If Famous Thinkers Quoted Herald-Sun Readers.......

beaaycan · 2 months

Thank you for posting this.

Waitswitheyes · 2 months

Additional to the linked article:

I found an Italian newspaper published an email exchange between Bill O'Chee and Stratfor with O'Chee expressing his mirth that Julian Assange had been arrested: "Hooray! Pity he didn't have an accident on his way to prison." The Stratfor rep responded by saying "Revenge is a dish best served cold."

Here is a link, however the text is in Italian, so probably fairly useless to most people reading this.

Waitswitheyes · 2 months

I'm have very limited knowledge regarding what constitutes espionage and Australian law regarding this. But I would say that given the article is stating that he has received confidential information from government sources and then passed this on to STRATFOR it could constitute espionage.

From Wikipedia: Espionage or spying involves a government or individual obtaining information that is considered secret or confidential without the permission of the holder of the information. Espionage is inherently clandestine, as it is taken for granted that it is unwelcome and, in many cases, illegal and punishable by law. It is a subset of intelligence gathering - which otherwise may be conducted from public sources and using perfectly legal and ethical means.

Waitswitheyes · 2 months

I had to search for this article, it is nowhere near the front pages of the SMH or The Age. The story is being buried behind floods, cabinet reshuffles and car crashes etc. As a result, probably zero public outcry forcing the PM to respond.

PatternPrecognition · 3 months

Would this be a correct interpretation of the poll graphs/data: Labor and Gillard were doing well up until the Carbon Tax being passed and implemented, then it all went downhill from there?

doctorpir8 · 3 months

Find out if Scores Nightclub has an affiliate marketing program. If so, link to their site. Profit.

HeikkiKovalainen · 3 months

Meryl Streep as Gillard. She did Lindy Chamberlain very well in Evil Angels, her strine was pretty spot on, I'm confident she could do the job.

Abbott....I really have no idea on that one.

possibly_all_3 · 3 months

I would love this, but would you be willing to post to Australia?

I've got plenty of things I could send in return, in terms of literary fiction I have Franzen's The Corrections, Pynchon's The Crying of Lot 49, DeLillo's White Noise, Coetzee's Disgrace........amongst other things like Hemingway, Yeats, Plath.....

HeikkiKovalainen · 3 months

Kevin Spacey as KRudd?

They have the same hair albeit differently coloured.

Also the obvious link between Kevin Spacey playing Keyser Soze in the Usual Suspects and KRudd's similarities to that character in real life (i.e. the underhandedness?).

usersame · 3 months

If, however, we read Latham through the prism of the man's own words, and through the policies he supported, he is in no way deserving of the amazing amount of venom that has been spat at him. His great crime, regardless of what you think of him personally, was exposing the ALP as an enemy of democracy, and an organization paralysed by corruption, ambition, and egomania.

On this I agree with you and agree with Latham. What is currently going on in the Australian Labor Party and in Australian party politics in general, basically represents a huge threat to our democracy if not the slow death of it. Latham, and his former colleague Lindsay Tanner, made these points very, very well and I respect this. I just can't support the idea of Latham going anywhere near the Labor leadership, or potential Prime Ministership, again.

usersame · 3 months

Jesus. Vitriolic much?

The first article from reputable epistle 'Mama Mia' is, frankly, irrelevant.

We are talking about a (former) potential PM of Australia who has revealed though his comments an attitude towards women which is frankly archaic and patriarchal. Women constitute roughly 52% of our population and 52% of voters in this country. How are Latham's comments irrelevant in this context?

The second one is an absolute beat up. If you actually bothered to read about the case, Latham had resigned from Parliament, and was having lunch with his kids. A bunch of scumbag photographers saw him and started taking photos, so he took a camera and destroyed it.

And his assault on an innocent taxi driver in 2001, breaking the taxi drivers' arm? And his alleged assault of Labor party colleague in 1989? Latham is a man who inflicts violence and injury on others when not getting his own way or feeling slighted by others. This is not how a Statesman, a potential leader of any country, should behave.

ChuqTas · 3 months

I dunno, double dissolutions have happened 6 times in our history, sometimes with results that the sitting government has not wanted i.e they were not returned to government. But I guess the result of a double dissolution is heavily dependent on the context and circumstances at the time. My feeling would be it would piss Australian voters off to no end that they keep having to return to polls to vote, we have better things to do and it could cause resentment towards Abbott.

ChuqTas · 3 months

Yeah, a government with a majority in the House of Reps and a minority in the Senate was exactly the same scenario as the Whitlam Government of 1975....and look how that turned out! Given the uproar at the time and for plenty of years afterwards, I doubt the G-G would be stupid enough to take that kind of action again, but then again, after the Whitlam dismissal the G-G's reserve powers have remained the same, so theoretically it could still happen.

1-2 years can be a long time in politics, there is still plenty of time for the Greens to do something that could potentially diminish their voter base at the next Senate election, for example crossing the floor to vote with the Liberals on an issue, but this would be doubtful.

So yeah, bring on angry Tony, I want to see him kiss Green asses in an attempt to get what he wants, it would be comical!

australiaquestion · 3 months

You're right, the Cabinet is comprised of senior ministers, not all ministers. My mistake!

Link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cabinet_of_Australia

usersame · 3 months

This is a chesnut of an article by Latham. Almost makes him look rational and level-headed. However, personally I can't forget these facts about him: this http://www.mamamia.com.au/news/memo-to-mark-latham-shut-up/ and this http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Mark_Latham_in_fight_12_months_after_resigning_as_Australian_opposition_leader

australiaquestion · 3 months

I should also add (or what I should have actually said first:)

As Australians, when we vote, we submit two different votes: one to elect a Member of Parliament (MP) from our local electorate to the House of Representatives (in your case, the MP for your electorate is Craig Emerson) and one to elect Senators to represent the state you reside in as a whole in the Senate. There are two different voting systems in play for each House.

After we cast our votes for the Lower House (aka the House of Representatives), the votes are counted. The party with the most MPs voted in to the Lower House gets to form the government, and that party then in turn nominates a Prime Minister to lead them.

The Prime Minister then forms an Executive. The Executive is comprised of the Prime Minister and his/her Cabinet. The "Cabinet" refers to all the different Members of Parliament that have been given extra and important responsibilities by the Prime Minister, also known as portfolios. When you hear of an MP being referred to as a Minister for this or that, such as the Foreign Minister, Minister for Education, they are part of the Cabinet and (usually) part of the Executive.

Its the Executive in Australian Parliament that basically gets shit done. They form policies and draft Bills. If Bills are voted on and then passed by the House of Reps, then by the Senate and are then signed by the Governor-General, they become Acts of Parliament and become Australian law.

The leadership debacle that is currently going on in the Labor party is about who they want as their leader in Parliament, their Prime Minister.

australiaquestion · 3 months

Plenty of relevant info here

There is no such thing as a local senate representative because senators are elected for the whole of the state you reside in and as such represent all of the voters in that state. Who your Senators are depends on which state you live in. This will help you figure out who the senators are for your state.

Basically the Gillard/Rudd thing is an internal Labor issue that, when it comes down to it, only Labor members of Parliament (both in the Senate and in the House of Representatives, also known as the Labor Caucus) can actually determine themselves by voting in the leadership ballot on Monday.

If you call the Labor Senators from your state you may be able to try and influence their vote on Monday by telling them how you feel, however their decision will be based on a wide variety of different factors, mostly by who they think will get them re-elected for another term at the next election.

I think you could try to contact other House of Reps MPs other than your own MP for your electorate, whether or not they will listen to you or take your call is another matter but there is nothing really preventing you from doing so.

jeanthine · 3 months

I agree except I would change "Chris Uhlmann" with the words "Tony Jones" in your text. Tony has always been particularly bad, but his 'journalistic intergrity' on Q and A on Monday night was seriously lacking. He actually makes Chris Uhlmann look good, something which I never thought it possible to utter.

I miss Kerry O'Brien, seeing him for only 1 hour of TV a week these days (actually only about 10 minutes of that 1 hour that Four Corners is on) is not enough.

flashman · 3 months

A government so out of touch with best practice relating to reducing crime and offender rehabilitation that it wants to build more prisons as a remedy. What a fucking joke.

flashman · 3 months

Many of our prisons in Victoria are already privatised. Port Phillip Prison, for example. It's one of, if not the biggest prisons in the state.

Denial23 · 3 months

Howard gave us middle-class welfare, Gillard is now rolling it back. Good.

fake_again · 3 months

Great article. There was a link in the comments to this clip of Sonja Sohn reading a poem in a film called "Slam" from 1998. Pretty damn good.

Waitswitheyes

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