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Thousands Of Flags To Lose Jobs [/url][ATTACH]47710._xfImport[/ATTACH] Thousands of the nation’s flags are out of work today after Tony Abbott was deposed as Prime Minister. At an emergency meeting this morning, Australia’s flags were told work would be cut back, with many to be made redundant. Some, they were told, had already been hoisted up the flagpole for the last time. A spokesperson for Australia’s flags said it was a dark day for the trade. “Employment for Australia’s flags has grown considerably under the Abbott Government. Now we’re facing unemployment rates of up to 50%, possibly higher for younger flags”. He said there could be a whole generation of flags that may never get a job at a press conference or take part in a 10-flag security announcement. “That in itself is a tragedy,” he said. One flag we spoke to said he was one of the lucky ones. “I’ve been in this game a while, and I’ve had my fair share of work, particularly recently. But I do fear for the young guys coming up, especially – dare I say it – if there’s a move towards a Republic”. He said he should have seen the change in leadership coming. “I’ve spent my life looking at poles. But we were taken by surprise. Really for us, last night’s poll was the only poll that mattered”. http://www.theshovel.com.au/2015/09/15/thousands-of-flags-to-lose-jobs/

Yeah I'm aware of that Kiwi. However in many States it's against the law for an electoral college member to go against the popular vote (ie, become what they call a "faithless elector"). Even where it's not, it's considered pretty bad form. Sure it has been done though, however it has never, ever changed an election result in the USA. The peculiarities of the raw percentage of the popular vote versus who actually wins occur in any country with a "representative" style system, ie, where an individual government member holds a "seat", or casts an election vote on behalf of a group of voters.

Well, technically the results do matter. Unlike in the USA where you directly vote for a leader, here you vote for your local member (which they do in the mid-terms). You may choose to interpret this as a vote for the leader, or you may (as quite a number of people do) be simply voting for the party and you'd likely vote that way regardless of who is the leader and whether or not you'd prefer a different one. For the swinging voters the difference between who is or isn't is the leader is the greatest. The weirdest thing is hearing the real hardcore conservative voters who liked Abbott saying they won't vote Liberal now. They want to cut off their nose to spite their face! It's beyond bizarre that you could be a true-blue LNP supporter and actually vote to either make your party lose to the opposition, or to fail to have a legislative majority and have thus hamstring their ability to govern. But......they are the people for whom I most often have difficulty determining their logic at the best of times.

That fact has always bemused me. Many on the conservative side harp on about Labor being funded by unions in return for policy favours. Apparently where their own funding comes from, and who benefits from their own policy decisions, is a complete mystery to them.

I must admit to being slightly amused at seeing Andrew Bolt fling his cornflakes bowl across the other side of the room this morning. I'm glad he can type, because the production of excessive spittle while talking does hamper the ability to be understood.

I'm not a Shorten fan either. I honestly think he's in big trouble, as Turnbull is far more palatable to swinging voters and people who sit somewhere near the middle on the left/right spectrum of politics. TA's appeal was always to hardcore conservatives - the ones we now observe kicking, screaming and throwing things in the midst of the mother of all tanties.

Early in the cruise one day, on a sector from Sydney to Perth, my compatriot in the other seat started saying how he really liked Pauline and what she stood for. You have no idea how slowly that "total distance to run" number on the flight management computer ticked over that day.

Most people hated Gillard pretty much solely for the carbon tax and because she formed an alliance with the Greens. The rest was personal. Many conservative voting pilots I know, when specifically asked what they disliked about Gillard, stated those two things (but were pretty short on elaborating in any detail), then went on to explain how big her **se was, how unattractive she was, and how her hairdresser boyfriend must be a p**f. No, I am not joking or exaggerating. That was their contribution to the policy debate. The latter three points took up most of the conversation time when Gillard's name was mentioned. I actually agreed that the carbon tax was a bad policy idea, but I never got to explain why in most conversations as the topic so quickly turned to her "fat **se". I do actually get a bit despondent over the apparent intellect of some of my colleagues sometimes, but I know I'm not alone there.

He is the most "complicated" PM I have ever witnessed since I reached voting age, on either side of politics. He has made more than enough brain snaps to be continually sailing along this very fine line of remaining leader, or being deposed. But still, some people love him because he's deeply conservative, no matter what. I know people who still idolise George W Bush, genuinely believing he was the best thing which ever happened to the USA in the last 25 years. The economy absolutely tanked during his term, the mortgage & banking crisis and subsequent GFC exploded during his term, a very costly war which still has not resulted in stabilising that country was waged during his term, and the budget deficit skyrocketed during his term. I'd hate to see the worst thing! Personal political bias is extremely powerful, and regularly trumps actually weighing the evidence of what a person has achieved versus not achieved. What has Tony done? Oh that's right, he stopped the boats. That's all you need to know.

Pot, this is kettle. You're black.

I didn't agree with a number of Gillard policies, and I believe the carbon tax - while reasonable in principle (the reality is simply that for decades we have paid an artificially low price for power) - was politically suicidal and therefore rather pointless (why introduce something which will get you booted out and be repealed?). However her treatment by many conservatives when she was PM was utterly appalling. Even a few conservative adult friends of mine showed they have all the emotional maturity of a 2 year old when it came to discussing Gillard.

Well......political threads in off-topic forums. This site is no different from any other website which does that. And the results are much the same! I must admit to reading some "logic" on these forums which perks my curiosity though.......

.......but that's not what Andrew Bolt said! I'm so confused. I think I need Miranda Devine's input to sort this all out in my head.

Ah well if Andrew Bolt said it.......... Why didn't you tell us before? Because as we see so often, Andrew Bolt gets his facts pretty straight, and you get the straight facts delivered without any political spin or bias from him. I think we've just reached a new low.

I think Albanese was an idiot as transport minister, especially with some things he tried to do (and actually did) in the aviation area. But I digress......

So I take it you're unaware that not even a policeman can simply stop you in the street and demand ID unless you are reasonably suspected of having committed an offence, being about to commit an offence, or were in the vicinity of where an offence has occurred (eg, a possible witness etc)? The exception is legal stops like RBT etc. If you personally are willing to totally surrender your own rights to walk around the streets conducting your business in a law abiding manner without being randomly stopped and questioned by Government officials (including police), that's fine. Many people are not. No it is not. Overstaying your Visa is not a criminal offence (ie, a "crime"). When you come to Australia with a Visa you are classed as a "lawful non-citizen". If you overstay your Visa you become an "unlawful non-citizen". Although you must then be arrested, there is no obligation to be brought before a court. You are either granted an extension to your expired Visa, or you are removed from the country. No charges. No conviction. No crime. The definitions in the Migration Act can get complicated. However you cannot be charged with a crime for simply overstaying a Visa. It is not that simple.

Apparently some people here think there's nothing inherently wrong at all with the concept.

How is illegal checking (as it was originally worded) different from legal checking? I'm afraid I can't really help you there. Just a LWL (apparently), so I'm not very bright.

What are those?

I was in the military for 16 years. My observations and that of many of my colleagues were that when working for the Government and dealing with bureaucrats in the Defence Dept, logical thinking rarely entered into discussions or planning at higher levels. It's much the same in other departments, and I would think in a quasi-military one like ABF it would be near identical. The attitude which leads to these things is ultimately passed down by Government/Ministerial directives. In Government, from personal experience, who takes responsibility and whose fault it really was are two entirely different things. The fault of the PM and in particular the Minister (Dutton) most likely lies not directly with them, but in the rhetoric they use. I wish I could explain how amazing the "domino" effect is when a Minister starts talking "tough", and how this filters down through the ranks. You get instantaneous chest-beating and a palpable change in attitude as you go further down. Until you get to the poor sods who actually have to carry out these orders sitting around scratching their heads saying "Well how the **** is this going to work? What idiot thought this up?" We do have border checking. This was never going to be "border checking". The British have an illegal immigrant problem which makes ours look trivial!

If I was stopped on the street going about my daily business by an ABF official who wanted to question me or see proof of my right to be here, the response would be swift and not very complimentary. Someone in the ABF needs to be taken around the back and "counselled". Also, Abbott and Dutton need to tone down their own rhetoric which has the effect of emboldening officials within the organisation to say stupid stuff.

Pyne is far from unique there! What I find incredibly irritating about Abbott and some of his ilk is that despite being otherwise intelligent people, they "pick and choose" which strongly supported scientific evidence to believe. So he'll arbitrarily agree with the strongly supported science of vaccination, for example, but he'll declare that climate change is a "load of crap". This comes down to being unable to separate your politics from your facts.

My airline is a huge private company. The inefficiencies I witness every day are staggering. Trying to do anything about them is utterly pointless. There are so many tiers of management that it is practically impossible to reach the level which matters when dealing with things that need to be fixed. Then if you do, everyone is so worried about their KPIs that if it costs their department $10,000 but results in savings of $100,000 to another department (ie, a net saving of $90k to the company), the proposal will never see the light of day. Ah the efficiencies of big business!

Yeah our system was locked in several years ago. Both panel and storage technology are better now, with the price falling. We have SLA batteries, and lithium for solar storage was barely even on the radar then. Now it's close to being mass produced. I only had to run the grid about 500m for our place if I was to connect, but the cost was outrageous. Too many people crap on about the inevitable end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it with carbon pricing etc, whilst being totally oblivious that the huge merged energy companies are going to absolutely slug you both up front and on your bills for newly privatised grid infrastructure costs no matter how cheap the coal is!

With a battery life of 20 years + (due to careful charge-discharge programming and high quality German manufactured batteries), a similar panel life, and an indefinite inverter life, even factoring that production cost into it is not going to outweigh the benefits. It's likely that I will be dead - or in a nursing home - by the time those systems need replacing. As far as economics go, we pretty much broke even on installation. To run mains electricity infrastructure to our block was going to cost > $55,000. The solar system all together cost $60,000. Our previous electricity bills when renting were in the vicinity of $1000/quarter.