Bluey's Dad

This is an interesting one for me. Don't we have hate speech laws here (and I assume Britain has them too)? Are they just not being enforced or is publicly advocating for the death of people of another religion somehow NOT hate speech and not a crime? I figure the framework to deal with these individuals may already be in place but not enforced for some reason. I'm sure the state doesn't want to be the thought police, but I'm pretty sure we punish [censored] who paint swastikas on graves, so we should also be punishing other forms of hate-mongering.

I can't remember Barry O giving $350 billion of weapons to Saudi Arabia either. Arming Islamists who purport to be on your side has never once come back to bit the Americans in the arse at all. Merkel said yesterday I think that America can no longer be relied on. Massive change in the power dynamics of the world. We're both going to see these events very differently FD. Agreed on the hands though, couldn't give a stuff (past the humour value of course).

Players are going to have far too much power, clubs will not be compensated. I'd be ok with this as long as clubs could trade players without their consent during the non-free agency period. If these go through, Brisbane and Gold Coast are going to get screwed over big time.

Saudi Arabia also not on his list of countries that have to go through extreme vetting.

Both the MRP and Ancient Aliens are preposterous. The internet has these things called memes, used entertainment and comedic purposes.

http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/ancient-aliens

Train with the rest of the professional umpires squad as players do. Maintain the skills required for umpiring as well as continuing maintenance of education on rules. Learn to position better to get views of the game, practice with other members of the squad. It's unbelievable that they have to do this on their own time right now, after hours of their 'real' jobs. Worth it. They should be treated like a whole new team. Professional athletes in a professional squad. The umpires enable the game to happen, we can't have AFL without them. It's ludicrous that the entire game is dependant on dedicated part-timers who can't even be dropped for poor performance. As we saw on Sunday, poor umpiring has a direct effect on the quality of the game. If an umpire misses a call like the trip on Petracca, or the gut punch to Vince, or makes a blatantly incorrect decision like Hibberd's deliberate that didn't even come off him, there should be consequences. Dunny got dropped for not following team instructions and bombing long out of the square. Umpires should be no different - highly paid and highly accountable.

Will never improve until umpires are actual professionals. This part-time thing is complete BS. Every single umpire should be a highly paid athlete with a high level of competence and understanding of the rules. Umpiring should be their full time job and they should be paid very well for it. It should be its own career - treated just like a player. This crap about them having to work another job and then train and umpire the highest standard of AFL every weekend (sometimes multiple games because they don't have enough) is ruining the game. Attach a high salary to it and you'll get plenty of applicants. Fit, intelligent people who dedicate their careers to learning and applying the rules get the gigs. They should be judged on performance and dropped from the squad when they make too many errors. Right now they can't drop a single umpire for failing at their job because there isn't anyone to come in and take their place.

Haven't read the thread yet, but wanted to say this before I forget. Apologies if someone has already made this point: After this game, I assume it is now ok to: - Punch a player in the guts. - Trip a player as they attempt to play on - Punch a bloke in the face as long as you hold their jumper - Jump on a player's back after they've been paid a mark

lol fair enough - but there ARE legitimate issues here than could result in impeachment. People called for Bill Clinton to be impeached because he lied about an affair. Calls for Trump's impeachment given that history are hardly a reach. I dare say if any Democrat POTUS charged the taxpayer to stay at his own resort and play golf (after making a point during the campaign of specifically NOT doing that), if one fired an FBI chief whilst his associates were being investigated for colluding with a foreign power, who's completely ignored conventions on conflicts of interest and nepotism, you'd be using the "i" word too. Trump is a disaster. Realistically he's got one shot of being called 'successful', and that's bringing back those rust belt manufacturing jobs. He can get away with skimping on a lot of his other stuff, we all know the wall will never happen and his migration policies are constantly being knocked back by the courts, but if those jobs don't come back those states will turn on him very very quickly. I don't think he can do it. I honestly think he's a thin-skinned idiot who had no idea how hard politics would actually be. What did he say last month? "Who knew healthcare would be so hard?" Well, everyone except him apparently.

Better not read any fiction books then. Escapist drivel, all of it. Completely made up and irrelevant to reality. I read 1984 once and after finishing became immediately confused as to why my bedroom lacked a large TV screen with Big Brother's face on it. Don't even get me started on when I finished A Midsummer Night's Dream - I lived in a constant state of paranoia, worrying that I might at any time be transformed by a fairy into a donkey. Civilisation has been on a downward spiral since the Epic of Gilgamesh. Don't let the escapists tell you any different.

Not I. My twitch reflex isn't what it used to be. Or at least that's what I tell myself since I now avoid FPS games. The last one I played with any sort of competence was Unreal Tournament 2004, so that was quite a while ago. I bought a Switch for the new Zelda which is now one of my all time favourite games. I play Mario Kart with the kids as well, they love it. I used to play the SNES and N64 versions when I was a kid, it's a great feeling sharing the game with them.

Well done mate!

lol, his own party suspected Putin was paying him before he even won the nomination, but wanted to keep it quiet: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/house-majority-leader-to-colleagues-in-2016-i-think-putin-pays-trump/2017/05/17/515f6f8a-3aff-11e7-8854-21f359183e8c_story.html

I don't think I'm understanding your point Biff. Agreed that leaders should run countries for the benefit of their populace and not their financial institutions. Agreed that careerist politicians should not lead counties. In fact I don't think 'politics' should be a viable lifetime career for anyone. The responsibility of a politician dictates that they should have some shared life experience with those they govern. I know little about migratory patterns of Europe, so can't really comment except to say that as human beings we have a duty to look after other human beings. Now whether that takes the form of 1 million refugees or 100, I don't know - but compassion must have some place in government otherwise what's the point? Your comment on gay adoption is ridiculous. I suspect you're attempting to troll me here. Not sure why you keep bringing up Macron and his wife, the age gap is almost identical to Trump and his wife, but no one goes around calling him a cradle snatcher or pedo or whatever. Seems irrelevant to governing a country to me, I don't hold either one's partner's ages against them. To your last point - I agree that the left often conflate patriotism with jingoism when accusing the right. Unfortunately, some on the right attempt to pass of jingoism as patriotism. Seems to create a loop where no one gains any advantage by having the argument. Agreed the platform is set for more extreme right-wing politicians than Le Pen - which probably means there will be a leftist reaction as well. That's a terrible thing for political discourse as political parties move further and further away from each other, leaving no room for a viable middle ground for people to vote for. We'll end up with violent protests by both extreme sides and most of society sitting in the middle shaking our heads. I hate being lumped in the with the socialist feminazi crowd, and I try to resist categorising those on the right as homophobic rednecks. However, those are the stereotypes that each extreme wing will attempt to cast the others as, because they both know fear wins votes. The more they do, they harder it will be to resist pigeon-holing the other side when attempting to have a discussion.

I feel like the march towards impeachment is getting faster. Spicer about to be shown the door, plus Trump apparently directly asked Comey to stop the investigation into Flynn: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/16/us/politics/james-comey-trump-flynn-russia-investigation.html?_r=0

I understand why you'd reach that conclusion, there are a lot of [censored] around and for some reason many of them seem to be our leaders. But I see it at work when my boss gives disadvantaged clients a free ride or significant discounts on services when they're down on their luck. There are good people around. They exist. We just need more of them in politics.

You need to have kids now to care about the future of your country and the human race? I guess if you assume that everyone is 100% self-interested and everyone always acts out of complete selfishness, that makes sense. That's a pretty dim view of humanity though, I certainly don't share it. I agree on careerist politicians though - leaders should have more life experience than just sitting in campaign offices their whole lives waiting to knife someone for a shot at power.

"He was checking last week and found a lump, which prompted him to seek medical attention. " 'Checking' his [censored]... from http://www.foxsports.com.au/afl/melbourne-forward-jesse-hogan-diagnosed-with-testicular-cancer/news-story/355c4b600b5293f0a8140ada716fbbb4?nk=5333f84c2e3f1c7039a9475702153fc9-1494915667 Before anyone jumps down my throat, I feel a small amount of humour is warranted. I also found a lump on my [censored] a few years back, while.. uh... 'checking'... Mine was benign fortunately. Scared the [censored] out of me though. Best of luck Jesse. Edit: additional lol at the censorship

Trump just fired Comey (head of the FBI). Apparently for his mishandling of the Clinton email issue - which was pretty stupid with the announcement of the reopening of the case a few days before the election, and subsequent 'nothing to see here'. One wonders how this will effect the ongoing Trump campaign/Russia investigation.

Agreed. Pretty sure Cale Mortan had some good early stats too.

I don't think Hawthorn's drop in form can be 100% attributed to acquiring Vickery, but I really hope it is for the sheer comedy value. Vickery as some sort of team-killing plague bearer is hilarious, particularly if he's offloaded to several other teams before he retires. Then he can go into coaching and infect some more clubs. It also makes Richmond ground zero. Bahahahahaahahahaha

ah, going for hyper-realism then? I like it.