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Post by Matthew Of Canberra on Oct 21, 2012 7:10:11 GMT 10
Sounds like the alp/greens are going to hang on here in the ACT. They're running the numbers again, presumably using some 3rd-order runga-kutta algorithm or however it works here.
I couldn't get particularly fired up about this election. I'm of the view that the alp's been in long enough, and probably ought to be turfed just so we can find out what's been hidden. And I'm not at all anti-libs at the ACT level (I actually quite liked kate carnage - any girl who can roll a car on her way between wineries, dust herself off and keep going is alright by me).
The libs' campaign seemed to be heavily focused on a claim that the alp/greens would triple everyone's rates. I don't think the labs ever convincingly answered that (not that I was really watching), but it doesn't affect me anyway.
My main objection to the libs was a supposed plan to blow hundreds of millions on light rail. I thought that was just plain bonkers. Canberra isn't melbourne - it's hilly here. To get between town centers, any sort of light rail would have to go so far out of its way that they might as well spend the money on buses. That said ... I'm not sure I believed it would ever actually happen, so it wasn't really a deal breaker.
But basically I just voted (mostly) for the people who were already there. I swapped one liberal candidate for a new one, though - one of the new ones struck me as quite interesting.
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Post by angra on Oct 21, 2012 15:21:11 GMT 10
Going through my parents old things I think I think I just found a masticator. It's like a five-bladed set of scissors worked by one set of handles. It was used by people with no teeth to cut up their food. www.thefreedictionary.com/MasticatorEither that, or some obscure culinary tool for slicing lettuce into thin strips with the minimum of effort. Any ideas? (Imagine a pair of scissors with five blades)
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Post by Matthew Of Canberra on Oct 21, 2012 16:38:25 GMT 10
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Post by angra on Oct 21, 2012 18:21:35 GMT 10
re. The El Alamein anniversary. Laudable but questionable.
We do we insist on saying "we were fighting the Nazis", when everyone knows we were fighting the bloody whole German army?
This is PC gone mad. Even Rommel wasn't A Nazi. Hell even Admiral Canaris (Head of Abwehr, German Military Intelligence) was executed as an anti-Nazi.
Just look at news reports of the time. We were fighting GermaNS,It wasn't just Nazis. it was bloody Germans!
Don't re-write history.
'
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Post by angra on Oct 21, 2012 18:25:04 GMT 10
re. The El Alamein anniversary. Laudable but questionable.
We do we insist on saying "we were fighting the Nazis", when everyone knows we were fighting the bloody whole German army?
This is PC gone mad. Even Rommel wasn't A Nazi. Hell even Admiral Canaris (Head of Abwehr, German Military Intelligence) was executed as an anti-Nazi.
Just look at news reports of the time. We were fighting Germans pure and simple. It wasn't just Nazis. it was the whole bloody German nation!
Don't re-write history.
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Post by angra on Oct 22, 2012 6:07:45 GMT 10
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Post by Matthew Of Canberra on Oct 22, 2012 15:59:49 GMT 10
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Post by angra on Oct 22, 2012 17:26:13 GMT 10
200 cows to be flown to Indonesia on jumbo jet (ABC)
Remember this story?
"In 1997, the crew of a Japanese fishing boat was pulled from the Sea of Japan after clinging to the boat's wreckage for several hours. They were immediately arrested, however, after authorities interrogated them about the boat's fate. To a man, they claimed a cow had fallen from the sky, apparently coming from nowhere, and struck the boat amidships, resulting in a huge hole and its rapid sinking.
The crew remained in prison for several weeks until Japanese authorities were contacted by several highly embarrassed Russian air force officials. It turned out that the crew of a Russian cargo plane had stolen a cow that wandered near their Siberian airfield and forced it onto their plane before they took off for a flight home. Once airborne, the cow apparently panicked and starting rampaging through the cargo hold, causing the crew also to panic because it was affecting the plane's stability. They solved the problem by shoving the cow out of the hold while crossing the Sea of Japan at 30,000 feet."
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Post by Matthew Of Canberra on Oct 22, 2012 18:35:58 GMT 10
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Post by Matthew Of Canberra on Oct 22, 2012 20:20:07 GMT 10
Just listening to the latest "Partially-Examined Life". www.partiallyexaminedlife.com/2012/10/06/ep64-lucy-lawless/It's an interview with Lucy Lawless about fame, and it's quite good. I hope they have more guests if they're going to be this interesting. Why is the warrior princess on a semi-serious podcast about philosophy? Apparently she's a fan, and (she says) because of these guys she's gone back to uni to study philosophy. It's an entertaining interview. And much easier to understand than Hegel.
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Post by Matthew Of Canberra on Oct 23, 2012 7:05:49 GMT 10
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Post by Matthew Of Canberra on Oct 23, 2012 7:50:17 GMT 10
Just listening to last night's PM. The first story is naturally about the mini-budget and the cuts to the baby bonus and private health rebate, and I'm chuckling at all the left-wing social-engineers they've now got sitting on the opposition front bench.
I've never been down with the baby bonus. There is no more straightforward example of the government paying for somebody's lifestyle choices. I don't have kids, I'm not planning to have any, I don't see why I should be shelling out to make somebody else feel good about having theirs. I'm already paying more than enough on services to support those kids.
That said, it doesn't get me all that het-up. In the scheme of things it's not a big deal, and I don't actually have a problem with paying for schools, hospitals, prisons (*snigger*) etc. I'm just astonished that the liberal party was able to twist conservative logic to support it. I'll be happy to see it gone.
And the private health rebate needs to be phased out. It was originally a bail out for the insurance industry after a collapse in share prices threatened its viability. I have private health with all the extras, I would never be without it. I do collect the rebate, and yes I do stand to lose (in the short term) by its removal. I just think it's policy that is past its use-by date, and the arguments about taking load off the public system are, well, crap. Right now it's just middle-class welfare. It should have been phased out years ago.
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Post by Matthew Of Canberra on Oct 25, 2012 7:08:13 GMT 10
Every now and then I check in on "twisted wire", a podcast about telecommunications. It's an excellent antidote to nonsense in the media, particularly about the NBN. He's had a few interviews in the past with conroy that have utterly shot down claims coming from the usual suspects. Rarely does he go after the media directly, but this one's very entertaining: www.zdnet.com/au/alan-jones-nbn-confusion-7000005157/I definite recommend a listen, and it's a good telco news podcast generally.
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Post by Matthew Of Canberra on Oct 25, 2012 19:37:08 GMT 10
I didn't know they stacked idiocy this high: miamiherald.typepad.com/nakedpolitics/2012/10/connie-mack-declares-war-on-united-nations.htmlGOP candidate declares that the UN should be kicked off U.S. soil and defunded. Why? Because the OSCE plans to send election monitors to the US (and let's face it ... if they didn't @%$# up their elections, who'd see the need?). One problem ... the OSCE isn't part of the UN. It's registered with the UN, but it's not actually part of the UN. The UN itself is not monitoring US elections. This man is an idiot. And I've decided that, with all the idiotic statements coming from the right in the last few weeks, it's time to do a bolta on this one: This man speaks for all conservatives. All of them, throughout time and space. Until I hear prominent, elected representatives of global conservative thought denouncing this man (while standing on one leg and juggling three hackey-sacks) I will have no choice but to conclude that they endorse everything that this man, and every other stupid conservative like him, has ever said. Or will say. Ever. So there.
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zoot
Junior Member
Posts: 58
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Post by zoot on Oct 26, 2012 20:44:20 GMT 10
... I don't have kids, I'm not planning to have any, I don't see why I should be shelling out to make somebody else feel good about having theirs. I'm already paying more than enough on services to support those kids. These are the nurses, maids, kitchen staff and cleaners who are going to care for you after you move to the nursing home. They are the doctors who are going to treat the inevitable aches and pains of your dotage. They are the taxpayers who are going to be burdened with supporting you after you cease to be a productive member of our brave new world. You really do need them.
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