Bluey's Dad

lol, a bit rich of Tex to say that after his GF effort. Didn't scream "success" to me.

wow ok, even better

Didn't we get Hibberd for pick 25ish? Pick 10 for Lever seems fair to me. Increase in price over Hibberd commensurate with his younger age. Plus, as with many trades in AFL land, it's simply the currency we have. Lots of trades will end up being a little 'overs' or 'unders' just because one party doesn't have exactly the right pick/player/combination of the two. Trades still get done because the clubs know that nothing will ever happen if every single club holds out for the exact right price in every single trade.

On Carey - the point of difference for me is that he took responsibility afterwards (although I think it was a long time after) and was contrite. It doesn't make what he did ok or acceptable at all, it was still an appalling act. It simply makes him easier to accept as a member of the media when he also knows and publicly states that what he did was wrong. Hird has yet to take any sort of responsibility for his actions. As you say, he remains unashamedly unrepentant.

http://bananabunker.com/ Apparently it comes in different colours too. For the more adventurous banana storage connoisseur.

I saw this on the internets the other day and thought of this thread. It's old now, but may tickle someone's pickle given the subject matter: http://imgur.com/gallery/EW2SK

I'll take a stab in the interests of trying not to align with the dichotomy you mention. No contraceptive/ family planning- no govt benefits. Not sure how this would work? I get what it's trying to achieve, but really unsure of how any scheme like this would be implemented. I understand there are a lot of people who we look at and think that they shouldn't have kids. I share that view. However, a scheme like this to me is a human rights issue. Everyone currently has the right to reproduce. Do we really want to take that away from some people and grant it to others? Feels like a slippery slope to eugenics. Besides that, I'm not a fan of the government removing rights from its citizens. A freeze on permanent migration. Nope. Without migration we miss out on too many opportunities. Happy to reduce overall intake though to slow the overall rate of growth, but cutting it out entirely risks stagnating society IMO. Also would not support a ban on some countries and allowing migration from others. Overall scaled reduction ok. Compulsory national service for overseas born immigrants.(2 years).Aged under 40. Sure. Happy for this to be extended to society at large as well, depending on the definition of national service. TBH I think it's a joke that someone at the age of 18 has to chose their career path. Give them 2 years doing something that benefits society - drought/flood relief, aged care, whatever. Would also give new migrants an easier way to integrate into society. Having said that, it'd have to be paid, otherwise a new migrant family wouldn't be able to support itself. Also if my wife, who was born overseas and is under aged 40, was required to quit her job tomorrow and work for the national service, our entire family budget goes out the window. We can't pay the bills on my wage alone, and the current flexible working hours allow her to be a mother to two kids under 5. So not sure how this would operate as well. However, if the compensation and benefits for individuals in this position matches their current pay and working conditions, I see no reason why she shouldn't do it for 2 years. Her current job would have to be held for her though. Then what about migrant high income earners? Would we pay them $300,000 a year to leave their jobs and go do national service? Seems a waste to pay them that rate when in the private sector they were paying large amounts of tax. And don't say that's outlandish or unrealistic, my mother is/was in this position when she was under 40 (born overseas, high income earner). Much more valuable for her to be paying tax. Then there'd be an outflow of labour from the market. In one wack a bunch of people would be doing national service, and not their jobs. My wife works in a biotech lab, there are many many people in this bucket. The place simply would not operate if you took out all the migrants. Lots of nurses are born overseas too, this would put a strain on hospitals. Maybe some professions, like nursing, could actually count towards the national service requirement? I dunno. Can of worms here, I agree on the theory but the implementation may be problematic. Maybe only apply the rule to new migrants and not make it retroactive? Possible exemptions for highly skilled migrants who can go to work in fields we have shortages of? Not sure. Zero marriage visas. Nope. Happy for people here to fall in love overseas (or with a visitor) and bring their partners over. Extend marriage Visas to same sex couples as well. Zero permanent reunification visas. Don't know what these are sorry. Voluntary Euthenasia,offered to life prisoners. Ok with this. Also extend the option to society at large, it's ridiculous the pain some people have to live in. Reintoduce death penalty for treason,espionage,massive tax fraud,murder,terrorism. Not a fan of state sanctioned killing in any form. The voluntary euthanasia above is as close to that line as I'm comfortable with. Support harsher sentences for these though, whilst reducing sentences for stupid stuff like weed use - ends up clogging up prisons with minor offenders. 3 child limit for all. Average family size is like 2.1 kids now anyway. I see no need to place limits on family sizes.

to avoid paywall: go to google paste : australia-will-pay-for-renewable-energy-targets click first non-sponsored link read article ????? profit

Please provide links if you do

Yeah but only Cyril has 'special' goals

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).

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

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.

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 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

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.

Didn't want to start a whole new thread on this, but saw this article today and wanted to at least see if anyone else had the same reaction: http://www.theage.com.au/world/white-house-plans-accidentally-revealed-in-steve-bannon-photo-20170504-gvygcn.html Steve Bannon poses for a photo in front of his whiteboard. Whiteboard has to-do list of stuff he wants to do. How the hell is this news? White house strategist has strategies, news at 11. WTF Fairfax? Now I'm clearly not a Bannon fan, in fact I think he's pretty destructive, but is this seriously the kind of stuff we need to be reading about?

I reckon gambling revenue might have something to do with it as well. There are conflicts from everywhere.

I completely agree. It's the 'adding and removing' things from the 'report' (whichever that may be) that interests me in that article. We'll never know the full story and the full extent of who was complicit (and conflicted) in what action. The whole thing is dirty. Still no club-wide punishment for the doping. Only governance failures. WTF.

Yep, maybe. Either way, the fact that stuff has been removed and inserted into a report is troubling.

Bomber Thompson complaining that it ruined his life: http://www.theage.com.au/afl/afl-news/mark-thompson-says-the-essendon-supplement-scandal-will-probably-end-up-killing-him-20170420-gvogq5.html This is the bit that interests me: "I know what happened. I know that there was things that were added to the report, things were taken out of the report not to be seen." According to him, we are still blind to some of the events. The conflicted nature of the bodies involved compromised the contents of 'the report' (I assume this is the initial ASADA report?). He later implies the whole thing is the AFL's fault for not enforcing WADA's rules when Dank was at Gold Coast. His theory is that if they had, then Essendon wouldn't have hired him and none of this would have happened. I don't buy it. Essendon knew who they were in bed with IMHO. They are not the victims.

lol

Conventional weapons are designed to kill. Chemical weapons are designed to inflict suffering and to kill. Conventional weapons can be targeted at an air base or military installation. Chemical weapons are indiscriminate. Those are the two main differences I can think of. I take your point though, both are designed to kill and we are seemingly ok with one and not with the other. I suspect part of it is the historical burden 'gas' carries after WWII. I guess I see chemical weapons are more a 'weapon of terror' than conventional artillery, and thus their use is worthy of reprisals.

I feel a bit of sympathy for the Trumpster on this one. After campaigning so doggedly on non-interventionism, especially in Syria, he's forced into a situation where he has to respond to a heinous chemical weapons attack. Chemical weapons attacks cannot be left to stand, he had to respond, and he did. Not being privy to military briefings, I have no idea what the other options were, but surely a severe response was warranted here. Ironically as someone who dislikes Trump immensely, I find myself supporting him more on this than his voter base who loved him for saying he'd stay out. This is surely one political backflip that is justified. I can only assume that Russia didn't think he would, and that he'd stick to his campaign promises of staying out of Syria. They didn't want the 'warmonger' Clinton, they want to be able to support Assad without interference, and Trump gave them their best shot at that. Fortunately it looks like he won't play their tune, and realises that a simple non-interventionist policy can't work. I just hope all this crap doesn't start another massive war. It's close to a proxy war now, I don't think it would take much for it to become direct, and that'd be a disaster for everyone. I have no idea how you make a dictator back down by political pressure alone (ie without military intervention). But here's hoping someone has an idea.