Todays Issues

[wendog33]

Gee I hope this is a beat up

‘Very serious criminal conduct’: Ben Roberts-Smith faces allegations of two more crimes

amp.smh.com.au

 

[CroydonDog]

It's a difficult one. So many people go down the route of basically excusing everything done in the theatre of war... I have many friends and family members currently or formerly in the military and couldn't fathom what some of them have faced...

But, one thing I know that separates the first world/civilised countries from the shit ones is accountability. And if something shit has been done it should be looked at. Roberts-Smith deserves a fair go of course, but even a VC doesn't provide immunity.

One telling thing from some of the allegations made at Aussie soldiers is that the complaint ls were made by Americans.

Hopefully everyone gets a fair "trial " (I have no better words handy at this time on a Friday evening).

 

[Greenmachine121]

I think being in that shithole up against people who would kill you or alert the taliban of your location just as soon as look at you that the majority of this behaviour is justified . If you haven’t been to war then you have no idea what this situation could be about .
However if they have just killed to kill then well .... they shouldn’t be treated any different to reg murderers

Wonder who dobbed them in ?

 

[CroydonDog]

I think being in that shithole up against people who would kill you or alert the taliban of your location just as soon as look at you that the majority of this behaviour is justified . If you haven’t been to war then you have no idea what this situation could be about .
However if they have just killed to kill then well .... they shouldn’t be treated any different to reg murderers

Wonder who dobbed them in ?

I think it was the Americans working alongside them. You'd think if the seppos have drawn a line it must be pretty bad?

 

[Hacky McAxe]

I think being in that shithole up against people who would kill you or alert the taliban of your location just as soon as look at you that the majority of this behaviour is justified . If you haven’t been to war then you have no idea what this situation could be about .
However if they have just killed to kill then well .... they shouldn’t be treated any different to reg murderers

Wonder who dobbed them in ?

Unfortunately this mentality is the same mentality that started the conflict in the first place.

It all started back in the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. Late in the initial conflict period the British military treated the Palestinians worse than this. The reports at the time were that they would go into villages and burn them to the ground, and any collaborators they caught, they would throw them on the front of their vehicles then drive as fast as possible, slam on the brakes, and if they fell off then they'd be run over and killed. And that was the nice British soldiers. Don't get me started with their campaign of, "win over the people through rape and murder"

It's these kind of attitudes that lead to the rise of terrorism in the modern world. It's also why it's important that we don't become worse than the enemy.

I fully understand the mentality and I'm not saying I would be any better. If my best mate was killed in front of me then there's a decent chance that I would find who did it and skin them alive. But that's human nature. To seek revenge. Sometimes you need to be logical and the logical way to end a war is with hearts and minds. Not through "eye for an eye" mentality.

 

[UmoGus]

Unfortunately this mentality is the same mentality that started the conflict in the first place.

It all started back in the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. Late in the initial conflict period the British military treated the Palestinians worse than this. The reports at the time were that they would go into villages and burn them to the ground, and any collaborators they caught, they would throw them on the front of their vehicles then drive as fast as possible, slam on the brakes, and if they fell off then they'd be run over and killed. And that was the nice British soldiers. Don't get me started with their campaign of, "win over the people through rape and murder"

It's these kind of attitudes that lead to the rise of terrorism in the modern world. It's also why it's important that we don't become worse than the enemy.

I fully understand the mentality and I'm not saying I would be any better. If my best mate was killed in front of me then there's a decent chance that I would find who did it and skin them alive. But that's human nature. To seek revenge. Sometimes you need to be logical and the logical way to end a war is with hearts and minds. Not through "eye for an eye" mentality.

Can confirm the British/Israeli forces did that shit plus worse. The stories my grandfather told me make me sick

 

[halfcast]

Hand that VC back

 

[wendog33]

Unfortunately this mentality is the same mentality that started the conflict in the first place.

It all started back in the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. Late in the initial conflict period the British military treated the Palestinians worse than this. The reports at the time were that they would go into villages and burn them to the ground, and any collaborators they caught, they would throw them on the front of their vehicles then drive as fast as possible, slam on the brakes, and if they fell off then they'd be run over and killed. And that was the nice British soldiers. Don't get me started with their campaign of, "win over the people through rape and murder"

It's these kind of attitudes that lead to the rise of terrorism in the modern world. It's also why it's important that we don't become worse than the enemy.

I fully understand the mentality and I'm not saying I would be any better. If my best mate was killed in front of me then there's a decent chance that I would find who did it and skin them alive. But that's human nature. To seek revenge. Sometimes you need to be logical and the logical way to end a war is with hearts and minds. Not through "eye for an eye" mentality.

The whole Middle East.....so mistreated. Throughout history it's always been a battleground one way or another.

Revenge is so futile but some are obsessed (to their own detriment, as well as innocent others).

I guess the enquiry, if fair dinkum, will find out the truth about the BRS allegations. I think it was others in his unit who have also confirmed incidents, not just the yanks.

 

[wendog33]

How will this proposal be received
Australians with rooftop solar panels could soon be charged for exporting power into the grid, under proposed changes

Australians with rooftop solar panels could soon be charged for exporting electricity into the grid

In a move predicted to lower most people's power bills, the Australian Energy Market Commission is recommending a current ban on charging people for exporting energy into the grid be removed. But not everyone is happy.

www.abc.net.au

 

[MattyB]

Silly Move, Power companies are upset that some people pay next to nothing, where others pay thousands

 

[CroydonDog]

How will this proposal be received
Australians with rooftop solar panels could soon be charged for exporting power into the grid, under proposed changes

Australians with rooftop solar panels could soon be charged for exporting electricity into the grid

In a move predicted to lower most people's power bills, the Australian Energy Market Commission is recommending a current ban on charging people for exporting energy into the grid be removed. But not everyone is happy.

www.abc.net.au

I wouldn't be too concerned about this as someone with solar, if the amounts of money were relatively small. But it does seem like a cash grab thinly disguised as needing to relieve "congestion" etc.

In the next few years years, battery technology will improve to the point that many people will have them them in their homes to complement their solar panels (I understand uptake is still pretty low due to it not being cost effective yet - I don't have a battery at present) and there will be much reduced importing/exporting from the grid, which will cost the electricity providers a lot more.

I'd say my next car purchase (hopefully still at least 5+ years away), which would be a commuter to replace my small wagon, so just mostly doing my 16km round trip to work and runs to the shops, will be electric as well, meaning i'd be charging up at night and not even bothering with exporting much excess into the grid.

 

[wendog33]

Silly Move, Power companies are upset that some people pay next to nothing, where others pay thousands

Got to support the power and poles businesses they carved off, and privatised, by the looks of it.

Still there is a problem with so much take up of solar into an old system.

 

[wendog33]

I wouldn't be too concerned about this as someone with solar, if the amounts of money were relatively small. But it does seem like a cash grab thinly disguised as needing to relieve "congestion" etc.

In the next few years years, battery technology will improve to the point that many people will have them them in their homes to complement their solar panels (I understand uptake is still pretty low due to it not being cost effective yet - I don't have a battery at present) and there will be much reduced importing/exporting from the grid, which will cost the electricity providers a lot more.

I'd say my next car purchase (hopefully still at least 5+ years away), which would be a commuter to replace my small wagon, so just mostly doing my 16km round trip to work and runs to the shops, will be electric as well, meaning i'd be charging up at night and not even bothering with exporting much excess into the grid.

I didn't catch all of it but I was listening to a podcast yesterday about some battery Edison took a patent on and used in his first electric car. It produces hydrogen but by the time he developed it, the oil and gas companies had produced cheap gasoline and that was the end of that.

 

[CroydonDog]

I didn't catch all of it but I was listening to a podcast yesterday about some battery Edison took a patent on and used in his first electric car. It produces hydrogen but by the time he developed it, the oil and gas companies had produced cheap gasoline and that was the end of that.

electric cars are still a way off here in Oz, but they are coming alright. There will be a tipping point at some stage, where it becomes really viable financially and public issues with range anxiety will reduce, but I still think we're several years away in this regard.

Here's an article on the Edison car battery:

The battery invented 120 years before its time

At the turn of the 20th Century, Thomas Edison invented a battery with the unusual quirk of producing hydrogen. Now, 120 years later, the battery is coming into its own.

www.bbc.com

 

[Alan79]

Got to support the power and poles businesses they carved off, and privatised, by the looks of it.

Still there is a problem with so much take up of solar into an old system.

Anytime you privatise a company the onus on that company becomes about maximum profit. Doesn't matter if you slash huge amounts of money off producing power through using peoples excess solar energy, if you can also get them to foot more of the bill in supplying that excess energy it fits the maximum profit model.

 

[wendog33]

electric cars are still a way off here in Oz, but they are coming alright. There will be a tipping point at some stage, where it becomes really viable financially and public issues with range anxiety will reduce, but I still think we're several years away in this regard.

Here's an article on the Edison car battery:

The battery invented 120 years before its time

At the turn of the 20th Century, Thomas Edison invented a battery with the unusual quirk of producing hydrogen. Now, 120 years later, the battery is coming into its own.

www.bbc.com

Sounds promising

I heard also that SA, after their blackout fiasco a few years back, and were ridiculed for placing faith in Musk's batteries, is now fully sufficient in renewable energy?

Could that be correct?

 

[wendog33]

No wonder most of the back packers have left. Covid and this.

We are getting quite a reputation atm.

Backpackers allege they were asked to work half-naked, offered money for sex acts on Australian farm

While working on an Australian farm, Maddie says she was asked to perform sex acts for money

Backpackers working under the federal government's visa scheme allege a farmer asked them to work half-naked, exposed his genitals to some of them and suggested to two women they engage in sexual acts with him for money.

www.abc.net.au

 

[wendog33]

Interesting article in Crikey today from Jaquie Lambie.
What's in it for Tassie lol
More crap to stop: the government’s private tender process is a classic rort
Taxpayers pay the $1.5 billion price for busted political processes that leave small businesses locked out of chances to put in a tender, writes Senator Jacqui Lambie.
JACQUI LAMBIE

MAR 25, 2021

5

(IMAGE: TOM RED/PRIVATE MEDIA)
Every year the federal government gives out tens of thousands of contracts to private businesses through a busted process which goes on behind closed doors.
The contracts provide plenty of jobs, but the government doesn’t advertise more than half of them publicly. In 2019-20, $1.5 billion of your cash was splashed around the private sector under the table.
But the government doesn’t seem worried about it.
If your car broke down, you’d take it to a mechanic. If that mechanic quoted you $10,000 to fix a flat tyre, you’d go to a different mechanic. But the government says no worries — it’s more than happy to be ripped off. What’s going on?
Politicians do not generally have much life experience. Beyond turning a sod here and there for the cameras, their well-moisturised hands are accustomed to the pen, not the wrench. This might explain why they are so loose with your money. But that doesn’t just fail the pub test, it disqualifies them from setting it.
The government leaves the business of building our nation to private businesses. And what a gigantic business it is. A lot of money is spent through a public tender process but any project worth less than $80,000 can be awarded to anyone — without scrutiny.

Roll up! The greatest rort on earth is playing out in a company near you
Read More
You can see where this is going.
In the past four years there were three times as many contracts between $78,000 and $80,000 — the threshold — than there were between $80,000 and $82,000. Coincidence? Come on. It’s like when something at the supermarket costs $9.99 as if we don’t notice it costs $10.
That’s not the only bit of wool they’re pulling over our eyes either. A contract that goes over budget and requires more taxpayer dollars on top is allowed to raid the public purse with no consequence.
So here we have another classic rort — and this one harms small businesses. They need all the work they can get while the country plays a never-ending game of wheel-of-fortune with the coronavirus.
A government contract could keep a small business going. Missing out might be the difference between staying open or closing their doors. When the government picks who gets the job without advertising it, small businesses don’t get a chance to shoot their shot.
The way the government spends money needs to be held to a standard. It bought the Leppington Triangle lot for the Western Sydney airport for about $30 million, when it was worth only $3 million. It saw no problem with that until the Australian National Audit Office made the rest of us aware. And then the government was as shocked as we were! Give me a break.
The government reckons it has money to fritter away on this rubbish but it will chase people to the ends of the earth over $500 its robodebt algorithm incorrectly guessed they owed.
Here are some solutions for how to stop this crap.
One: lower the tender limit so more businesses can compete and there’s more transparency. Make it so the government can’t rip us off for more than a few bucks at a time. Make it not worth it to even bother.
Two: get a decent cop on the beat to enforce the current standards. No more $79,999 contracts being tendered in the dark.
Three: if the costs blow out, that’s on the company, not the taxpayer.
Small contracts under the tendering threshold come in drips and drabs. They may not be as scandalous as buying a ridiculously overpriced bit of land near an airport, but $30 million is a drop in the ocean compared with the $1.5 billion free-for-all spent on untendered contracts in the last year alone.
Jacqui Lambie is an independent senator for Tasmania.
Crikey accepts submissions from all sides of the debate.

 

[CroydonDog]

No wonder most of the back packers have left. Covid and this.

We are getting quite a reputation atm.

Backpackers allege they were asked to work half-naked, offered money for sex acts on Australian farm

While working on an Australian farm, Maddie says she was asked to perform sex acts for money

Backpackers working under the federal government's visa scheme allege a farmer asked them to work half-naked, exposed his genitals to some of them and suggested to two women they engage in sexual acts with him for money.

www.abc.net.au

Backpackers being employed on farms is often a murky business.

You have to be skeptical sometimes when farmers when they say "locals don't want to pick fruit". Actually, many do, but they also want to be paid a fair wage for doing do. Backpackers will often do it for fuck all in return for accommodation, meals and a means to stay in Australia for longer, and they are much more likely, as are many migrants with questionable immigration status), to just shut up about anything wrong going on.

another odd thing i find with fruit especially is that i never hears farmers and their families picking the fruit themselves so much. i;'m sure some do, but when i was a whipper snapper, my grandfather had an orchard. When it was picking time it was all hands on deck family-wise, sun up to sundown and beyond, 7 days. I don't think they really employed anyone - but I guess it also wasn't a huge enterprise as most family farms weren't in those days...

 

[wendog33]

Backpackers being employed on farms is often a murky business.

You have to be skeptical sometimes when farmers when they say "locals don't want to pick fruit". Actually, many do, but they also want to be paid a fair wage for doing do. Backpackers will often do it for fuck all in return for accommodation, meals and a means to stay in Australia for longer, and they are much more likely, as are many migrants with questionable immigration status), to just shut up about anything wrong going on.

another odd thing i find with fruit especially is that i never hears farmers and their families picking the fruit themselves so much. i;'m sure some do, but when i was a whipper snapper, my grandfather had an orchard. When it was picking time it was all hands on deck family-wise, sun up to sundown and beyond, 7 days. I don't think they really employed anyone - but I guess it also wasn't a huge enterprise as most family farms weren't in those days...

Something def amiss atm.

There's always calls for pickers.

TV, radio, politicians telling people they got to relocate BUT its a fallacy...they wont take on and employ keen locals.

It's got a bad reputation now.