shirro

@shirro@aussie.zone

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Guardian Essential poll: more than half of Australians open to voting for One Nation despite Hanson’s Muslim comments⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  I think it’s more a symptom of where right wing politics has gotten us.

  What gets me is right wingers had their chance to turn out and vote for Dutton. He is a far more effective politician than Hanson and could have actually formed government instead of just stoke social division and annoy people. He had the nod from Gina and News Corp. Instead everyone seemed to vote for Labor or Teals. What am I missing?

  In several states the Liberal party can barely win a seat let alone government. For a country marching to the right doesn’t it seem really odd? Our historically dominant, long governing, conservative party which drew most of the talent on that side of politics struggles. But supposedly we are going to jump right past them to our reject shop version of AfD. How does that work exactly?

  Like I feel someone is fucking with us here. I haven’t see skin heads marching down the main street in rural Australia which is as conservative as it gets. No pogroms. No racist graffiti. I would expect ON to do better here than anywhere in my state and in the 2025 federal election they were level with the Greens. Some stuff has changed in a year but not that much. Most shit is basically the same. Cost of living didn’t reverse but it definately stabilized. Have there been riots and the streets burning somewhere else?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Guardian Essential poll: more than half of Australians open to voting for One Nation despite Hanson’s Muslim comments⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  Are they though? Like organically pissed off and not doom scrolling cooker pissed off?

  SA Labor are very much a populist centrist party and pretty much the natural party of government in SA and I will be shocked if they don’t win by a huge margin. Unless the Libs can bring Playford back from the dead to re-nationalise our electricity. Take my vote. Antic and the like have been pushing the Libs to the right and out of contention for years and are doing the same to the federal party.

  Not sure about NSW but I get the impression Minns is a populist Labor Right centrist along the lines of Malinauskas. These guys are holding the center of the chess board. They don’t really look threatened.

  The only thing controversial about Albo is his ability to avoid controversy. He won by a landslide accompanied by almost the almost complete destruction of the LNP.

  And if I was pissed off why would I vote for Hanson. She has been a joke for her entire political career. What changed apart from Gina’s money?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Guardian Essential poll: more than half of Australians open to voting for One Nation despite Hanson’s Muslim comments⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  Australians are humans and do human shit. We aren’t actually blessed or geniuses. Just kind of lucky and generally chill. Both can easily change.

  Unfortunately reverse our good fortune by increasing wealth inequality and undoing the progress of working Australians pushes people to the angry camp. And the angry camp can spread like a bushfire with influencers, social media companies and old media pouring fuel on it.

  It’s not that a peoples party is a bad idea. We had one once called the Australian Labor Party. Born under a tree in Queensland by and for the benefit of hard working Australians. Thanks Queensland. Now they give us Pauline and she is something else entirely. It makes me sad.

  I think we should be better. But we are the same as everyone else aren’t we. Muslims, Americans, Chinese. We are all capable of doing bad shit to each other for insane reasons. It has just been our luck that unless your had the misfortune to be born indigenous most us us had it so good we thought we were above a lot of that shit or at least getting better. Hopefully One Nation will self sabotage as they do tend to attract a log of incompetent people. But I thought the same about both Trump administrations.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Pauline Hanson issues partial apology for suggesting there are no 'good' Muslims⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  They say the outrageous shit, walk it back a little, say even more outrageous shit. They know what they are doing. We know it. It isn’t something new. I don’t know why we pretend and give this piece of shit airtime.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[Video] Australian police violently beat up protester with his hands up at demonstration against Israeli president Isaac Herzog visiting.⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  People with no self control shouldn’t hold responsible positions. If your having a bad day you shouldn’t be in a uniform dealing with people. Goes for any job, not just cops. Imagine if nurses behaved like this, punching every patient who pissed them off. Yet they get paid less than police for some reason.

  I am not anti-police at all. Strongly disagree with the ACAB bullshit in Australia. Some cops are bastards for sure. I think they have a tough job and an important one even if their recruitment and discipline sucks. I feel particularly sorry for the ones who get shot dealing with cookers and some of the stuff they have to see and deal with.

  If the police service can’t self discipline and weed out the trigger happy snowflakes then the public lose faith in them. They need to put cops like this on suspension and retraining. They might not have the right personality for this sort of work. It makes them look week. If your an agitator and want to start a riot it is so easy to bait people like this.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Where would you put yourself today?⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I was thinking the same about it only going up to 40C. It’s forecast for 48C here tomorrow.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Discussion Thread ⏰ Thursday 4 December 2025⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I love Lego but the kids don’t like Star Wars. There’s also a monopoly thing somewhere I think but it’s hard to get excited over boomer IP even for an old bloke. But thanks for the suggestion.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Discussion Thread ⏰ Thursday 4 December 2025⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Thanks. ACMI is already on the list. Might do the markets depending on time but have a lot of things already. Have done the usuals in the past like scienceworks, NGV, museum, aquarium. All great but not this time.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Discussion Thread ⏰ Thursday 4 December 2025⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Is there any reasonably cheap and fun family stuff (around tween age) to do around Melbourne CBD over the weekend that might not show up on searches? Visiting from the sticks so the bar isn’t all that high for something to be interesting. Any franchise/activity I can do in Adelaide is automatically disqualified.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Discussion Thread ⏰ Thursday 4 December 2025⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Micron just announced they are dumping their Crucial retail brand to focus on supplying the AI circular financing bubble financial disaster. It is crazy. I hope our super funds aren’t tied up in this crap. We will end up poorer than North Korea.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨As of December 10th, You need to be sixteen to use Aussie.Zone⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  This account will be visiting from another geolocation which isn’t subject to Australian laws and will henceforth identify as a foreign bot trying to disrupt Australian society and promote disunity. I request to be labelled as a foreign asset, not subject to age authorisation. In small print add “works for gambling industry, owns coal mine, makes political donations, VIP, mates with Albo and the Pope”

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Right faction stages walkout at Labor conference over CFMEU motion⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  They should raise a motion to investigate the SDA and put them into administration.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨When your most obnoxious coworker starts up with their bullshit again⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Some.peiple hate her but others vote for her. Nasty little old ladies who call them selves Christians and proud Australians sit in coffee shops saying “i’im not a racist but…that Pauline makes so much sense”. They don’t give a shit about anyone other than themselves. Nasty little people full of hate.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Ministerial Direction – Treatment of gender dysphoria in children and adolescents with hormone therapy [is banned again, already. Still with no consultation]⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Queensland and New Zealand. Two paradises on earth with shitty unicameral parliaments where a bunch of fuckwits can get voted in and destroy the place with no oversight.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Bitter fruit: the dark underside of the booming NSW blueberry industry⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  It is probably the whole country and the whole agricultural industry. Can’t really go anywhere in a rural town without seeing bus loads of islander labour everywhere. I don’t know what their pay and conditions are like. The stories you heard when the industry relied on backpackers weren’t great so I am not hopeful. I guess Robert Towns was way ahead of his time. You would think with all the underpayments it would be reflected in Colesworths prices.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨More sunscreens pulled from shelves over SPF concerns⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I saw a youtube video once with a person who had used Asian sunscreens wondering what was going on with the Australian ones which felt a lot worse and didn’t seem to perform as well. She put a variety on her back in squares and went in the sun. Not my usual watch but reasonably decent citizen science stuff. I don’t take health advice from youtubers but clearly basic sunscreen testing has trivial testing requirements that don’t require a lot of expensive lab equipment. That we took assurances from for profit companies that paid for profit foreign testing laboratories at their word instead of do the most basic testing to verify them is kind of crazy. I think this happens too often in this country.

  Obviously you need to be careful going down this line of reasoning. People who become experts reading their conspiratorial social media feed and listening to their alternative health practitioner aren’t in a position to be influencing complicated public health matters. But sunscreen you can ab test on yourself and while you won’t be able to tell how much of the harmful spectrum a particular product blocks, which is still important, you can definitely throw out the one that gets you sunburnt much faster. It seems odd in a country that used to pride itself on innovation that nobody was doing this.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨If America descends into fascism, does Australia just grin and bear it?⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  We put our balls firmly in their vice and they aren’t moving. If anything every Australian government, regardless of politics tries to tuck a bit more in every year with the standout concessions being digital sovereignty which is truly fucked and about to get much worse. It isn’t just the military/intelligence stuff. They have massive investment here and dominate financial and digital services. Probably the best we can hope for is to be neutral where we can along with a bit of malicious compliance.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨ABC Mediawatch: possible link between new social media online age requirements and appeasing the gambling industry⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  This is the problem with any well meaning government legislation.

  At it’s core I think regulating social media companies is fine as these foreign multinationals are effectively unregulated. Unregulated pursuit of profit can have harmful effects on individuals and the community and it is totally appropriate to legislate where there is a well demonstrated public interest.

  As soon as you start down the path of regulation it presents an opportunity for everyone else to push their agenda. I suspect tech companies outside of social media see these laws as a chance to damage industry competitors if they can get their competitors products classified as social media. Tech vendors want a piece of age verification services. Media and advertising is looking to push their interests. It makes sense for the gambling industry to be throwing money and influence around as well.

  Any support the legislation had from people hoping for the best will be buried the moment the gambling lobby is seen to be benefiting.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Petition: Bring the Affinity Suite to Linux - #AffinityOnLinux⁩ ⁨⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  An additional benefit is DaVinci Resolve is Aussie owned (Blackmagic Design from Melbourne Australia) which is great for people outside the US looking to decrease their dependence on US owned products and services.

  I am more than happy with kdenlive for my video editing needs but I don’t edit video professionally.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Petition: Bring the Affinity Suite to Linux - #AffinityOnLinux⁩ ⁨⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Yep. This is a waste of time. Canva are just another US VC backed SaaS company despite their Australian origins. An affinity suite port would have been interesting under the previous UK ownership.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Rightwing lobby group Advance says it makes ‘no apology’ for support given to anti-Greens groups⁩ ⁨⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Just follow the money. Don’t even need to do that, its very obvious which industry group benefits from attacking the Greens. It is the same companies, majority foreign owned who aren’t paying their fair share of taxes.

  It is hard to understand how anyone would fall for these corporate propaganda campaigns but then you think about the number of phone and internet scams and see all the fraud and weird cults around and I guess you just have to influence enough people to shift the goal posts. They must be spending a fortune per vote. Must be nice to have a licence to steal our countries wealth and not give anything back.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Tariffs on 'incredibly important' ally Australia branded 'insulting' in fiery US Senate hearing⁩ ⁨⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Need to seriously look at the taxes paid by companies with high foreign ownership, specifically American. News Corp. Tech companies. Mining companies. So much wealth being extracted from our country and so much foreign influence on our politics with fuck all to show for it for the people who live here.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Trump hits pause on reciprocal tariffs⁩ ⁨⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I live in a civilized country under the rule of law so I won’t advocate violence here. But factually and historically countries have found popular solutions to problems like this in the past that involved mobs with sharp pointy things.

  This is the furthest thing from responsible government I can imagine. Even the craziest authoritarian leaders usually commit to something then do it. Lets kill all the sparrows. Or lets shoot all the people wearing glasses. This is fucking crazy. It looks more like stock market manipulation than economic policy. The uncertainty alone has to be costing billions in productivity as businesses pause investments, orders, lay off employees etc.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Microsoft has created an AI-generated version of Quake⁩ ⁨⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Using infinite energy to employ infinite monkeys to recreate the work of one Elizabethan playwright is not a business plan.

  Stop using windows, office and azure and this company and their bullshit go away.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What movies have you watched this week?⁩ ⁨⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  a lot less CGI than I was expecting.

  Less CGI is just invisible CGI Hollywood consistently lies about the amount of visual effects used. If it is done well, as it mostly is in a movie like this, it isn’t too distracting.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Clothing retailer Jeanswest collapses, with 90 stores to close and hundreds of jobs lost⁩ ⁨⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Also there is a fair amount of ignorance. Australian unions have worked with the ALP for decades to ensure entitlements for Australian workers in these circumstances and Labor passed the FEG legislation.

  We get it, the mining lobby and billionaires are a corrupting influence on democracy including the ALP. The ALP aren’t left enough, aren’t proactive enough, whatever. But also the ALP has passed a lot of legislation that benefits working Australians and unsurprisingly you hear fuck all about it from MSM or people pushing minor parties and independents.

  When these companies can’t pay entitlements it isn’t the Liberal party, Greens or independents that legislated to ensure workers aren’t going to be completely fucked.

  Credit where its due.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Coalition will not support Labor’s budget tax cuts, Angus Taylor says⁩ ⁨⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Our voting system gives us the freedom to do that and it would be stupid not to take advantage of it. Voting for independent or minors is a good thing as long as you also preference the parties that will actually get elected sensibly. It is important to recognize that while the mining industry can buy just about anyone, there are plenty of important things for average people that the mining companies don’t give a shit about which can make a huge difference.

  These industry groups are powerful, like drug cartels, the gambling industry or other organised crime. You get some idealistic independent voted in with a balance of power and these guys can make them an offer too good to ignore. You can be set for life with a post political job. They can give jobs to family. They can fund your campaign. And that is all the stuff in public. You look at some of the shit they do overseas and its clearly an ethics free zone.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Coalition will not support Labor’s budget tax cuts, Angus Taylor says⁩ ⁨⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  He is a good communicator. Much better presentation than West and much prefer his style to FJ.

  Unfortunately with the scale of money and influence from these mostly foreign owned companies state Labor governments are as compromised as the Libs when it comes legislating on behalf of these companies, not just in WA. I think any political party is going to face the same problems and it really fucks with democracy. There are huge differences in policy between parties and voting should make a real difference. We have a pretty fair electoral system too. But its a joke if the industry can buy whoever is in government or kick them out. It is incredibly frustrating.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Porn on Spotify Is Infiltrating the Platform’s Top Podcast Charts⁩ ⁨⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  The tech sector has a massive diversity problem. Lots of young men raised with one hand on their dick watching porn while reading libertarian propaganda. I get why vulture capitalists want naive, manipulable children running their businesses but I wish real adults were in charge. Fortunately better alternatives exist to all these platforms.

  As a older man and father I think these people are pathetic little children and I avoid shitty social media in my house and around my family. Unfortunately they are still having a devastating impact on society.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨fuck this asshole⁩ ⁨⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I am not the enemy and I am genuinely sorry for your hardship (though not nearly as much as for people born into poverty, war and genocide in far lass fortunate countries)

  Americans trying to justify themselves on social media seems like a waste of energy and focus and its probably not good for mental health. Outside opinion that contradicts the narratives we have in our heads is important. My opinion might be wrong but its a genuine observation. My very real fear is we can’t rely on US citizens to fight for their democracy anymore and that has global implications for the world and my children’s future. Please prove me wrong. I love to learn new things. The BLM protests were huge but perhaps they turned from grass roots outrage into a social media phenomenon instead of a real effective political movement.

  Protecting our kids is an issue that cuts across all beliefs, races, classes to the heart of our humanity, the most basic goodness that unites our species. I think the turning point was Columbine, 1999. I think that is when things broke down. Not the bad guys on 9/11, not Putin election interference or MAGA. That is the issue that would have really outraged most countries. Millions on the streets protesting. Politicians of all parties scrambling to act. The shootings kept getting worse every year and it was swept under the carpet. More than the homelessness, wealth inequality, healthcare, that makes me worry a lot for your future and by extension the rest of us. We are definitely drifting to the right here and are a worse society for but for all our similarities and weaknesses that is still the the most fundamental issue that separates your politics and society from ours which is why I think we can never really be in your situation.