@Aussies

[badfo]

Draft my boy
http://www.afl.com.au/news/2014-05-20/m ... -his-paces

[pano]

http://www.theage.com.au/afl/afl-news/c ... zrkbp.html

Okies mang. Qual and my clubs not listed. Nor snug. Thaed is a worthless POS.

big cox rofl

[pano]

Does anyone want to talk about Paul Roos? I'm thinking about starting a religion.

[badfo]

Is Paul Roos who Mason Cox is going to be?

[pano]

No Paul Roos is the messiah

[badfo]

So the son of Mason Cox?

[pano]

Who is Mason Cox?

[badfo]

Wow. Wow.

[pano]

[badfo]

[pano]

Do you know him fuh reals? He probs earned more playing college bball than he would playing AFL

[badfo]

No. I've met his brother once or twice years ago though I didn't even remember until somebody told me recently.

He wasn't even on scholarship at OSU so he got barely anything. He was a bit of a fan favorite, mostly because of the unwritten rule that every team must have a tall walk on player that is a fan favorite and keeps the team GPA up.

I bet he'd get paid more with his mechanical engineering degree.

[pano]

Mayb. If he can pick a ball from the ground up at full pace that puts him pretty much ahead of 90% of every team's second ruck option. Rucks are traditionally an uncoordinated bunch, so his b-ball skills will serve him well.

Basically depends on how he takes to the physicality of the game. Hope he does well. Collingwood would be his best option for development, imo. They got the cassssh.

There's already a ruckman called Dean Cox too, so that might work in his favour. (what?)

[pano]

While I have the floor in a rare Australian thread, how are we feeling about Tone Abot, guys?

[Thaed]

While I have the floor in a rare Australian thread, how are we feeling about Tone Abot, guys?

I thought abbott making a thread, but it would have essentially been a page of my unbroken rage. There is so much bad that I don't think I could cover it all in a single sitting. My last hope is that Labor/Greens/PUP block supply, or there's some other double dissolution trigger, and Tone is crazy/stupid enough to use it. Or maybe this thing with his daughter's scholarship blows up into a full blown corruption investigation and he's ousted that way. Wishful thinking on both fronts, but I don't know how I'll be able to stand 3 more years of his/Coalition shit.

Abbortt aside, what do you think of Clive Palmer? I'm so desperate for some glimmer of hope that I'm almost willingly to blindly believe what he says re: his policies.

[pano]

My head was spinning after his 7:30 Report response to the budget. I was gobsmacked when he got elected, but then he goes and takes apart the budget from a everyman's perspective. Pretty hilarious.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cd6WXBzXyB4

How does this make sense? Clive of the people

[Thaed]

My head was spinning after his 7:30 Report response to the budget. I was gobsmacked when he got elected, but then he goes and takes apart the budget from a everyman's perspective. Pretty hilarious.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cd6WXBzXyB4

How does this make sense? Clive of the people

Popular theories I've seen: 1) He acted dumb and crazy in order to appeal to dumb crazy people and is actually rather intelligent.

2) He's just riding popular opinion.

2 a) He's just riding popular opinion in his media statements, but will vote with the Coalition when it comes down to it.

3) He earned his wealth rather than inherited it, which is why he can relate to the majority of Australians.

I'm not really sure what to believe. Could go in any direction, really. That said, I kind of like that he's spending his vast fortune on 'frivolous' projects like re-creating the Titanic/mechanical Jurassic Park (if he's still doing those things). I have no idea if they're financially responsible investments, but it's great to see money being used to realize dreams, rather than to consolidate more money than could possibly be necessary.

[Ethite]

O'deer. Admittedly haven't been keeping an eye on politics (Clive is no doubt ridic unless something has changed), but I haven't encountered significant Abbott-hate in my corner of the world (in the general Thaed area). I'd be interested to hear salo's thoughts or sitting 2 of Thaed's thread-filling rage post.

Edit: a cursory search has opened my eyes to some hate.

[pano]

The greater Thaed district!

I'm honestly not following it too much either. My social media won't leave it alone though, but I do live in Melbs so maybe that's to be expected. The budget seems like a classic rich get richer sort of deal, which is amusing given the footage of Joe Hockey as a student arguing against students having to pay uni fees.

http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/ ... nnn-vars-o

dat URL

Australian budget tl;dr:



I'm just linking stuff that validates my dislike for this gub'ment. I'm properly angry about the NBN even though I'm in one of few areas that will get it before it gets butchered, and the carbon tax/fuel price switcheroo is dumb.

[Thaed]

Quick run-down, off the top of my head:

*Lies about the NBN. Completely butchering Labor's model based on ideology and instead implementing worse infrastructure because it's 'cheaper' (though it will only be cheaper in the short term and Turnbull apparently assumes that Telstra will give up their copper network for free, so those costs haven't been factored in yet).

*De-regulation of university fees. I probably won't be much effected by this (I plan on doing a PhD, I'm not sure how the uni changes would apply to that). Me aside, those unlucky enough to have not started a degree by 2016 will have dramatically increased debt to do the same courses. What is especially aggravating is that a) the politicians implementing these changes got their university education almost entirely for free and b) Abbott's daughter got a $60, 000 scholarship for being Abbott's daughter (at least, that's what the evidence is pointing to). Pyne is flat out lying when he says some Universities will become cheaper; from my understanding of what I've read from more educated people, any uni's that don't raise their fees to that of their competition will be seen as 'lesser' establishments, therefore the pressure will be on them to raise their fees even if they don't want to.

*Climate change denial/in the pockets of mining corporations. Last I read, we subsidize some $13b (not sure if that's per year, over 4 yrs, etc) for the mining companies. Thirteen billion fucking dollars to corporations that are already filthy rich, even as the mining boom ends. Meanwhile, they're shutting down things like the Green Energy Bank (don't quote me on that title, but it was an organisation that lent money specifically for renewable energy products), which was actually set to return a profit. They don't give a flying fuck about the future, or they'd invest in it, rather than spend billions propping up an industry that literally cannot survive due to finite resources.

*Massive cuts to the ICAC (Australia's science guys). Because fuck science, I guess?

*Terrible treatment of asylum seekers, though that was a symptom of the Labor government as well.

*$7 GP co-payment, because fuck the poor. $2 of that goes to the doctors (because they don't earn enough money, I guess?) and $5 to a medical research fund which, to the best of my understanding, cannot actually be accessed until it hits $20b in some 20 years.

*Changes to welfare allowances for under 30's. You need to 'earn or learn' (sub-point: SO MANY FUCKING THREE WORD SLOGANS); if you don't have a job and you're not at TAFE or uni, you get no dole money for 6 months, at which point you have to 'work for the dole' cleaning graffiti and shit. Work for the dole makes some sense if you think only in terms of dole bludgers, but anyone who loses their job or can't find work after finishing TAFE or uni is completely fucked unless they have family/friends to fall back on, in which case the burden is shifted onto family/friends. Further more, I've read that job seeking services will only be available to an individual once every 6 months: Job fell through? Too fucking bad, work for the Government at minimum wage (not even sure if it's as high as that) you fucking pleb.

*Temporary tax on earners >$180k. Beyond breaking the promise of no new taxes, this comes off merely as a diversion from all the other budgetary shenanigans. In three years this 'levy' on the rich ends, while the new taxes which fuck over the poor considerably more will be permanent. Australia's rich can claim that they did some of the heavy lifting and say that everyone has to to their part, knowing that in three years time it won't even be an issue for them.

*$80b from hospital/education funding for the states. Because apparently the Liberal party thinks that the state leaders are adults who will be able to raise the money from elsewhere. Probably through magic. Or, more likely, begging the federal government for an increase in the GST.

*Spending $40b on new roads. Roads to where? I don't fucking know, but new roads, guys!

*'Labor's Budget Emergency'. WHAT FUCKING EMERGENCY WE'RE ONE OF THE BEST OFF FUCKING NATIONS WE HAVE A TRIPLE A CREDIT RATING WAYNE SWAN WAS HAILED AS ONE OF THE BEST TREASURERS IN THE WORLD WE HAVE ONE OF THE LOWEST DEBTS IN THE WORLD THE NATIONAL BUDGET IS NOT A HOUSEHOLD CREDIT CARD FUUUUUUCK. Also, just consistently blaming Labor for everything. That's not to say that Labor didn't do some shit wrong, but the Liberals refuse to take responsibility for anything.

*Consistently breaking election promises. Like, all of them. eg, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VN-hbWVXsyE . Barring changes to the GST (which they're trying to force the States to ask for a change to), he broke every single one of those promises. What's the point of a democracy if governments aren't held accountable for blatant lies?

Essentially, they're just shitcunts. Most of my info I get from links to r/Australia, which is definitely left biased (or, at least, anti-Liberal for the most part). I'm not sure how it's possible to think logically and not be biased against this government, though.

[Ethite]

@salo: Hadn't seen the joe hockey thing. Classic. I suppose the budget was always going to be pretty lean, but it's a bit frustrating to see short sighted financial gains made in the wrong places in the name of fixing our budget "problems". I did a bit of sifting around, looks like I'll be one of the ones copping the short end of the NBN changes it seems.

@Thaed: hadn't heard of most of those, I'd be interested to know how much of this survived through to implementation (has been a fantastic opportunity for Clive to exercise his powers of demagoguery) the end result may be more positive. Yeah, the miners are an entitled bunch of so-and-so's.

On the upside, medical research gets some cash? Im gonna read more into this when I get back from the US, but I think even if the one-sided articles I've read are on the money and it isn't a great govt (see: uninformedRat) surely the ALP at next election will be a more effective party than the one that ran 9 months ago.

[badfo]

Somebody signed my boy.

[pano]

As much as I hate the Pies, he'll get the best development there.

[badfo]

Not sure it's worth giving up my passionate Geelong fandom for.