Angry Aussie on Transgender toilet rights :)

Angry and his guest are agog at the ridiculousness of the US Great Bathroom Panic! There was never a problem before the christian maniacs created one!

 

More profit doesn't mean more staff - business owner

I don't know why the gov keeps banging on about the bigger pie and trickle down. It just doesn't work, yet us plebs are expected to swallow this yet again.

Here on Q&A last night, a business owner says straight out that more profit doesn't mean he's going to need more staff. "It doesn't make sense" as he already has the staff he needs to run the place.

So why then the $50billion corporate tax cut?

 

Turnbull reckons gay marriage plebiscite by end of year - *pfffft*

Another turd of a policy dreamed up in an Abbott captain's call, sticks to Turnbull like rotten eggs. 

Despite poll after poll after poll showing that Australians are overwhelmingly for marriage equality, the Lieberals want to have another nationwide poll anyway to tell them exactly the same thing. Costing a whopping half a $billion. Which some Lieberals have made it clear they won't abide by the vote anyway. Which they haven't even gotten their act together for the wording of the question FFS!

Yet ball-less, gutless, bullied Turnbull maintains the Abbott turd of a policy. Yet again the brakes are put on and Australia is held back by a few bitter middle aged white Catholic men in Canberra. 

Again our lives are politicised. When was the last time we got to vote on straight marriage then?

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull says he expects a plebiscite on same-sex marriage to be held by the end of 2016 if the Coalition is returned to government, his strongest commitment yet on the timing of the vote. 

"We will hold it as soon as possible after the election. Given that the election is on 2 July, we do have ample time between then and the end of the year. So I would expect it to be held this calendar year," he said on Monday. 

"But it will be held as soon as practical, as obviously legislation has got to pass through the Parliament so all I can do is give you my commitment to hold a plebiscite as soon as we can and it will be a very straightforward question and we will be asking the Australian people whether they support the definition of marriage being extended to include couples of the same sex." 

In March, Mr Turnbull refused to back a prediction from Attorney-General George Brandis that the change to the Marriage Act would be legislated by the end of the year. Senator Brandis' comments surprised colleagues and caused a backlash among conservative MPs. Sydney Morning Herald

"I would expect it ot be held by the end of this year", WTF is that? We're supposed to trust those wishy washy words anyway? It's not like anything else Turnbull has expected has been carried through to policy.....So how long will it be before the next hard right "backlash"?

'Malcolm Turnbull expects marriage equality plebiscite by year's end.' An expensive and wholly unnecessary policy. https://t.co/MrxhGa5kJr

— HumanRightsLawCentre (@rightsagenda) May 30, 2016

  

Serious Lieberal rumblings of an Abbott return if Turnbull loses - is Abbott a Rudd?

OMG the stupid hurts my head!

Believe it or not folks, that far right wing of the Lieberal party (better know as "the gov in exile") is now seriously considering the return of Tony Abbott to the Lieberal leadership if Turnbull loses to Labor this election.

The ramifications are mind boggling. Is Abbott now behind the scenes actively working against the Turnbull gov to achieve this goal? He despises the man. He feels robbed of his prime ministership which he still considers to be part of his "good gov". 

It appears the hard right is also as delusional as him.  I think it's some sort of mass psychosis personally. I dunno who the fuck they talk to or hang around, but they actually think Australia would want Abbott back as PM. Far out.

Particularly when the reason for Turnbull's present unpopularity is because his PM-ship is pretty much being run by the hard right of the party with all Abbott's policies. You could put anyone in the chair, but if the policies are a turd then Australians aren't going to like them.

Do they think we serfs like getting clobbered over the head continuously by the gov? Getting driven into the dirt so corporate Australia can have a $50billion tax cut? Do they think we don't worry about our health? That we want to see a minority discriminated against through marriage? That we want to see the destruction of the Great Barrier Reef and prime farmland for the sake of coal? That we want to lock kids and vulnerable innocents in offshore gulags? That we don't care about vulnerable people like Duncan Storrar?

Why would they think that? Do they think that Australians are all carbon copies of them? Bitter middle aged white Catholic men  yearning for the 1950"s? Who wouldn't know a thing about love or compassion, particularly to us mere pawns.

FFS these people are absolutely brain dead morons. So much so in fact they may become the first federal Australian gov in over 80 years to lose office after only one term.

Tony Abbott’s back, baby. 

Well, maybe not quite. Still, for the first time, a conservative pundit has touted an Abbott restoration as a more-or-less serious prospect. 

Last week, Troy Bramston outlined a potential pathway for Abbott’s return. If Malcolm Turnbull loses on 2 July – an outcome that, while still unlikely, seems more plausible with each passing day – he’ll be out on his ear. Who will succeed him? Bramston dismisses both Julie Bishop and Scott Morrison as unviable, and the rising crop of Liberal aspirants as raw and untested. 

That’s why, he says, amid the recriminations, it might be once more time for Tony. 

“[W]ith the party reeling from defeat and there being no obvious leadership successor,” Bramston argues, “all eyes will be on the re-elected member for Warringah.” 

Make of that what you will. 

But the speculation, in and of itself, draws attention to an astonishing transformation playing out before us, as a Labor-style civil war simmers in the Liberal ranks. The Guardian  

Clive goes rouge on Lieberals - tells of near Abbott punch up!

Clive Palmer isn't re-contesting his Queensland seat (which BTW has appeared to favour Labor and the Greens up there) and will exit parliament this election. However it looks like he's wanting to take a few Lieberals down with him :)

He's spilling the beans all over the place. Lieberal cesspool of secret money bla this and bla that. What I found most interesting though is the near punch up he had with Abbott back in 2012 when he got so pissed off with the Lieberals he left the party and started the Palmer United Party (since disbanded).

What transpired sounds typical Abbott:

Mr Palmer has also revealed more about his falling out with Tony Abbott in 2012, when he was still a member of the Liberal Party. 

The disagreement took place over drinks in Melbourne, when the two clashed over resolutions to restrict lobbyists in the Liberal Party. 

"I packed up my stuff and said to Tony Abbott that I had to leave to talk to some more important people than him and as I tried to leave the room he blocked my exit, gesturing with his hands in what I would say an aggressive manner, asking me to sit down and sort this out," he said. 

"I decided I should leave, so I went to leave and he stood and blocked my way. I then reminded him that he was quite a capable boxing champion as a bantam weight when he was at university, whereas I was a heavyweight and he should step aside, and he did. "

Peta Credlin was sitting there gasping in the corner." ABC   

Yes, it's hard to believe now. This thug was our prime minister. Those were very dark days for Australia. Let us remember and never return again to repeat those days..... 

Lieberal candidate hands out Abbott for PM flyers - Sutherland, Sydney

This mob's running the country. The adults in charge and all. Yet this close Abbott supporter can't even tell the difference from last election's flyers and this one's.

Why the hell last election's flyers were not specifically separated from this one's, or why last election's one's were even kept at all, is anyone's guess. But I'd suggest it does say something about the candidates competence, or lack thereof.

It's not the message Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull wants to see issued on the streets of Sydney as he tries to present a united front with the still-bruised conservative ranks of the federal Liberal Party.

Liberal MP Craig Kelly, one of the most vociferous supporters of Tony Abbott before and during the challenge by Mr Turnbull in September, has been handing out election flyers that contain his wish to "contribute to a Coalition government under Tony Abbott".

Fairfax Media has obtained a copy of the flyer, which was being handed out by personally by Mr Kelly at Sutherland railway station on May 20. Sydney Morning Herald  

BTW it looks even worse as voters would reflect back on the last election, and Tony Abbott's handshake being his so called "word". 

"Gay encounters cause earthquakes" - Muslims; Ghana, Africa

More love from the religious..... in this case Muslims, from the same continent that has produced so called "cures" for HIV by chucking together a bunch of herbs.

In Ghana, Africa, there has evidently been a big religious crackdown on evil gays, with known gays going into hiding now. So much so that a holy war has been called against the dastardly gays there, with encouragement from Muslim leaders to drive them out. 

Needless to say you can imagine the rhetoric. I assume gays will be blamed for everything from a lack of rain to earthquakes. Earthquakes has definitely got a big mention in this story.

The Muslims, who predominantly populate the Zongos, perceive same-sex relationships as evil, since such relationships are abhorred by the teachings of the Holy Quran. 

Administering severe punishment to gays and lesbians is considered as a holy endeavor every Muslim should not shy away from undertaking. 

Speaking in an interview, a local cleric, Mallam Abass Mahmud, said “Allah gets annoyed when males engage in sexual encounter and such disgusting encounter causes earthquake”. 

According to him the destruction of the ancient cities of Sodom and Gomorrah by Allah was as the result of homosexuality and he called for a holy war against gays and lesbians in the country, particularly in Muslim dominated suburbs. 

“Should we allow such a shame to continue in our communities against our holy teachings?” he asked. He answered that “certainly no,and we are very happy to chase away such idiots from our Zongo communities”. News Ghana

As usual, there's no science involved in religious assertions. 

"Visit Australia" anti-add :)

With colonel clink in charge of asylum seekers and Hunt being the minister for climate change denial, Juice Media has put together a more realistic tourism add for Australia.

This one is much more honest, and what the gov would actually say if it was thinking out loud. You know how us Aussies are straight to the point and direct.....

 

Martin Shkreli, fired Big Pharma guy, endorses Trump

@MartinShkreli You're fired :)

— Peter Hiv (@HivPeter) May 29, 2016

"We'll put a boot in your ass. It's the American way." - Palin, US

Atomic cloud after Hiroshima was bombed, killing instantly 140,000 people

Typical. Palin was responding to Obama's visit to Hiroshima, the first US president to do so.

After a couple of minutes of diatribe about how the US is "innocent" and all, Palin asserts that if said innocence is attacked:

 "we'll put a boot in your ass. It's the American way." 

That's worked out well hasn't it. Vietnam. Iraq. Afghanistan. Drones over Pakistan......

Oh yeah. Support the troops and all. Yeah right. 

Update: Despite all of the above, you have to admit this is a moment in history. A picture says 1,000 words: 

90,000 vacant homes in a housing crisis - Sydney's negative gearing lunacy

How completely, utterly, stupendously ridiculous. A new study has estimated there are 90,000 vacant homes in Sydney, whilst we have some of the most expensive and unaffordable housing in the world. Negative gearing pays the 10% of landlords who do so, to leave the property vacant. With the other 90% of taxpayers paying for their loss. It's absolute tax lunacy!

Well now things are in a pickle aren't they. What happens if a gov comes along and completely kills negative gearing? Suddenly there's 90,000 available properties to rent as the landlord then has no choice but to rent them to get a return on it. Rents will fall with a huge amount of new housing stock to chose from.

Or the Landlord may decide he has to sell it rather than deal with the rent return. Suddenly there's a whole bunch of new properties on the market. House prices will fall.

Housing isn't meant to be for speculative investment funded by the taxpayer in a distorted market. Housing is to provide shelter for the population, not lining the pockets of the rich.

No wonder Labor is treading carefully in reducing negative gearing rather than an all out cancellation of it. Such a sudden end, with such a bent market, would surely lead to a sudden and steep housing crash. Probably the best option to fix this fuck up is a slow deflation of the bubble over time rather than a big bang. 

Sydney's housing affordability crisis is being artificially inflated by up to 90,000 properties standing empty in some of the city's most desirable suburbs, experts say. 

Vacant properties were among the "perverse outcomes" of tax incentives that encouraged some investors to favour capital growth over rental returns, according to the analysis by the UNSW's City Futures Research Centre. 

"Leaving housing empty is both profitable and subsidised by government," researchers Bill Randolph and Laurence Troy said. "This is taxation lunacy and a national scandal." 

According to 2011 census, in Sydney's "emptiest" neighbourhood of the CBD, Haymarket and The Rocks, one in seven dwellings was vacant. 

Close behind were Manly-Fairlight, Potts Point-Woolloomooloo, Darlinghurst and Neutral Bay - Kirribilli, which all had vacancy levels above 13 per cent. These neighbourhoods, together with central Sydney, account for nearly 7200 empty homes. 

The analysis of the 90,000 unoccupied dwellings across metropolitan Sydney compared the number of empty homes in a suburb against the rate of return investors made by renting out a property. 

It found that properties in neighbourhoods with lower rental yields and higher expected capital gains were more likely to be unoccupied. 

Gordon-Killara on the north shore had the highest share of vacant apartments, with more than one in six unoccupied on Census night. 

By contrast, only one in 42 dwellings (2.4 per cent) in Green Valley-Cecil Hills, in Sydney's west, was unoccupied. 

The results suggested property investors in some of Sydney's most sought-after areas were focusing on growing the value of their properties, with losses offset by tax incentives such as negative gearing and capital gains concessions. 

This could leave investors indifferent to whether the dwellings were occupied, Dr Troy and Professor Randolph said. 

"If you choose to accept that there is a housing shortage in Sydney, then the sheer scale and location of these figures strongly suggest that this is an artificially produced scarcity," they said. Sydney Morning Herald  

Corrupt Chinese property tycoons linked to huge political donations

Huang Xiangmo with Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull

This stinks.

So to summarise, a Chinese property tycoon, Huang Xiangmo, has left China to avoid being caught up in the scandal of the anti-corruption drive over there, that bought down that person a while back in 2014, "Party Secretary Wan Qingliang" which even made the main stream news here in Australia. Quite unusual.

Well guess where he's come? Australia. Apparently throwing money around like there's no tomorrow. Including at both main political parties. Totaling a $million each.

Another developer, Guangzhou R&F Properties, has been linked to a $100,000 donation to the Lieberal party. Which just happens to be the gov. Which just happens to not want to touch negative gearing.....

Looks to me like it's the property tycoons vs the housing poor. How about investing in affordable housing instead of speculative prices in a distorted market that favours the landlord?

China’s investments in Australia’s property market have often been hailed by politicians as a source of economic growth for the country, but reports this month indicate that the activities of at least two mainland developers may also have had direct benefits for the politicians themselves. 

A seemingly unrelated pair of reports this month in the Australian media have established links between Chinese property developers investing down under, including Hong Kong-listed homebuilder Guangzhou R&F, and mammoth donations to the campaigns of politicians at the local and national level. 

A second mainland developer active in Australia has now been tied to a corruption scandal in southern China that ultimately toppled Guangzhou Party Secretary Wan Qingliang in 2014. 

As many Australians grapple with the challenges posed by skyrocketing real estate prices, and Chinese companies continue to bid aggressively for Aussie property assets, the reports of influence-buying increase the likelihood of a political backlash against Chinese investors. Mingtiandi  

Chemical weapons experiments by US and Australia - troops "used and betrayed"

In recent times it's been bought to light the joint Australian and British chemical weapons experiments that took place in Queensland. The British were keen to see what a tropical climate did for the effectiveness of mustard gas, being as we were at war in the Pacific with the Japanese. Unfortunately though for the Australian troops who were experimented on, the mustard gas effects were much amplified by the tropical heat.

This can all be read about in the book "Keen as Mustard" by war veteran Bridget Goodwin. 

There's also a DVD documentary available, which aired some years back here on Australian TV. The DVD is here.

Australian Chemical Warfare Research and Experimental Section at Innisfail

Originally released in 1989, this disturbing documentary looks at a little known aspect of Australian wartime history. Scientists, laboratory staff and military volunteers recount experiences with the Australian Chemical Warfare Unit, which, with the active involvement of both British and American resources and personnel, tested mustard gas in Queensland during the Second World War. 

These tests were recorded in films which were once as secret as the experiments themselves. Now available to the public, these images provide vivid illustrations for the stories told by the men and women who participated in the experiments. Keen as Mustard

Australian Field Experimental Station at Proserpine

All very shocking if you've never heard of it here in Australia. Even to think that the plan ultimately was to use chemical weapons against the Japanese. We however should recognise this as a dark part of Australia's and Britain's history. Albeit little was known about the long term effects of mustard gas and the thinking at the time was that once the boils were healed then that was the end of it.

If you think that's bad though, just have a look at what the US did to it's service men and women. Keen to be the most superior military ever, they experimented on their troops like they were nothing more than guinea pigs. At times they literally used live pigs along side their troops in the same operations to see what happened to them.

    

Donate to air TV add in marginal seats - GetUp, climate change

With the gov effectively trying to censor the damage being caused by climate change to Australia by getting the Australian chapter taken out of a worldwide UN report into climate change, GetUp has put together an add to air in marginal seats across the country.

You can contribute here if you so desire. 

 

Shorten calls Trump "Barking mad" :)

This morning Bill Shorten, Labor opposition leader and in with a chance as our next prime minister, called Donald Trump "barking mad"! Oh how delicious!

One thing you'd have to say about Shorten, he appears to say what we're all thinking. I mean who could deny such a statement? Trump is a raving lunatic. 

Forget the Turnbull platitudes for the US that we shouldn't comment on US elections. Bullshit! How many elections around the world have they gotten involved in then? Now a lot of them want to put a lunatic like Trump in charge of their nuclear weapons? Not just Trump, but to vote him in as such would require a whole  lot of barking mad nutters.

 

The pensioners are revolting :)

Retired members of the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union were joined by other concerned community groups in Melbourne to protest at the Abbott/Turnbull gov's cuts to the old and vulnerable in successive budgets.

They tell a familiar story of those of us getting on in years and/or facing disability, having to face living at or below the poverty line due to housing stress.

I mentioned this the other day, those of us who are the poor and forgotten by the gov. The AMWU addresses those same issues. Say it brother.....

AMWU Retired Members’ Division National Secretary Frank Cherry told the Melbourne rally that low-income families and pensioners had been condemned to living near or below the poverty line by the harsh Budgets of the Abbott and now Turnbull Governments. 

He echoed concerns of the Fair Go For Pensioners (FGFP) community coalition that senior Australians risked being ignored at this election, with the freezing of Medicare rebates, $54 billion in cuts to health and hospital services plus reviews of disability support pensions hitting the disadvantaged hardest. 

FGFP President Roger Wilson said the Coalition’s generous tax cuts to businesses and tax subsidies to property investors meant slashing services and hiking costs to the most vulnerable - including older people on pensions. 

“Jobs and growth won’t trickle down to the disadvantaged from these toxic policies,” Mr Wilson told AMWU News. 

Mr Wilson pleaded with the crowd to put the “Libs last this election”, saying that they must “reject any government that seeks to increase the costs of doctors’ visits, prescription medicines, axe dental care for families, erode disability support and cut critical aged care services”. 

Other community groups concerned about the Coalition’s planned cuts to aged services and the housing affordability crisis also spoke at the rally. 

Daisy Ellery, Chairperson of the Housing for Aged Action Group told the crowd that “the Turnbull Government doesn’t care about people on low incomes, living in housing poverty” and warned both leaders to not “underestimate the power of the old persons’ vote”. 

Mr Cherry also said that AMWU retired members agreed Coalition Ministers were out of touch with older Australians. 

On a recent visit to Canberra, Liberal Ministers did not keep appointments and instead sent their staffers in their place who were “difficult” and “had no concept of the plight of pensioners and were unable to appreciate that pensioners were living at or below the poverty line”. AMWU  

Lieberals block UN release of GBReef damage report - said it would "harm tourism"

Coral bleaching caused from climate change

The Turnbull gov has blocked Australia being mentioned in a major report on climate change from the UN. An entire chapter on Australia, particularly about the damage to the Great Barrier Reef was omitted from the report after protests from the Australian gov that it would harm tourism here if it was released.

Astonishing hypocrisy. After pushing for years to mine the Galilee Basin in Queensland, and dredge the Reef for a coal shipping route right smack through the middle of the Reef, now they're suddenly concerned about the tourism industry up there? It just beggars belief.

More likely they're trying to save face in a long election campaign, that after three years of their climate destroying gov Australia's Great Barrier Reef is on it's knees. The actions of the gov in trying to block this report are likened to something out of the old Soviet Union.

Fortunately though, Guardian Australia has obtained the omitted chapter. You may read it here. It's not surprising. Exactly what you'd expect actually.

This from The Guardian about the suppression by the Lieberals of the report:

Every reference to Australia was scrubbed from the final version of a major UN report on climate change after the Australian government intervened, objecting that the information could harm tourism. 

Guardian Australia can reveal the report “World Heritage and Tourism in a Changing Climate”, which Unesco jointly published with the United Nations environment program and the Union of Concerned Scientists on Friday, initially had a key chapter on the Great Barrier Reef, as well as small sections on Kakadu and the Tasmanian forests. 

But when the Australian Department of Environment saw a draft of the report, it objected, and every mention of Australia was removed by Unesco. Will Steffen, one of the scientific reviewers of the axed section on the reef, said Australia’s move was reminiscent of “the old Soviet Union”. 

No sections about any other country were removed from the report. The removals left Australia as the only inhabited continent on the planet with no mentions. 

Explaining the decision to object to the report, a spokesperson for the environment department told Guardian Australia: “Recent experience in Australia had shown that negative commentary about the status of world heritage properties impacted on tourism.” 

As a result of climate change combined with weather phenomena, the Great Barrier Reef is in the midst of the worst crisis in recorded history. Unusually warm water has caused 93% of the reefs along the 2,300km site to experience bleaching. In the northern most pristine part, scientists think half the coral might have died. 

The omission was “frankly astounding,” Steffen said. The Guardian   

14.5 million people to pay new charges to see doctor under Lieberal freeze

It appears that bulk billing is coming to an end for a vast number of people across Australia, as doctors contemplate years ahead of a Lieberal freeze on the Medicare rebate. Some are choosing to charge people without a health care card. Others are charging everyone, including pensioners. Only 9% of doctors say they'll continue to bulk bill everyone.

With Labor promising to end the Medicare freeze, and the Liberals saying it'll stay, there's now a very clear contrast between the two major parties. If you want to pay to see a doctor,then vote Lieberal. If you don't want to pay then vote Labor or Greens. It's now that simple.

Bulk billing is being killed off at GP practices around the country as doctors respond to the Government’s plan to freeze the Medicare rebate at $37 for six years. 

A survey of over 500 doctors by the Royal Australian College of Medical Practitioners to be released today finds 14.5 million patients will face new charges to see a doctor. 

Twenty nine per cent of doctors will end bulk billing for all patients as a result of the freeze. 

Another 22 per cent will end bulk billing for all and introduce capped fees for low income earners, the survey shows. 

Only 9 per cent of doctors said they would continue to bulk bill all patients. 

Dr Michael Aufgang from Meadows Medical Centre in Melbourne says the introduction of the freeze last year meant he had to introduce a fee for low income patients. 

The Creswick Clunes Medical Centre in country Victoria has ended bulk billing. In Sydney the Glebe Family Medical Practice is considering raising its $65 fee to $70 for non bulk billed patients so it can afford to continue bulk billing low income earners. 

Dr Charlotte Hespe says the practice is also considering ending bulk billing for a range of services like medication reviews and chronic care visits for wealthier patients. 

“We’ve been bulk billing everybody for these services and we’re starting to introduce a charge, she said. 

Glenorchy GP Dr Clare has begun to charge patients without a Health Care Card $20 a visit, after formerly bulk-billing 90 per cent of consultations. news.com.au   

This whilst the corporations get a $50billion tax cut. Even though they pay no tax anyway!

 

The HIV "cure" spammers are getting dumber :s

I just blocked and reported the latest person claiming to have been cured of HIV.

Meet Jane Susan, at this Google+ account. She says she's been cured by some wonderful herbal remedy.

However on closer inspection...... yes folks, the stupid hurts my head! They've simply used a stock photo from the internet. A Shutterstock photo. They haven't even bothered about finding one without a watermark!

No doubt this person isn't Jane Susan, or anyone like her. My guess is the profile has been chucked together somewhere in Africa. Literally chucked together. 

Would you trust this person for an HIV cure? Just chuck together a few herbs and you're cured? 

Inside Nauru & Manus Island gulags never before seen footage - Chasing Asylum movie

Aimee Knight has made a movie, Chasing Asylum, going inside Australia's Manus Island and Nauru offshore detention centres and obtaining film of what goes on there, never seen before. It's the film the Abbott/Turnbull gov doesn't want people to see.

The new Australian documentary Chasing Asylum gets behind the barbed wire fences of Nauru and Manus Island to reveal terrifying home truths about offshore refugee processing. But the story doesn’t end there. Director Eva Orner could be prosecuted under the Australian Border Force Act for obtaining the harrowing, previously unseen footage. Still, she’s offering free tickets to the film for Malcolm Turnbull and Bill Shorten, who are yet to set foot inside the centres.

An Academy and Emmy Award-winning documentary filmmaker, Eva spent two years investigating the ramifications of our refugee encampments, navigating Australia, the Pacific, South East Asia, and the Middle East. Without government funding or the back-up of a broadcaster, she raised the bulk of her budget via private investment. Featuring undercover footage shot inside the Nauru and Manus sites, Chasing Asylum also includes intimate interviews with whistleblowers who can no longer accept the human rights violations at both facilities. Chasing Asylum  

When Europeans look into the eyes of refugees - for 4 minutes (video)

They say the eyes are the window to the soul. You can tell a lot about someone simply by looking into their eyes intently.

In this experiment people from Europe look into the eyes of refugees for four minutes. Watch and see what happens.......

 

The old Turnbull on climate change - startling video

Meet the old Malcolm Turnbull, before he sold his soul to become prime minister to the Lieberal party's far right. If there was ever a video showing how controlled he is by the party, this is it.

 
This from Turnbull in 2009, not long after losing the leadership of the party by one vote to Tony Abbott:

Mr Abbott has since ditched the party's commitment to the Government's emissions trading scheme negotiated under Mr Turnbull's leadership. The new Opposition Leader says he remains committed to the target of 5 per cent carbon emissions on 2000 levels by 2020, but has ruled out a carbon tax or trading scheme as part of his alternative policy. 

"You cannot cut emissions without a cost," Mr Turnbull wrote. "To replace dirty coal-fired power stations with cleaner gas-fired ones, or renewables like wind let alone nuclear power or even coal fired power with carbon capture and storage is all going to cost money." 

Somebody has to pay, Mr Turnbull declared. 

"So any suggestion that you can dramatically cut emissions without any cost is, to use a favourite term of Mr Abbott, 'bullshit'. Moreover, he knows it." 

He seized on earlier comments from one of Mr Abbott's backers, Senator Nick Minchin, that a majority of the members of the parliamentary Liberal Party did not believe in climate change caused by human activity. While disputing Mr Minchin's reading of the party room's mood, Mr Turnbull said the leadership of the party did not see any need to act on climate change. 

"The Liberal Party is currently led by people whose conviction on climate change is that it is "crap" and you don't need to do anything about it. Any policy that is announced will simply be a con, an environmental figleaf to cover a determination to do nothing." Sydney Morning Herald   

Where is Turnbull's leadership on climate change now?

 

Trump gets owned by NRA - US

Firstly, WTF is going on with that Trump wanabe NRA guy hair thing there?

I've been casually watching Trump bla about this and that for some time now, without really giving the slightest fuck as my impression was that he's a no hoper who has no chance of the White House. But then yesterday I read of a poll where Trump was beating Hillary nationally. I was awakened from my Trump slumber to the realisation that perhaps Trump may very well become the next US president, horrifying as it was.

So I've looked at this today and it's about the only way I can take Trump; via a comedy show. Evidently he's gotten in to bed with the NRA over there.  Started preaching their shit and making weirded out gun noises, like he's a kid playing "cowboys and Indians" in the old 1950's black and white dime a dozen things.

Specifically he wants to get rid of "No Gun Zones". Um.... We in Australia have a bit of trouble understanding what a "no gun zone" actually is, as our whole country is pretty much a no gun zone. Well at least in cities and towns. I don't even know about how it works in the bush and shooting animals.

But anyway, I've discovered a "no gun zone" in the US is like an area where no guns are allowed to be bought in. You know, I suppose like schools, libraries, Republican mass meetings, things like that. Well now Trump wants to make it illegal to have such no gun zones.

  

Daniel Andrews premier, deeply moving gay apology - Victoria, Australia

Tears.

Watch as Daniel Andrews, Victorian state Premier, apologises to the gays of Victoria for the laws that criminalised them for being gay. He makes it personal, talking of people after meeting with them and getting their personal experiences of being criminalised for their sexuality.

For example, a 14 year old who reported being abused by a much older person, was also charged with sexual offences. Honestly........

I've mentioned just the tip of an iceburg. There's so many emotional triggers in the speech I simply ended up in tears through the last half of it. So eloquent. So well put together. So to the point. Victoria has the most wonderful premier now.

 

Firing squad for women and doctors who do abortions - US christian

This guy is so out there that normally I don't even bother to take notice. This time though he strikes a bit of a crossroads with slightly less radicals. In the video he asks pro-lifers to follow his bible babble logic, which I guess if they believe bible babble they may well see said logic as legit.

Anyway, it sort of goes like this. Abortion is murder. Murder needs to be punished. Bible says murder is punished by death. Kill the ladies who murdered their babies and the doctors who did it. 

Like I've said, normally these nuts wouldn't get a mention from me, but for the present political happenings in the US. The presidential race has seen Republican candidates speak at a christian conference about how to kill gay people. 

Is this where the US is heading now?

 

Depp dogs Barnyard Barnaby - "tomato crossbred" :)

Barnyard Barnaby, otherwise known as our now deputy prime minister Barnaby Joyce, has come under somewhat sarcastic fire from Johnny Depp. Depp, obviously still smarting from the humiliation of being taken to court in Australia over our bio-security laws after his wife smuggled in two dogs undeclared, has said he thought Barnaby was a cross breed with a tomato.

Normally I would get my ire up about some yank having a go at Australia, but fortunately after Depp doggedness this is not the case. In fact I applaud Depp for taking to task our completely barnyard-ish and imbecilic deputy PM. 

Thank you Johnny for calling our Lieberal deputy pm a cross breed with a tomato. You have used your position well to declare thus :)

 

GREAT pic of Barnaby Joyce campaigning in his electorate pic.twitter.com/zHgKJdWZfF

— John Johnsonson (@JohnJohnsonson) May 25, 2016