cactoblasta

cactoblasta

Joined Member # 1104024
2 Posts 52 Replies 21,552 Reputation

One thing I love about being an Aussie is that there's noone in the world that I have to call "sir". Everyone in Australia over the age of about 17 calls everyone else by their first name only. I haven't seen that kind of equality anywhere else in the world.

28 Replies 9,865 Views

On the 7pm news on ABC tonight they had a story about former immigration minister al grassby or something having his kidney cancer cured with a technique that sounded almost identical - the doctor sent away to the US for the machine and is now pressuring the Canberra Hospital to buy one. The reporter said it was a recent invention. Just goes to show, doesn't it.

12 Replies 14,171 Views

Anda harus berani untuk berhidup secara itu - seperti orang-orang Indonesia biasa! Kalau saya ke sana saya selalu tinggal secara bule - hotel 5-bintang, sopir, tukang kebun, pembantu dll. Nikmati pengalaman Anda!

4 Replies 3,104 Views

After all, in the final analysis our aim was regime change, nothing more. I think it was probably less regime change in and of itself than installing a regime amenable to US interests; that's why there is unlikely to be any real democracy in Iraq for several decades. <TABLE cellpadding=8 width

16 Replies 5,166 Views

Do you have a link or written source (book or journal is fine) for the codified Sharia which these Canadian Muslims are requesting? I've never heard of there being a universally accepted version of Islamic law.

2 Replies 1,042 Views

You mean like the New York Times put a front page story about a "rumor" that Dick Cheney is going to get dropped from the ticket even though there was no evidence support that? You can theorize about conservative bias but liberal bias is thrown in our faces in a very real way. I said in my first post

32 Replies 8,536 Views

Which isn't terribly surprising considering the overwhelming support it enjoyed Actually in Australia, where there a number of Murdoch-owned newspapers, disapproval for unilateral action was quite high - around 60-70% I think. This was higher of course in city and suburban areas, where the majority of

32 Replies 8,536 Views

What part of Foxnews do you think is conservative? I could go for the cheap shot and say the "O'Reilly Factor", but frankly I haven't watched all that much of FoxNews in general, so my commentary on that network alone should be taken with a grain of salt. However, I have a fair amount of experience wit

32 Replies 8,536 Views

It's important to remember though that nuclear power is not clean. Not only does it create dangerous waste products (which can however be quite safely stored according to most scientific sources) but the mining of ores for the reactor produces considerable pollution. Not as much as a coal powerplant of course, but then there are very few things save the chemical industries and goldmining which are as high in pollution output as a coal plant.

27 Replies 24,373 Views

Mainly what I mean is that the Murdoch press has a remarkable tendency to have editorial consistency throughout the network on every major issue. For example during the before and early stages of the War on Iraq not a single editoral was published in any Murdoch publication opposing the War on Iraq. Perhaps he just has a knack for picking the same sort of editor every time, but I think this is more likely t

32 Replies 8,536 Views

He makes a good argument for liberal bias in the newspapers he has quoted, but I don't think he strengthens his case by comparing it to FoxNews, which allegedly: presents all the facts and every viewpoint and leaves the decision up to the viewer. Any reasonable person should be able to freely admit tha

32 Replies 8,536 Views

For instance, if it should turn out that elections in Afghanistan resulted in a strong return of the Taliban, which does not renounce its terrorist methods, then it is subversive and the Afghanistan “republic” — with the help of the international community — should jail those who advoca

2 Replies 1,990 Views

Do you have any sources for this new information? I recently did a unit on WWII at uni and according to the lecturers the Japanese had been sending out feelers for months but the US refused everything except unconditional surrender. It was only after they dropped the nukes for the benefit of the Russians that the Americans accepted surrender. At least, that's what I read/heard a year ago.

12 Replies 4,625 Views

Doesn't look like any of them'll go away without leaving a nasty scar, so maybe ignoring them isn't the right answer. Pretending to ignore them whilst preparing to take them out with a quick blow sounds like a good plan though.

4 Replies 1,390 Views

At the age of 16, I've been lucky enough to have travelled to England, Scotland (2), and New Zealand Try leaving the English-speaking world once you're old enough. It's an enlightening experience. As for the American politics, well, personally I think they're both as bad as each other, but Ke

7 Replies 6,419 Views

Personally I wouldn't put my own country's security in the hands of the US - I'm unhappy enough about their dubious use of Echelon in commercial areas to bid against Australian companies. The mind boggles at the capacity for mischief and self-interest that would be facilitated by having them as the world-wide coordinator of internal security services.

7 Replies 3,610 Views

Would it be possible to add an error-recovery thing to SDCentral? A couple of times I've got 100-200 megs into a download only to click on the wrong button (eg the News tab) and have SDCentral crash, losing all the progress with the download. I don't know the mechanics of how the whole thing works, but if there was some way the program could remember every few minutes where it got up to, and then be able to start from there at any time regardless of

39 Replies 41,148 Views

I don't think Islamic law is as cut and dried as many make it out to be. Recent publications by imams in Indonesia and other more secular Islamic societies have proposed some extremely "radical" ideas, like universal education for both men and women, an end to enforcement of the hijab, and some quite interesting arguments for democracy with copious reference to the

23 Replies 11,587 Views

However the police do not generally contain within their ranks members of the CIA whose sole purpose is to develop intel without the knowledge of either the police or the Iraqis; without much success in any case. A simple google search should bring up the complaints of the Atomic Energy people about the infiltration of their ranks in Iraq by counterproductive US spies.

14 Replies 8,962 Views

I think, if anything, uni (the local equivalent of college) has made me more certain about my beliefs than they were before. I've majored in international relations, so generally it has only reinforced my belief that most of the people responsible for interactions between states are amoral bastards with the integrity of sliced cabbage. Studies in Asian nations and Linguistics have increased my belief that there is always more than one cause and one

10 Replies 2,718 Views