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[Elaugaufein]

it's vice.

edit: can anyone work out which of these thousands of far right nut job parties is worse or better than the others? I have no idea what order to put them in.

Depends on how you value particular principles (you have such a rich variety of choices for loathing these people).
Family First is your right wing Christian extremists, Rise Up Australia are anti-foreigner racists, One Nation are anti-indigenous racists.

You'd have to be more specific as to which ones you're talking about to get a ranking. Those are just the ones who ran House of Reps in my electorate and One Nation. Since I'm in Wide Bay, the LNP got the dubious honour of my 3rd preference, Katter and Palmer got 4th & 5th, and Family First / Rise Up Australia battled it out for the honor of who I despised slightly more than the other. I remember One Nation because Queensland has the dubious distinction of being the only state to ever elect one of them.

I voted Pirate above the line for the Senate. I had a look at their preferences and decided it was close enough to mine as to not be worth filling out a bajillion boxes , so I didn't look too closely at the specific flavour of suck for every party this year. Did that last federal election and again at State (lost a considerable amount of faith in humanity as a result).

 

[Fredescu]

They're all the same.

About half a dozen of them are literally all the same, run by the same guy, to harvest preferences in order to scrape in a seat with an extremely low percentage of the vote. Hurray democracy! I doubt the below the line order matters to much after 30 or so.

 

[Yagharek]

Depends on how you value particular principles (you have such a rich variety of choices for loathing these people).
Family First is your right wing Christian extremists, Rise Up Australia are anti-foreigner racists, One Nation are anti-indigenous racists.

Ironically founded by a Sri Lankan refugee immigrant.

Apparently not a refugee, but given his ethnicity is Tamil, that may be a technicality. Point being, it's a bit odd to see him head a party that says we should "keep Australia Australian".

 

[DrSlek]

Have to quote this in full because it's so so good.

Reads like a Hunter S. Thompson piece.

...I approve!

 

[bomma_man]

I've got:
Country Party (rednecks)
Liberal Democratic Party (internet libertarians)
Rise Up Australia (homophobic xenophobes)
Palmer United (endearingly eccentric)
Australian Christian Party (Homophobic among other things)
DLP (1950's time travellers)
Shooter and Fisher's party (rednecks)
Australian Sex Party (libertarians)
Katter (lol)
Climate Sceptics (nuff said)
Fishing and Lifestyle (rednecks)
Stable Population (neo-Malthusian idiots)
Republican Party (few good ideas mixed with neo-Malthusian shit)
Family First (sigh)
Stop The Greens (Stop The Greens)
Andrew Roberts (what a strange combo)

So either economically okay and socially retarded, or the opposite, or both. I don't want any of them to have the balance of power, as far as I'm concerned they can do just as much damage whether they're socially or fiscally conservative

 

[romulus91]

There's a reason I hated history classes in highschool.

I've actually become really, really interested in history since then though. Mostly ancient history of China, Europe, the Middle East and North Africa.
By comparison, Australian history is relatively uneventful and uninteresting.

uneventful and glorified..... makes for interesting 60 minutes stories though.. enough room to inject whatever newsworthy value they feel like attaching to anzac day this time around

and IF anything, we should be learning MORE about indigenous history and less of the warped versions of settlement. I studied NED KELLY for a year for ffs...... on the proposed NBN at least we will be as advanced as ancient china

 

[Elaugaufein]

I've got:
Country Party (rednecks)
Liberal Democratic Party (internet libertarians)
Rise Up Australia (homophobic xenophobes)
Palmer United (endearingly eccentric)
Australian Christian Party (Homophobic among other things)
DLP (1950's time travellers)
Shooter and Fisher's party (rednecks)
Australian Sex Party (libertarians)
Katter (lol)
Climate Sceptics (nuff said)
Fishing and Lifestyle (rednecks)
Stable Population (neo-Malthusian idiots)
Republican Party (few good ideas mixed with neo-Malthusian shit)
Family First (sigh)
Stop The Greens (Stop The Greens)
Andrew Roberts (what a strange combo)

So either economically okay and socially retarded, or the opposite, or both. I don't want any of them to have the balance of power, as far as I'm concerned they can do just as much damage whether they're socially or fiscally conservative

I like your description of Palmer. He's trying to be a leftist (socially) but right libertarian (economically). He just can't work out where he's going to get the money or how he's organize any of this stuff. He also sucks at maths. It makes awesome soundbites though.

Your preferences basically don't matter much once you rank your second major party above them if its any consolation. So all you really have to decide is which ones you dislike more than the LNP , then you can pretty much rank them randomly.

Above that point, you actually have to choose. I personally tend to rank the (saner) libertarians above the social crazies (largely because I feel the libertarians are less likely to pass laws that will permanently screw up the electoral process in their favor).
ETA -
Wow. There's not much True Green about those True Greens. The actual green principles are policy 6 & 7. Well below the Libertarian stuff. I especially like how they feel the law should favour the (alleged) victim. As opposed to be neutral to both parties until a verdict is reached. It makes me confident that justice will be served (or at least a convenient scapegoat will be punished).

 

[Yagharek]

About half a dozen of them are literally all the same, run by the same guy, to harvest preferences in order to scrape in a seat with an extremely low percentage of the vote. Hurray democracy! I doubt the below the line order matters to much after 30 or so.

I'll give some Christian party 69 on my ballot just for a private giggle.

 

[hirokazu]

The default senate preferences in NSW are pretty disturbing. I bet a lot of voters are completely oblivious to where their preferences are flowing and wouldn't vote above the line if they knew.

Labor preferencing Shooters & Fishers right after Greens and Senator Online is pretty damn disappointing. Liberals preferencing Fred Nile, Shooters & Fishers and generally a bunch of nutcase parties. It's interesting that the major parties seem to put One Nation last or near last just out of principle when there's a bunch of parties now that are just as crazy if not worse.

The Bullet Train party preferences are pretty weird too, for a party that claims to have no other agenda they preference pretty much every minor party before the major ones. Climate Sceptics. Motor Enthusiasts. Don't these guys run counter to their only agenda? Realistically, the best chance for Australia to get bullet trains is via The Greens, and yet they preference them so low!

At quick glance, The Green's senate preferences look like a good starting off point for me.

 

[Jintor]

The smaller parties appear to be collaborating in an attempt to lock out the major parties as much as possible. Fair enough when the majors are collabing to lock out the microparties (except the ones that are just satellite parties) as much as possible!

I sure hope the citizenry is sufficiently educated on preferences at this point, but I doubt it.

 

[Fredescu]

The Green's senate preferences look like a good starting off point for me.

They have Wikileaks way too high. Not their fault really, Wikileaks party wasn't shown to be a sham until after the preferences were in causing all the good Wikileaks members to quit.

 

[DrSlek]

The smaller parties appear to be collaborating in an attempt to lock out the major parties as much as possible. Fair enough when the majors are collabing to lock out the microparties (except the ones that are just satellite parties) as much as possible!

I sure hope the citizenry is sufficiently educated on preferences at this point, but I doubt it.

I'm not actually certain how much is taught about the preference system in schools nowadays, but I left school in 2002 and we were taught fuck all about how voting works. I only became aware of how preferences work last year.

Really I should have looked it up much, much earlier....but I was lazy back then.

 

[bomma_man]

I like your description of Palmer. He's trying to be a leftist (socially) but right libertarian (economically). He just can't work out where he's going to get the money or how he's organize any of this stuff. He also sucks at maths. It makes awesome soundbites though.

Your preferences basically don't matter much once you rank your second major party above them if its any consolation. So all you really have to decide is which ones you dislike more than the LNP , then you can pretty much rank them randomly.

Above that point, you actually have to choose. I personally tend to rank the (saner) libertarians above the social crazies (largely because I feel the libertarians are less likely to pass laws that will permanently screw up the electoral process in their favor).
ETA -
Wow. There's not much True Green about those True Greens. The actual green principles are policy 6 & 7. Well below the Libertarian stuff. I especially like how they feel the law should favour the (alleged) victim. As opposed to be neutral to both parties until a verdict is reached. It makes me confident that justice will be served (or at least a convenient scapegoat will be punished).

Thanks!

I'll give some Christian party 69 on my ballot just for a private giggle.

This is genius, although I think we only have 52 candidates unfortunately.

 

[hirokazu]

They have Wikileaks way too high. Not their fault really, Wikileaks party wasn't shown to be a sham until after the preferences were in causing all the good Wikileaks members to quit.

I don't know what the Wikileaks Party stands for and haven't looked into it yet. Did they blow up?

 

[CrankyKong]

I'm early voting tomorrow, tell me what to do!

 

[Fredescu]

I don't know what the Wikileaks Party stands for and haven't looked into it yet. Did they blow up?

Basically they all agreed on preference deals and then a couple of people went behind the back of everyone and put the Greens way down low, including putting the National Party ahead of Scott Ludlam in WA. The Greens and Ludlam as you may remember were the only party that supported Assange at all and all Wikileaks members considered them allies. There are some pretty explosive resignation letters around on the net if you care to look them up. This is a good one: http://danielmathews.info/blog/2013...nation-from-wikileaks-party-national-council/

Essentially a party all about transparency and democracy operate in a completely untransparent and undemocratic member.

Use that Global Mail preference thing and compare where the Greens put Wikileaks with where the Wikileaks put the Greens and you can see how fucked up it is.

 

[bobnowhere]

I like your description of Palmer. He's trying to be a leftist (socially) but right libertarian (economically). He just can't work out where he's going to get the money or how he's organize any of this stuff. He also sucks at maths. It makes awesome soundbites though.

He's like the anti-Katter, a socialist agrarian/protectionist Leftie matched with hard right social views.

Queensland is a very strange place.

 

[Jintor]

So a friend posted this, which is basically saying that Rudd misrepresented the bible, yada yada yada, complaining about biblical illiteracy, whatever, ultimately the bible says no to slavery, whatever.

Which is wonderful and lawyerly and all, but I rather like the summary paragraph:

Your ethnicity and gender, your social, educational and economic status or class, are far less important than the fact that all humans are created in the image of God. And here, far less important to a Christian, than that you are all united, equally, in Christ.

Unless of course you're gay, in which case you can never get married, because the Bible says so.

 

[Elaugaufein]

Wikileaks is odd.

A lot of people though they were Left, turned out they are Right Libertarian. Their preferences put the Greens very low (as in below some of our favorite racists) and there's claims that it wasn't reflective of the actual decision reached by their membership. I believe at least one of their major entrants quit as a result.

The Sex Party had a similar thing but not as bad. They were still preferencing the crazies fairly low , no claims of any sudden changes contrary to membership and their libertarian economic policies don't really show in their policy (they've pretty much stuck to social issues for their campaign points).

 

[Jintor]

I like the look of the Future party. Any points against?

 

[senahorse]

So a friend posted this, which is basically saying that Rudd misrepresented the bible, yada yada yada, complaining about biblical illiteracy, whatever, ultimately the bible says no to slavery, whatever.

Which is wonderful and lawyerly and all, but I rather like the summary paragraph:



Unless of course you're gay, in which case you can never get married, because the Bible says so.

I think it's time we hit up 'God' for a revision of his book.

 

[Yagharek]

The smaller parties appear to be collaborating in an attempt to lock out the major parties as much as possible. Fair enough when the majors are collabing to lock out the microparties (except the ones that are just satellite parties) as much as possible!

I sure hope the citizenry is sufficiently educated on preferences at this point, but I doubt it.

NSW keeps voting Fred Nile in, election after election.

What do you think?

From your friend's article:

This received the most enormous applause of the night, which incidentally seems to indicate both the depth of biblical illiteracy and the hostility to Christian morality.

Oxymoron.

Your friend seems awfully unaware that the old testament was written to apply for the Jews only. It was rules for them to live by and how to treat each other; not necessarily that they should treat others as equals. Dawkins explains this in The God Delusion

Christians seldom realize that much of the moral consideration for others which is apparently promoted by both the Old and New Testaments was originally intended to apply only to a narrowly defined in-group. ‘Love they neighbour’ didn’t mean what we now think it means. It meant only ‘Love another Jew.’ The point is devastatingly made by the American physician and evolutionary anthropologist John Hartung. He has written a remarkable paper on the evolution and biblical history of in-group morality, laying stress, too, on the flip side – out-group hostility.

 

[hirokazu]

Basically they all agreed on preference deals and then a couple of people went behind the back of everyone and put the Greens way down low, including putting the National Party ahead of Scott Ludlam in WA. The Greens and Ludlam as you may remember were the only party that supported Assange at all and all Wikileaks members considered them allies. There are some pretty explosive resignation letters around on the net if you care to look them up. This is a good one: http://danielmathews.info/blog/2013...nation-from-wikileaks-party-national-council/

Essentially a party all about transparency and democracy operate in a completely untransparent and undemocratic member.

Use that Global Mail preference thing and compare where the Greens put Wikileaks with where the Wikileaks put the Greens and you can see how fucked up it is.

Sounds like somebody infiltrated their party and sabotaged it. I'll be sure to put them down the list somewhere.

EDIT: Well I read that blog entry properly and that is some awful decision making by the upper echelon of the party.

 

[hirokazu]

I like the look of the Future party. Any points against?

They look alright at first glance. The Secular Party looked good in the last election too, not sure if they've changed but they were pretty high on my list last time.

 

[Elaugaufein]

He's like the anti-Katter, a socialist agrarian/protectionist Leftie matched with hard right social views.

Queensland is a very strange place.

It makes a bizarre sense if you look at it remembering that the Coalition are two parties, and they are both running their own groups for being a bit too extreme for the taste of their parties.

Katter is basically running as a Rural National++ (so he's very much pro-farmer/grazier and highly conservative). Palmer by contrast is a Capital City Liberal++ (he's very much pro-big business and has to appeal to the urban demographic who are generally more Left-leaning).

So its not really a Queensland thing, so much as the LNP have been together so long that people forget that there are some major differences between the parties, particularly when you look at it factionally.

It's kind of like what would happen if Labor (as they are now) and the Greens actually merged into one party. You'd have a Centre-leaning Pro-Worker's rights (and thus somewhat pro-industry by proxy) group allied with a Left leaning Pro-Environmental group. If you had 2 radicals spin off at opposite ends you'd get things that appeared pretty much like anti-particles too.

 

[Ruthless_Barbarian]

I'm thinking I'll just vote above the line for either the pirate party or the secular party. Way too many candidates in Victoria to vote below the line.

 

[Card Boy]

Katter just makes me laugh. I'm sure he is genuine and all that but i just lol every-time i hear him speak.

 

[viciouskillersquirrel]

So a friend posted this, which is basically saying that Rudd misrepresented the bible, yada yada yada, complaining about biblical illiteracy, whatever, ultimately the bible says no to slavery, whatever.

Which is wonderful and lawyerly and all, but I rather like the summary paragraph:



Unless of course you're gay, in which case you can never get married, because the Bible says so.

The nation of Israel and its successor states all kept slaves. Leviticus and Deuteronomy also have laws that specifically apply to slaves (for instance, it being forbidden to beat a slave to death). It's not controversial. It was just universally accepted at the time that slavery was a thing.

Moses, Aaron and Joshua, when not actively carrying out a systematic program of genocide and conquest, routinely took slaves. Hebrew warriors even, on occasion, took brides from the conquered Canaanites, you know, the same Canaanites they just went all scorched earth upon. You cannot tell me that those brides came willingly.*

Also, King David and Prince Jonathan may have been gay.

As much as we like to romanticise the past and turn it into a glorious golden age, an ideal to strive toward, the past was what it was - brutal, dirty and foreign to our eyes. Christians suffer from this big time. They mostly want to forget the blemishes like the crusades, the inquisition and before that the endless schisms and get back to an early ideal of the persecuted Church, unmarked by the compromises that power and universality bring.

Except that it's not real and never was. The very earliest Jesus followers included slave holders and they weren't chastised for it in any way by their fellow believers. It was a mundane part of life, just like how nowadays you never question that eating shellfish is natural and right.

As an added bonus, a brief list of things neither the Old or New testaments explicitly prohibit:

- Gambling
- Masturbation
- Drugs
- Polygamy
- Suicide
- Eating marsupials
- Oral Sex

*

Spoiler

There is little to no archeological or historical evidence these campaigns ever actually took place. A war like that would necessarily leave behind telltale signs, such as the wholesale replacement of native Canaanite artifacts with Egyptianised Hebrew equivalents. Instead, we see continuity between the old and the new.

More than likely, what actually happened was that the cult of a specific deity, Yehu, gained enough cultural traction that it overtook or absorbed the patron cults of its neighbours, like that of El, not through conquest, but through peaceful assimilation and interchange. Once the combined faith reached a critical size, it came to be adopted by local kings and warlords, who looked to it to gain legitimacy. As these kings conquered (or inherited through intermarriage) their neighbouring lands, the faith spread with them, absorbing more elements of local cults as it went.

This is why you get weird stuff in the Bible, such as the seven names of God, God being referred to in the plural (Elohim) the scapegoat being sacrificed to some being called Azazel, the whole story of the Golden Calf, there being two creation myths instead of just one (the Garden of Eden and the Flood), the story of the Patriarchs taking three generations and repeating so many elements (Abraham, Isaac and Jacob may have originally been the founder heroes of different tribes, but the story was combined by later kings in an effort to unify the kingdom). Not to mention archeological finds from the period that appear to dispute the notion that monotheism was even a thing until much later. For instance, did you know that at one point, a lot of people in the region considered God to have a lady friend and that Solomon built temples to other gods?

Monotheism became emphasised more and more by later kings, presumably as a way of unifying the populace, but didn't really hit its stride until the Babylonian exile distilled Israelite culture down to its barest essentials. After that, the religion was never the same.

Tales of the monotheist prophets fighting heroically to cleans Israel of Baal, Molech, Asherah et al may have all been later lionising efforts by the exiles. The ultra violent tales of conquest? A really macho national myth a kingdom can be proud of.

The real story is much more complex though, and fascinating.

 

[Jintor]

Got a book(s) I should read VKS?

The Bible is preeeetty slow going. I'm at 9% according to Kindle.

 

[Bernbaum]

The nation of Israel and its successor states all kept slaves. Leviticus and Deuteronomy also have laws that specifically apply to slaves (for instance, it being forbidden to beat a slave to death). It's not controversial. It was just universally accepted at the time that slavery was a thing.

Moses, Aaron and Joshua, when not actively carrying out a systematic program of genocide and conquest, routinely took slaves. Hebrew warriors even, on occasion, took brides from the conquered Canaanites, you know, the same Canaanites they just went all scorched earth upon. You cannot tell me that those brides came willingly.*

Also, King David and Prince Jonathan may have been gay.

As much as we like to romanticise the past and turn it into a glorious golden age, an ideal to strive toward, the past was what it was - brutal, dirty and foreign to our eyes. Christians suffer from this big time. They mostly want to forget the blemishes like the crusades, the inquisition and before that the endless schisms and get back to an early ideal of the persecuted Church, unmarked by the compromises that power and universality bring.

Except that it's not real and never was. The very earliest Jesus followers included slave holders and they weren't chastised for it in any way by their fellow believers. It was a mundane part of life, just like how nowadays you never question that eating shellfish is natural and right.

As an added bonus, a brief list of things neither the Old or New testaments explicitly prohibit:

- Gambling
- Masturbation
- Drugs
- Polygamy
- Suicide
- Eating marsupials
- Oral Sex

*

Spoiler

There is little to no archeological or historical evidence these campaigns ever actually took place. A war like that would necessarily leave behind telltale signs, such as the wholesale replacement of native Canaanite artifacts with Egyptianised Hebrew equivalents. Instead, we see continuity between the old and the new.

More than likely, what actually happened was that the cult of a specific deity, Yehu, gained enough cultural traction that it overtook or absorbed the patron cults of its neighbours, like that of El, not through conquest, but through peaceful assimilation and interchange. Once the combined faith reached a critical size, it came to be adopted by local kings and warlords, who looked to it to gain legitimacy. As these kings conquered (or inherited through intermarriage) their neighbouring lands, the faith spread with them, absorbing more elements of local cults as it went.

This is why you get weird stuff in the Bible, such as the seven names of God, God being referred to in the plural (Elohim) the scapegoat being sacrificed to some being called Azazel, the whole story of the Golden Calf, there being two creation myths instead of just one (the Garden of Eden and the Flood), the story of the Patriarchs taking three generations and repeating so many elements (Abraham, Isaac and Jacob may have originally been the founder heroes of different tribes, but the story was combined by later kings in an effort to unify the kingdom). Not to mention archeological finds from the period that appear to dispute the notion that monotheism was even a thing until much later. For instance, did you know that at one point, a lot of people in the region considered God to have a lady friend and that Solomon built temples to other gods?

Monotheism became emphasised more and more by later kings, presumably as a way of unifying the populace, but didn't really hit its stride until the Babylonian exile distilled Israelite culture down to its barest essentials. After that, the religion was never the same.

Tales of the monotheist prophets fighting heroically to cleans Israel of Baal, Molech, Asherah et al may have all been later lionising efforts by the exiles. The ultra violent tales of conquest? A really macho national myth a kingdom can be proud of.

The real story is much more complex though, and fascinating.

The bible is heaps like Game of Thrones except way fucking boring and with less nipple.

 

[TriangleOfCorruption]

I think I'm going to vote below the line for "fun", so I'm ordering my preferences now. It's bloody hard to figure out what some of these nationalist parties stand for outside of protectionism and stopping those damn boats. They seem to pick their policies on indigenous, environmental and social issues out of a hat.

And who do I preference higher, Stop The Greens or No Carbon Tax Climate Skeptics?

Edit: Oh god, One Nation are like the second least scary of the lot.

 

[senahorse]

Got a book(s) I should read VKS?

The Bible is preeeetty slow going. I'm at 9% according to Kindle.

Fun fact: I spend a good 10 years at Sunday school and church, (thanks to my dad who at the time was a believer and eventually decided he wasn't), my mum, an atheist said we have to go to be supportive.

Anyway, back to the bible, I won a whole bunch of competitions for finding bible passages the fastest, new testament only though, it's safer for the kids

 

[Jintor]

I think I'm going to vote below the line for "fun", so I'm ordering my preferences now. It's bloody hard to figure out what some of these nationalist parties stand for outside of protectionism and stopping those damn boats. They seem to pick their policies on indigenous, environmental and social issues out of a hat.

And who do I preference higher, Stop The Greens or No Carbon Tax Climate Skeptics?

Stop the Greens... i think.

On my cursory examination they seemed relatively similar to the Hunters and Shooters party, really.

 

[viciouskillersquirrel]

Got a book(s) I should read VKS?

The Bible is preeeetty slow going. I'm at 9% according to Kindle.

I actually don't, I'm sorry. Most of what I know I've cobbled together from a lifetime of reading different sources, including the Bible, but also books about the ancient world and Israel in particular.

One really good source I got into lately was the Religions of the Ancient Mediterranean podcast by Philip Harland. It's mostly focused on 1st century BC Israel/Syria/Palestine/Samaria/Galilee (circa Jesus time) but goes over a number of topics about the origins of a lot of the myths, doctrines, motifs of Judaism and ultimately Christianity. The creation myths series is very interesting, for instance.

It may be heavy going if you're not like me and find Judeo-Christian history, theology and heresy utterly engrossing, even more so if you don't have a passing familiarity with the source material, but it's a very information-packed listen.

Too bad he doesn't update very often nowadays.

The bible is heaps like Game of Thrones except way fucking boring and with less nipple.

Somebody didn't read the story of Ehud or catch any of the outrageous innuendo in Song of Songs. Not to mention that Genesis has incest out the wazoo and Ezekiel 23 literally mentions Egyptian dudes with donkey-dongs "pouring out their lust" all over a girl's bosom.

The Bible is exactly like Game of Thrones. You just need to know what it's talking about.

Fun fact: I spend a good 10 years at Sunday school and church, (thanks to my dad who at the time was a believer and eventually decided he wasn't), my mum, an atheist said we have to go to be supportive.

Anyway, back to the bible, I won a whole bunch of competitions for finding bible passages the fastest, new testament only though, it's safer for the kids

I grew up in a pretty religious household. Reading all this stuff was a way of not paying attention to the reiterative and repetitive sermons on basic doctrine each Sunday.

 

[Bernbaum]

VKS you learned bastard.

How much of the historical shit in Age of Empires 2 is actually accurate? Cos, most of my understanding of history is pretty much whatever I can remember from AoE2 and even then I mostly just played the multiplayer.

 

[lexi]

Stop The Greens have some awesome JPEG artefacts on the images on their website.

The Greens are smart enough to use lossless formats!

 

[Ruthless_Barbarian]

http://m.smh.com.au/federal-politic...y-company-referred-to-aec-20130903-2t2b5.html

An electrical services company has been accused of attempting to bribe its workers to vote Liberal, with a promise of $100 if the Coalition wins on Saturday.

Western Sydney-based HMP Electrical has been referred to the Australian Electoral Commission after a worker took exception to an apparent inducement to vote Liberal.

A text message sent to staff, obtained by Fairfax Media, said: “Hi Guys – As you may or may not be aware, the federal election is on Saturday, 7th of September 2013. Eddie has asked me to remind you to VOTE and to let you know that if the Liberal Government win you will all receive a $100 GIFT as employees of HMP Electrical Services. Aren't we lucky to live in a democratic country! Kindest regards, Nesska

Western Sydney again in the news, this time for bribing employees to vote liberals.

 

[TriangleOfCorruption]

Stop the Greens... i think.

On my cursory examination they seemed relatively similar to the Hunters and Shooters party, really.

The video that autoplays on the No Carbon Tax Climate Sceptics website, I have no words.
Must watch for fans of clip art

 

[Yagharek]

As interesting as that biblical history may well be (indeed I've heard stories that the reason Jesus is said to be able to walk on water/water into wine is that in Jewish tradition one of the supposed powers of Yahweh was having power over water - hence embellishment).

Sigh.

I think we might have had a better shot at things if Genghis Khan's successors didn't fight amongst themselves. It might have at least solved today's problem in Syria.

 

[Kreunt]

just....wow....

 

[Yagharek]

Arseholes.

 

[paile]

I'm bracing for Abbott to be the next Howard. In for a decade or so. This is the sort of man the ignorant, small-minded and uneducated bogan bigots and xenophobes in marginal swing seats love.

 

[Yagharek]

Not to mention middle income welfare dependant bludgers.

 

[lexi]

Let's mount a coup, AusGAF.

 

[Moxx19]

Hahahahaha. oh wow. I am not looking forward to Abbott's term.

 

[shanshan310]

Let's mount a coup, AusGAF.

Let's start a new country. I'm sure they wouldn't mind. I'd say we could take over tassie but I can't stand the cold so we'll have to settle for Fraser island.

 

[TriangleOfCorruption]

just....wow....

Who made that pamphlet?

 

[Card Boy]

Who made that pamphlet?

Pauline Hanson

 

[Kreunt]

Who made that pamphlet?

don't know, it's just doing the rounds on social media at the moment.

 

[viciouskillersquirrel]

VKS you learned bastard.

How much of the historical shit in Age of Empires 2 is actually accurate? Cos, most of my understanding of history is pretty much whatever I can remember from AoE2 and even then I mostly just played the multiplayer.

Obviously the blood on La Hire never did dry.

AoE2 is about as accurate as you get with a layman's understanding of history circa 1950. The fact is though, that to make the game fun, they took sole liberties with the story, tech and characters and simplified the alliances by a whole lot. It presents the Hollywood script version of the history.

For instance, the Hundred Years' War started out as a war of succession between two French-speaking cousins. The king of England was only three generations removed from being Duke of Normandy at that point, and thought of himself as a Duke in exile from his homeland in the north of France, before Philip Augustus unjustly stole it. He was also the ruler of Gascony.

Ordinary soldiers might've been English, but the ruling class was French.

The war being about a battle between two countries was just a myth generated by a later, nationalist age.

As interesting as that biblical history may well be (indeed I've heard stories that the reason Jesus is said to be able to walk on water/water into wine is that in Jewish tradition one of the supposed powers of Yahweh was having power over water - hence embellishment).

Sigh.

I think we might have had a better shot at things if Genghis Khan's successors didn't fight amongst themselves. It might have at least solved today's problem in Syria.

Because there'd be no people? The Mongols weren't exactly nice guys. Also, Europe would be speaking Mongolian or Chinese now.