Ah, but grass before beer, you’re insxhlopubestear!

Nothing like a long, cool ethnically cleansing glass of cultural squash!

I hear the same thing from artists and actors and celebrities in general. They say one bad review can hurt, even if the others are great.

The thing is that there is no way to please everybody, and even beyond that, some people can never be pleased! If you change yourself according to their complaints, they just find new complaints!

The trick is to pay attention only to comments that are trying to engage honestly, in good faith, from an informed perspective.

Which is easy to say and hard to do. I know. How do you know if someone is informed? How do you recognise reasonable-sounding bullshit? How do you recognise a grumpy bastard who is nevertheless saying something you need to hear?

I am surprised to be able to report, as a veteran of many online forums and 46 years of life, that it’s possible! If you spend enough time just not responding to the comments that aren’t being constructive or helpful, they actually stop being so visible in your mind. You may notice in the moment, but they do not hang around any more because your brain has realised they do not matter.

Sometimes you even recognise the mistake they are making while flaming you, give them a politely informative response, and they realise their mistake and start being civilised. Not very often, but sometimes. 😄

Quite a few really good ones, though. I appreciated them as good short fiction.

It’s still called an election. It’s just not democratic.

We did help you kill people in Afghanistan and Iraq, but at least in Afghanistan we were killing Taliban, who aren’t exactly nice people to have around. And we made the place better for the people while we were there, even though it all went to shit when we left. I have talked to Australians who fought there, read stories from the locals, heard the words of a few of the people who left Afghanistan to escape the Taliban.

In other words, we are imperial vassals who try to do the right thing in the situation directly in front of us, while we indirectly serve the overall goals of Western hegemony. I cannot argue that we’re on the right side of history.

Most of our politicians clearly want to distance ourselves from the mask-off fascist US government, because it’s obvious even to their neoliberal eyes that this is too far, but we are tied by a million arrangements. The military ties you mention, the economic ties which are thanfully less important, the language, the cultural similarities, and the shared history of alliance. Most unfortunately, the Five Eyes alliance.

If we start leaving all that, we will be stomped on by the US, and our people still believe we need a good friend with a big army to protect us from Chinese aggression. Which is bullshit, as you and I both know, but they do believe that.

So it’s easier to just uncomfortably remain closely allied with an unreliable partner, and politely refrain from actually helping the US commit atrocities, and hope they sort it out electorally.

Very good point. Widen dem gams by 50%, I’d say.

Well, one aspect of the recent mass shooting in Sydney that was remarkable compared to ones in the US or Europe was that the shooters used long guns that could not fire very fast. Australian laws introduced after the Port Arthur massacre focused on preventing rate of fire and ammo capacity, because it literally slows down the rate at which a shooter can kill people, especially in a crowd. We also do not allow handguns, even though we allow quite powerful long arms.

If the Bondi shooters had simple trigger-pull semi-automatic ARs, they would likely have killed a lot more people.

We also have much stricter registration laws, without the loopholes you get in the States, so police generally know who has guns, where they are stored, etc, to a much greater extent, and can check up on gun owners if they want, any time. There are far fewer crazy people with guns, because you can get your license and guns taken away for being crazy, or committing violent crimes, etc.

Now, the advantage we have over the EU and the USA is a harder border to cross, fewer people crossing it, only eight state/territories to worry about, and uniform federal legislation about what guns are allowed. It makes it easier to restrict the supply of easily obtainable illegal weapons.

Sure, criminal gangs can get them, but mass shootings are bad for business, so the loners and freaks who typically do mass shootings can’t easily get them.

Am a fat man, you’re totally correct. It’s weird. The rest of me is flabby but those suckers are like steel.

And what do we do with those arms?

We live with it by having gun laws which have prevented the rash of mass shootings you’ve had, and maintaining foreign aid programs to the countries around us, and many further away.

Yes, we trade with you, and China, and Israel, and everyone we can, because trade historically opens up opportunities for diplomacy and allows leverage for achieving human rights goals. We are part of the greater US empire, yes indeed, we’ve been too close to the US in the past. But when we found that our special forces had killed civilians in Afghanistan, for example, it resulted in national scandal and ongoing reform, inquiry, etc. In the US that’s just the norm.

We do not participate in US military actions that may result in civilian deaths. We do not refuel your planes when they do that, for example.

We are sitting over here, trying to be friends, while being ever more horrified with your country and trying to remember the good times.

While it was immensely piss weak, Albo walked the usual line of not pissing off MAGA while not actually whole-heartedly agreeing with them. He stated that Australia supports US efforts to stop Iran’s nuclear program, but did not actually support the strikes. It’s the Penny Wong approach, “don’t get Trump’s attention, he might forget we exist” that they’ve been following the whole time.

Didn’t oppose them either. See? Pissweak. But so far we’ve avoided the pedo’s wrath while not being forced to actually materially support US brutality or being slapped by China. So it’s working.

America.

Probably more like 10,000. But yes, the Iranian government are a brutal bunch of thugs.

Doesn’t justify the US attacks at all. This is unlikely to result in regime change, more like bloody civil war.

Ha! Solidarity, mate. Although I should warn you, too many of those temp bans and they kick you out for good. As happened to me, which is why I’m here. 😄

Agh, fuck. Where’s Q when you need him?

Phwoar.

It’s an example of corporate regulatory capture, just like the US Democrats. Corbyn was the last gasp of actual Labour values, and they made sure that all possibility of that died with him. Labour will never again be a left-wing party, it’s centre-right from here on out.

The only reason Starmer’s not sacked yet is that whoever replaces him is definitely losing the next election.

Americans don’t think so. They think they’re all Arabs.