Politics

158 Topics 67.2k Posts
  • Toutai Kefu attacked, in hospital

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    @rancid-schnitzel

    I have read your accounts with interest - as you have experienced young crime is a demoralising and ugly facet of life and my observation, after a long time, is that there is no respite or improvement to be had. There are too many experts involved, who are not, and competing agendas.

    This is another topical matter which resurfaced this week.

    A liddle baby boy has been committed to stand trial for a double murder in suburban Brisbane on Australia Day. He was tearing through an intersection in a stolen Landcruiser, cleaned up a tow truck, rolled and wiped out a couple walking their dog. In their 30s, she was 6 months pregnant.

    He “also faced a string of other charges” … dangerous driving while juiced up on some unnamed drug, burglary and wilful damage. I briefly saw some news footage of him appearing in court by video and he didn’t look much interested. The solicitor for the cheeky little funster “was instructed that he is profoundly sorry (that he got caught) but he would be disputing that he knew that, by his manner of driving, he would probably cause those deaths. That is an element required in Section 302 (1) aa blah blah blah”.

    Those two things are reminders to the magistrate that she has an obligation to not unduly pressure the prisons budget and that the defendant’s solicitor planned to help her in achieving that.

    He attempted to do a runner, in which he had prior experience because the early media reports stated he was “on bail” for vehicle theft (?) and evading police recently. There were other past charges reported in January but all of these disappeared from view when, within days, the police commissionerette¹ leaped to his cause demanding that the media not be horrid and judgemental because they must pretend that he has always been a good boy, a lovely boy.

    The Law Society and others who are there to protect lovely grubby boys above all others jumped on her bandwagon citing the Youth Justice Act.

    Mrs Chief Constable managed to waste everyone’s time on January 29 with her clichéd “we do need to have a conversation about this … make sure we can stop it from happening again … look at the whole history of the life of this child and what interventions took place … look at what we need to learn from“ – all that stuff they learn about at crime technical college, to spruik when they need to insult the intelligence of the general population who pay for it all!

    Since January he has become an adult but he’ll still be cradled in the caring arms of “the system” as a liddle baby. That system requires the families of the victims to go and gets tuft, evidently.

    ¹ Why am I so dismissive? She is of a Croation family, from the tropical Tablelands - we therefore expected a tough minded, unequivocal leader. She is not. Carroll is only marginally better than her predecessor who was woeful, insipid. I knew the previous bloke, Bob Atkinson, he was a leader and not a show pony, he kept the troops' minds on the job, not distracted by stupid ministers and effete judges.

  • Hong Kong

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    @paekakboyz said in Hong Kong:

    @majorrage bro that is really sad to hear, also terrifying 😞

    I keep wondering how many people will leave, and how many want to but can't. Haven't seen as much about the business side of things. Like will big global companies leave or ?

    Business won't leave. It's still a great access point and (as far as I've seen anyway) the best place to live in China. Shanghai is an incredible vibrant city, but it's no world city. Beijing isn't even comparable.

    Don't get me wrong, both are incredible, massive, fast, exciting cities. But if you had to choose to live in one of them or Hong Kong, 99 out of 100 people would choose Hong Kong.

    Hence, given its' access to the colossal economic powerhouse of China, it will be fine. The percentage of gweilo though will (and has) diminish.

  • RIP Phil the Greek

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    Happy Birthday, Phil.

    The great news is you miss all the mawkish celebrations!

    RIP

  • This topic is deleted!

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  • Gender Pay Equality

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    @voodoo said in Gender Pay Equality:

    Is that fair though? Are there really as many males studying teaching and trying to be teachers? Is 50% a realistic target?

    It's the same in finance, we tried our nuts off to get females into our front office, and constantly battled. There just aren't as many candidates, and tjebknes that are there, have the typical spread of talent that you'd expect.

    Having 50% representation in any particular single industry seems to me to be a misguided target

    Yep, there's absolutely no way of achieving 50/50 targets across different sectors. It just isn't possible, because (shock horror) although there is some overlap, males and females have different interests overall. Which is just bloody self-evident if you actually live in the real world, but for some God forsaken reason a bunch of idiots have decided we must achieve 50/50 in roles of their choice (which surprisingly excludes all of the dangerous/disgusting jobs men undertake).

    Which was the point of me posting that tweet/article. It isn't discrimination stopping women getting into certain areas, it's just that in a free and affluent society they actually get to pick and choose which jobs they apply for just the same as men.

  • Is it War Time?

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    @kirwan said in Is it War Time?:

    @antipodean said in Is it War Time?:

    @mariner4life said in Is it War Time?:

    @antipodean well that was depressing

    Quite the opposite, I'd say it's optimistic. I'm more worried about whether we'll ever see growth not driven solely by immigration. Or the rise of Cyberdyne...

    Or massive unemployment due to automation before we become a post scarcity society.

    The Universal Basic Income question is pretty interesting

  • Australian class.

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    @snowy they've made asses of us!?

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    @majorrage said in Canadian father jailed for calling his daughter "she":

    Someone with bigger balls than me can get into the aviation industry if they wish ....

    Old saying - If you want to make a small fortune out of aviation, start with a large one (probably been used elsewhere too).

    @majorrage said in Canadian father jailed for calling his daughter "she":

    I'm more than prepared to never fly United again!

    There are so many reasons to make that happen, not just the above wokeness.

  • SBW tribute from that kid

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    just curious, in terms of breaking the law/rules, where does him running onto the field sit?

    Shoplifting? Truancy? Vandalism? Trespassing?

    Just that he is a 14 year old kid, in terms of the rule breaking, what punishment is going to be handed down to a 14 year old?

    Right or wrong, there is very little they are going to do, or probably even be able to do about it, he is a minor, is the offence that bad that the parents need to be held liable for his actions? What if his dad had said he can't, is he supposed to have restrained him?

    @MN5 do we know this kids dad didnt reprimand him for it?

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    @godder to the moon!!

  • Matariki Holiday

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    @MN5 said in Matariki Holiday:

    @Bovidae said in Matariki Holiday:

    Queen's birthday is irrelevant today, as is it being in June.

    ....not to mention her immediate family are either racist bigotted old fucks, flocking to leave the establishment or kiddy fiddlers.

    Although true you need to add Queen's Birthday to the 'relevant to NZ' pile. After all she is the Queen of NZ and our head of state.
    One we would lose if we became a republic.

    I like the Matariki addition. All part of our growth of an identity of our own.
    Would be happy for Labour Weekend to be replaced by something more relevant (would be good to clear out the religious celebrations as well as long as they are replaced)
    Not a holiday but FFS, when are we going to stop 'Guy Fawkes' night as something in our legislative calendar (i.e. the timing for sale of fireworks)

  • Solar Power and Storage - a nerd's view

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    @antipodean said in Solar Power and Storage - a nerd's view:

    In the words of the ACCC:
    "The transition from large-scale synchronous generation to variable and intermittent renewable energy resources has had a more pronounced effect on retail prices and number of offers in South Australia than any other state in the NEM."

    I saw that quote in the ABC article, but can't find it anywhere on the ACCC's website. It would be nice to have that quote in context of the wider report and what is was referencing - particularly gas. From the same article, and in part to answer your question on the coal closure:

    The coal closure means power generated by a more expensive fuel source — gas — is more regularly setting the price. "South Australia is now much more reliant on gas-fired generation … which is a higher cost of energy compared with what Northern used to be," Mr Evans said. "The price of gas has nearly tripled in the past few years and that has meant that the fundamentals of where we get our energy from has increased substantially."

    What I did find was this ACCC report:

    https://www.accc.gov.au/system/files/Retail Electricity Pricing Inquiry—Final Report June 2018_Exec summary.pdf

    Which refers to another reason why the number of gentailers in SA is a bad thing: less hedging, less competition, and therefore higher prices:

    Wholesale hedging contracts The ACCC has also undertaken a detailed review of the hedging contract market. Apart from contracts traded on the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX), the contract market is generally opaque. In certain regions of the NEM, particularly South Australia, the level of liquidity and the advantages enjoyed by vertically integrated retailers make it difficult for new entrants and smaller retailers to compete effectively in the retail market

    Gentailers stopped offering good prices because they could, not because of renewables. Renewables didn't drive the higher market prices - gas did, and the gentailers who had both laughed all the way to the bank.

    While Environmental costs derived from supporting solar subsidies do contribute to the increase in bills, at less than 10% it isn't as big a factor as the network costs across the NEM - which thanks to NSW, QLD, and TAS gold plating their privatised networks, kicked off a round of snouts in the trough.

  • Political Podcasts

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    Given the different conversations going on about the Trump Ban on Twitter and the debate about free speech, the Joe Rogan podcast with Ira Glasser (former ACLU head) is really interesting.

    TLDR/W: he's on the side of free speech (2nd video) because at the end of the day, the other side will get the power at some point (the Kirwan argument, I'll call this), but on the fence about FB and Twitter banning ppl (1st video), because they are non-government entities and have the right to limit what is on their platforms, depending on how you view them.

  • Aussie Bush Fires

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    SE Qld getting a cyclone before us is a pretty 2020 thing

  • Cannabis debate

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  • Vladimir goooone?

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    If you've got a few minutes (about 40) this is worth a listen.

    Kind of like the assertion that there's no retirement plan ...

    Nov 12, 2019 Inside the dictator's mind - ABC listen Inside the dictator's mind - ABC listen

    Frank Dikotter on the common personality traits of Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, Mao and other twentieth century dictators

  • Gender Studies

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    @MajorRage I did read the article, and thought it was so cringe that I just posted a screenshot in here for headline lols. The part where she served fancier Japanese style fried chicken at her supper club, even though she didn't like it as much was epic.

  • Political Reading

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    @Tim The Provisional Government was very progressive, for example they repealed the death penalty (not for long though). The problem was they were all intellectuals and Lenin ran rings around them. It’s the question everyone should ask themselves when they decide they want to be revolutionaries: “If we are successful what really are the chances that they won’t shoot me too?” Because they probably will.

  • The Left ... Need Some Thoughts ...

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    @Bones said in The Left ... Need Some Thoughts ...:

    @MiketheSnow pissed myself laughing when she shows footage of herself supposedly getting sighed at on public transport....while eating.

    Got to keep the engine running, or should that be idling

  • The Politics Quiz!

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    @dogmeat said in The Politics Quiz!:

    All these things show me as being miles away from my voting intentions.

    You simply don't know your own mind then. 😉