Auspol March - C U Next Trollday, Auspol - The Something Awful Forums

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > Auspol March - C U Next Trollday, Auspol

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

Quantum Mechanic posted:

Nope. Suffer, brief mortals.

Also while I'm on my NSW soapbox, goddamn PLEASE join the Greens or sign up to volunteer. This election is going to be disgusting, and if you think Federal Labor are an uninspiring and torpid opposition, NSW Labor will leave you utterly dumbfounded. We have a real chance to make a difference and we need every hand on deck possible.

I would, but I am so mentally unstable at this point that it would likely result in unfortunate headlines, criminal charges, and probably multiple hospitalisations due to poor reactions to the stress. There is a reason I got transferred to the disability services in December/January. It is best all round if I lay low.

Also, I am allergic to democracy sausages (No, seriously. A lot of manufacturers stuff them with onion powder and garlic, which cause me no end of digestive strife).

# ¿ Feb 28, 2015 18:04

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# ¿ May 10, 2024 21:27

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

Last month we had a pretty good thread for the most part. Interesting things were discussed, the shitposting was at tolerable levels, etc. Even some lurkers felt confident enough to come out of the woodwork and post, or resume posting again. What could have change- Oh, hi Fruity. Guess that explains that.

Seriously, don't you lot have a chat thread somewhere else on the forums to get your more egregious shitposting out of your systems?

Anyway, content:

Coalition bounces back in poll, despite leadership doubts (Check the URL to see what the article was originally named).

quote:

...But as leadership discussions continued within the Coalition, Julie Bishop was being touted as the �safe� Liberal leadership candidate who would deliver minimal frontbench upheaval and greater party unity, as more conservative Liberals conclude Tony Abbott cannot save his prime ministership.

Malcolm Turnbull remains the clearly favoured alternative, but the Liberal party has entered a phase of complicated backroom deal-making as frontbenchers calculate what a leadership change would mean for their own positions and the conservative wing considers what a Turnbull prime ministership would mean for the government�s policy direction.

Conservative Abbott-backers are now talking about the prospect of supporting Bishop�s candidacy if the momentum for change is unstoppable, on the condition that it would involve minimal changes to the frontbench. Bishop�s backers argue that, in the event of a successful spill motion, the party should be presented with a choice rather than a deal stitched up behind the scenes between possible alternatives....

It looks like we are safe from a Morrison reich. The more right wing of the party seem to have settled on Bishop as Abbott's replacement if poo poo gets that far.

You may all breathe a small sigh of relief.

Pickled Tink fucked around with this message at 14:40 on Mar 1, 2015

# ¿ Mar 1, 2015 14:38

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

Splode posted:

Mate you came back and just posted first dog. Go back to where you came from.

I do more than just post first dog, but since you asked so nicely:

# ¿ Mar 2, 2015 07:21

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

New first dog:

# ¿ Mar 4, 2015 06:12

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

thatfatkid posted:

Targetting one consumer product because it's bad for the consumers health but not targetting other far more pervasive ones is in my opinion cynical.

You eating a chocolate bar or shoveling a burger down your noise hole doesn't make my windpipe contract and throat burn. Guess what you using your tobacco products around me does mate.

Tobacco is explicitly harmful not only to the user but to everyone around them. There's no safe dose, and some people like myself who have been plagued by respiratory illnesses (in my case, mostly because I grew up and spent 18 years around a parent who smoked like a chimney) have horrible reactions to even whiffs of the stuff. Plus, junk food seldom causes bushfires when you toss it out of a car or bung it over a fence.

Also, I am totally up for banning alcohol. Maybe if Australians weren't in a perpetual drunken stupor they'd see the horrible poo poo going on in their name and do something about it.

# ¿ Mar 5, 2015 14:29

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

thatfatkid posted:

I don't smoke.

So smoking is bad for the public but dominoes advertising deep-fried cheese stuffed pizzas is not? I could've sworn obesity was a pretty serious problem in this country..

Ok, two issues here:

1: Calling what dominoes serves "Pizza" is like calling plankton "beef".

2: Being a lardy fucker doesn't harm anyone but yourself. Smoking harms not only the user, but everyone around them. I thought I covered that, but you seem to be locked into a "Me VS Them" mentality and just lashing out without applying your thinking-brain.

# ¿ Mar 5, 2015 14:37

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

First Dog tackling the issues of today:

# ¿ Mar 6, 2015 05:15

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

New first dog.

# ¿ Mar 9, 2015 06:38

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

hiddenmovement posted:

He's veering into first dog territory on this one

I dunno, he's not quite that good despite being the threads darling cartoonist.

# ¿ Mar 9, 2015 11:53

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

Mithranderp posted:

our PM, everybody.

KITTY!

Also, Image leeching is bad.

Pickled Tink fucked around with this message at 12:50 on Mar 10, 2015

# ¿ Mar 10, 2015 12:23

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

A few things to say before I put up the new first dog that I know you all so love. Those who simply cannot contain themselves can skip to the end.

Firstly: Given the stated rationale of stopping the boats is to prevent deaths at sea, boats can only be considered stopped when they stop actually departing for Australia. The very fact that we are buying newer, cheaper returnboats puts lie to both claims. On the other hand, if it is just a racist dogwhistle then sending people back or taking them to your pet hell on earth is a perfectly acceptable win condition. However, that is not what they are claiming it is.

Secondly: I did a stint of 5-6 months working for a "small business owner". I was regularly paid a week or two late, he never documented what I was paid exactly, hours were irregular and with little warning, and the conditions sucked balls. I was sent doing junk mail stuff in the pouring rain, but I needed the money and I hadn't yet been utterly broken by that point so I didn't tell the fucker to go shove the clipboard up his arse.

And now, without further ado, I present your dose of first dog:

# ¿ Mar 11, 2015 06:44

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

starkebn posted:

Isn't it simply semantic bullshit?

One side of the argument says "the boats keep getting turned back, so therefore the boats have stopped (arriving)". The other side says "people are still endangering their lives by setting off in boats, therefore the bats have not stopped (leaving)".

You're not going to have a good faith discussion unless you agree on what the discussion is (typical politics)

Since I have ratbag or whatever his name is on ignore, and have had for about a week, I am just responding to this to point out this isn't a semantic discussion.

As I said in my last post, the stated motivation directly decides which of the two in your post is meant. That stated goal, as they keep pointing out, is "preventing deaths at sea". Of course, the only true way to prevent deaths at sea would be to ban the use of boats entirely within Australian waters, but from context we can narrow it down to asylum seekers.

Since we have, in fact, had occurrences where asylum seeker boats have sunk inside Indonesian and international waters (This being why the government uses the claim of "preventing deaths at sea") the only way to prevent deaths at sea and thereby accomplish the stated goal of stopping the boats, is to prevent them from departing Indonesia. Naturally this also precludes the use of drone submarines, mines, and gunships, all of which would cause further "deaths at sea".

Thus, from the claimed justification of the government for its policy, the boats have not stopped.

HOWEVER:

We all know that claimed justifications and real justifications are almost never the same thing. As such, we can work to determine what the actual goal of the government is from its repeated statements that it has stopped the boats (Assuming that they are not, in fact, just lying for political gain. Sadly this is a very real possibility that this government has a definite track record of doing).

Historically, the objection to boats have been exclusively racist. Stopping the brown hordes from invading. No more mussies, etc. Racism has become much more overt and pronounced since Pauline Hanson came onto the scene and John Howard mainstreamed her views in order to snatch votes (For this sin alone, John Howard deserves to die with a whole durian shoved up his arse).

Likewise, crime figures have repeatedly demonstrated that they are not as much of a threat as, say, a man with a southern cross tattoo (This has not stopped every single example of asylum seeker crime from being reported on the front page though).

Finally, these policies are exclusively aimed at maritime arrivals, who are predominantly brown, as opposed to the much larger number of people who overstay visas and come in by plane, many of whom are white.

Thus, from the governments statements, we can conclude that it is not, in fact, about preventing deaths at sea. That such a goal is in fact simply a smokescreen to disguise an openly racist policy to keep brown people from arriving in Australia.

Which side of the issue you come down on is a fairly good barometer of how racist you are.

# ¿ Mar 11, 2015 09:24

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

Well, here's something that is probably unimportant because responding to trolling is the most pressing issue of today, yesterday, and the forecast says tomorrow as well.

Of three remote communities here, why are only the two Aboriginal ones under threat?

The whole article is worth a read, but I'll just quote a few bits of it:

quote:

There are three small communities within 30km of each other in the Kimberley, the isolated north-western corner of Australia.

Because of a new funding deal struck between Australia�s state and federal governments, two of those communities could be closed.

Two of the communities are Aboriginal. The third is not. It will not be closed.

...

Like Jarlmadangah, Looma will be weighed and measured by the government to see if it�s worth sustaining. Camballin will not.

This is a pattern is repeated across remote WA. Indigenous people do not want communities like Camballin closed. But they find the presumption that it and other small non-Aboriginal communities are sustainable and Aboriginal communities are not to be deeply unfair.

...

Redman, who is in charge of the $1bn Royalties for Regions slush fund, said the government would consider using it �to invest in anything that moves toward reform�.

The government has distributed $6.5bn in Royalties for Regions funding since 2008. Almost every regional community, including Camballin, has a sign proudly advertising its spending. Except, of course, for Aboriginal communities.

Cuts to Aboriginal communities are transparently racist. News at 11.

I now return this thread to its endless parade of being trolled by a transparently obvious troll because telling someone to go kill themselves is easy and discussing actual issues is hard, and only the former supports this threads culture of shitposting.

Besides, it's just Aboriginal people. Who gives a gently caress about them anyway?

# ¿ Mar 11, 2015 13:18

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

Murodese posted:

What's interesting is the logical fault present: he's an eloquent writer and places great stock in logic, yet while proclaiming that the people are oppressed and governments kill innocents, he never actually justifies or reconciles this with his own slaughter of innocents. "Society is corrupt because people believe they are free when the government only allows them the illusion of this and often kills innocents" is a hilarious logical disconnect from "I must kill innocents". It's almost as if he's mentally ill

Wisdom Suppository posted:

Definite mental illness. Perceived or adopted persecution complex is not a indicator of mental stability.

Nice going there with your stigmatisation of mental illness. Person does X that I do not understand and has poor reasoning by my own exacting standards of logic, therefore they must be mentally ill (Because poor reasoning is incredibly rare, as we all know). The implication that gets hammered home by such reasoning is that mentally ill people are dangerous.

There are Australians who seriously believe that asylum seekers are illegal immigrants and should be shot to keep them away. That doesn't make them mentally ill. This thread is full of people who tell others to go kill themselves for disagreements ranging from large to petty, but if the people here are mentally ill it is definitely not the cause of that behaviour.

It is absolutely lazy to disregard this kind of thing as mental illness. It not help in the slightest, because you are not even considering the positions these people start out from and thereby not treating the problems (Disenfranchisement, persecution, etc) that cause radicalisation of these people.

Not only that, but you work further to stigmatise mental illness because you are synonymizing it with it "dangerous people who should be feared" thus preventing people with mental illnesses from seeking help from fear of the stigma. It is also a step towards bringing back the reasoning we managed to, at long last, ditch regarding the mentally ill: "Why should we help people who are dangerous? Why don't we just lock them up where they can't harm us?"

It is lazy thought I would expect from members of the liberal party, not alleged greens.

# ¿ Mar 12, 2015 07:25

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

Murodese posted:

Sorry, are you trying to argue that psychopathy is not a form of mental illness? I mean, sweet strawman, but if you think that somebody saying "extremists are mentally ill" means they mean "mentally ill people are extremist", you're suffering from lazier thinking than you're accusing others of.

I didn't argue anything of the sort. What I was saying is that simply pointing at a person who is violent or engages in behaviour you can't understand and labelling them mentally ill stigmatises mental illness, which is bad. That is all I said.

Please try to read in future instead of reacting as though any criticism is a personal attack. I know this is Auspol, but sheesh.

# ¿ Mar 12, 2015 09:44

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

Murodese posted:

I agree, and we actually have a classification for people that act in an extreme anti-social manner (e.g. blowing themselves + innocents up) due to pervasive environmental conditions, often during adolescence: sociopathy. Sociopathy is, of course, either a subclassification of or synonymous with psychopathy depending on who you ask, but is still classified as a mental illness.

I wonder which group would be considered mentally sound: somebody who is coerced into committing a suicide attack against innocents, or somebody who chooses to take their own life rather than hurt others?

Full disclosure: I suffer from multiple diagnosed mental illnesses that are not completely treatable, and have been particularly strongly expressed in the last month.

Murodese. You have literally no idea what you are talking about. That is not entirely your fault because the terms are misused a fair amount and the definitions are not exactly what you'd assume.

Psychopathy and Sociopathy are not about violence, though violence is a potential manifestation of these conditions. They are defined by "enduring anti-social behaviour", low empathy, lack of remorse and/inhibition. In this way, a person who meets all these criteria and systematically bashes his wife each night is no more nor less of a psycho/sociopath than a person who demonstrates all these symptoms and manifests it by being an arsehole around the office, maliciously undercutting and/or slandering coworkers. How dangerous they are to the public is not a defining matter. Indeed, I have read that a fair few CEO's and executives are diagnosed psychopaths. Such is an environment they thrive in. Politics is another such environment where they would do well.

Someone wandering into a crowd and blowing themselves up does, indeed, demonstrate an anti-social behaviour. No argument there. But it does so from only one perspective: That of the crowd. From the perspective of the individuals group such an act would be portrayed as a selfless act of sacrifice. This is why I am so irritated at you simply pulling this amateur hour armchair psychologist crap. From your perspective they must hate hate hate, but from theirs they may be selflessly sacrificing themselves for a cause greater than themselves. Frankly, a psychopath is more likely to engage in activities that let them get away to kill again, or grant them some kind of gain, or encourage others to do the self destruction. There's actually a body of research on this subject, and simply labelling these people as mentally ill does everyone, including mentally ill people a disservice.

Question: Do you likewise consider, say, Australian soldiers to be mentally ill for fighting, and maybe dying for what they believe in? I am afraid it boils down to exactly the same thing.

Seriously, I suggest you do the reading on the subject before you mouth off on this subject in future. You are doing yourself a disservice, and you are actively, though unintentionally, harming everyone out there with a mental illness by being so hasty to declare that that people whom you see as dangerous or threatening or engage in behaviours you cannot easily empathise with are mentally ill (I have already explained how. Twice).

For the record, this is my second draft. The first draft of this post read "RAAAAAAAARGH", only bigger and with more "ARGH".

# ¿ Mar 12, 2015 11:19

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

Time for First Dog:

Also, snatching a link from his twitter feed:

Barnaby Joyce accused of pushing Leadbeater's possum towards extinction

quote:

Barnaby Joyce, the agriculture minister, has been accused of pushing Victoria�s animal emblem, the Leadbeater�s possum, closer towards extinction by personally intervening to ensure his department uses paper sourced from its habitat.

# ¿ Mar 13, 2015 07:02

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

Look, i know making ratbag dance like a puppet is fun, but there are actual important things going on, like taps leaking and birds stealing chips.

Oh, and this:

Labor to reject new push for firearms trafficking mandatory sentencing

quote:

Labor will oppose �urgent� legislation to be introduced by the Abbott government this week to impose mandatory minimum sentences for firearms trafficking, paving the way for Coalition claims that the ALP is soft on national security.

As the government seeks to divert attention from the likely failure of more of its key budget reforms over the next sitting fortnight, the prime minister, Tony Abbott, announced on Sunday his government would reintroduce a requirement that those found guilty of trafficking in illegal firearms receive a mandatory five-year jail sentence � something the Coalition itself agreed to remove from laws passed in February.

The move has set up a rift with Labor on what will be presented by the government as a �national security� issue because Labor argues mandatory sentencing is wrong in principle and will oppose the changes.

...

The shadow attorney general, Mark Dreyfus, said Labor would not change its position on mandatory sentencing.

�There are already heavy penalties for trafficking firearms. There is no evidence that mandatory sentencing works as a deterrent and Labor has a longstanding opposition to minimum sentencing because it is often discriminatory in practice,� Dreyfus said.

...

LNP bringing up mandatory minimum sentencing. You know that thing that, among all the police/judicial corruption in the US, is why they have a stupidly high prison population while it doesn't seem to do a thing to reduce crime rates?

I'm sure Cartoon would have something to say about this. Oh yes, here it is:

Cartoon posted:

Muppet Government.

# ¿ Mar 16, 2015 02:01

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

Birdstrike posted:

Where's First Dog?

I've been busy trying to stay awake and reading the Girl Genius archives again in a desperate attempt to reset my sleeping patterns to something sane, rather than my current "Is asleep for 16-20 hours a day" situation. As such, I apologise for being late on getting you your fix of your beloved first dog.

# ¿ Mar 16, 2015 09:51

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

Ultra-rich people are utterly insufferable, what with demanding special treatment, Thatcherism, $2 wages for workers, removal of penalty rates, higher taxes on poors, and shitloads of welfare and tax concessions. Anyone who kidnaps one as matters stand would require the patience of a saint and professional trauma counselling to keep from killing them in under 24 hours. Frankly, they should welcome anything that entices people to trade them back alive for money.

# ¿ Mar 18, 2015 02:07

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

Time for some cutting commentary on the issues of today from First Dog:

# ¿ Mar 18, 2015 06:43

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

CrazyTolradi posted:

They are Pickled Tink, Cartoon, Fruity, Avs and Gough Suppressant.

Do we get matching rings? What's the pay rate? Can I claim giving people lovely anime games on steam as a business expense?

It has come to my attention that life may be incredibly stressful due to having to deal with the unending circus of incompetence and pain that is our government. If you are feeling stressed out at all, please accept a complementary kitten picture.

# ¿ Mar 18, 2015 16:55

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

I would be remiss in my duty as a shitposteer if I did not give you your dose of First Dog:

Pickled Tink fucked around with this message at 04:26 on Mar 20, 2015

# ¿ Mar 20, 2015 03:50

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

my stepdads beer posted:

Labor came around on the weekend and tore down all the Greens posters in my area. They left the weirdo 'no land tax' posters though??

I don't see how that is legal. Should have photographed them and called the cops.

I have to say that thus far I am very disappointed in the Greens efforts in Macquarie Park. The only contact thus far is a leaflet left in my letterbox a couple of weeks ago (To be fair, it wasn't a terrible leaflet, but still). It is, in fact, the first marketing material I recall seeing from the Greens outside of a polling booth since I moved back to Australia a decade ago.

Why do the Greens hate Ryde? I mean, besides all the other good reasons to hate it. We have Echidnas, Possums, Fruit bats, and as of at least a week ago, a Powerful Owl (The hooting... the hooting!). All these things should spur greater investment by the Greens, but instead we are ignored and left to the tender mercies of the Liberals.

It is such a shame.

# ¿ Mar 23, 2015 06:18

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

And now for your First Dog:

# ¿ Mar 23, 2015 07:20

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

HookShot posted:

The onion thing is true, there's a hot dog place here that just has a giant grill full of onions cooking literally all day outside and there is always a lineup there.

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.

# ¿ Mar 24, 2015 23:24

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

Kommando posted:

However its really rare that this happens suddenly at 30. So my Dr is sending my poo to pathology to check if i am a meat hotel for parasites like Giardia

I fully expect and I'm fermenting lactose in my guts forever now.

Well, if they didn't find poo in your stool sample, I would think you would have bigger problems to worry about than lactose intolerance.

I only recognised my allergy a bit more than a year ago. In hindsight I was showing symptoms for about three years before I realised and my tolerance dropped and I was able to see what was going on.

The hardest part was convincing my parents that I was, in fact, allergic to something new. They didn't believe you could develop allergies later in life. It took my brother asking a doctor in front of my mother to convince her. Family lunches kinda sucked until that point "oh, you still think you are allergic...".

# ¿ Mar 25, 2015 00:10

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

tomkash posted:

Pickled Tink are you able to have asafoetida?

I have had it once, and still cannot tell if I reacted to it. Will need more testing.

On topic: I'd love to get involved with the Greens but I'm too much of an injury riddled depression-wreck to do the face to face and phone stuff. Is there anything that can be done, besides joining officially? What I am asking is if there is anything they can offer for the more antisocial socialists to do.

# ¿ Mar 25, 2015 00:20

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

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.

Pickled Tink fucked around with this message at 01:13 on Mar 25, 2015

# ¿ Mar 25, 2015 01:05

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:

# ¿ Mar 25, 2015 05:46

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

Great Barrier Reef: Nationals MP says environmentalists are guilty of treason

quote:

Conservation groups are guilty of treason for lobbying the Unesco world heritage committee on the Great Barrier Reef, Coalition backbencher George Christensen has said.

Christensen made a speech in parliament on Wednesday saying calling for the reef to be classified as in danger was �treacherous� to Australia.

He named Greenpeace, the Australian Marine Conservation Society, Friends of the Earth, Get Up and the Environmental Defender�s Office.

�Although they spruik concepts such as conservation, they are really about destruction, because they want to destroy our way of life and our biggest industry,� Christensen said. �What these eco-traitors really want to do is to shut down the coal industry completely and they do not care if it takes a World Heritage Committee label of �in danger� to do it.

�A label of �in danger� would do enormous damage to the brand of the reef and threaten millions of tourism dollars,� the Queensland MP said. �It would also threaten major investments in my region. This is outright treachery, and these eco-traitors are literally holding the reef to ransom.�

Christensen said environmental groups had been successful in boosting protection measures for the reef, and drew on a colourful pop culture reference to make his point.

�They have got what they wanted, and yet they act like Wormtongue from Lord of the Rings, flying overseas and whispering in the ears of the decision-makers and diplomats who have anything to do with Unesco and the World Heritage committee, poisoning their minds on the state of the reef,� he said.

Over the weekend, the Queensland and federal governments jointly released the reef 2050 long term sustainability plan, which sets targets to ensure the viability of the natural wonder.

Leading scientists have called for the scrapping of coal mining in Queensland in order to save the �fragile� reef from �further stress�.

I was not aware that Lord of the Rings was pop culture.

I thought this article was worth posting because it demonstrates yet another data point in an increasing shift towards US style political discourse in this country from the right wing.

Also, Uber sucks. But I found this funny.

# ¿ Mar 25, 2015 19:46

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

Ragingsheep posted:

SMH endorses the LNP.

On one hand its but on the other, Labor is also loving poo poo.

Used to be that they'd get accused of being virulently left wing by murdoch, lnp, et al. Instead of actually working to make stuff about facts, they caved because "left wing" has the same connotations as "rapist" in modern discourse.

Thanks for that, Murdoch.

# ¿ Mar 27, 2015 01:14

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

Someone needs to go broke in the Australian iron ore industry, says analyst

quote:

The Australian iron ore industry is poised for a huge shake-up as the global glut worsens and margins continue to tighten.

The nation�s biggest iron ore miners, Rio Tinto and BHP Billiton, are still making money and expanding production, but questions remain about the viability of their heavily indebted rivals Fortescue Metals Group and Gina Rinehart�s Roy Hill project.

Iron ore is trading at a six-year low of around $US55 per tonne amid weaker Chinese demand.

The price slump this week prompted Fortescue Metal�s chairman Andrew �Twiggy� Forrest to call for a cap on iron ore production which was promptly dismissed by Rinehart and the head of Rio Tinto Sam Walsh.

But the price outlook remains bleak, with an extra 200m tonnes of the steel-making ingredient expected to be dumped on the market over the next few years.

Morningstar analyst Matthew Hodge says higher cost miners like Fortescue and Roy Hill will soon be �running to stand still�.

�There has to be some rationalisation,� Hodge said. �Someone needs to go broke, or some miners need to merge production because what�s happening at the moment is unsustainable.

�Things are bad and there�s no real sign they�re going to get any better soon, unless there�s a bit more enthusiasm around forming a cartel.�

Fortescue has just finished a huge expansion program and Rio Tinto plans to expand by another 50m tonnes while Roy Hill will begin ramping up to 55m tonnes in September.

Lurking in the background is Brazilian giant Vale which is planning a $20bn investment to expand production by another 90m tonnes by 2018.

In this environment, small to mid-tier Pilbara iron ore producers are being squeezed hard, forced to continually cut costs to stay afloat despite government assistance.

BC Iron this week signed a new mining contract to lower costs but its margins remain wafer thin.

Of the big players, Hodge said BHP was the most circumspect while Rio and Vale seemed intent on increasing market share.

�Vale�s move seems bizarre,� Hodge said.

\As the highest cost major iron ore producer with $11bn of debt, Fortescue was in a more precarious position than other Pilbara producers, he said.

�Companies that are higher up the cost curve, with lower margins are most at risk.�

He said Rio, BHP and Chinese state-owned players had the capacity to take over struggling iron ore companies.

Meanwhile, Colin Barnett, the Western Australia premier, said there had been an over-reaction to Forrest�s idea to cap production.

�If you flood the market, you hurt yourself, you hurt the smaller companies, you certainly hurt your shareholders, and I think the iron ore industry should be supplying to meet the market,� Barnett said. �That�s not a cartel or predatory pricing.�

We are facing potentially losing Twiggy or Rinehart. Why can't we just get rid of them both?

# ¿ Mar 27, 2015 09:06

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

I'll be headed up to vote after breakfast.

I have mostly decided on my preference distribution. 1 and 2 are Greens and Labor respectively. Last place is Fred Nile's party. I'm probably going to put No Land Tax in 3 because as much as I hate whiny single issue parties, I hate the Libs more.

# ¿ Mar 27, 2015 22:16

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

Just got back from voting. Five libs, 1 Nile-ist, 1 Labor, and 1 elderly Greens person doing HTV at my local polling station. I saw a depressing number of people with the Nile HTV card (More than 0).

There were no sausages, not that I could eat them anyway. I had a bacon, egg, and hash brown sandwich instead at a local sandwich shop.

# ¿ Mar 28, 2015 01:19

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

NSW election: full list of candidates signing St James Ethics Centre pledge

quote:

Listed by party, find every candidate for the New South Wales election on 28 March who has signed a pledge to abide by a moral code as an MP. A total of 215 candidates have committed to the pledge: 111 from Labor, 3 Liberals, 33 Greens, 19 Christian Democratic Party, 21 from the Australian Cyclists party, 2 from the No Land Tax party and 15 independents. This represents 23% of candidates in this election

The Politicians� Pledge

In the pursuit of power, I will:
Act in good conscience;
Enable informed decision-making by my fellow citizens;
Respect the intrinsic dignity of all;
Refrain from exploiting my rivals� private failings for political gain; and
Act so as to merit the trust and respect of the community.

In the exercise of power, I will:
Give effect to the ideals of democratic government and represent the interests of my electorate as a whole;
Abide by the letter and spirit of the Constitution and uphold the rule of law;
Advance the public interest before any personal, sectional or partisan interest;
Hold myself accountable for conduct for which I am responsible; and
Exercise the privileges and discharge the duties of public office with dignity, care and honour.

# ¿ Mar 28, 2015 02:34

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

Lid posted:

Democracy sausage should have never been privatised, it is a common belonging to the people and now look at private industry trying to make a profit at the loss of the people. Government subsidise the democracy sausage, it should be free for all people (and have onions because a sausage without barbeque onions is just a meat tube.)

gently caress you.

Not content with ruining a perfectly good sausage by filling it with onion powder and garlic, you must now slather it in the wretched stuff. You are worse than people who think pineapple belongs on pizza.

ON TOPIC:

Gillian Triggs says Coalition chose to challenge Basikbasik report via media

quote:

Gillian Triggs, the president of the Australian Human Rights Commission, has said the government has rarely challenged her findings and recommendations, while facing heavy questioning from Coalition senators.

In estimates on Friday, Triggs was again grilled by senators over a recommendation she made that John Basikbasik receive $350,000 for the time he was held in detention without charge following the serving of a prison sentence for manslaughter.

Triggs has faced sustained attacks from the government � including Tony Abbott � in the lead-up to a damning report released by the commission on children in detention.

Triggs told the estimates committee: �My job as president is to make findings and recommendations, which are discussed with government and a report is finally made to parliament, along with scores of other such reports.

�The government has the option of appealing against my findings and recommendations and has chosen not to do so, and in fact very rarely does.�

�Normally it would be for members of parliament to read my reports, to question them if they chose to, and if appropriate, for the attorney to appeal against them.

�That has not been done and unfortunately the choice has been made to do so in the pages of a particular newspaper, where the facts and legal reasoning were grossly misstated.�

Basikbasik is a West Papuan activist who opposed the Indonesian occupation of his country. After being granted refugee status in Australia, he was charged in 2000 with the manslaughter of his partner.

He remained in Villawood detention centre after serving his full sentence, because he cannot be returned to Indonesia.

The Liberal senator Ian Macdonald repeatedly questioned Triggs on the case, and asked her to provide specific details on the length of time of the investigation. Triggs said it �would take months� but she did not believe it had taken years.

She told the committee that after serving his sentence he had now been held for �close to eight years without charge and without trial�.

�While the government of course has an executive power to detain someone � that executive power must be exercised in a way that is necessary and proportionate to achieve a legitimate aim,� she said.

�I think most fair-minded Australians would say that holding someone for eight years after he has served his prison sentence is something that does require at least the regular consideration of his case, and regular consideration of whether or not alternative forms of detention or supervision might be used.�

After the release of the children in detention report it was revealed that the government had sought Triggs�s resignation.

The shadow attorney general, Mark Dreyfus, wrote to the Australian federal police to ask them to examine whether the attorney general, George Brandis, had committed an offence by offering Triggs a job in exchange for her resignation.

The LNP playbook: Trial by media, because unlike reality, the press does not deal in facts but in right wing propaganda, and the only interest of the right when it comes to human rights these days is discrediting those who try to hold us to them.

# ¿ Mar 28, 2015 04:39

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

I'd totally gift that to tithin were it in my power.

# ¿ Mar 29, 2015 01:19

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

Sorry for being late with your latest edition of First Dog, but I was busy playing computer games instead of getting a real job.

# ¿ Mar 30, 2015 10:11

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ¿ May 10, 2024 21:27

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

School in Nauru detention centre to be closed

quote:

The school for asylum seeker children inside the detention centre on Nauru is set to close.

The building the students study in - within the Regional Processing Centre 1 camp - will reportedly be converted into office space, and a gym and recreation area for detention centre staff, while the children will be sent to Nauruan schools outside the camp.

The students, aged between five and 18, are resisting the closure of their school, which is set to hold its last lessons for the current term on Friday.

They have begun a letter-writing campaign begging the government not to shut it.

Guardian Australia has been told the school will close during the next term, which starts after Easter.

Students have written letters they will send to the Department of Immigration, to the company contracted to run the detention centre, Transfield Services, and to politicians, pleading for the school to stay open.

Guardian Australia has seen copies of several of the letters. The students have asked to remain anonymous, fearing repercussions for speaking out.

�In Nauru everything is boring except RPC1 school and we heard the school is going to close and they are transferring us to Nauru College,� one student wrote.

�We don�t like Nauru College because it doesn�t have good education.

�There are too many dogs in the college, not safety, dangerous, even there is no refugee children also not going. We don�t have enough facilities in there. Please don�t close the RPC1 school. The teachers are very kind with us.�

Immigration department staff and teachers on the island have raised strident concerns about the standard of schooling in Nauru, which is still recovering from the near-collapse of the entire education system in the early 2000s.

Between 2000 and 2005 schools barely functioned on Nauru, no exams were held and there was a mass exodus of teachers from the profession. While schools have improved, the after-effects of the breakdown are still being felt.

Schools are often in poor condition, classrooms are dilapidated and toilets broken.

According to Nauruan government reports, while school is compulsory until age 15, truancy rates at some schools run at 60%, and 34% overall.

�Many young people lack ... basic literacy and numeracy,� the Nauruan government�s women�s affairs department says.

Already, when asylum seeker children are given a positive refugee status determination, they are moved out of the asylum seeker camp and obliged to attend a local school.

But, according to sources on the island, few of the 100-or-so school-aged refugees in the Nauruan community attend.

Most refuse to go as a protest against being held on Nauru, or out of fear of being assaulted.

The unaccompanied minor refugees have been especially targeted on the island. None of those boys attends school regularly.

�Realistically, the children�s education ends when they leave the camp,� an island source said.

�Most of these detainee children will not go [to local schools] as they fear they are going to a dangerous, unhygienic, and poorly-administered school.�

While most Nauruans accept the presence of refugee communities on the island, there remains a sizeable minority implacably, and in some cases violently, opposed to their resettlement.

Relations between local communities and refugees had shown signs of improvement over recent months, but have deteriorated in the last few weeks, with a number of violent attacks.

One refugee student wrote that refugees were afraid to attend school with local students.

�Their attitude is not suitable with [towards] us, even once they hit our friends in school. Sometimes some fights occur that they�re too dangerous and savage and that�s possible that someone else ... [who is] not involved gets hurt.�

The school inside the RPC1 asylum seeker camp is excellent, Guardian Australia has been told.

The school, which teaches students aged between five and 18, is well-equipped and staffed by Australian registered teachers.

The immigration minister, Peter Dutton, said of the school last week: �I went to the educational facilities, the classrooms there where young people at taxpayer�s expense are being provided with English classes and schooling otherwise that is of a standard that is at least as good as I�ve seen in Australia�.

Sources on the island questioned why the school was being closed if it was so well-regarded by the government.

The department of immigration declined to answer questions on why the school is being closed, instead directing Guardian Australia to the minister�s office.

The minister�s office did not respond to questions, but a senior source in Canberra confirmed the school closure.

Guardian Australia also requested an interview with the Nauruan department of education.

Education in Nauru relies largely on government and non-government aid from overseas.

The Nauruan government spends only 7.5% of total government expenditure on education, the second-lowest rate in the Pacific, according to an International Council for Open and Distance Education report.

�Nauru�s small economy and limited private sector limits job opportunities for young people. Many young people lack the basic literacy and numeracy that enable them to compete for the limited public and private sector jobs available,� the Nauru government�s Women�s Affairs Department said in a report.

The European Commission�s country paper on Nauru says, �teaching and student learning standards are low�, while the United Nations, as part of its Millennium Development Goals assessment, says high truancy rates are the �result of perceived low value of education, due to lack of jobs�.

Really, you could bold the entire thing. Go to the article for a picture of the Nauru College bathrooms.

# ¿ Mar 30, 2015 22:28

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > Auspol March - C U Next Trollday, Auspol