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Post by Matthew Of Canberra on Oct 27, 2012 7:47:33 GMT 10
Hi zoot!
The problem with that answer is that it assumes that australia is a closed system, that we can't let non-australian-born people come here to fill those jobs.
Talking to friends who have strayed a bit too close to that particular policy area, I sort of get the impression that, due to our (at least current) "high wage, high skill" status, we're going to be needing immigration to fill those jobs anyway. It is (I'm told) becoming difficult to find australian-born applicants now, and the boom in retirement services hasn't even properly begun.
And Australian's refusal to train enough doctors for its own needs is already well-documented. The problem doesn't seem to be university places, it's internships. Wooldridge took the AMA's advice in the 90's and slashed funding for those, and they're still constraining supply now. I heard a report on the radio this week about foreign med students finding it impossible to get an intern place to finish their training, and having to go home again (which might be the plan, I don't know).
So I get the impression that we're basically relying on immigration - skilled and otherwise - to serve those needs. And I think it's intentional.
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Post by Matthew Of Canberra on Oct 27, 2012 8:07:14 GMT 10
The US right is desperate to try to turn the libyan consulate attack into an october surprise. They now appear to be just speculating. Fox (surprised?) is quoting "unnamed sources on the ground" who say they could see the source of mortar fire and were using a laser to call in coordinates (but being told to stand down), and they've got some other guy who's used a laser saying that they wouldn't have done that unless there was a gunship nearby ... and concluding, therefore that (huzzah!) the president was actively refusing permission to fire on the mortar site.
And not a verifiable fact in site.
Who can think of an australian newspaper that would just make stuff up like that?
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Post by Matthew Of Canberra on Oct 27, 2012 8:32:43 GMT 10
Ah, silly me. I looked at PJM and found the stories about the "offers to help refused" angle on benghazi.
If I'd looked at bolta's site, I'd have discovered that he's already jinxed it by linking to Fox's coverage.
Now it's just a matter of time before we find out how it's been skewed, selected and otherwise just plain made up.
I have faith in the bolt curse. I really do. Particularly when he's relying on the Fox mother-ship for his information.
A few people really do need to think about this. What president would really just sit on his hands and do nothing to save a guy (a personal friend - let's try to remember this) that he sent into libya as an (apparently very effective) ambassador. Why would he do nothing, if the situation was understood, and if there was something that he could actually do? Put aside all the muslim-apologizing crap, the alleged born-in-kenya rubbish, and just think. If YOU were president, and YOUR friend was on the receiving end of mortar fire, do you think that YOU would just think "nyeh - let 'im die" if there were options available?
I think the real problem is that rational thought is precluded, because chest-beating adolescents are still at the stage of seeing this as an american military failure, and therefore a personal embarrassment. Until they get past that, they're not going to see anything that complicates the story - that story being that america is infinitely powerful and nobody is allowed to mess with it without infinite consequences. That's the thinking that led to 60 years of military/intelligence %@$#-ups worldwide, and I'm happy to see that the curse is skipping the current presidential generation. Yes, bush WOULD have leveled the joint, and I suspect that Romney would too. I hate to imagine what Palin would do. They'd have blown those hajjis all to hell. And Libya would end up in the hands of an opportunistic anti-american dictator as a result, and satisfied hawks would rub their hands and say "what are we to do - these Arabs, they just can't be satisfied, they hate us for our freedoms dontcha know?"
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Post by Matthew Of Canberra on Oct 28, 2012 21:47:48 GMT 10
Cor, this is clever: Who would have thought that the Greens were the misogynist party? They have cut their female representation in the ACT Legislative Assembly by 100 per cent. Meredith Hunter, Caroline Le Couteur and Amanda Bresnan have all lost their seats, while the only male Greens member, Shane Rattenbury, has retained his seat.
Or is it that the ACT voters are misogynist? I see what you've done, there! That's really funny! To counter troubling allegations that somebody's ever-so-popular leader once punched a wall either side of a girl's head out of anger, or (allegedly) groped some bird's backside while she was making a public speech (and it should certainly be said at this point that this matter has been famously dealt with by a court, in the defendants favor, and that's all I'm going to say about that), we've all started making lots of jokes about imagined "misogynist" slights, thus flooding the market and devaluing the ACTUAL misogyny ... like, say, opining out loud about whether women are really cut out for leadership, or whether they should have a right to choose what they do with their own bodies or defending and covering for a man with some very bizarre attitudes about women, right up to the point when he ceases to be of use to the party (sorry to have to put it so bluntly) None of this is new. I grew up in a household which wasn't entirely down with all this "women's lib" stuff. We had lots of jokes about what we were or weren't allowed to say and so on. Usually it's just passive-aggressive crap, but in this case it seems to be the backbone of a political party's election campaign. It's leaking out, though, so by the time the election rolls around we shouldn't be too shocked to hear how we can't even smack our women around any more because of "misogyny!" But here's the problem. Firstly, the ACT isn't a single electorate, and nobody can fathom the electoral system here. So no, I very much doubt if "the ACT" could set out to oust the women of a political party while leaving the men standing. And no, the greens don't get to decide who their supporters vote for - it doesn't work like that, not even here. And two of those three outgoing greens are actually being replaced by women from the liberal party. Keeping in mind the fact that our chief minister will probably continue to be a girly-girl, and keeping in mind the high proportion of women in our legislative assembly, I'm going to suggest that the "misogynist" suggestion isn't just wrong, it's actually incredibly daft. As for: Seriously, though, there is a reasonable chance that Rattenbury might support a Liberal Government. Why would he do that, after all the crap that the ACT liberals threw at the greens before the election? That would be a very strange outcome. Humphrey would call that a "courageous" decision. I think what really happened at this last election is (a) people just got tired of the same government - like in most labor states recently, there's been an overwhelming sense that there's a need for change (and yet the libs just couldn't get across the line ... what ARE they doing wrong?). And (b) the libs pretty much ran a single-issue negative campaign: That ALP/Greens meant a tripling of rates (which had some bite, because it's happened before). The positive feature of the libs' campaign was to build a hundreds-of-millions-of-dollars boondoggle in the form of light rail[1], in a city as hilly as canberra. Their signature policy was basically mad as toast. [1] I think it was more a shelbyville idea.
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Post by angra on Oct 29, 2012 20:11:19 GMT 10
"Project for the New Australian Century" ( © William Kristol) Today the Government made a big song and dance about the release of a new strategy with respect to Asia. Australia in the Asian Century - asiancentury.dpmc.gov.au/white-paperSo this explains Julia's repeated trips to Asian countries whilst ignoring our nearest Pacific neighbours - who are surely of greater strategic, security and resource interest than opening a consulate in Ulan Bator. This is one occasion when I am inclined to agree with the righties criticisms. The 'strategy' has been done before - going back a generation - and is full of platitudes and little substance. Rather like the barber's cat.
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Post by Matthew Of Canberra on Oct 30, 2012 7:14:50 GMT 10
"So this explains Julia's repeated trips to Asian countries ..."
Yeah. Hmm. If this had come up, say, 5 years ago then it would have a lot more oomph. As it is, I fear that most might think it's just a way to get something positive onto the front pages.
I can't blame them for trying, but it isn't going to work. On the other hand, it also doesn't cost anything to fly a kite.
They also need to stop making spending promises for 2019. Nobody's buying it.
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Post by Matthew Of Canberra on Oct 30, 2012 7:47:06 GMT 10
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Post by angra on Oct 30, 2012 9:22:01 GMT 10
When is Australia NOT Australia?
"Labor moves to excise mainland from migration zone"
WTF!
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Post by Matthew Of Canberra on Nov 1, 2012 15:47:04 GMT 10
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Post by angra on Nov 1, 2012 16:53:43 GMT 10
At last, a scientific explanation for the 'non-Eulidean geometry' encountered by shipwrecked sailors on an uncharted Pacific island as described in "The Call of Cthulhu". "We contend that all of the credible phenomena which Johansen described may be explained as being the observable consequences of a localized bubble of spacetime curvature. Many of his most incomprehensible statements (involving the geometry of the architecture, and variability of the location of the horizon) can therefore be said to have a unified underlying cause." "We propose a simplified example of such a geometry, and show using numerical computation that Johansen’s descriptions were, for the most part, not simply the ravings of a lunatic. Rather, they are the nontechnical observations of an intelligent man who did not understand how to describe what he was seeing." updates.io9.com/post/34658260553/at-last-science-explains-the-physics-in-call-ofThe paper's here (pdf) - titaniumphysicists.brachiolopemedia.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Rlyeh.pdf
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Post by angra on Nov 2, 2012 11:27:10 GMT 10
Don't know how much credence to give to this - Romney accused of working with Mexican drug cartels, spying for Russia and China, and having links to the African blood-diamond trade using his company Bain as a front for money-laundering. Plus the Cuban mistress. www.veteranstoday.com/2012/11/01/romney-leaks-drugs-blood-diamonds-and-a-cuban-mistress/The web site - Veterans Today - is certainly a site with an agenda. But it's usually a pretty conservative one. They claim the ABC (US not Oz) has the relevant leaked documents but is sitting on them until after the election.
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Post by angra on Nov 2, 2012 11:35:36 GMT 10
On digging a bit, Veterans Today is dominated by conspiracy-theory nutters. 9/11 was an Israeli operation, the US and China are working together to fend off fleets of invading UFO's, the CIA is behind the drug trade etc.
Forget it.
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Post by Matthew Of Canberra on Nov 2, 2012 19:24:53 GMT 10
" Don't know how much credence to give to this"
None, I suggest :-)
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Post by Matthew Of Canberra on Nov 2, 2012 21:26:13 GMT 10
David Ignatius at WashPo has published a timeline of CIA actions on the night of the Benghazi attack, allegedly from a CIA source.
It pretty much refutes everything that Obama has been accused of.
That was about 8 hours ago, and the spinning from the right hasn't even begun yet. Silence. PJM hasn't responded, Fox is quiet. There are some comments about it on teh blogz, mostly accusing Ignatius of being an Obama stooge (despite him having joined the chorus of critics).
If what Ignatius has written is true, it means that just about everything that has been claimed is basically wrong. It's a big deal. It won't dissuade the loons - they'll just "ask" different "questions". But normal people will get a surprise.
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Post by Matthew Of Canberra on Nov 3, 2012 21:33:13 GMT 10
Wow. Is this desperate, or what? Murdoch tweets: Thanks Bloomberg right decision.@now Christie, while thanking O, must re- declare for Romney, or take blame for next four dire years. What the? So ... if Christie does make a big show and tell about Romney, it appears to be insincere - something that nobody's ever going to buy, coming from Chris Christie. And if he DOESN'T jump on board, everybody is going to notice that, making what has been a fairly straightforward task of being a good governor (which, let's face it, IS what he was elected to do) into a monumental Romney smack-down that was probably never intended. I don't think Rupert's very confident about Romney's chances. And I think he's trying to spin the outcome three days before the poll. I'm back to thinking that Obama's got this one under control. Murdoch's already making excuses and laying blame. And he's not being discreet about it.
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