Urcher posted:

Word cloud for November:

Frogmanv2 posted:

Now redo them for the byob revolution.

Urcher posted:

Special bonus word clouds because it's nearly Christmas and you guys are awesome.

Urcher posted:

There's an Auspol BYOB thread? I'm on it.

ewe2 posted:

A good snipe. Now go back and read my effortpost.

Splode posted:

It's just the GBS thread, it got moved.

Those On My Left posted:

Yeah but I don't live in Prahran.

Your move

Urcher posted:

After looking at the results I feel entirely justified in never reading the GBS thread.

Matthew Beet posted:

Wrong conclusion.

Who wouldn't want to talk about Apples, Chickens and Cats?

ewe2 posted:

So part of the dole bill (Social Security Legislation Amendment (Strengthening the Job Seeker Compliance Framework) Bill 2014) went through the Senate tonight with amendments from ALP. This is not the bit which canes under-30's and 50-55's yet, that's the bit they're afraid to put up.

But this bit is all about breaches and whether you satisfy the activity test if you're over 55. Basically for now, the ALP amendments stalled the worst parts, particularly item 16 which would have given the Secretary of the Department carte blanche to invent whole classes of people not exempt from the activity test. That's important at least because if it had got through it would have been much easier to apply it downwards.

The intention was claimed to stop people basically living on the dole and just doing voluntary work to avoid participation requirements (as if that is some kind of preferred choice). But really it was to give them the regulatory framework to do whatever they liked with the rules without legislation and I'm betting they'll try this with the other part of the bill. People over 55 could have been forced to do full-time job searching and voluntary work or work for the dole at the same time. And it could have been a trojan horse to make it the general case.

The breach rules were fiddly bullshit to try and make some breaches permanent and boiled down to making it harder to get your case heard if you had a genuine reason to miss appointments and needed to be reinstated. The amendments smoothed that part out. The way most breaches work is that you don't do what's required, they cut you off and its up to you to fix it. There are some loopholes allowing you to claim you were going to do what was required and get reinstated immediately.

But the mechanism that was proposed was just badly written and that got scrubbed. For instance they wanted to prevent some situations from being reviewed by the Social Security Tribunal, claiming that it would be "quicker" to get reinstated. In reality, they were closing off avenues of appeal deliberately. We're just lucky this was put so clumsily and was easily spotted for what it was, and that the ALP were prepared to amend it much less oppose it.

I am a bit upset with the MSM and even twitter for basically ignoring this session of the Senate because it could have gone differently and we would have woken up with oh my god they didn't. Vigilance, people! Also watching that stuff is seriously depressing because all the danger that it represents is sucked out by the procedural bollocks. There could have been some great speeches, I didn't watch them because they weren't the spiky end of the deal. And that is my effortpost and I desperately need to blot it all out.

Those On My Left posted:

Thanks for this!

Murodese posted:

So, is it liberating for a politician to be able to decide when an election promise doesn't matter?

Urcher posted:

Special bonus word clouds because it's nearly Christmas and you guys are awesome.

I made these a couple of months ago and never got around to posting them. My entire archives of Auspol D&D compared to the entire Auspol GBS thread




After looking at the results I feel entirely justified in never reading the GBS thread.

Urcher posted:

Urcher posted:

Special bonus word clouds because it's nearly Christmas and you guys are awesome.

I made these a couple of months ago and never got around to posting them. My entire archives of Auspol D&D compared to the entire Auspol GBS thread




After looking at the results I feel entirely justified in never reading the GBS thread.

XyloJW posted:

I love it, but Thanksgiving is past now and I have to change it to a Christmas avatar.

XyloJW posted:

Several words get repeated, by the way. Anime, nugs, apples, and tastes all show up twice in the GBS one, and boats and preferences show up twice in the D&D one. Just a heads up, your algorithm may be off in some way.

Seagull posted:

The move capped another farcical day of dealings with the crossbench in which former league star Mr Lazarus publicly pleaded with Mr Pyne to stop texting him — a critical element of senate negotiations.

Quantum Mechanic posted:

I love Lee

hun posted:

VICTORIANS will get a day off work before the next AFL Grand Final, with Labor’s plan to provide an extra public holiday to be in place by next year.

Around-the-clock weekend public transport will take longer to set up, and is expected to start by New Year’s Eve next year.

These are just some of the big changes the new Labor Government will implement.

Premier-elect Daniel Andrews­ will need 12 months to fulfil his promise of 24-hour public transport on weekends but other changes could come much sooner.

Cage fighting is likely to start next year after Mr Andrews­ promised to reverse the ban.

The Herald Sun on Monday revealed a blockbuster Ultimate Fighting Championship match, which would ­attract 50,000 spectators, was pencilled in to take place at Etihad Stadium in 2015.

Victorians will get two extra public holidays, with one on the Friday before Grand Final Day next year.

It is understood the promised public holiday would only need to be recorded in the Government Gazette to be made official.

Workers in retail and hospitality may also enjoy extra penalty rates for working Easter Sunday after Labor promised to look at making the day an official public holiday.

Other changes include half price registration for trade apprentices­ and a cap on council rate increases to match CPI.

Parents of young babies will also be given whooping cough vaccines and children will not be allowed to enrol in childcare without a certificate confirming all immunisations.

Matthew Beet posted:

Cage fighting is likely to start next year

Saul Goode posted:

Sorry if this has been discussed ad nauseum already (noting the strong presence of HALAL in the word cloud), but I had a co-worker start ranting to me at a morning tea the other day about how Pieface have gone out of business because they decided to make everything Halal certified and when I asked why would that be a problem (even though I knew it was BS), she said it was because Australians were boycotting Halal certified foods because of the cruel manner of killing the animals. She's generally a smart person though so I was thinking maybe she's just been sucked in by some Facebook meme or something, so I've tried to find some articles online I can show her. So far so good, but is there a consensus in AusPol about the cruelty issue? Most of what I've found so far says that the Australian standard is to stun before killing but that certain slaughterhouses are able to get an exemption on religious grounds. Should this latter group be a significant concern? Is there any way to link methods of slaughter to specific businesses?

Matthew Beet posted:

SPORTS SPORTS SPORTS IN SPORTSTORIA!