The Silver Fern

@Catogrande

He's a complete clown. Should have said the money was to change gender and it's all a smear campaign as he's now a working class girl...

For shits and giggles I watched the first 30 mins of Tuesday's Senate Inquiry into supermarket pricing where an obviously frustrated Senator McKim tried high school debating techniques (probably his limit) with the CEO of Woolworths, Brad Banducci. His incompetence, stupidity and frustration eventually had him make the juvenile threat of gaoling Brad for up to six months. All because McKim wanted to use a metric that sounded best (largest) and could ignorantly be compared to a different industry (banking), specifically ROE vs ROI. Obviously banking doesn't have the capital assets supermarkets and miners do.

Apr 15 Woolworths CEO Brad Banducci is threatened with contempt by Greens senator Nick McKim. Woolworths CEO Brad Banducci is threatened with contempt by Greens senator Nick McKim.

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Obviously haven’t learned a thing

@Winger said in Climate Change:

Nutcases are running Air NZ

Maybe it's best to fly on another airline if possible

I don't understand your point.

@antipodean said in Israel, Iran, Syria, and the rest of the ... Middle East:

@Winger said in Israel, Iran, Syria, and the rest of the ... Middle East:

@antipodean said in Israel, Iran, Syria, and the rest of the ... Middle East:

@Winger said in Israel, Iran, Syria, and the rest of the ... Middle East:

@antipodean said in Israel, Iran, Syria, and the rest of the ... Middle East:

Add to that Iran's drone and missile strike has helped stem the loss of support for Israel's actions,

Surely most see for this for what it was. Retaliation but no more than a face-saving exercise and aslo a warning

How do you save face or send a warning if it's so easily defeated?

Faster, more advanced drones

Well I grant you it's four dimensional chess to try to project power by looking incompetent and ineffective.

It's made Iran look weak, its technology look poor, made Netanyahu look like a restrained statesman, united Arab countries to defend Israel (did I really write that?), taken the spotlight off Rafah - and given Israel an excuse for hitting Iran's nuclear facilities directly.

More importantly, I think, Iran can now no longer hide behind its proxies in trying to destroy Israel. If Netanyahu's smart (big if), he'll seize the opportunity, give some ground and work to get back to the peace deals and economic ties the likes of Saudi Arabia clearly want.

@antipodean said in F off with the damn PC Brigade:

The new head of NPR

The tweet I keep seeing is something about how white people keep entering themselves. Whatever the F that means...

@Bones said in Musk & Twitter:

@Kirwan said in Musk & Twitter:

active in purging bots

On this, is this the bullshit accounts? I hardly use so not bothered but I get multiple add requests a day since it became x.

Yeah, in the last few years the tech to create bots has gotten exponentially better. It’s a huge problem for all social media platforms.

X purges them, Twitter pretended they were real users to inflate user growth figures.

@Tim Did they track anything to Pizza Express in Woking?

It appears the progressives have made racisim come full circle - how very smart and clever of them!

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@antipodean said in China:

@Virgil said in China:

Fair to say China is serious about invading Taiwan..

The bottom pic shows the Presidential Palace in Taiwan, the top pic is a training ground in China's inner Mongolia

alt text

And yet they still haven't. Despite success being virtually assured.

Playing the long game i assume, think i read somewhere the above training ground started in 2014.
The failed Russian invasion of Ukraine might have given them pause as well, the way the rest of the world reacted and mostly united in condemnation of Putin.

@Tim said in Ukraine:

Putin acknowledges ISIS did it. Adds some vague nonsense about Ukraine.

Vladimir Putin blames Islamists for Moscow attack while implicating Ukraine

Why Russian President Vladimir Putin Didn't Comment On ISIS Link In Moscow Terror Attack? Why Russian President Vladimir Putin Didn't Comment On ISIS Link In Moscow Terror Attack?

Russian President Vladimir Putin has refused to directly blame the Islamic State for the Moscow concert hall terror attack despite a claim by the extremist group and has implied that the attackers had links to Ukraine.It should, however, be noted that Putin has acknowledged that radical Islamists...

Why Russian President Vladimir Putin Didn't Comment On ISIS Link In Moscow Terror Attack?

Russian President Vladimir Putin has refused to directly blame the Islamic State for the Moscow concert hall terror attack despite a claim by the extremist group and has implied that the attackers had links to Ukraine.

It should, however, be noted that Putin has acknowledged that radical Islamists were behind the attacks.

“We know that the crime was carried out by the hand of radical Islamists with an ideology that the Muslim world has fought for centuries,” Putin said in remarks posted on the Telegram messaging app but he does not directly mention Islamic State.

IS claimed the attack Friday evening on the Crocus City Hall concert venue on the outskirts of Moscow that left at least 137 people dead. France and the US also said that they have reasons to believe, based on intel inputs they received, that the Islamic State is behind the attacks.

Marjorie Taylor Greene is vindicated.

@MN5 alt text

News is a very expensive product. Just on wages alone, if you take a very conservative guess of 90K per staffer for 300 people you are looking at 27 mil. But, we need it to be made. I keep on hearing the likes of Sean Plunket saying that the model has changed (which it certainly has), but a lot of the punditry from the likes of Plunket and the other requires a news article to base their content on.

By my maths Newshub, at its full schedule was providing around 35 hours of news, which reflects well over a hundred interviews, articles, promotional ops and investigative pieces. Most of which would be shared again through online channels and used by the agencies involved, or developed as starting points for pundits.

The problem is that while linear tv is the starting point and where the advertising needs to come from, the product is ubiquitous. When networks like Three are doing well financially, there is a Corporate Social Responsibility to maintain a news service for the area you are operating in. When they are going poorly, it is their most expensive liability. It simply can't be justified.

The Government's response has been disappointing. Not due to their refusal to do anything, but more due to the complete lack of knowledge around how the industry works.

In terms of the 'go woke go broke', label. From a political reporting stand point you hear the likes of Jenna Lynch get called a Labour mouth piece, in the pocket of the Act Party, the Nats biggest supporter. It has been wide and varied. If accusations are flying around from all sides, generally the product is ok. Sure there have been some mistakes, especially around commentary on gender issues, treaty discussions and probably the end of the COVID response.

The only way some of the Newshub reporters/products can be saved in my mind is through Sky TV. Even if that is to occur it would be a much reduced option. Half an hour bulletin, significantly reduced newsroom, a short and sharp breakfast programme and maintaining some political programming.

Whether people like Newshub or not, going to one main broadcast provider is not a good thing.

Australia has a housing crisis and it's easy to point the finger at immigrants, primarily because of the record amounts arriving here, but also accurate. The problem is it's not just their fault, although housing all of them is clearly a key driver of the problem. Some people complain that it's because of negative gearing, but that's an ignorant argument, the real problem is the capital gains discount treatment and increasing population with decreasing ability to met the commensurate demand.

On that last point it occurred to me that the insistence on making children remain in school until they're 17/18 and go to university to get a useless degree (with associated debt) has resulted in less people doing trades. Less tradespeople, more work and we're confused as to how properties cost more? And then how our tax treatment encourages this unproductive speculation?