News thread

George R.R. Martin styled Westeros in Game of Thrones on the British Isles. He named the northern regions of his map "The Lands of Always Winter". The bugger hit the nail on the head there. Almost April, and still bloody snowing here.

And in the midlands. Even a bit in London, for crying out loud.

So it seems North Korea are moving missiles to the east coast. It seems like they're trying to goad America into preemptively striking, but if I were living in South Korea or Japan right now, I'd be pretty concerned.

No one in South Korea or Japan is concerned though... just hope they choose to target sony and not ninty

Eh, we'll all be fine- there's no cities around there and some Advance Wars reference I can't be bothered finishing.

It is all very exciting though, makes me wish I had missiles so I could take part

Honestly, this is like a mouse with attitude poking the cat on the nose.

I hope for all our sakes that mouse doesn't turn out to be stuart little... He's a menace to society...

The only concern I have with all this North Korea business is China. North Korea themselves are a absolute joke but I wouldn't fancy seeing China being forced in to a conflict.

Well, Thatcher lot.

Apparently us down here want the Chinese to come here and spend money and bugger off again..
So much so the Govt has decided to do a G'Day China event next year to promote tourism like we do in the US once a year. I think Australia is starting to be one of those countries that are just going to go around everywhere and go "Come to my place and like me!!" and if you don't I'm sure someone will get upset

Balladeer: Just found out about that. I wasn't born during her time as PM, so I can't fully understand the gravity of this. I've seen a lot of vitriol on Facebook directed towards her, which I can both understand yet I can't endorse at the same time. An old woman has died, after all, regardless of how much of a witch she may have been. This is going to be a polarising one.

I have a lot of friends who are heavily left wing, so they're the vitriolic ones. Me, I just like to pun. But I don't post about dancing on her grave like some.

Gogeta (yes I still think of you as having that username): The stereotype of the Australian government, at least as far as I'm aware, is "FOREIGNERS OUT!!!" Maybe they're trying to stop that?

Being a Scottish-born politics graduate who passed his degree partly on the back of writing and speaking at length about Thatcher's anti-trade union policies, her role in destroying many national industries, her role in robbing the working class of many of their rights and The Poll Tax, I can't say that I'm massively upset to hear about her death.

I'll not be actively celebrating it either.

Balladeer wrote:

I have a lot of friends who are heavily left wing, so they're the vitriolic ones. Me, I just like to pun. But I don't post about dancing on her grave like some.

Gogeta (yes I still think of you as having that username): The stereotype of the Australian government, at least as far as I'm aware, is "FOREIGNERS OUT!!!" Maybe they're trying to stop that?

That's only to those who come by boat, we don't like Boat people anymore

Facebook's unusable today - it's like a battleground with people arguing about Thatcher, and it's apparent most of them have very little knowledge about the subject.

She's a stiff! Bereft of life, she rests in peace! Pushing up the daisies! Her metabolic processes are now history! She's off the twig! She's kicked the bucket, She's shuffled off her mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the bleedin' choir invisible!

THIS IS AN EX-EX-PRIME MINISTER!

All I know about thatcher being a blissful ignorant person is that the after effects of what she did is the reason my mother decided to come back to Australia to raise me after I'd been born.

But as far as things I only wish I was blissfully ignorant about, the Liberal party here and their new silly broadband scheme. After all, why pay 37 million dollars to connect the entireity of Australia to a Fibre Optic when you can pay 20 million now to install a bunch of nodes on a Fiber Optic Network and connect people with good old fashioned Copper wires and then pay to maintain said nodes. They go on about the Government wanting to get a Surplus no matter what, then they come out with this, just boils my blood.

Yeah I saw something about Abbotts own net scheme which some internet guy said would be crap

JayMoyles wrote:

Facebook's unusable today - it's like a battleground with people arguing about Thatcher, and it's apparent most of them have very little knowledge about the subject.

Either the Telegraph or the Independent had to close comments on all their stories on the matter because it was just abuse.

Telegraph. The Independent would relish that sort of response.

By the way, Doug, can I say how much more restrained your post was than I expected? I expected at least one Mr. Green or Bouncey.

shanks wrote:

Yeah I saw something about Abbotts own net scheme which some internet guy said would be crap

To be fair Lateline covered it last night and going by what they say it'll be four times slower than the Governments plan, it'll only save 17 bilion on the initial costs, and worst of all there's no guarantee of one price for all. So us in Rural Australia can expect a return of utterly vile speeds for high prices in comparison to those in the City


I'm not opposed to them trying to get back to Surplus, in its own way that is a noble goal. What I am opposed to is them wasting a vast amount of money on a inferior scheme simply to save a few dollars in the short term they'll spend in the long term running a subpar new system and then fixing it because by the time it is built it'll be time to upgrade again. It either needs to be done properly or not done to begin with imo.

In all honesty I don't care about the federal politics that much, all I know is like here in Tas I hate Labor. Especially the Govt here in Tas with all the crap that's gone on in the last couple of years

Balladeer wrote:

By the way, Doug, can I say how much more restrained your post was than I expected? I expected at least one Mr. Green or Bouncey.

Ah well you know, I'm a good sportsman, although maybe she's getting the last laugh since we'll be paying for her funeral after she privatised everything! Outsource it to a private company I say! I want to see adverts on the coffin!

shanks wrote:

In all honesty I don't care about the federal politics that much, all I know is like here in Tas I hate Labor. Especially the Govt here in Tas with all the crap that's gone on in the last couple of years

I'm not that experienced with State politics, but from what I hear they tend to be pretty hateable, certainly the SA one doesn't seem to be that good. Honestly though politics both at a state and federal level just seems like a one way street to ending up really angry, more often than not it seems like both sides absolutely suck