Marty_d

Good Will Hunting

Edgy but still good!

There's a rise of far-right populist parties everywhere. Reform in UK. AfD in Germany. Fidesz in Hungary. National Rally in France. The MAGAfication of the GOP in the US. PHONey here in Australia. If you want reasons, how long have you got? Growing inequality. Billionaires profiteering while simultaneously disenfranchising workers. Overpopulation, destruction of the natural world while those same billionaires resist any limitations on resource extraction. Journalism hollowed out by concentration of media ownership to the same billionaires and their mates who own the fossil fuel and tech industries. Loss of traditional industies to automation, robotics and AI, and the necessary transition of energy systems. Difficult and existential questions which require actual thought, wisdom and cooperative planning, at a time when our attention span is the shortest it's ever been. Into this complicated reality, populist parties provide simplistic answers and attract followers who like simple answers. Climate change isn't real so let's drill, baby, drill. Everything will be ok if we send all the immigrants back to where they came from. It's all the fault of the Somalis/Muslims/Jews/Pakistanis/pick your group. Cut taxes while simultaneously increasing services. Sound familiar? If you really think that Pauline is a deep thinking, compassionate and forward-looking leader, then by all means vote for her. Personally I think she's an opportunistic, racist rabble-rouser who appeals to the worst bits of human nature, so her party will always be last on my ballot.

@Grumpy Old Nasho - how do you think your god-king Chump would treat conscripts? This is the man who put Hegseth in charge of defence, sorry "War" - a man rejected from the military for being psychologically unsound, who told the army chiefs to "get rid of fatties", ordered the illegal killing of Venezuelan sailors - including ordering the Navy to kill them after their boat was destroyed - and then dumped responsibility on the admiral. You really have no idea how good we have it here. Yes we can always push for improvement but wanting to tear down our political system because you disagree with a few decisions is just insane.

Even though they can't spell, it's true. One Nation is a protest party. They have no workable policies and no chance of successfully governing, in the catastrophic event that a majority of voters lost their minds and voted them in. If you want a government that hates the environment, loves guns and bibles and is paid for by (and works for) billionaires, move to the USA.

Arguing devil's advocate, there's a lot of PHON supporters too, and Trump himself got 70m votes. The numbers don't reflect good choices sometimes. What's worse is the LNP tearing itself to bits with Angus and his far right mates totally ignoring the lessons of the last election and trying to emulate Pauline. What sort of opposition is that?

Which one's the ho? Heartbreak hotel.

That's a low bar.

He is a cunning linguist.

Roger Moore (sounds like a porn star name) was the least "action hero" type of any Bond. I think the best was the last, Daniel Craig. Some of the fight scenes, especially in the first of his, were excellent.

Some anti fascist people are already working to identify and make public the identity of ICE officers, especially those proven to have used excessive force. It's exactly like the nazi brown shirts. You shouldn't expect to remain anonymous while following unlawful and inhumane orders.

Can I suggest a way that satisfies both sides. The properties with architectural merit are sold at market value for redevelopment as housing, with conditions covering the retaining of appropriate features, and also that 10 or 20% of resulting flats are sold as affordable housing.

He's not cheating. He's simply the best. (Which, replacing "He's" with "you're", is the next answer)

Put a bit of sheepskin inside the ear flaps and you'll be toasty in winter! Re the ejection seat, might make the passenger nervous.

You can't overtake if the unbroken line is on your side of the road too.

We may have burned that bridge. I'd like us to learn the lessons from Ukraine and give up on manned subs altogether. Remotely operated seems far better in every respect.

1.6b would be worth it. Staying in will result in orders of magnitude more loss and still nothing to show for it. The USA is simply not a trustworthy military ally.

There's plenty who whinge more than you Jerry, and not even in England.

If the ABC said anything that could be construed by the rabid right as even slightly left of centre, regardless of how factual it is, they get hounded by the Murdoch press and face political pressure. There is no comparison with Sky. If you think that the ABC is reporting factually incorrect news, provide examples.

One of the reasons I don't do Facebook. It's a steaming pile. If I want news I go to ABC and the Guardian.

A

Isn't there already a gold statue of him?

I am a winner

That seems like a cock-and-bulldog story to me...

I've just got back to Australia after visiting Vietnam, sitting in Sydney airport waiting for the Hobart flight. They call it the American war over there. I don't know why we went, or what the Yanks thought they'd achieve. Every Vietnamese person I talked to (apart from the hucksters trying to sell you stuff) was polite, friendly and with a great sense of humour. An interesting fact is that they burn cardboard shaped into shoes, clothes etc for their dead ancestors. They even burn fake money so the spirits can buy stuff in the afterlife. Now this next bit shows how lovely these people are. The fake money they burn is obviously Vietnamese dong. They then started worrying about the American and European dead in their country, not recognising the currency and going without. So now they also burn fake US dollars and Euros as well, so the foreign spirits are looked after. (Probably the more entrepreneurial Vietnamese spirits also grab the foreign currency because of the exchange rate!) But just think - regardless of how nonsensical the whole thing may be, they are concerned about the welfare of the dead soldiers who invaded their country.