromRome retweeted
Is anyone in power listening?
LettersfromRome retweeted
We currently have a narcissistic, ego maniac, low iq, pathological liar who is currently in control of our country.
Let that sink in.
If only more people were awake - or even cared to wake up - maybe our country stands a chance of restoration.
Demi is doing her best to make people understand the evil running rampant within our bureaucracies.
The housing supply and affordability crisis is a scam - created by design.
Planning laws are a weapon for regulatory plunder.
Councils are the fiefdoms running it, backed by the state and the courts.
We held lawful permits and binding tribunal decisions.
Council was authorised to ignore them, change the rules mid-project, freeze the works, and leave the house unfinished.
A man walked straight in.
A violent home invasion followed.
It was not unforeseeable.
They spent over half a million in public money covering their tracks while the courts piled on costs against us for daring to expose it.
Now they’re trying to bankrupt us for refusing to fund the lawlessness.
Victorian election in 30 days.
#Draintheswamp
Watch. Share. Help expose the rot. 👇
Australia in the spotlight for all the wrong reasons - although, hopefully this exposure will one day help free us from our moronic and authoritarian leadership.
UATX's CBR Chair of Politics, Censorship, and Free Speech Michael Shellenberger (@shellenberger) on his fight against Australia's radical new censorship legislation.
You can never tire of reading Rome 🏛
Rome’s founding story is probably a myth. But can a made-up story still tell the truth?
All 19 lectures of the Rise and Fall of Ancient Rome are now free.
Sign up: connect.uaustin.org/rome-onl…
🏛 The Enduring Legacy of Political Hypocrisy
During the turmoil of 52 BC, when the Roman Republic did not have a functioning government, Pompey was appointed sole consul in order to restore order.
He appointed two consuls who passed a decree that no office holder could assume a command abroad until five years had elapsed from stepping down from that office.
The reason according to Dio Cassius:
“By not being in a position of power immediately after holding office, would cease their craze for office.”
However, that did not stop Pompey from extending his command in Spain shortly after that decree was imposed.
That we continue to be surprised by the antics of politicians today, is a wasted endeavour.
LettersfromRome retweeted
They just keep getting better…
Rent Free - Please Explain youtu.be/jpgM0fQtLHk?si=H14Q…
Watch out for Australia’s announcement shortly.
Imagine trying to utterly destroy your own nation. And with such abandon.
🚨#BREAKING:
The British government announces it will start issuing expedited visas to Gazan students so they can move to the UK & study at British Universities.
The UK will also "establish a permanent framework for more refugee students to come study in the UK"
🏛️ I’ve been researching for a fictional project I’m writing (not a novel, not yet anyway), and have delved into the deeper concepts of the ancient Roman villa.
The respectable Roman did not have just a villa - they had a suburban parkland.
Known as a “horti.” It was a landscaped garden estate that had a villa as part of it, rather than the other way around.
In addition to the standard atrium, tablinum (office), triclinium (dining room), cubicular (bedrooms), this rather grand concept (by our reckoning) included at least one peristyle, shaded walkways, outside dining areas, formal garden compartments, fountains, small shrines or temple, porticos and pergolas.
The image here projects a rather modest horti - not the more palatial garden estate of Cicero, Caesar or Crassus’ standing in society. This would be appropriate for say Cicero’s daughter, Tullia, who married Furius Crassipes in 56/55 BC. And despite its modest presentation, it was also appropriate for a meeting to occur between Cicero and the richest man in Rome, Crassus, to resolve their long running feud:
‘And Crassus, as though to make all Rome witness of our reconciliation, set out for his province virtually from my doorstep. He offered to dine with me, and did so at my son-in-law Crassipes’ place in the suburbs.”
As we can see, even a more modest garden estate can serve the needs of quarreling elites when needs be!
This looks good 🏛
Tomorrow we're releasing a full UATX course for free: all 19 lectures of Professor Isabella Reinhardt's Rise and Fall of Ancient Rome, filmed in class with our students.
It runs from Rome's mythical founding to the Third Century Crisis. It ends on a question the class spent a whole session arguing about: did Rome ever really fall?
LettersfromRome retweeted
There are no technological solutions to perennial human difficulties.
This includes our present-day political technologies.
Australia is governed by twisted and evil individuals.
😡Strap in, this one is metal.
Quote "The Albanese government is standing by a taxpayer-funded website that tells pedophiles to not beat yourself up for having sexual fantasies about minors."
Taxpayer-funded Stop It Now! Australia is a government-backed prevention program that frames sexual attraction to children primarily as something to manage (with techniques like self-acceptance, distraction, and coping strategies) rather than something to eliminate.
The linked modules say:
• Treat child fantasies “like a wave” that will pass, go for a walk, do a puzzle, journal, cook.
• Don’t try to change the attraction. That could be “akin to gay conversion therapy”
• If you’re only into kids, “focus your attention exclusively on the physical sensations” while masturbating.
• “Don’t beat yourself up, it simply does not feel realistic to never have sexual fantasies about children”
• Show “compassion and self acceptance.” Having a sexual interest in kids can feel “lonely”
If you are like me and have genuine concern about the decisions being made by the major party idiots, I will invite you to follow me on X and also become a member of the Australian Peoples Party.
Membership is $50 and every dollar will be used to advocate and fix against crap like this and to put Australia First🇦🇺
Australia needs a First and Second Amendment.
🔥WOW… HISTORIC ELON GAME CHANGER IN BRAZIL.
Elon just turned on Starlink Mobile with Vivo the day after Lula’s “win.”
50 million Brazilians can now get signal in dead zones. 7 million phones already connected. First nationwide satellite-to-phone service covering the entire country.
Elon knows EXACTLY what he is doing & is building free speech infrastructure.
“Free speech is the bedrock of democracy… if people don’t know the truth, how can you make an informed vote?” - Elon Musk
They banned X in 2024. Moraes froze Starlink accounts and tried to cut the pipes. Starlink is harder to kill than regular cell towers local ISPs can block X fast… satellite requires forcing the company itself.
Now every compatible Vivo phone has a fallback path through space for messaging and more. Rural areas… Amazon… highways places towers never fully reach.
The Rubio “swagger”🔥
🚨 BREAKING: The US State Department will be issuing VISAS to Flavio Bolsonaro and his family as leftist Brazilian president Lula attempts to have Bolsonaro ARRESTED for questioning election results
THIS is the kind of visa I can get behind.
It's rumored Flavio and his family have already successfully gotten out of Brazil, despite Lula suspending his passports and sending federal police after him.
The current story is Bolsonaro crossed the border into Argentina, and took a private jet to the United States earlier today.
Welcome to America, Flavio 🇺🇸
LettersfromRome retweeted
In @Apple iOS 27, on all adult phones (not just kids accounts) they have rolled out active image and video scanning.
This is on by default. Accidentally show too much cleavage during a FaceTime and it blurs out the image and cuts audio, then reports it back to Apple.
Those “encrypted” and personal messages, calls, photos and videos you thought were private? ALL BEING PROCESSED BY BIG BROTHER.
The instigator? Well you can thank eKaren and the Labor government who met personally with Apple and in association with other globalists like the EU, felt they had a right to intercept your personal data and communications without a warrant.
Ai is being used to get around human laws by nefarious governments.
Readers added context they thought people might want to know
On-device ML can detect nudity in FaceTime and blur/pause with a warning. Apple doesn’t receive or access the media unless the user reports it. In Australia, adults who haven’t confirmed age 18+ have Communication Safety on by default.
support.apple.com/en-us/105069
support.apple.com/en-us/126781
While the wretched political class continue on with their pathetic pettiness and enjoy their insular world of privilege and largesse at our expense, we plebs are in the real world dealing with the roller coaster of Life, and the losses and sadness it brings along the way.
Shakespeare is enduring 🏛
LettersfromRome retweeted
Most people take this for oil. It is watercolour, and the water took me longer than the two of them did. That is Emma on the pier in the white dress, a few months after our wedding, and our friend Dahlström in the boat. I painted presidents later and was paid handsomely for it. Nobody ever asks about the water. They ask about the dress.
Anders Zorn, member since 1920
