Re: G'day from Australia

76
lurker wrote: Sat Apr 18, 2020 8:23 am
Gaznazdiak wrote: Sat Apr 18, 2020 3:50 am Damn Nazis are everywhere.
i'm liking this guy more and more.
Oh Lurker, you're making me blush.😂

On a serious note though, ASIO the Australian Security Intelligence Organization, which is equivalent to the British MI5 or perhaps your Homeland Security, has determined that we here, and by extrapolation the world, have more to fear from home grown neo nazi groups than Muslim fundamentalists.
They are becoming far more organized and their influence has reached into the conservative party structure here, with a number of junior members being forced to resign after discovery of connections to far right extremist groups.
The more urbane older members are far better practised at hiding their connections.
The other danger here is that we have fringe parties like One Nation who are unashamedly racist and xenophobic, but have just enough numbers to hold balance of power positions on many policy decisions.
To make things worse our traditionally socialist leaning Labor party has performed the paradoxical feat of drifting steadily to the right while busily influence peddling to Beijing for underhanded cash political donations.
Fidelis ad mortem

Re: G'day from Australia

77

Gaznazdiak wrote:
lurker wrote: Sat Apr 18, 2020 8:23 am
Gaznazdiak wrote: Sat Apr 18, 2020 3:50 am Damn Nazis are everywhere.
i'm liking this guy more and more.
Oh Lurker, you're making me blush.
Image


On a serious note though, ASIO the Australian Security Intelligence Organization, which is equivalent to the British MI5 or perhaps your Homeland Security, has determined that we here, and by extrapolation the world, have more to fear from home grown neo nazi groups than Muslim fundamentalists.
They are becoming far more organized and their influence has reached into the conservative party structure here, with a number of junior members being forced to resign after discovery of connections to far right extremist groups.
The more urbane older members are far better practised at hiding their connections.
The other danger here is that we have fringe parties like One Nation who are unashamedly racist and xenophobic, but have just enough numbers to hold balance of power positions on many policy decisions.
To make things worse our traditionally socialist leaning Labor party has performed the paradoxical feat of drifting steadily to the right while busily influence peddling to Beijing for underhanded cash political donations.
Yeah, so exactly like America, except people don't resign for being overt racists with clear connections to far right extremist groups, they get called "true patriots" by Republican voters and get re-elected. In America, only people on the left resign, and it's usually for making an off-color joke in poor taste in a private setting.

We too have noticed the rightward drift in our politics even from the left, and it's only been recently that what are essentially centrist policies like universal healthcare and paid sick leave and liveable wages can even be discussed on the "left", while on the "right" they're instantly attacked and disregarded as socialist commie policies and the comparisons to Venezuela start flying. Funny how they never wanna compare us to you all down under, or Denmark, or Sweden, or the UK, or France, or Germany, or Japan, or South Korea, or Canada, or any number of other countries that we are far closer to politically, culturally and socioeconomically than Venezuela. Nope, can't do that. Wanna create a just society where the economy works for all working people willing to put in the effort and contribute? You're a socialist commie bastard and you're trying to destroy the country with your gay trans abortion feminazism, or something, I can't keep track anymore.

Re: G'day from Australia

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@kronkmusic

Ah, the intellectual laziness of the convenient ignore.
Socialized medicine has, as you say, proven to work without every citizen having to carry the Little Red Book or destroying economies, but the right seem to only be able to see things that support their ideology, everything else is either propaganda or hoax.

Another example is power generation and telecommunications.
We have the biggest interconnected power grid in the world it was a nationslized industry and power was cheap, then it was sold off piecemeal to the private sector so governments could pad their bugets telling the rubes that competion would drive innovation and lower prices.
Of course the opposite happened and we now have some of the highest power costs.
Same with phone and net, our mobile and data charges after privatization were the highest in the developed world with some of the lowest coverage.
The Labor party planned to create a national broadband network with optical fibre to all premises.
The conservative Liberal/National party coalition threw that plan out for a privatized hodgepodge of fiber to the node, fixed wireless and satellite, giving us a 20th century solution for our 21st century needs.
I am only 95km from the nation's capital (as the crow flies) but will never have anything but a satellite connection with the associated failings of high cost, slow speed and tiny data allowance.
Yay for privatization.
Fidelis ad mortem

Re: G'day from Australia

79
The politicians are easy to figure out, they do it at the behest of corporations and individuals for personal gain. It's the voters that confound me. The solution to bad government is not no government, it's good government, and the entire purpose of government, in an idealized sense, is to do together what we cannot do alone, or not do as well alone.

You all have privatized prisons down there yet?

Re: G'day from Australia

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@kronkmusic

Further to the above.
To give credit where it is due though, the conservatives, after years of ridiculing the Left for the stimulus package that allowed Australia to be the only developed nation to get through the GFC without recession, did finally, begrudgingly start their own, doubling the pitiful $40/day unemployment payments and providing a $1500/fortnight "Jobkeeper" payment to businesses to pay workers to stay at home, but remain connected to their employment for when the restrictions can be lifted.

They are using the opportunity though, to wind back industrial relations improvements brought in by the Left. Bastards.
Fidelis ad mortem

Re: G'day from Australia

81
Gaznazdiak wrote: Sat Apr 18, 2020 3:50 am I saw a BBC report the other night on Bezos and Amazon and how he's getting to be as bad if not worse than little Marky Mark Suck-a-bog at information gathering and monetization.

Now the Australian government wants us all to download a tracer app that will supposedly help with contact tracing for covid19 infection
They're all reassuring about "it's all voluntary", but refused to rule out making it mandatory if they don't get at least 40% uptake.

Damn Nazis are everywhere.
At least your government will ask. Our current government doesn't have to. They'll make the providers do it secretly. They'll just wait until we find out and sue and then let the courts decide. "National Security" plus "Emergency" allows Trump to do too much.
It is an unfortunate human failing that a full pocketbook often groans more loudly than an empty stomach.

- Franklin D. Roosevelt

Re: G'day from Australia

82
kronkmusic wrote: Sat Apr 18, 2020 10:20 pm .

You all have privatized prisons down there yet?
Yes that charming idea has firmly taking hold in the conservatives' tiny minds to the point where we have twice the number of people in private prisons than you guys and we only have 24.6 million people.

The mandatory detention of asylum seekers has been privatized to the lowest bidder and it's a fucking shocker.

I'm all in favour of us deciding who gets in and who gets the boot, but if you imprison someone while you decide their refugee status you create for yourself a duty of care for that person.
Offshore dentention in places like Papua New Guinea, that have endemic health system issues of their own, means that if a person you have detained has a serious health problem, you are morally bound to give that person the care due that condition, and that means bringing them onshore to a proper medical facility.

There have been ongoing fights about whether asylum seekers who need medical treatment should be brought to Australia, with the conservatives wanting staff employed by the private company running the center to arrange whatever might be available onsite.

The entire system is patently corrupt with one $423 million contract awarded to a shonky mob calling themselves The Palladin Group. This "group" had as it's headquarters an unoccupied beach shack on Kangaroo Island.

https://www.afr.com/policy/foreign-affa ... 215-h1bbph

We have people who are in indefinite detention now because they have been classed as economic refugees but come from countries we can't send them back to and the government has repeatedly refused New Zealand offers to take them on the paper thin excuse that if they are given NZ citizenship they may use that to try to visit Australia and they have vowed that nobody arriving by boat ever will. This is also why they are refusing to bring them here for treatment.

They also try their best to ignore or downplay the documented fact that since their claim to have stopped the "boat people" with their Draconian tactics, over 95,000 have arrived on tourist visas and immediately claimed asylum.
While these arrivals are freed into the community on protection visas, the unfortunates who chose the boat route moulder away in PNG.
Fidelis ad mortem

Re: G'day from Australia

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@kronkmusic

I'm afraid that in the above post I fell victim to something for which I have mocked others, confirmation bias and laziness.
Seems what goes around really does come around sometimes.

When you asked about private prisons I knew we had some and that all mandatory detention of undocumented arrivals was privately run.
Not knowing the extent, I did a quick search, found 1 article, looked for corroboration, didn't find it aaaaaand ran with it anyway. Now I can't even find the article.
:oops:
The thought that we, with only 25M people could have more in private jails than you with +300M people was niggling so I asked a friend who is a retired prison officer.
They laughed and pointed out I was speaking alternative truth. You know, like the numbers at the last inauguration?
We used to have several but the states have wound them back and now, according to my mate, there's only one.
Fidelis ad mortem

Re: G'day from Australia

84
Gaznazdiak wrote:@kronkmusic

I'm afraid that in the above post I fell victim to something for which I have mocked others, confirmation bias and laziness.
Seems what goes around really does come around sometimes.

When you asked about private prisons I knew we had some and that all mandatory detention of undocumented arrivals was privately run.
Not knowing the extent, I did a quick search, found 1 article, looked for corroboration, didn't find it aaaaaand ran with it anyway. Now I can't even find the article.
:oops:
The thought that we, with only 25M people could have more in private jails than you with +300M people was niggling so I asked a friend who is a retired prison officer.
They laughed and pointed out I was speaking alternative truth. You know, like the numbers at the last inauguration?
We used to have several but the states have wound them back and now, according to my mate, there's only one.
Hey, we all do it, nature of the beast that is the human brain, and good on ya for having the critical thought to actually find out the real truth. Much respect. On the bright side, that's actually rather good news!

Re: G'day from Australia

85
kronkmusic wrote: Thu Apr 23, 2020 7:21 pm
Gaznazdiak wrote:@kronkmusic

I'm afraid that in the above post I fell victim to something for which I have mocked others, confirmation bias and laziness.
Seems what goes around really does come around sometimes.

When you asked about private prisons I knew we had some and that all mandatory detention of undocumented arrivals was privately run.
Not knowing the extent, I did a quick search, found 1 article, looked for corroboration, didn't find it aaaaaand ran with it anyway. Now I can't even find the article.
:oops:
The thought that we, with only 25M people could have more in private jails than you with +300M people was niggling so I asked a friend who is a retired prison officer.
They laughed and pointed out I was speaking alternative truth. You know, like the numbers at the last inauguration?
We used to have several but the states have wound them back and now, according to my mate, there's only one.
Hey, we all do it, nature of the beast that is the human brain, and good on ya for having the critical thought to actually find out the real truth. Much respect. On the bright side, that's actually rather good news!
Thanks mate, my Mum always taught us: if you can't be honest, be quiet.
Fidelis ad mortem

Re: G'day from Australia

86
Gaznazdiak wrote: Sun Apr 12, 2020 12:48 am
lurker wrote: Sat Apr 11, 2020 10:09 pm :welcome:
whatcha shoot?
am i correct in assuming that you have the same sort of political divide over guns as we do?
we have our biases, just not the ones you usually hear about.
Hi Lurker,

The rig I've been load developing for is a Frankenstein setup I've put together. Nothing too special, but it will reliably head shoot rabbits out to 350m. As long as it isn't too windy, I am hopeless at judging for wind.
It's a Howa .223 action with a 24" fluted bull barrel, Gunbloke 1.5lb trigger, in an XLR Industries Element chassis with a Hawke 10-50×60 scope.

Webp.net-resizeimage (8).jpg

After 3 years of trying every combination of pill type and weight, seating depth, powder load and primer, I realized that the one variable I hadn't tinkered with was case weight.
So I weighed all my cases and batched them to .1gn.

The final "sweet" combination was Hornady 55gn soft nose projectiles, marketed here as Roo Max, seated to the top of the cannelure in ADI brass weighing 93.3gn over 25.5gn of ADI 2206H powder and CCI BR4 primer. The results made me laugh out loud.

Webp.net-resizeimage (23).jpg
I used my last, many patched, reactive target to see my results as it was a boiling hot day and the Hawke was suffering from a wavering heat distortion on high magnification.
The hole above the bull is 5 rounds at 300m, the 2 fliers are 2 factory rounds I had left over as comparison as they use the same brass (weight unknown for obvious reasons) and a 55gn Sierra soft nose projectile. It was totally calm weather, shots were fired 2 minutes apart to try to eliminate barrel temperature variability. The red mark below indicates the target.
Webp.net-resizeimage.jpg


I also have a Winchester Model 04 .22 that my Mum gave me for my 13th birthday, a single shot Sportco 12g I bought new for $40 at Kmart in 1978 and a Savage Bmag in .17 WSM. Awesome round that little WSM.
As to what I shoot at, rabbits, cats, foxes and pigs.
A lot of "town" people are horrified at the thought of shooting cats, I don't much like it myself, but they are a huge problem here, killing an estimated 1 billion native animals per year.

The political "divide" on guns here?
Unfortunately there is little. It seems of late to be more of a competition to see who can come up with the most Draconian addition to the already restrictive environment.
Our guns were taken by an unpopular conservative government cashing in on the national horror over the Port Arthur massacre, as mass shootings were extremely rare here, even then. The rest of the political spectrum jumped aboard and things have been going downhill ever since.
Unlike America, gun ownership here is not a constitutional right, but there was never a big anti-gun push until Port Arthur.

I have no problem with tight gun laws per se, as long as they are based solely on safety and logic. Strict background checks, licensing, registration, safe storage etc. are fine with me, but things have descended into lunacy.
For example, I am allowed to have my Howa, with which I can get the results above, but if I was found with a totally inert replica of that same rifle I am liable to get from 7 to 14 years imprisonment.
In my state of NSW, not only are Gel Blasters prohibited, but there is an upper limit on the muzzle velocity of NERF guns :see_stars:
There has been a serious push amongst the ban everything brigade to prohibit any firearm that has a "military" look about it, but even the minutia are ridiculous.
Another case in point, the chassis on my Howa has adjustable length of pull. Luckily in my case, it is fixed with Allen head screws and therefore legal. If it was fixed by a cam lock, however, that is illegal and the firearm could be confiscated.

To make things worse, shooters are vastly outnumbered here now. I can't recall the exact numbers but it's down to less than 5% of population.
What has driven me away from Australian gun forums is the above numbers combined with the radical attitudes of so many on these forums.
We rely for our very existence as shooters on the votes of the other ~95%. These non shooters are not going to go to the range and talk to people competing, they aren't going to come all the way out here and talk to someone like me, in this increasingly online world they are going to get their impressions from what they see online either news or via visiting forums. What they are likely to read on these forums is what worries me the most, insane conspiracy theories, racist xenophobia, hatred against anything progressive. Don't dare mention Agenda 21, sustainability, climate change, foreign aid or any of a plethora of their pet manias.

Sorry about the gun law rant, but you did ask :D

What about you Lurker? :drunklep:
South Australia:
SA guy registers nerf gun as a gun licensed under a strange new law
A new law introduced last October classified gel blasters as firearms.

This means that users of Nerf guns that put gel balls in toy guns have weapons that technically require registration.

“There’s no logic behind it. We’re looking at the price of guns for those who go to the store and buy nerf guns,” Gelblast owner Brett Herbert told 7NEWS.

Re: G'day from Australia

87
Wabbits? Been feeding the wild ones here with wabbit kibble due to the drought. Might have some fat wabbits for bunny stew come winter.

The gel blaster/nerf gun thing I heard about. Thats just going way too far. Jesus, how are kids supposed to have fun? I bet they don't allow paintball guns either. Used to take the boys to paintball ranges where they would have teams. Those dang things hurt.

Do they allow pellet guns? Sheesh.
“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing,”

Re: G'day from Australia

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After seeing this story, I have crossed off Oz from my traveling itinerary this summer. A Huntsman. What does it hunt? Canberra?

Image
"When mission scientists decided to put images from Mars on the World Wide Web, we don't think this is what they had in mind," the Canberra Deep Space Network tweeted.
https://www.9news.com.au/technology/gia ... D=ref_fark

He he.

CDFingers
Crazy cat peekin' through a lace bandana
like a one-eyed Cheshire, like a diamond-eyed Jack

Re: G'day from Australia

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G'day Gaznazdiak!
Spent a couple weeks down your way almost 10 years ago: Sydney, Coogee, day trip by train up to Katoomba in the Blue Mtns. Really want to get back that way and see a lot more. For now I'm settling for reading the Bony (Inspector Bonaparte) series, LOL.
LGC #58559867
אבראהאדאברא
θέλημα Αγάπη

Re: G'day from Australia

90
CDFingers wrote: Sat May 08, 2021 9:28 am After seeing this story, I have crossed off Oz from my traveling itinerary this summer. A Huntsman. What does it hunt? Canberra?

Image
"When mission scientists decided to put images from Mars on the World Wide Web, we don't think this is what they had in mind," the Canberra Deep Space Network tweeted.
https://www.9news.com.au/technology/gia ... D=ref_fark

He he.

CDFingers
:rofl:
I was given a similar prohibition after my partner saw a story on giant Australian moths. Mothra was mentioned.

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