The source material from the FSB.

Excellent example of blissfully unaware arrogance working with cultural ignorance. I don’t think I would call the author a racist though without an established pattern of similar behaviour.

Clearly, neither Oliver nor his publishers consulted with anyone who had any familiarity with Australia. To have a story hook built around an Aboriginal child being abducted is obviously “tone deaf” in light of the “Stolen generations” - one doesn’t need to be indigenous to know that. Oliver should write kids’ books about what he knows if he isn’t prepared to do the research.

That sounds awesome 😀 Which part of the world did that happen in?

I applaud the use of graphs to educate but this one is lacking forcing the reader to assume a lot.

• what is the vertical axis? I assume it’s percentage change since some arbitrary time but the title text could mislead one to think it is “rate of change”
• year against which everything is measured is not stated. I assume it’s 2000.
• are the figures inflation adjusted? If not, the graph could well be underplaying the situation.
• I assume (again) that “average” here is the arithmetic mean but medium would be a much better measure of typical incomes and mortgages repayments because it is more robust to outliers. In a country with big disparities in wealth, the income of billionairees will skew the average high.

Not just any retired general but a proud member of nafo and CSIS.

Битва за Севастополь Battle for Sevastopol. Available on YouTube apparently.

I don’t know anything about tanks but reading the article about the Slovenian armour the author claims

… the M-55S isn’t really a T-55. It’s the bones of a T-55 with a new brain, new muscles and new skin.

And he gives a list of all claimed “upgrades”. So, with a charitable interpretation the double-standard goes away.

Then again, even if the M-55S isn’t as antiquated as an unmodded T-55 its not like war has age-restricted combat where all the elderly tanks get together and fight it out in a safe zone.

Which, in turn, is a riff on a quote from Palmerston. A guiding principle of “real politik” and mantra of all our favourite war criminals.

The tweet seems to have gone. Not sure what’s going on with nitter.it

But you can use another nitter instance to access the user like nitter.pussthecat.org

Edit: I was wrong, tweet is up. Nitter isn’t functioning well

A plausible explanation given the mass suicides that also happened out of fear of the Red Army. Promise Me You’ll Shoot Yourself: The Mass Suicide of Ordinary Germans in 1945

I understand your point but the graphic concerns capacity not utilization. All modes of transport can run at well below capacity. In recent times airlines were doing “dead runs” just to “keep their place” when covid restrictions greatly reduced the number of travelers.

Public transportation is available for all to choose to use it or not. Cars are essentially private, even when working as taxis, hence the owner chooses the utilization level. I don’t think it a controversial claim that the average number of passengers per trip would be slightly above 1 for cars.

I don’t watch TV or know much about rating systems but it looks like it used to be a popular show. For example in 2014 it had a typical audience over >800K. Looks like it has only a tenth of that now.

Young people aren’t going to be watching TV and I believe skippy (anglo) Australians would be far more interested in sports and home reno shows than dull customs officers.

My guess is that

• because Australian law requires 55% of tv broadcast between 6am and midnight to be Australian, and dramas & documentaries are costly to produce compared to so-called reality tv this shit show is an easy way to meet the quota
• the billionaire Kerry Stokes is the main owner of channel 7 who broadcast this trash and he gets around with
• this turd who instigated the boarder force on which program based.
• making propaganda gets you access and cash

I’m surprised at its ratings. They didn’t cover this though or this

The story is most likely for internet points so this is all moot and not worth debating. However, the bloke could have just asked right? That’s the easiest answer.

Unrelated, but refugees can and historically have been settled in rural communities. Refugee is a specific subset of immigrant with different conditions and motivation. My experience as an immigrant to multiple countries accords with yours - we go where the money/opportunities are but refugees go where they are put - at least to start with.

The story is set in a village. Villages have a small population who all know each other. Outsiders get spotted quickly. Assuming the girl exists, it is highly unlikely she speaks English and the odds are zero she speaks Irish. Even if she speaks English its going to be in a very different accent to our story teller. No, doubt her ma also has an accent differnt to the locals. I dont think you need to be Sherlock, or ask for a passport, to figure it out.

That was a good read, thanks.

This is the guy that allegedly castrated Ukrainian POWs. The septics on Reddit are braying for his blood rather than any justice. I have no idea what, if anything, this guy did as I’m not keen to watch any videos connected to these claims.

Of course no one there seems to know or be perturbed by Gennadiy Druzenko going on Украина-24 back in March with orders for ukrainian doctors to castrate Russian POWs because

… they are cockroaches not people.

Blow back perhaps.

Accidentally correct? Buried somewhere within my “to read” pile is

Why Women Have Better Sex Under Socialism: And Other Arguments for Economic Independence

I agree. That book cover seems to encapsulate the vibes of a cheesy buddy-cop film and a supermarket romance novel all in one. Just a disturbing aesthetic.

Ah, I see. Fair enough. I thought it was northern hemisphere ignorance. No worries.