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CATTASTIC
Mar 31, 2010

¯\_(ツ)_/¯
It's [Dick] Time

Entrepreneur Dick Smith has flagged a move into politics, announcing he has registered the name “The Dick Smith party”.

Smith made his announcement during a speech at the launch of the Salvation Army’s Red Shield Appeal – an event attended by the New South Wales premier, Mike Baird.

The founder of Dick Smith Electronics, aviator and renowned adventurer said he was frustrated by bureaucratic regulation, mentioning the light aviation industry as an example.
Smith also said there were more than 2,000 Australians with incomes of more than $1m who did not donate to charity.
The Salvation Army hopes to raise $15.26m in Sydney and $74m nationally from its 2015 Red Shield Appeal.
Smith said he would commit $100,000 to the Red Shield Appeal.

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Pickled Tink
Apr 28, 2012

Have you heard about First Dog? It's a very good comic I just love.

Also, wear your bike helmets kids. I copped several blows to the head but my helmet left me totally unscathed.



Finally you should check out First Dog as it's a good comic I like it very much.
Fun Shoe
Today First Dog sums up the NSW election:

bowmore
Oct 6, 2008



Lipstick Apathy

Pickled Tink posted:

Today First Dog sums up the NSW election:


so many words

CATTASTIC
Mar 31, 2010

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Lid
Feb 18, 2005

And the mercy seat is awaiting,
And I think my head is burning,
And in a way I'm yearning,
To be done with all this measuring of proof.
An eye for an eye
And a tooth for a tooth,
And anyway I told the truth,
And I'm not afraid to die.

Pickled Tink posted:

Today First Dog sums up the NSW election:



Stop posting this.

Also the NSW election is simply going to be a Mike Baird victory. He might sell off the electricity but Labor here is still toxic and the policy isn't a dealbreaker when Labor's alternative can't move over that they are Labor.

TheMightyHandful
Dec 8, 2008

bowmore posted:

so many words

TL;DR

G-Spot Run
Jun 28, 2005

Pickled Tink posted:

This is just making me more and more depressed. I'm allergic to that crap, and this may help explain why every manufacturer stuffs garlic and onion into loving everything, including stuff that shouldn't have loving onion in it (Like canned tomatoes). My shopping trips take three to four times as long these days because I have to check the ingredients of everything for the tiny garlic/onion small print, and some manufacturers are complete and utter shits and don't list it either, so I'm taking a risk either way.

I would love to be able to eat something other than biscuits, baked beans, and steamed broccoli at home.

I hate you all.

Full disclosure: I just got back from a shopping trip so I am more pissed about this than usual at present.

QUACKTASTIC posted:

Bloody onions

hooman
Oct 11, 2007

This guy seems legit.
Fun Shoe

Lid posted:

Stop posting this.

Also the NSW election is simply going to be a Mike Baird victory. He might sell off the electricity but Labor here is still toxic and the policy isn't a dealbreaker when Labor's alternative can't move over that they are Labor.

First dog posting is fine. No worse than any other white noise posting here. I don't like and don't need it, but also don't feel that the effort required to drag my finger over the scroll wheel to scroll past it requires me to complain about it.

trunkh
Jan 31, 2011




This and the final line would of made the same point, in 1/16th as many words.

Skellybones
May 31, 2011




Fun Shoe
I get most of my news from First Dog so compared to regularly reading articles it's actually much faster and has little cartoon animals.

MysticalMachineGun
Apr 5, 2005

First Dog on the Moon reinforcing the perceived two party system, gently caress off First Dog.

Anidav
Feb 25, 2010

ahhh fuck its the rats again
I get most of my news from this thread or The Brisbane Times.

Splode
Jun 18, 2013

put some clothes on you little freak
I know this was 2 pages ago but ~I don't care~

Gough Suppressant posted:

From time to time they'll need people to do data entry managing the membership databases etc, it's worth emailing your state office and saying you're available for that sort of stuff and they'll contact you if it comes up.

And then when you get there they'll emotionally blackmail into cold calling people. Volunteer for letterboxing and then screen your calls until the election is over IMO.

Once you volunteer for something they don't stop hassling you until you die.

tomkash posted:

Pickled Tink, just join the Greens they don't make you do anything. You might get a call when you join up and maybe get on the mailing list but they'll never push or expect anything from you. You could also do letter boxing which is fun and you won't have to interact with anybody.

Not My Experience At All.

So far the NSW greens seem to have little respect for their volunteers and fundamentally do not understand the concept that people have things they have to do other than volunteer, or perhaps don't want to give up every weekend for a month. They're also horribly disorganised and you will get called by several different offices who don't identify themselves. So you say "yes" to handing out HTVs and then realise they want you for a completely different electorate to the one you live in. They will contact you for the same event with every medium at their disposal (call, text, and email) and the medium you reply to apparently decides which office you're working with, or will cause a bureaucratic meltdown when you get their and it turns out the guy who sent all those texts out didn't bother to enter them into the two competing organisational systems. And that's if you agree to stuff. I had one woman who didn't seem to understand that "sorry, I'm busy" is the polite way of saying "I don't want to do this because I have better poo poo to do on a Saturday" and was extremely passive aggressive about how 'busy' I was. This is after I'd already done letterboxing and door knocking, and agreed to do HTVs on Saturday. She also asked me about HTVs, to which I replied that somebody had already called me about it last night, and then I had to tell her again when she brought it up again.

Disorganised and rude.

Splode fucked around with this message at 06:18 on Mar 25, 2015

Anidav
Feb 25, 2010

ahhh fuck its the rats again

Splode posted:

Once you volunteer for something they don't stop hassling you until you die.



This sounds like the ALP! Google knows what's up.

x1o
Aug 5, 2005

My focus is UNPARALLELED!

Splode posted:

I know this was 2 pages ago but ~I don't care~


And then when you get there they'll emotionally blackmail into cold calling people. Volunteer for letterboxing and then screen your calls until the election is over IMO.

Once you volunteer for something they don't stop hassling you until you die.


Not My Experience At All.

Depends on the group/branch. I joined the Greens last year and my local branch is content to leave me alone. I only get the odd email inviting me to attend a branch meeting.

Splode
Jun 18, 2013

put some clothes on you little freak

TheHeadSage posted:

Depends on the group/branch. I joined the Greens last year and my local branch is content to leave me alone. I only get the odd email inviting me to attend a branch meeting.

Same for me until the election. Honestly my local branch seem fine and really nice, the woman I spoke to to organise HTVs was extremely friendly and reasonable. It's the surrounding electorates (looking at you Newtown and Balmain) who seem to think that because they might actually win they have the right to steal everybody else's volunteers and harrass anyone who might possible help them out.

Lid
Feb 18, 2005

And the mercy seat is awaiting,
And I think my head is burning,
And in a way I'm yearning,
To be done with all this measuring of proof.
An eye for an eye
And a tooth for a tooth,
And anyway I told the truth,
And I'm not afraid to die.
Uber v Taxis continues

quote:

“UberX doesn’t cater to people who don’t have access to a smartphone or credit card, people living in fringe areas or with a disability, probably because it’s just not profitable enough.”
http://mobile.news.com.au/finance/b...tors_picks=true

Also article on taxi monopoly lobbying

http://mobile.news.com.au/finance/business/uberx-versus-taxis-why-the-time-for-taxis-is-over/story-fnkgde2y-1227274842438

Orkin Mang
Nov 1, 2007

by FactsAreUseless

Pickled Tink posted:

Today First Dog sums up the NSW election:



gently caress off

Graic Gabtar
Dec 19, 2014

squat my posts

Lid posted:

The union alleges Ms Jackson spent more than $660,000 on personal expenses, including holidays, shopping and mortgage payments, as well as $1.07m in separate unauthorised spending. It claims the former national secretary misappropriated $350,399 through unauthorised expenses on her union-issued credit cards, including $170,554 on travel and holidays, $101,783 on shopping, $28,288 on food and alcohol, and $44,537 on entertainment.

The credit card expenditure includes more than $20,000 spent at Myer and David Jones (mostly in the two weeks around Christmas), more than $4000 on clothing and shoes and at children’s stores, more than $10,000 at a Jaguar dealership, and meals at “hatted” restaurants including $14,000 at Fenix in Melbourne in December 2003.
Food for thought while you scrape poo poo out of a bed pan at 3am.

Serrath
Mar 17, 2005

I have nothing of value to contribute
Ham Wrangler

Lid posted:

Uber v Taxis continues

The taxi system probably needs to be reformed but the uber system seems like it's just set up to skirt around regulations designed to protect the consumer (e.g., extra driver licensing requirements, ability for the taxi to cater to people with disabilities etc).

Smegmatron
Apr 23, 2003

I hate to advocate emptyquoting or shitposting to anyone, but they've always worked for me.

Pickled Tink posted:

This is just making me more and more depressed. I'm allergic to that crap, and this may help explain why every manufacturer stuffs garlic and onion into loving everything, including stuff that shouldn't have loving onion in it (Like canned tomatoes).

Learn to cook and just buy the raw ingredients you need for the things you want to eat. You know, like a normal person who needs to control their diet.

Graic Gabtar
Dec 19, 2014

squat my posts
My office lives on travel. We talk about this often. Preferred way to travel based on what people around me seem to do:

1) Own car
2) Uber
3) Don't
4) Taxi

Taxis are poo poo. Taxis are hosed. They will go the way of any other outmoded technology.

Endman
May 18, 2010

That is not dead which can eternal lie, And with strange aeons even anime may die


Graic Gabtar posted:

Taxis are poo poo. Taxis are hosed. They will go the way of any other outmoded technology.

The government will claim to be replacing them, but then buy the taxis minus the wheels that will stay owned by the taxi company so the government has to pay them to use the taxis despite owning them?

duck monster
Dec 15, 2004

Pickled Tink posted:



There, it is done. From now on, your first dog will be delivered by a member of the greens. Now when do I get my cybernetic implants to plug me into the leftist hive mind?


Oh gods. I just got a call from a lady claiming to be Kylie Turner about my joining and when I mentioned my mental health as a reason I wouldn't be able to help out at this election, she suggested homeopathy as something that could help. I told her off for trying to peddle complete and utter bunkum and explained how it did not, in fact, do anything. Still, I am already regretting joining the party.

gently caress.

That sort of guff is not a greens thing. Its an old hippy thing. Avoid the old hippies and you'll be fine.

Serrath
Mar 17, 2005

I have nothing of value to contribute
Ham Wrangler

Graic Gabtar posted:


Taxis are poo poo. Taxis are hosed. They will go the way of any other outmoded technology.

It's easy to appear better than taxis when you don't have to follow the regulations applied to taxis meaning you can deliver a cheaper, faster, more streamlined service. You can say that about any industry - I bet you could get the price of a big mac to under a dollar if you did away with all those pesky rules limiting the grade of beef fit for human consumption or what you can legally call "lettuce".

duck monster
Dec 15, 2004

MysticalMachineGun posted:

First Dog on the Moon reinforcing the perceived two party system, gently caress off First Dog.

Percieved? It loving IS a two party system. Albeit with the greens and some whacky right wing loon parties occasionally getting balance of power for lulz

iajanus
Aug 17, 2004

NUMBER 1 QUEENSLAND SUPPORTER
MAROONS 2023 STATE OF ORIGIN CHAMPIONS FOR LIFE



Serrath posted:

It's easy to appear better than taxis when you don't have to follow the regulations applied to taxis meaning you can deliver a cheaper, faster, more streamlined service. You can say that about any industry - I bet you could get the price of a big mac to under a dollar if you did away with all those pesky rules limiting the grade of beef fit for human consumption or what you can legally call "lettuce".

The trick being that currently your Taxi Mac comes out squashed and cold and costs $15, whilst the Uber Mac costs $5 and is a juicy, tasty burger. Sure, you're not quite certain that the burger is alright to eat, but it still looks pretty good...

Graic Gabtar
Dec 19, 2014

squat my posts

Serrath posted:

It's easy to appear better than taxis when you don't have to follow the regulations applied to taxis meaning you can deliver a cheaper, faster, more streamlined service. You can say that about any industry - I bet you could get the price of a big mac to under a dollar if you did away with all those pesky rules limiting the grade of beef fit for human consumption or what you can legally call "lettuce".
Really sounds like you're describing the taxi industry. However, they wipe their arse with that Big Mac as well before they serve it up.

Pred1ct
Feb 20, 2004
Burninating

Lid posted:

The union alleges Ms Jackson spent more than $660,000 on personal expenses, including holidays, shopping and mortgage payments, as well as $1.07m in separate unauthorised spending. It claims the former national secretary misappropriated $350,399 through unauthorised expenses on her union-issued credit cards, including $170,554 on travel and holidays, $101,783 on shopping, $28,288 on food and alcohol, and $44,537 on entertainment.

The credit card expenditure includes more than $20,000 spent at Myer and David Jones (mostly in the two weeks around Christmas), more than $4000 on clothing and shoes and at children’s stores, more than $10,000 at a Jaguar dealership, and meals at “hatted” restaurants including $14,000 at Fenix in Melbourne in December 2003.

Wasn't the right wing commentariat bleating on about how Kathy Jackson was a noble whistleblower standing up to corruption?

Edit: Found it:

http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/ne...ae7e98de#auspol

http://blogs.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/mirandadevine/index.php/dailytelegraph/comments/women_warriors_blowing_the_whistle/

quote:

WHAT is it about women that makes them such prodigious whistleblowers?

Last week we saw Kathy Jackson, national secretary of the Health Services Union, refusing to back down to the jeering mob at the scandal-racked organisation’s annual conference.

She is fighting to clean up the HSU, and no amount of name-calling, shovels at her front door, intimidation and votes of no confidence will stop her.

“I’m going nowhere,” she said last week. “They’re not used to people telling them they’re doing the wrong thing (and) they’re trying to shoot the messenger.”

She is not afraid to take on the union movement’s entrenched male power elites - and the membership is quietly behind her.

There’s a lot at stake, with the Gillard government’s one-seat majority in the balance as police investigate Jackson’s HSU predecessor, Dobell MP Craig Thomson, over misuse of union funds - allegations he denies.

Jackson, 45, never saw herself as a feminist superhero, but her determination to stand up to the union is fast making her an inspiration to other women.

...

Like Brockovich, both women were single mothers, and both have suffered greatly as a result of their “ethical resistance”.

Jackson is still under attack and was hospitalised at one point after suffering a nervous breakdown. Sneddon lost her job and went through a period of depression.

“The way I was treated (by those who) shunned and vilified me in public and in private has eaten away at my confidence, my self-belief, my health, my ability to eat, to sleep and to support myself and my family.

“I ended up hospitalised for five weeks in a psychiatric facility, having lost the will to live.”

The toll on these women is almost unendurable. Yet they do endure, and inspire other women to speak out against corruption and abuse of power.

In the US, the role of women blowing the whistle on corporate misdeeds has been extraordinary - from Sherron Watkins at Enron to Genevievette Walker-Lightfoot in the Madoff fraud case to A.K. Barnett-Hart, the investment bank intern who first raised the alarm on the sub-prime mortgage crisis.

So what is it about women that makes them willing to risk all to do the right thing?

It can’t be that women are more ethical than men. But do they possess a special intuition to detect wrongdoing before their male colleagues?

Or is it the fact that in male-dominated workplaces they are less likely to be “team players” because they are excluded from the mates’ network and thus are able to judge ethical breaches dispassionately?

Are they less greedy for power and wealth, and therefore less afraid to rock the boat?

Or are they more in touch with the real world because they are used to running households.

Whatever the reason, the crucial role of whistleblower seems to be a burden women have long shouldered, from the tragic prophetic heroine of Greek mythology, Cassandra, to the triumphant Brockovich.

Long may they prosper.

Pred1ct fucked around with this message at 07:52 on Mar 25, 2015

Doctor Spaceman
Jul 6, 2010

"Everyone's entitled to their point of view, but that's seriously a weird one."
There was a bizarre piece in the Aus recently about noted fuckwit Michael Smith and his relationship with Kathy Jackson.

Graic Gabtar
Dec 19, 2014

squat my posts

Pred1ct posted:

Wasn't the right wing commentariat bleating on about how Kathy Jackson was a noble whistleblower standing up to corruption?

Edit: Found it:

http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/ne...ae7e98de#auspol

http://blogs.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/mirandadevine/index.php/dailytelegraph/comments/women_warriors_blowing_the_whistle/

There goes lunch.

Lid
Feb 18, 2005

And the mercy seat is awaiting,
And I think my head is burning,
And in a way I'm yearning,
To be done with all this measuring of proof.
An eye for an eye
And a tooth for a tooth,
And anyway I told the truth,
And I'm not afraid to die.

Pred1ct posted:

Wasn't the right wing commentariat bleating on about how Kathy Jackson was a noble whistleblower standing up to corruption?

Edit: Found it:

http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/ne...ae7e98de#auspol

http://blogs.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/mirandadevine/index.php/dailytelegraph/comments/women_warriors_blowing_the_whistle/

Theres more

http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/mirandadevine/index.php/heraldsun/comments/how_to_reform_unions_by_kathy_jackson/

Miranda Devine hitched her horse to Ms Jackson and has been oddly quiet since.

Laserface
Dec 24, 2004

Lid posted:

Uber v Taxis continues


“UberX doesn’t cater to people who don’t have access to a smartphone or credit card, people living in fringe areas or with a disability, probably because it’s just not profitable enough.”


http://mobile.news.com.au/finance/b...tors_picks=true

Also article on taxi monopoly lobbying

http://mobile.news.com.au/finance/business/uberx-versus-taxis-why-the-time-for-taxis-is-over/story-fnkgde2y-1227274842438

In Direct response to the quote you mentioned, I couldnt get a loving taxi in Toongabbie from the train station to a mechanics workshop down the road at 5pm on a weekday. I did however manage to get an uber pickup that was on his way into the city to start driving.

I wouldnt really call Toongabbie a fringe area either.

Lid
Feb 18, 2005

And the mercy seat is awaiting,
And I think my head is burning,
And in a way I'm yearning,
To be done with all this measuring of proof.
An eye for an eye
And a tooth for a tooth,
And anyway I told the truth,
And I'm not afraid to die.
Good on Kathy Jackson, she is a shining beacon of honesty and character. Having been involved in the union movement for quite a few years, there comes a time when you realise that the welfare of workers/members is not high on the agenda. In a perfect world ladies like Kathy Jackson would make good Labor politicians, the type that we could trust. Unlike the shower of proverbial that we are suffering at the moment.


Union fees over the decades have been used as a personal slush funds for all the union hacks that end up labor ministers. Looking after the workers....give me a break. Where have all the billions gone???. Kathy is a breath of fresh air but despised by the current labor regime for telling the truth.


What a marvellous woman! People like her are what once made the ALP Chifley’s Light on the Hill. What a contrast with the rabble of self-centred rent seekers that constitute the present ALP.


Kathy Jackson is a refreshing change from the union thugs we have come to know as the face of unionism.I hope she does not succumb to union and government pressure to desist from speaking out for what is right.This Joan of Arc of the union movement must be protected from the unfair and nefarious attacks she is atracting from the dark side.If it was time for a woman prime minister to lead our great nation what a shame it was’nt Kathy Jackson.




And then amongst it all

quote:


Didn’t Kathy Jackson benefit from a Union slush fund? For years?? Didn’t she benefit from Labor Unity hacks (organised by now Senator David Feeney) making phone calls and doing mailouts for her and Jeff’s HSU elections??? Does this woman have no shame????
Pot.Kettle.Black of Sydney (Reply)
Wed 13 Jun 12 (06:18pm)

One genius.

Anidav
Feb 25, 2010

ahhh fuck its the rats again
Uber is so much better and if there was a less scummy offspring that replaced the Taxi Industry, it'll be for the better.

Nuclear Spy
Jun 10, 2008

feeling under?

QUACKTASTIC posted:

Liberal and National parties tried to stop release of AEC reviews of their finances

The National party in Victoria attempted to suppress an Australian Electoral Commission review of its political donation disclosures by arguing it could be used by its own party members with “personal agendas”.

Reviews obtained by Guardian Australia under freedom of information laws have revealed widespread failures in political parties’ compliance with their federal disclosure obligations.

...

The NSW Liberal Party and four of its associated entities – Bunori Pty Ltd, Dame Pattie Menzies Foundation, Liberal Asset Management (Custodians) Ltd and Liberal Properties Limited – also attempted to suppress the reviews.

In identical terms, the organisations argued that disclosure could unreasonably affect their business affairs by “releasing politically sensitive information about the internal machinations of the division”.

They also argued that the release “does not satisfy any public interest test as the electoral act already has a public disclosure component”, and that “most of the information contained in the review document is already publicly available”.

The Country Liberals (Northern Territory) said the release of two reviews into its activities “may create an opportunity for our opponents to cherry pick parts of the review and convey a completely different, negative outcome, to the public which would not be in our interests, unfair, and may allow your review to be used in a way that was not its intended purpose”.

The AEC’s senior lawyer said publication was “justifiable as a demonstration [of] the transparency in the AEC’s monitoring of compliance”.
Someone made the connection between the use of associated entities to avoid donation scrutiny to VPNs to avoid the issues of metadata. "If you've got nothing to hide, you've got nothing to fear"

NTRabbit
Aug 15, 2012

i wear this armour to protect myself from the histrionics of hysterical women

bitches




To get a taxi home from the CBD in Adelaide costs me about $50, and I'm never doing that again.

Hey Adelaide goons, can someone remind me whether or not the Wheatsheaf has a TV from which one can watch the football while drinking? It's a deal breaking criteria for a friend of mine who wants good micro between go karts and dinner on his Bucks Day.

Lizard Combatant
Sep 29, 2010

I have some notes.

NTRabbit posted:

To get a taxi home from the CBD in Adelaide costs me about $50, and I'm never doing that again.

Hey Adelaide goons, can someone remind me whether or not the Wheatsheaf has a TV from which one can watch the football while drinking? It's a deal breaking criteria for a friend of mine who wants good micro between go karts and dinner on his Bucks Day.

It does not, as far as I recall.

Nuclear Spy
Jun 10, 2008

feeling under?

Lizard Combatant posted:

It does not, as far as I recall.
I can't really imagine The Wheaty catering to the sport-enthusiast crowd over the beer-enthusiasts by having a TV there - Sharparse can confirm either way. We might have to schedule in another goonmeet there in the future before it gets too wintery.

NTRabbit posted:

A friend of mine who wants good micro between go karts and dinner on his Bucks Day.
Which side of the CBD is this happening? It would help us with recommending an alternative place in the meantime.

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ASIC v Danny Bro
May 1, 2012

D&D: HASBARA SQUAD
CAPTAIN KILL


Just HEAPS of dead Palestinnos for brekkie, mate!
Remind me never again to go to Auspol on twitter.

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