nutbean

I realised that it was a quote from the letter not yourself. I also realise I am arguing language. However as I said, when anyone wants to make a comparison it is important that comparison is appropriate and whilst there have been a lot of atrocities ( too many atrocities) committed in the name of Nationalist aspirations and "freedom" comparing anything to Nazi's is not appropriate as nothing has come close to them. We have numerous examples of regional ethnic/religious/race cleansing. We have only once in modern history seen an attempt at global religious cleansing.

it was 1948. I have no quarrel with labelling Irgun a terrorist organisation - no better or worse than Hamas and Hezbollah, IRA etc - any organisation that has no qualms about killing innocents for political gain. i have no problem with denouncing their methods. I always have an issue with throwing the word Nazi as a descriptive - in modern history we have not had a collective whose philosophy and political agenda was to completely eradicate a race/religion/colour or creed of people from the face of the earth,. Most terrorist groups, as abhorrent as their methods are, usually make their agenda territorial. ( ie removal of peoples from their "land"). The nazi's are in category of their own and nobody in modern history has behaved like nazi's. ( small disclaimer - there are some small nutjob groups who have the eradication philosophy but not the size or relevance to be able to do it - the Nazi's will always be unique., hopefully, in that they had an horrific ideology with the machinery to make it happen)

Howe to my mind is (was) similar to Jack Watts in that he picked and chose when to go and when not to. Howe's last season at half back with us was not too bad and watching him at the Pies shows he has further matured and progressed - whilst still loving to fly he will contest at ground level/ loose balls and spread. Never did that as a forward - flew for big marks, was worked out and blocked and that was that. I still dont think that Howe hurts opposition with his disposal which can be iffy. Watts to my mind still hasn't progressed from his earliest days - when he decides to impact he is good and with ball in hand is great. The problem still is that he is selective about contesting. Lazy ? disinterested ? I am not really sure but he still doesn't impact contests when he should be. Fritsch on the other hand, basically goes at the ball when it is in his zone in the air or on the ground - a good pair of hands, he makes good decisions and is very neat by foot. Whether he will make it or not ? Hard to make pronouncements after 5 games ( and after being badly bitten previously by announcing that Juice Newton was the next messiah) but he has all the weapons to do so.

I have given him a tick for getting talks happening - but the pen I used was filled with erasable ink . Happy to make it a permanent tick when there is some concrete progress. ( the question is when exactly do you make a tick permanent - I seem to recall some Nobel peace prizes being handed out for a Israel/Palestine peace accord - hmmm)

Putting in the big disclaimer that nothing has yet been achieved with meetings between North and South Korea, credit should be given to the Trump administration for exerting enough pressure/influence to get North Korea to at least talk. I don't think China's pressure should be underestimated either. I truly think that Donald is bat-[censored] whacko but he has had a hand in getting this initiative as far as it has gone so it is a tick for him.

I’m not sure what playing in September has to do with this argument and whether or not we will. All i am seeing is pretty much the same as he gave at our club. I’m not seeing a miracle transformation. I wish him well but the first six games away from us has not seen him find a hunger for the ball that he didnt have with us for a large percentage of his career.

Here is my handling of out contract players/ rumours of comings and goings. Every player on our list is a Melbourne player right up until the time they are not. (this keeps my head from exploding - you're welcome)

Maybe i saw something different. I thought his first quarter was good. To me he always looks like he has time with the ball in his hands. After quarter time he got the fumbles along with the other 21 players.

it is an ugly look though wouldn't you say ? I don't like it. The zone around the mark should be protected from all.

That old chestnut of a response. Why bother having laws at all - a law will never stop everyone. Because you can't stop it completely lets do nothing at all..... So here is the answer to your question. You legislate as we did in Australia. Our laws targeted a certain type of weapon. Did it rid it Australia of all of these weapons ? Nope but every one these weapons that is out of circulation is a good thing. I would have zero problem if all guns were made illegal in the hands of the public but I understand that there is a necessity for farmers and i have a personal distaste for hunting but that is what it is. However does anyone really have a need for a AR15 ?

not sure what one i was looking at but this one doesn't even have Mitchell of Hawthorn in the team and he was sensational (a bit critical of him - he gets it a lot but doesn't tend to hurt you - he was fantastic on Monday - go figure). I watched the North game and that is why I am not a fan of ratings - pretty simple who was a more valuable player - Hogan v Waite.

Hogan is on the bench. So is Tom Mitchell !

I never understood this from day one - he is going to Mara a lago every second weekend. He would go with a whole retinue of staff - surely the hotel is billing the government for that ? how on earth does that work ? Trump Administration paying Trump the businessman for accommodation ???

Good read - all points made were well considered. All but one point is "operational" and valid. There is one point that should be listed above all. Before considering any operational solutions why not address the core issue as the first priority. Address the problem - Sensible gun legislation.

or conversely, you could figure which students are good and give them guns to kill the bad students. Why stop at arming teachers and good students - They could arm the janitors and the administration staff at schools too. They could have a good old shoot out at the OK corral. Hey - here's a thought - why not try and get the guns off everyone so no one was shooting anyone ? That is way too difficult to comprehend. Yes solving the gun problem by arming more people with guns...sensible.....

Thanks Jara - could you please direct me to the closest tall building so i can throw myself off....

you can do better than that. It mustn't be so because it is says so in a John Birch Society publication....

i haven't had sextus in a long time

having said that I will quote the ancient philosopher Plato on his wisdom regarding sorting fact from fiction And I quote... "if it walks like a duck, smells like a duck and quacks like a duck - it is probably a duck"

Hmmm.. you did leave out years of research and study in their given fields, unless you believe that advances in say, medicine and technology are more down to good luck than any expertise in their given fields. I am not saying that scientist’s are infallible but the sheer weight of qualified people worried about overall direction of climate change may leave me sceptical about the world ending tomorrow but does have me paying attention to what they are saying.

I have quite a distaste for Abbott's politics but I always found him fairly transparent and mostly consistent. To me, the measure of a good politician is that you know where he/she stands on issue and how far he/she will compromise to get his agenda legislated - after all - isn't that why we vote a certain way ? I detest implementing by stealth and flip flopping on issues. Whilst not wanting to generalise ( which i am about to do) I find it interesting that the further left or right a members politics are , the more clear it is on where they stand on any given issue. I know with a lot of certainty where the Greens and on the other side, the Bernardi's Hanson's and Abbott's are going to stand on any given issue where i am always less certain of what Turnbull and Shorten stand for.

I thought he was more transparent than most pollies. I think it was obvious what you were getting before he was elected .All pollies break promises but I think he was certainly more straight in what he said he was going to do. As opposed to Howard and his famous "core and non core promises". Abbott isn't gone - but I wish he was.

my problem with Trump is I believe he is committed to Trump and Trump only. Now all politicians have their share of "self serving" and "ego" but Trump has taken it to a new level. I am not a fan of the Abbott's and Bernardi's of this world and they ( like their counterparts on the left) do like the sound of their own voices - but I believe they are committed to making a difference. Trump is narcissist and his first instinct on anything he does is "how does this affect me". His incoherent ramblings and his shoot first and ask questions approach is mind numbing. I have said this before - there have been Prime Ministers in Australia that i have vehemently disagreed with but not one has ever made me believe that they were unfit to hold high office - Trump is unfit to hold the office to which he was elected.

I consider myself a moderate as well but sticking to your guns is just not enough. Telling people who disagree with you to F' O" is not enough. I have always said about Tony Abbott - the one thing I admire about him is there was no subterfuge and little waivering. You were under no illusion as to what you going to get - he made no secret of what his policies were and what he wanted to do. But at the end of the day single mindedness was not enough - his policies were unpopular. So what did Obama do ? You mentioned jobs for trump - Obama administration in 2016 created 2.34 million jobs, Trump administration in 2017 created 2.17M jobs (source US labor dep't). I will also applaud the dialogue with Nth Korea when it actually achieves anything. If I am to like the approach of "take no prisoners" politics I would point to the early years of Jeff Kennett. Whilst I did not like a lot of what he did, what i did admire about what he did do is not much of what he did was a secret or by stealth. He was very focused and carried through on exactly what he said he would do. Again - some (me included) may not have liked his policies but i liked his forcefulness and get the job done approach. It may have been a different time but Kennett seized on what the electorate wanted and implemented it. Yes there were massive protests because he did rather smash the mould but he did have a mandate to do what he did. ( he did go troppo in his last couple of years though)

I don't claim to be anywhere near an expert but a bob each way or group think smacks to me of an issue or debate where there has been little research or intellectual/scientific input to reach conclusions. Do you you believe the vast majority of highly qualified experts in this field reaching the conclusions they have is a bob each way or group think ?