Bluey's Dad

I think our society would be a better one without you in it. You are a disgusting human being Biffen.

Yep. Tory Dixon and Jimmy Magner as well, all in the same class/school as Stef Martin in Berwick. Can't remember if Alex Silvagni went to school with them as well at Berwick or just the senior years in Keysborough, but he graduated with them in the same year. I live in Berwick and have posted before that the Casey alignment seems to be working. Melbourne had the second highest representation of supporters in my son's kinder when they did a little display in the window. Collingwood with 6 kids, MFC with 5. One kid for Melbourne Victory. I lol'd. Despite the conditions and lack of good places to watch at the ground itself, I think the Casey alignment overall has been a win.

Thanks for that, too much to read on my lunch break but I'll get to it

Agreed. There should have been at least 2 fewer teams, and built from there. The AFL also botched the venues pretty badly, as well as not televising each game on FTA. Channel 7 has what, 4 digital stations? Can't tell me there's no space. TV coverage from proper grounds is also far superior. Watching the Casey game on TV was difficult when the ball was on the far side of the ground. The whole undertaking deserved more thought. As a side note, my 3 year old daughter came into the room whilst I was watching. She asked where the 'footy boys' were. I told her this was girls footy. She was very excited and tried to watch. Managed 5 minutes before going off to play with her play-doh, but he reaction was really nice to see :). My son showed the same interest with the girls' game as he does the boys' - nil. Pretty sure the Max Gawn height chart he was sent last year scared him off.

Ah. So the fact that this guy chose the Daily Mail to reveal his exclusive story should bring doubts to its authenticity?

I'm not sure I follow. There is too much debt and therefore the government must be run like a business? Is that it? I understand cutting waste and inefficiencies to reduce debt - that makes perfect sense to me. But if you go too far with the business angle you end up losing sight of the people who live in the society being governed. You can fire employees from a business, you can't fire citizens from a society.

This is extremely disturbing. In an exclusive interview, Dr Bates accused the lead author of the paper, Thomas Karl, who was until last year director of the NOAA section that produces climate data – the National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) – of ‘insisting on decisions and scientific choices that maximised warming and minimised documentation… in an effort to discredit the notion of a global warming pause, rushed so that he could time publication to influence national and international deliberations on climate policy’ This is not how science is supposed to work. As someone who's defended action on climate change in the past, thanks for posting. This is the only article I can find on Dr Bates and this issue (others are simply repeating this one and linking back). I've never heard of the Daily Mail though, and it seems to be an exclusive story. Are they reliable?

For those decrying the scorelines - remember they play x 15 minute quarters for a total of 1 hour of game time. Men's game is currently what, about 25 x 4, so an hour and 40 minutes, sometimes almost 2 full hours. If you take the women's scores as men's half time scores (based on the time comparison above), then the score line isn't nearly as bleak as it sounds. It's still not great, but it's nowhere near as bad as some are making out. My opinions on the Melbourne Game: - Casey was an idiotic decision - Although Daisy is clearly a champ, her turnovers cost us dearly - Paxman is good - O'Dea had good stats but I didn't really notice much actual impact by her until the last quarter - We were overall a better team, but made some massive very costly mistakes that lost us the game. Our midfield especially seemed to work better than theirs, but our forwards were terrible. Several great plays and clearances by the midfield group were squandered (although a lot of the time the forward entry was poor as well). - Pretty much everyone struggled in the wet, but even so, the skills need work (worth noting they are not yet professionals like the men, they have day jobs) - Commentary was off-putting. Overuse of the word 'elite'. Constant stories instead of commentating the action. In a game like this where the public would only know a few players, it was vital that they describe the play and who's impacting on what. IDGAF who grew up on a dairy farm. Leave the puffery for the breaks. - The players went hard and I enjoyed that aspect of the game, the tackling was excellent - Our coach apparently was the Oakleigh Chargers coach? Really? That's the best we could do? I don't like our chances to take out the flag, especially with our forward line, but by the looks of it we should be able to build something for next year.

I don't get why people think governments should be run like businesses. Governments should be run like governments. Businesses are just there to make money, that's their aim. A government, or a good one, is there to administer for a public good. A business can fire shitty employees, and evaluate them on the benefit they bring to the bottom line. A government can't just cast aside a shitty person, it has to govern for everyone. A business can operate without compassion. A government without compassion has failed its people.

Anyone know how to watch this game? Didn't notice that we were the only game to not be on FTA. Wife even got me a new set of wireless headphones so I could watch on the big tv and not be disturbed by the kids. Gutted.

Good book, but it indicts all religion equally, so not great for picking on Islam itself. For that you'll probably want anything written by Ayaan Hirsi Ali. IMO Dawkins is too combative these days to be constructive. Dan Dennett's probably the most constructive athiest author around atm, possibly because no one can be too hard on a guy who looks that much like Santa Claus. Hitchens is my favourite, because I've never seen anyone match his wit. Very sad when he passed.

This I agree with. But don't say he's in the KKK or that he's deliberately starting wars. The hyperbole is just used by right-wingers as an example of lefties out of touch with reality.

It's overreach like that that gives Trump critics a bad name. In any case, I'd suggest its Steve Bannon who's really the one who wants a war. To me is seems Trump just wants to be non-interventionist and more protectionist. Bannon has used more inflammatory language.

That's just what your leftist overlords want you to think. Behind each of those was a fundamentalist Islamic puppet master. You're very lucky Biffen is here to educate you in such matters. I suggest more thorough research before posting again, you hippie scum.

Meh, I thought it was relevant. Much to disagree on in this thread lol.

Just a couple of things I wanted to comment on: 1 - Thanks for answering my (rambling) question. Good to know where you stand. I think your suggestion is a massive over-reaction, but we disagree and I don't there's a lot of progress to be made talking about it. 2 - On the issue of safety. The least safe I have ever felt in this country has been on Australia Day when big white guys with no shirts get pissed and wear Australia Day flags as capes. I got very nervous a few years ago when there were a couple of them in a park across the road from my house, it was scary. Yet to experience this feeling when the Muslim neighbours are having a BBQ at the same place.

Yeah, this is a great boost for our chances, again not to wish anything bad on Tayla. Frederick-Traub is terrible. She doesn't lead well, drops marks, has a short range on her kick and isn't accurate. I remember watching her hoping we wouldn't go near he in the draft. Hope on the other hand will rip any back(wo)man apart. Gutted she went to Collingwood.

I hear this a lot, what exactly does it mean? Like, how many and which immigrants are acceptable for you to be comfortable this Australia is 'your country'? Apparently the Muslim population is only 2.2%. I am curious as to what percentage of the population you would be happy with? 1%? 0%? Then after you settle on a number, what sort of numbers would you like for other ethnicities? How do you separate race and religion? If you advocate for deportation (and I don't know if you do or not), do you deport Australian born Muslim converts as well? Conversely, do you deport a Christian or an Atheist who originally came from Iran? I am genuinely curious as to how many immigrants we need to kick out to 'get our country back'.

Yeah, it was a Christian school, which I was fine with (as I attended one myself and quite enjoyed the debates in the religious studies class). They said specifically in the interview that they don't push the religion onto the kids, although they offer those services. We learned later from speaking with other parents that the religious parents are told in their interviews "oh yes we very strictly adhere to the bible and integrate Jesus with the curriculum daily", and the non-religious parents such as myself are told "no we don't push anything, our teachers are religious but the content isn't". Felt pretty pushy to me, so out we went.

Actually my OP specifically stated I wasn't talking about the Carols issue, but rather the issue of elected officials governing for the entire country. The whole thread's been derailed almost from the start, no point in trying to get back there lol. FWIW I'm also not religious either and don't really care if my kids sing carols or not. I did however draw the line when my son once brought home a calendar that had a gruesome poem about Jesus and blood. The school also sent a letter home to parents requesting we petition our local MPs about some changes in legilsation regarding same-sex adoption. Took him out of that school pretty quickly after that and enrolled him in a local state school. Edit: post was unclear. My son was 4 at the time, and the poem was easily the most gore-filled piece of literature of any kind he had been exposed to. The teachers made the kids decorate it red as well, to enhance the symbolism I guess.

Remember you never have the entire best 22 on the park at the same time, so just because you're #23 you wouldn't ask for a trade. If your team is travelling well and you're just on the periphery, you should be pushing to crack in. I guess the aim is to make that periphery as wide as possible, so lots of players believe they have what it takes to get into the side when the opportunity presents itself.

It's relevant because it's another instance of racism not being a conscious process, with the person in question completely unaware of how the comments were racist. You are seemingly unaware of the implication of your own comment, just as the woman in the story. I thought telling it would help illustrate this to both you and BBO, who seemed to think Stuie was being hard on you.

Yeah, you have. The fact that you don't realise it is why I told the story about the mall.

BBO, not sure if you missed Biff's post above, so I've quoted it for you. I honestly think the term 'racist' fits his statement very, very well. Many of the other things he's said regarding history can be debated and discussed. This one though IMHO crossed the line. You accused Stuie of putting words in Biffen's mouth, but the quote above is consistent with what Stuie was paraphrasing. I'm not a huge fan of personal abuse either, but I don't think calling something that is demonstrably racist, racist, qualifies. Now if Stuie had said something like "put your aussie flag cape away and STFU you racist [expletive]", then yeah, that's abusive. But that's not what's going on here. This is not a case of 'political correctness gone mad' or awkward phrasing. Biffen was quite clear about what he believes, as indicated above. Having a go at Stuie for responding to it misses the point entirely. He hasn't applied a 'cheap label'. He's called out racism, and I think he's right in doing so. Note that he has not called for Biffen to be censured or banned. He has not berated him. He's challenged what he (and for that matter, I) believe to be racist statement made by a fellow poster. I don't see any issue with what Stuie has done, and as someone who married and has 2 children with an immigrant from a formally 'colonised' country, applaud him saying something about it. When my kids are old enough, I hope they never had to read or hear that their mother "would be flogging spice with an abacus" if not for white colonialism. It's patently untrue, and yes, racist. It makes my blood boil when she is stopped in a shopping centre with our children and told "Your kids are gorgeous! Your husband must be white" (that is an exact quote from a few months back btw). The subtle racism of it doesn't occur to those who hold those views. But it hurts. And when it happens on a semi-regular basis, it hurts all the more. So that's where I'm coming from, and that's why I not only don't find anything wrong with what Stuie said, I hope he does it again if he hears it IRL. Edit: tagging @stuie because it relates to him

I'm a sleeper agent, awaiting round 13. As soon as the trigger word is uttered, I will remove my super secret footy glove and slap the entire bulldogs team with the force of a thousand miskicks.