Maybe we should meet up for a beer one day then Buster??? QF club passes were once not a prob., but chairman's club is strictly off limits Ha ha

I've never been there, but I am aware of Broadmeadows, the old man used to go to (?) Keilor, as part of TAA Training, I'm a little Melb. ignorant to tell you the truth,........I once knew the daughter of a prominent Mitsubishi (?) dealership, she showed me around Toorak....not a bad place I thought.....but the rest of Melbourne isn't Toorak as I understand...

Ha, Mitsubishi dealers would go broke in Toorak! ;) ;)

I still have vouchers for the Golden Wing lounge but... :(

para
The "none of the above" box works if 50%+1 of voters tick it, all candidates are disqualified and a new by-election called with new candidates.

Expensive in the short term but might stop future 'captain's picks'. :E

I hear Kevvie has returned to Sunrise for a weekly gig.

That must put the writing firmly on the wall for Ms Gillard being dumped before the election.

David Koch is an embarrassment. Just as politicians are required to state their pecuniary interests, media "personalities" should be required to clearly state their political bias.

Koch, by the way he pandered to the lie of "Howard lite" Kevin Rudd in the lead up to the 2007 election with Rudd damn near welded to a seat in the Sunrise studio, should have been on the Labor Pardee's payroll rather than Channel 7's.

After the way Ch. 7 tried to stitch up Abbott over the 'Shit Happens' remark I think that Ch. 7 are in the pay of the ALP anyway.

Not to mention Qantas :yuk:. After their totally biased reporting of the 'fleet grounding' debacle I refuse to watch the programme. I am no longer interested in anything Koshy and his gal pal have to say. :*

Rant over...:}

You'll note I wrote "heard" not "see". :}

I somehow think we are not the demographic he is aiming at.

Sunrise watchers are. :E

Yes, Cooda, TV in the morning just doesn't work for me either. I've been guilty of watching it in hotel rooms whilst on overnights, but very, very rarely when at home. The few times I've seen 'Sunrise' (when visiting the rels) it seems to me to be very, very light.

Craig Thomson's lawyer isn't doing him any favours. Maybe Craig's hoping for a mis-trial, based upon inept representation?

Apparently he's a big shot, but I think he comes across as very aggressive in the media. He has a very forceful 'Union Heavy lawyer' style :ooh:, which I don't think helps Thomson's public credibility at all.

Remember how at one stage he was running around threatening to sue anyone who said his client was a spiv (even though that would have meant suing pretty much the whole country except for the PM and his client's dear ol' Mum)? I really can't bear people who threaten to sue everyone. Either sue someone or don't, but don't bluster around in the media huffing and puffing about it. It's like threatening to punch someone; a complete waste of time and hot air. :bored:

Of course, now it doesn't matter what we or anyone else thinks of him and his spottly little client. That will be up to the courts. :8
That's a scary thought. I wonder what their key traits are? Possibly they have a lot in common with Today Tonight watchers. :}

I'd probably offend or insult someone if I tried to answer that.

What I do know is that there's a lot of 'em.......and they each have a vote.:eek:

Another reason for the very early announcement of the election date?

Slipper faces pension dilemma

From the US, but few would say it doesn't apply equally to Australia. Delete food stamps, insert Centrelink.

WITW wrote:

Thomson's lawyer has now threatened to sue Barry O'Farrell over his response to the allegations that his client was strip searched. O'Farrell's comment was along the lines of:

Thomson (allegedly) wasn't too upset about taking his clothes off in a brothel, so why should he get upset over being strip searched by the police. :p


The other and perhaps more credible reason for the Red Hag to announce the election so hastily; Peter Slipper might head for the exit early, having realised his $157K pa parliamentary pension would be history if he is convicted of the current round of charges he faces.

In spite of Gillard and the ALP being the most inept bunch ever to rule federally and their policies have cost me personally and financially, I'm rather enjoying being a spectator to their current situation.:):)

Going back a little bit, but Keatings bunch were pretty bad too. Everything they did became a 'shite fite'. Must be in the ANALP DNA. A good measure of their standards was how the ABC headed further into the gutter.

Re Slipper and his parliamentary pension: does anyone know how that works?

I mean, if he resigns (as I strongly suspect he will) before he is found guilty (or not guilty) of fraud, it would seem from the comments in the media today that he keeps his pension, even if he subsequently is found guilty. Do they stop proceedings against him if he resigns from parliament, or can he still be found guilty but keep the pension because he had not been found guilty at the time he resigned? (Phew! Now that's a convoluted sentence.)

How that work? Surely resigning shouldn't make him safe from prosecution nor protect his pension if he is subsequently found to have been guilty of fraud while serving as a member of parliament.

Or have the pollies of old written 'the rools' to protect themselves and those who would later follow them into the hallowed halls of parliament?

46 Million people on food stamps! :eek: I seem to recall something about some US pilots on food stamps...didn't much bother to read it truth be told, but over twice the population of Aust. unable to find work that pays enough to sustain themselves and their family?

Yeah sure the irony in the second part is 'gold' :ok: as people seem to say nowadays :\

Imagine what all those guns would be doing if the food stamps stopped? 'Spose all the hard working poor people turn to gun crime, eventually be eliminated through retalitory gun crime, and more Mexicans move in to fill the void?

I dunno 46 Million people!!! Would not have thought it possible....anyway...one of the highlights of a trip to NYC a few years back was watching an elderly black guy searching bins in Grand central station....I went and bought a subway sandwich, walked up to him, made eye contact, gestured to my waist, and handed him the food, almost underhand like the drug deal I watched go down in Harlem a few hours earlier, I didn't want make a fuss, the poor guy was in such an undignified position already, but I'll never forget the look of gratitude in his eyes when he realised what I had done for him....I skipped up the stairs and out onto the street, shaking my head in disbelief....he weren't a druggie begging money....but someone who had fallen on genuinely hard times.....I helped (although fleetingly) to better this man's life.....it felt good........but I couldn't do it for 46 million of them....but I digress.....

Fliegs, I can confirm that regional pilots in the US were (still are?) so poorly paid that some qualified for food stamps.

I've also heard, (unconfirmed), that it's not unusual for enlisted men in the US military, (possibly those with large families?), to be on food stamps. This sounds incredible at first glance, but when you consider that one major political party in the US seems to be as keen to have the maximum number of people beholden to them for any and everything as one major pardee here in Australia is, maybe it does make a weird kind of sense.

To some.

I had a conversation with a Tory lawyer mate last night and his opinion is; he keeps it, IF he resigns prior to conviction, same with Thomson. It doesn't stop the proceedings but because they resigned rather than be sacked (same as with blue/yellow collar bogans accused of blue collar crimes like punching people in the tea room who quit before they're convicted) they keep their entitlements. The proeceedings still continue, but their entitlements are secure.

If they say 'sod you all', fight the accusations while still MPs, get convicted and therefore have to stand down (ie get sacked) then they lose their entitlements.

As the date has been declared, precedent is that a by-election cannot be called until the general election, so if either or both of them fall by the wayside then the whole thing gets held over till September. How constitutionally correct that is I don't know (declaring an election this far out is unprecedented) but unless the Libs want a major punch-on in the High Court I'd be guessing that's the way it will pan out.

Of course that's just one person's opinion, not binding advice.

Tell the Fat Lady there's been a delay...:} Neither Slipper nor Thomson are a shining beacon for the ALP. Dragging it out just annoys people more.
Like cricket, politics has always been a spectator sport. :E

Bastard Fleigs! You know they're not really one foot long!!!

(I kid, I kid...you did a good thing Sir) :D

Interesting how the local populace went feral so quickly in New Orleans after Katrina. Who in their right mind is going to cut welfare to approximately 46 million, armed & hungry people? :uhoh::ooh::eek:

Sounds like their union needs a kick in the rear end.
They're members, of course. Aren't they??:uhoh:

I hear similar stories here from freight pilots and the answer to the second question is usually negative. Too much money, don't like the idea, no afford to pay....they're pilots! Professionals don't need a union!

So they get :mad:ed over on conditions, earn below award wages and put up with unsafe conditions (and hope for the best) because they're too cool/frightened to stand up and be counted, and the scared individual always loses.

When the holes in the cheese line up and everyone ends up very wet (or very dead) be sure that the pilot will be the first in line for blame. Not the company and its crappy procedures, not the government for failing to enforce its own pie in the sky regulations, not the weather, not any other mitigating factor....

The worker. That's who will be blamed. Professional or otherwise, the pilot will wear it for the rest of his/her career, while all the other parties who were guilty by association snivel off to the sidelines and espouse 'pilot in command is pilot in command'. :yuk:

Lockhart River...Norfolk Island... the list continues. Whether you're a pilot or something else, whenever management says they'll back you on something dodgy, start your bloody digital recorder and ask them to repeat it.