Interesting things too
Slight change of tack, a subthread:
https://www.theage.com.au/national/western-australia/unmasking-a-killer-...
It was a pretty scary time, between Mossy Park, and Claremont with the Continental and Club...
Police in Vietnam have confiscated an estimated 345,000 used condoms which had been cleaned and resold as new, state media reported.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.abc.net.au/article/12700704
Farkk, that's so heavy!
Jeez people, they said they'd been washed.
What more do you want?
It was an environmental decision, they're trying to cut down on single use plastics.
More to the question- there's been some busy little beavers there if you'll excuse the pun.
Actually they said the ring was a bust, so....
Don't start me on a pun-off Pat.
Ok
Hey do you reckon it could be an international syndicate? There might be a ring around Bangkok.
I suppose competition would be stiff in the trade
Sales obviously haven't been flaccid.
Aww jeez...
You're clearly a bit hard up for a gag Zen.
I know Andy- I think I've peaked already and that one may have been a little premature.
What's the world cumming to?
(Porn I imagine)
You blokes are going to get Grandad agitated again!!!
345,000.... no small ring to handle that amount.
Dodgy but environmentally responsible
More heartwarming human interest stories, this one from Wales:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8759459/Old-TV-causes-broadband...
well it ain't rocket science...
(to some)
"...There is a quiet revolution taking place within the Labor Party but it’s not the revolution that radicals dream of.
It is a revolution born of common sense and common people.
A realisation that angry chants and socialistic us-and-them talking points don’t resonate with mainstream Australia.
Indeed, it’s not so much a revolution as a revelation."
"...This is what working Australia wants and needs. They don’t shout it on Twitter or go on street marches or smash shop windows. They just quietly let us know at election after election after election – none of which Labor has won.
Wise heads in the party now understand this. The undergraduate dog whistle of class warfare is gone – a sensible move given it is typically activists from the tertiary educated upper-middle class who keep calling for it. Their backs would be first against the wall in any real revolution but they wouldn’t know enough proles to form a firing squad.
Labor is the party of the worker but the working-class is not the great lumpen mass that arts graduates fantasise about liberating at inner city dinner parties. It is a galaxy of smart and streetwise people who are doing everything in their power to take care of their families and maybe even get ahead in life."
"...These are people I know, who I once was, and I can promise you the last things they care about are critical race theory or intersectional feminism. I’m also pretty sure they don’t give a s**t about diversity quotas at the Oscars.
There is a place for such parlour room debates and that place is the Greens caucus room. If only it had a door that locked from the outside.
Meanwhile in the real world, there is real work to be done. Some in Labor have been spooked by Anthony Albanese’s failure to get traction during the coronavirus pandemic, just as some in the Liberals have no doubt been heartened by it."
".. This brings us to perhaps the most critical problem that Labor is facing, namely the viciousness and toxicity of its self-proclaimed supporters on the extreme left.
Most of these are unreconstructed baby-boomers who never came home from Woodstock and the usual student socialists who are yet to know better. The only difference between now and 1990 is that social media both spreads their idiocy and artificially amplifies their influence – a paradox we can only hope will be met with a reckoning."
https://www.news.com.au/finance/work/leaders/there-is-only-one-way-labor...
yes facto and friends, joe again, ...but don't blame me if you're off in the fairy garden and joe can actually see what's so bloody obviously going on...
Typical non-news from news.com. Create an image of a culture that never existed and use it to frighten those without the wit to see it for the bullshit that it is.....while the COALition continue raping the environment, pillaging the nation's resources and ripping off those who actually work for a living. It's exactly the kind of crap that we would expect slyppery and the rest to fall for; simplistic, fact free opinion from a hired mouthpiece.
But the sad thing is that its fundamental purpose is not to solve the imaginary divisions it describes, but to intensify them, to break Australian society into ever smaller groups willing to act only in their preceived self-interest.
Diamante Joe turning tricks...again.
Is there a clip from Studio Ten you can throw up too, Seppy?
Y'know for the YouTube generation and that, ay?
Or Info Dreemin' at least.
Dunno if he's a pure media construct or a real person with 'real' constructed/instructed-by-media opinions.
He's always instructive, but. Up to a point. Intent, of course, not content.
You though, Seppy? Wannabe dissembler or actual craven enabler?
The jury isn't out.
(Cue: aping response...but chopped up in an incoherent ADHD style...with an 'again' thrown in, naturally)
Skypan, Joe H. and all the other button pushers exist and get well paid to divert your attention from the rampant theft of public money by the 'mates'. It seems it is working.
'the resistance'
again
still?
carry on....
'winning'
"... to break Australian society into ever smaller groups willing to act only in their preceived self-interest."
the irony
again
No...
maybe...
Oh the irony....
again...
and again.....
and again.....
and again.....
and again.....
and again.....
sentence......
no.....
logic.......
no.......
Hahahaha.
Bingo!
Again!
Ad infinitum. Ad nauseum.
That was a decent read Sypkan IMHO its a pretty accurate picture of things, you can even see the people here that the article talks about.
Maybe ive just been missing a lot of the politics with the fires and now covid and Dan Andrews etc but, it's interesting to see the approach Albanese has taken, seems a very back seat low key less negative, less attacking approach.
To be fair from what ive seen its been a more centred approach too.
I think that whole approach in theory is a better one it's more tasteful and respected by people opposed to that full on negative attacking Abbott type approach.
But im not sure if its really going to work just seems like he doest make the news or the spot light enough, he actually seems like a half decent guy opposed to a lot of politicians, but he also really just seems to lack something, hard to ever see him being PM.
Info, what does IMHO mean?
Ignoramus something something something ?
"Info, what does IMHO mean?"
"In my humble opinion" not "in my honest opinion"
And yes its just my opinion im sure you have your own, and yes im sure you don't value mine, just as i don't value yours.
Why do you use it?
Why not?
I actually got in a habit of using it from posting here, as years ago when Guy who was Floyd he had a go at me a few times saying what you are saying is not fact its just your opinion you need to be clear about that.
So to keep him happy i put in IMHO and it's become a habit, it's really not a bad habit to have.
My 2c worth.(IMHO). For forty odd years I was a rusted on labor stooge, I still sit well left of centre on most issues such as climate change, conservation, workers rights etc. but I will never vote Labor or Green ever again. Thanks to the career centrelink rent a crowd protesting pseudo hippies with their apologist, politically correct ,me too, gender fluid, all whites are racist, I'm a victim, history denying, bullying style tactics I now see the left side of politics as complete bunch of clueless morons pandering to noisy compo seeking minorities and too gutless to stand up for the good hard working law abiding citizens of our country. The only problem is the other mob are even worst. Cheers.
"I still sit well left of centre on most issues such as climate change, conservation, workers rights etc. but I will never vote Labor or Green ever again. "
Gun, foot, take aim, bang! Direct hit.
So your resentment against the behaviour of certain segments of the community who happen to support the same policies as you leads you to ..... what? Abandon all hope and all responsibility? Have you considered the possibility that the real problem is not with the others, but with your own intolerance?
Ha ha I feel like im reading my own post from a two or three years ago, even writes like me.
Swear to god Old-dog is not me.
Flat spell fun with the kid. Seven hours, three kms vertical descent, twenty-something kms distance, and just a handful of pedal strokes.
Beautiful country, when you slowed down enough to take it in.
Now feel like I've gone ten rounds with Tyson.
nice stunet, enjoying your rediscovery of mountain biking, especially considering the boy being a big part of it
but what we really want to know is, how's those jumps in the background going old fella?
That's the pump track. I haven't ridden it. The downhill tracks have jumps and drops of all shape and distance so it's just a matter of hitting the ones you think you can make and ever so slowly progressing to more difficult ones.
Gotta be so calculated and on top of your nerves. It's mind games all day long.
yeh love bikes/mountain bikes and motor, but feeling a little old to take on the lumps of dirt I was springing off on a bmx in 1985...
all those tracks appear so well designed now, next level gutsy, but with plenty of chicken runs. they are like looking at surf porn, so smooth and manicured compared to what I was used to
I rode through the '90s but mtb simply wasn't a jump sport then. Since then, freestyle MX and BMX has seeped into the downhill and all mountain aspects of mountain biking.
Yesterday, the li'l bloke and I rode various runs all morning before settling on this one, and then did seven or eight runs in a row on it. Got big smooth berms, plenty of gaps and drops, the bigger ones all having B-Lines for when preservation wins out.
Good one Stu, you started me thinking about a special place .......
... absolutely love this, hope you enjoy
Filmed around Wanaka. The last time I was there 3 years ago there were 7 shops in town where you could buy a new mtb and seemingly every 2nd shop will hire you one - the place is off the scale good .... check these guys out https://wanakabiketours.co.nz/tour-item/heli-biking/
Christmas travel bubble??
ps apart from mtbing, there is skiing and hiking options galore.
That Greenvalleys video is nuts you're welcome to it at those speeds
nice, this old boy would have a go at that
might pass on 'the boner log' (not really my thing), that and big ramp at bottom, the rest looks pretty managable
beautiful country, australia is so blessed
It's one of the few places on the Illawarra Escarpment that faces due north, so you get the elevation of the 'scarp plus full sunshine. Like I said, great country.
If you've ridden before you'd love that track as it's got so many well built features on it. After the wall ride and before the boner log, there's a step down into a step up that's built perfectly: if you bunny hop the step down you've got the perfect speed for the step up jump, and the feeling of that is addictive. We stopped and sessioned the step up - back and forth, back and forth - many times through the day.
Late arvo I came off the wall ride with not a great amount of control, flubbed the next tabletop, and had just enough oversight to steer it into the long grass and not splay myself across the hard dirt. My head still hit hard enough to break my visor which flipped down so I was in darkness. While prostrate the crunch of tires on dirt came up next to me: "You alright, Dad?"
Pushed the visor up so I can see and there's the kid looking at me concerned.
"Yes, mate. All good."
And we sat up there for a while, buggered but content.
We need more strikes and more militancy to force wages growth
By Bernard Keane, Crikey
"If unions were stronger, wages may not have stagnated and people might be willing to work in the horticulture industry.
When it come to exploitive industries, few can match the horticulture sector.
About 40% of employers in the sector steal wages, the Fair Work Ombudsman says, and a lot more fail to keep proper records. Many, especially in the Wide Bay region in Queensland, are serial offenders, with nearly half of previous perpetrators continuing to breach workplace laws.
The sector relies heavily on labour hire firms, which frequently engage in phoenixing, competing to rip off workers as much as possible, and migrant workers exploiting the government’s loose onshore visa process and undermining the Administrative Appeals Tribunal.
And even in an industry notorious for sexual harassment, horticulture stands out for exploiting and harassing young women.
But the ready source of easily exploited labour — migrant workers — has dried up, leaving it to redouble its longstanding complaints that it can’t attract enough workers.
The market response to not being able to attract enough workers is to pay more. That’s what most employers have to do to retain and attract staff.
But the industry has urged the government to force people into horticulture by cutting back JobSeeker payments, which are said to deter people from going bush to travel the “harvest trail”. It also wants borders reopened for temporary migrants and incentives for backpackers to stay longer.
One Liberal MP, John Alexander, reportedly wants to conscript young people for fruitpicking. Realising the bad optics of this, he says he’d settle for cutting off JobSeeker payments to young people who refuse to pick fruit.
Presumably that would apply to women facing sexual harassment as well?
The government’s response is to announce it will use taxpayer money to “incentivise” young people to “have a crack” at horticulture.
Except it’s announced exactly that before — an incentive scheme in 2018 “aimed at increasing the number of eligible jobseekers who undertake horticultural seasonal work”.
“Jobseekers on taxpayer support have no excuse to refuse opportunities,” Scott Morrison said at the time, only to be criticised by the National Farmers’ Federation for offering a “shallow approach to a deep problem”.
The critics were vindicated when the program was a failure. That evidently hasn’t deterred the government from “having a crack” again.
In addition to the surge of temporary workers horticulture groups want, addressing the “deep problem” might involve dealing with clearly systemic problems around labour hire firms and their exploitation of workers, and a culture of exploitation among a large minority of farmers — who, of course, make life more difficult for farmers committed to doing the right thing and treating workers fairly.
It reflects a mindset that workplace problems are always because of workers, who need to either be incentivised or coerced into complying with employers’ needs.
The extent to which the Coalition remains in the grip of this sort of thinking is reflected in the absurd lengths to which Morrison is going to beat up a fairly trivial dispute between logistic firm Qube’s Patrick Terminals and what’s left of the Maritime Union of Australia.
Morrison’s claim that 40 ships are parked off Port Botany — “You can go down to Port Botany or down to Kurnell and have a look out there and you can see them lining up” — is an egregious lie even by the low standards of the prime minister, as Michael Pascoe points out.
So too is his claim that medical supplies are being held up, a claim rejected even by the head of Patrick’s.
NSW Finance and Small Business Minister and morals campaigner Damien Tudehope lashed “militant unions” and poor productivity. Oddly enough, crane rates across Australia’s major ports were at an all-time high in 2019, according to the government’s own statistics.
As for union militancy, strikes are almost non-existent in Australia. This year, according to ABS data, days lost per 1000 workers to strike action fell to 0.3 days in the March quarter and 0.1 in the June quarter. Twenty years ago the comparable figures were 19.4 and 22.6. Even in the transport sector, directly affected by the Maritime Union of Australia action, the figure was 1.6 days.
The highest figure in transport in recent years was the March 2019 quarter when 12.1 days per 1000 workers were lost. That would have been a quiet quarter across the entire economy in the Howard years.
One look at wages growth since the Coalition was elected will tell you we need a lot more, not less, union militancy. We need more strikes, not fewer. We need more workers engaging in industrial disputes, and forcing concessions from employers. Nothing else, it seems, is going to lift wages growth, and therefore strengthen demand.
Indeed, if the horticulture sector had a stronger union presence, if it had a “militant” union like the MUA or the CFMEU, it’s likely there’d be a lot less wage theft, exploitation and routine sexual harassment. It might even be an industry that didn’t need the government to bribe or coerce people to work in it."
@stu, how good was that. how fast did jake go thru those berms. best vid i have watched in ages. two thumbs up.
i fly to cairns next wednesday and i used to go to the smithfield downhill course that held a world mtb downhill event and man, it was heart in the mouth stuff, i loved it.
but you guys rock,great skill level and admittingly way better bikes than my old girl, but you both rode beautifully. thanks for sharing.
There was an article just the other day trying to 'sex up' fruit picking as viable option to the jobseeker allowance. I wonder if you read it? Basically it was a puff piece and almost romanticised the fruit picking industry and how a worker could make upwards of $2k pw working in the fresh air. Also, they tried to portray it as a sort of competition between the top workers seeing who could pick the most per day as a sort of badge of honour. Sounded alright to me but basically you could see straight through the piece.
It was Littleproud the Ag Minister regurgitating bullshit from the Murdoch press that you could make $3800 a week fruit-picking.
Hours and rates of pay didn't add up at all. It was impossible, well, unless you crossed into Monty Python territory (which is quite fitting for the arse-clowns we've got).
For when one interesting things thread isn't enough.