Leaderboard

Some silly sarcastic political pictures...

This sad event is proof of the new faschist usa. Those ICE 'agents' are heavily armed, are masked (unidentifiable), uncontrolled, and know that they are above the law. Sounds like the infamous brownshirts. Each step that usa takes destabilises the world destroys trust in their country.

Meanwhile, an ICE agent shot and killed an unarmed woman in a car who was just trying to get away from the situation (she wasn't an immigrant as far as I know). The FBI, whose head Kash Patel is another unqualified Trump appointee, have taken over the investigation and not allowed local law enforcement anywhere near it. Meanwhile the administration are saying shit like "she was a domestic terrorist trying to kill the ICE agent with her car" despite plenty of mobile phone coverage clearly showing differently. ICE are the new Brown shirts. And the shit in the oval Office is Hitler.

Oops. Ahh.. OK.. this is not the militarisation of the police like the US.. The police here do not use brutal tactics as they do in the USA. They are trained to first de-escalate and they don't usually send in fire-armed police as a first option unless the threat assessment is very serious. Whether you think it is right, PA is a proscribed terroirist organisations and there are laws against showing support to proscribed terrorist organisations. And the police have to uphold the law irrespective of their own political beliefs. Frankly, anything coming out og the UN Human Rights agency, council or whatever they call themselves has to be treated initially with some degree of scepticism. Apparently up to 10% UNRWA, a body within the UNHROC were affiliated with islamist militant groups including HAMAS. Yes, they are supposed to have all gone now, but does that remove the bias that allowed them there in the first place? Secondly, look at the members of the UN Human Rights Council: https://www.ohchr.org/en/hr-bodies/hrc/membership I would suggest that those who have an honest repect the basic freedoms and rights of people ar probably in the minority. It is strange that they have sent delegations to Australia report on violence against women, yet have not sent delegations to Saudi, Pakistan and the like - other member nations. You can guess, I don't hold them in high esteem. The article purposts that PA has been a proscribed terrorist organisation becausde they damaged a few planes. Unfortunately, their website notifies they are proscribed, requests a donation in some obscure crytocurrency, so I cannot go to the source for their actual policies, agenda, etc. On the internet, it mainly talsk about them targetting Israeli firms in protest and limits it to property. However, the UK government has documented the following in https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2025/803/pdfs/uksiem_20250803_en_001.pdf "Palestine Action 5.2 Palestine Action is a pro-Palestinian group with the stated aim to support Palestinian sovereignty by using direct criminal action tactics to halt the sale and export of military equipment to Israel. Since its inception in 2020, Palestine Action has orchestrated a nationwide campaign of direct criminal action against businesses and institutions, including key national infrastructure and defence firms that provide services and supplies to support Ukraine, the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), “Five Eyes” allies and the UK defence enterprise. Palestine Action has also broadened its targets from the defence industry to include financial firms, charities, universities and government buildings. Its activity has increased in frequency and severity since the start of 2024 and its methods have become more aggressive, with its members demonstrating a willingness to use violence. Its activities meet the threshold of being concerned in terrorism as set out in the Terrorism Act 2000. There are varying defnitions of terrorism, but this is what Google spat out: Terrorism is the calculated use or threat of serious violence against people or property, intended to intimidate the public or coerce a government for political, religious, or ideological goals, often by creating widespread fear . Key elements include violent acts (murder, damage, endangering life) and specific intent (influencing government/public, advancing a cause). Definitions vary, but generally focus on these core components. So, it would seem the general definition is not limited to violence, despite being played down by the artiucle you present. Now, the UK may be unfairly acting against Palestinians and Muslims/Islam in general, but I don't think so on the evidence and definitions. After all, the UK, to its moneatry costs in exports of education, are not sanctioning the Muslim Bortherhood, where others do: https://www.ft.com/content/f256cc27-b80f-4fce-88cf-e80cb2451ef5 Also, as a display of how police tactics try (possibly too much) to de-escalate, here is a video documenting a policewoman receiving potentially life changing injuries at the hands of a PA protestor: Unf, I couldn't find the video my son dug up, which was far more graphic. And this was before they were proscribed? Peaceful prtest, eh? Just like Sydney jews were actively encouraged not to walk near the Palestinaian protests in Sydney and Melbourne because they were in danger.. because of the possibility ov violence purely because they were Jewish. But I gues it is OK for some Palestinian supporter to taunt the Jews at Bondi after the attack? Actually, it is a free world so yes, but I recall the Jews getting heated but no violence emanating from it. Wake up and put your prejudices aside for a change. I am happy to say there are times where the UK police go too far, but seriously, peaceful protest! FFS! Israel also have stuff to answer for. But to paint the Palestinian protests in the UK as peaceful is generally a joke.. Yes there have been few - very few of them. Shall we mention intimidation and threats of violence on the campuses etc.. where Jes had to be protected or refused entry to the campus. The lsit goes on. UK police are generally very good.

There is no doubt that Australains who have not been directly impacted by the recent fire and flood situations are sympathetic to those who have. Merely say that the impacted are in our thoughts and prayers doesn't seem enough. What can we do? Many victims only have the clothes they stand up in. Should we send clothing? Nice thought, but impractical. I volunteer at a charity shop where we receive bags and bags of donated clothing. It is a daily battle to sort through these donations to classify them and prepare them for display for sale. Even when that is done, we have difficulty in storing them. If we wanted to dontate them, where would we send them, and how? Clothing is not the only thing that these victims need. Where's the bog rolls; the baby nappies, the female hygeine products, the incontinence pads? Did you ever think that these might be more important to some victims than a selection of clothing? The National Emergency Management Agency https://www.nema.gov.au/ is a Commonwealth agency whose goal is to lead and coordinate national action and assistance across the emergency management continuum. To do this the agency works with State and Federl entities, Charitable organisations and leaders of the Public Sector to get aid to victims of disasters in the immediate aftermath and later in the recovery period. The best way for individuals to give help is by donating money to funds properly set up through charitable organisations and the like where monetary donations can be lodge into accounts managed by the major banks. The warning that must be given about donating is to never donate following a request made via a communication medium. If you want to donate, it is best to walk into a bank yourself.

So many points tocomment upon. I believe that the American influence has not been introduced by police. In my opinion the generations which have come after the Boomers have had their attitudes towards Society molded by what American entertainment media has poured onto them. There is definitely a failure to acknowledge that the exercise of one's Rights as granted by Society has to be balanced by the acceptance of one's Responsibilities towards Society. It is that abandonment of Responsibilities that has lead to Society reducing many previously granted Rights. Should our police regularly carry long arms? Definitely not, for the simple reason that using high powered firearms requires a lot of skill to avoid 'collateral damage'. Gaining those skills takes long and frequent training to do which would markedly reduce the number of police available for the day-to-day duties involved in keeping the Peace. Competency with firearms cannot be obtained through a one day per year revision session on a range under virtually stress-free conditions. I agree that a small police unit of police regularly trained and disciplined in the use of these more powerful firearms is required for those operations aimed at the arrest of person reasonably expected to be prepared to use firearms to avoid arrest. These are planned operations in which each participant has a defined role within the team. Arrest by persons other than Police. I've explained before that anyone can arrest an offender in the act of, or immediately following the commission of an offence. Obviously a security guard would not want to do it because such an action is likely to result in loss of time by the employer if the security guard is required to attend Court as a witness. From my expereince, security guards are mostly just full of piss and wind. The Media. Once again the Media make matters worse by publicising situations when specialist armed police are in action, even if that action is simply patrolling on foot at New Years Eve events. One heavily armed police constable wearing body armour gives a false image when the majority of police are getting atound in cargo pants and shirts. When you see those bulky vests that regular police wear, they are not wearing body armour. The vests were introduced becasue police were carrying too much equipment on their waists and this was causing lower back injury. The introduction of vests was a Work, Health and Safety measure.

Back in my (working) day, I had great data security....

SWMBO can cut off someone's head with just a few well-chosen words!! 😄

Once a Nobel Prize is announced, it cannot be revoked, shared, or transferred to others. The decision is final and stands for all time. So the smart lady distracted donold with HER glittering trinket. The award and honor remains hers.

My astute friends already do!

Yep, and 51 immigrants were killed by one right wing nut job in Christchurch, and 77 people were killed in Norway by another right wing nut job - and these two mass murderers still have plenty of followers. The cure is to find the radicals from each side, before they commit their ideologically-motivated terrorism attacks.

I still think that the ambasador should NOT be a former politician. The ambassador should be a person who has the training, skills and experience in diplomacy that are required by an ambassador, especially considering the present climate in the USA.

Hockey is right - Dutton has no brain

Just take the no from your Name, Pete Nev

Nah. That's not a wisom thing. That's measurement issue. He's been telling his wife 50mm is eight inches, for too long.

Don't forget that the bridge is concrete structure, probably with steel reinforcing, and it is within a short distance from the sea. It could hace 'concrete cancer' which would reduce its load capacity. However, the loads on it only come from pedestrians, so they would be pretty insignificant. These bridges form part of the historic architecture of the beach precinct. They go along with the equally historic Bondi Pavillion.

If a child managed to stay reading this bullshit they are truly exceptional.

He's gone to another position, president of the Asia society or something. I don't think anyone could say he's really been hampered by what he said about the orange turd in the past. Trump's own VP called him an idiot and "America's Hitler" before he manfully discarded all morals, dignity and logic in order to get power.

When I was a child, our family were the poorest in the area. We couldn't afford new clothing, all our clothing came from military surplus stores. I was the only Japanese General in my class!

Mods Please move Jerry's above post to the appropriate thread.... the "WTF! Maybe I'm getting old!" Thread.

I've done a fair Bit of Shark Spotting/Patrolling and Shark Numbers fluctuate a Lot and some types of shark are More worrisome than Others. Bull sharks have emerged as a risk. Grey Nurse used to be Blamed Unfairly for attacks. Many times Sharks do not attack surfers. Shark Nets catch a lot of other things we don't want to Lose. It's THEIR territory. I've always Been wary of them They are NOT Predictable. My diving was Never alone Usually 3 people who could observe what was About. On the surface you have No way of Knowing and splashing attracts them as a Hooked fish does. Bronze Whalers. Hammer Heads,(not so much in FIJI) Great whites, Mako .I used to sell dum dums to Ben Crop. (He made them from what I sold him. Originally they Were shotgun Cartridges at the end of a rod I made a study of Sharks and fish Generally.

I think that Netanyahu's actions have acted as a focal point for attacks against Jews in Australia. We have to remember that we of European descent have lived in an anti-Jewish culture since about 79AD when the Romans got heavy-handed with a rebellious provincial group. After Christianity became the common religion for Western Europe, the story that the Jews murdered Christ was fed to the unsophisticated populous. That created the anti-Jewish culture which became ingrained in Western societies. Now, when government of a Jewish country is going overboard in dealing with dissent within its borders, one method of protesting at that government's actions is to attack people who might practise a certain religion, bnut are not citizen's of the Jewish county. Are anti-Islamist attacks any different? Why aren't young Jewish people attacking mosques in our cities? Probably because they live by the standards of Western European societies and attacking places of worship is just not the done thing in those societies. If Netanyahu's government was not in power, and a moderate Party was, would the government initiated attacks on non-Jewish citizens still go on?

He will never say anything bad about Putin because that would mean admitting that he was wrong about Putin before, and of course Trump is never wrong.

Well , aside from all this stuff separately , l can not believe Trump still can't bring himself to say anything bad about Putin. Not enough he has his US soldiers on their knees rolling out red carpet for him, while Trump himself waits clasping hands smile from ear to ear bursting like a little school girl as Putin approaches - he still , 12mths after all his Ukr bs, insists in every presser, every time, that it's mostly soldiers being killed , innnnn, Putins defense. You watch any clip over 12mths of Trump talking about the lives lost in the Ukr war and he goes out of his way to add that, in every one. Andddd, to this day he's still adding it. Bloody gobsmacked . Still won't acknowledge, even still defending that his man crush doesn't go after civilians. Why are they all so silent with his bs and lies, over and over and over again. lt amazes me. Although he'll shutem down l know , if they mention or argue or ask something he doesn't like and it'll be no more questions from them but still. As for all this latest crap , notice they're all microscopic tiny countries or else countries he knows damn well couldn't even fight them back. He's actually doing, exactly what Putins been doing for decades. Just wrapping it up in different dressing. l reckon this idiot will be chaos start to finish, just like he's first term, he's even worse this time so far.

Do You Really Mean your LAST LINE.? I DID NOT say Jews in ISRAEL either. Australia is Not a Suburb of TEL AVIV. Lives are Lives. BIBI's Behaviour is the Prime cause of a Lot of lost Sympathy for the Jews. Stating this DOES NOT IMPLY that I support attacks on Anyone. There's enough HATE to go around already. Nev

Banks are withdrawing ATM's due to the cost of servicing them. With the reduction of branches and tellers, and people requiring access to cash, this has left it up to privately owned ATMs. They also have to be serviced by companies like Brambles to top up the cash dispensers, which costs money, hence the charges. Private ATM owners also have to pay rent to shopkeepers for the space the ATM occupies.

It has to be BS. The only way a walkout would have happened is if he said "Let's break for lunch".

An interesting perspective.... https://www.upworthy.com/american-in-europe-realization

TO Restrict using of information is OBSTRUCTION of Justice. The Perpetrators have already made their Position VERY clear. The Victim was Unarmed and attempting to drive away when she was Executed. Where is the evidence of Police Injury? Nev

There are more than enough recordings of the incident made by independent witnesses that any body-cam video would be redundant. The problem is that a Federal Authority is ignoring the sovereignty of a State, something that is unconstitutional. But we are talking about the Trump Federal Government.

This is partially the same bike a year later. I bought it back from the insurance company and rebuilt it into this. It has the original tank, side panels, engine and gearbox, but everything else was replaced.

VERY SAD to Hear. I know the Area well. Great stress for Many in such times. Keep safe. Nev

How many Aussies still want to ditch our King? Looking at the failing democracy in usa, I sure don't like going down the path of having a president! It's not working out too well for them!

The sooner he succumbs to a massive heart attack the better,

There's plenty of masked ICE thugs being videoed, beating the crap out of anyone who they select as "the enemy". Talk about 1934 Germany all over again. The ICE operatives are judge, jury and executioner all rolled into one - and J.D. Vance claims they have "absolute immunity" (from prosecution). At least some people are identifying the ICE murderers and calling for them to face punishment.

Nah. It doesn't bear thinking about.

I hate cheap thongs, and only wear Slappas thongs during Summer. Cheap thongs nearly killed me once, I went sprawling over a rock embankment of the Ashburton River bridge, when I lost my footing as I started to climb down the rocks, taking a shortcut back to the caravan park. I was just lucky I landed on my side on a huge flat rock, not a big sharp-edged one, like all the rest were. I would have incurred very major injury, maybe even killed myself, if I'd landed anywhere else. I still did a lot of damage to my outer thigh muscle, I couldn't walk for a week afterwards, and I was in agony for most of that week. Dirt-cheap footwear is a mistake when you get older. Spend the money to get good foot support, it not only assists with balance, but you walk better in them. A lot of Chinese footwear puts you off-balance from the word go, because the soles are rubbishy design and they consist of crappy materials.

About 1% of the World's population have about 50% of the wealth. Nev

I got Chat GPT to compare the same, but also added percentage of men in the workforce. This is what it returned, which had ranges, but was reasonably consistent with the above: So, some things to note: For the EU, the figires seem to tbe the lowest and highest rates for individual countries in the EU Women in the workforce is way off the image above I added percent of men in the workforce, as I think the percentage women in the workforce is meaningless without the corresponding percentage of men in the workforce, and even then, there are various factors that impact it which does not scream discrimination. Australia does better in a lot oft he categories.. Good stuff. As expected, the homocide (note, that is not murder/manslaughter per se) rate is much higher in the US. It's a vitual war zone. You cannot, using these stats, blame them on Chump. We would need to see the change in rates since he came to power, and even then, one has to allow for economic lag, etc. Give it another year, and we will see what the stats say thennn Here is the unemployment rate comparison: Eek.. EU not looking so good. Here is the average income pe week in USD (note, the cost of living differs between each region, but a rough and ready and the US is probably one of the lower excluding the old Eastern bloc countries in the EU). USA doesn't do too badly - of course, how many people earn the average weekly earnings...

Christ's death was a organised by the religious leaders who saw him as a radical undermining their power over the people. The fact that his philosophy was taken up by the masses shows that the general public was in favour of him. I think it does one well to compare the process where Christ was disposed of with similar figures since that time. The usual flow is that those in power get upset by someone calling them out. Then the powerful start spreading untruth and instiling fear in the general populous. Eventually the populous becomes party to the destruction of the person.

Yep very much the same. lf l wanted T in a woman l'd be gay, turns me right off. Mind you , if she one of these types that still embraces her femininity like say Meloni , but there are others, now they on the other hand well, if they played their cards right they could have me ha ha, they have the opposite effect on me. Mind you, Meloni can be a little tyrant to l know.

That is not true. Government and its representatives can be criminally responsible. If it was unconstitutional, it could have been challenged in the courts, and lawyers even then, looking for their next fee and publicity would have approached many to commence an action. The government is elected democratically and makes laws on behalf of those who elect it. Therefore it was democractically done. The constitution (includes the writtten constitution, the body of conventions, and the developed case law to that point) defines the powers and obligations of the government. If it was unconstitutional, it would have been against the law. An action could have been brought against the government. In fact, apparently there were many challenges to the High Court, with the focus of the interpretation of the law rather than whether it was constitutional. No doubt, as part of those challenges, if the legal opinion was that it was unconstitutional, especially given the controversy at the time, it would have been constitutionally challenged. Your perception of a threat is sort of illogical. A valid law will may have consequences of not complying with that law. That is the same, say for not acquiring a licence to drive. You may be the best driver in the world, but if you do not fulfill your obligation to have a current drivers licence at the time of driving you will be fined and/or imprisoned. If you do not have a valid excuse for performing your duties under the law, you will have a consequence (usually). If you consider it a threat, I suppose every possible criminal punishment is a threat. In the context of the above, this is illogical, except that one of the things you will have learned is to seek legal advice on situations where you believe you have been wronged, even by government or its agencies. You wouldn't be punished for slipping up (i.e. a genuine mistake), You would be punsihed for intentionally not complying. This is called the guilty mind or mens rea. It is an element that is required to be proved of most crimes. You may have been anxious and felt you were under duress, however, these may have been grounds for being excluded. Did you review what the exclusions were and what your options were? If not, maybe that is a lesson learned. Did you not receive shelter, food, clothing and pay. Did you not learn practical skills or the like? (Genuine question). Your definition of duress is correct, but in the context it was the punishment for not meeeting your legal obligations, which is almost everywhere in the law. However, I do get that this was not for safety or the well being of society, so I agree, it was not right. But there is little you can do now, except take the learnings from it as positives and move forward.

I refer not to militarism but the use of terrorism powers to do wholesale arrests of peaceful protesters for daring to support action in Palestine. This is a gross abuse of powers.

It appears the americans can.

Maybe start a new topic for that. My comment was Mainly about Trump and his Behaviour. Nev

There CAN BE BAD KINGS as well. Being a Republic is NOT having a Dictator. It JUST means you don't have Power by Birth. You don't get to VOTE for a King. IF you get a Dictator you don't get a Free and Fair Vote ever again. The FREE vote is the Key. Nev

I reread the article. It mentions morality, not mortality, three times. It should all be over, he has no morality.