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Mantas

SnowJapan Member
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Posts posted by Mantas

  1. Why you getting so worked up about it?

    I'm pretty sure most people here couldn't give a crap, to be honest.

    That was the whole point. I certainly don't care how you guys make up an olympic team or how many medals you get or what your official tittle is. English, Brittish, U.K ish......pfft

    The Man in Japan must give a crap though, if he felt the need to get out his red marker pen and correct my post.

    My original post was a compliment, remember.

    Paddy are the rowers from Northern Ireland that won silver and competed for Britain

  2. Must be very proud to be english bag. They have done so well.

    British. :rolleyes:

    Quite right. Quite right!

    England for the commonwealth games. Great Britain for the Olympics and all run by UK Sport. Right, got it.

    Awefully sorry ol chap.

    Hang on :confused: better knock a couple of medals of the tally because Paddy doesn't come from either England or Great Britain.

  3. Doesn't it tell you that there's a disconnect between reality and what people believe? How can things be so good on paper, making our economy the envy of much of the rest of the world and yet so many people think that it's all doom and gloom and the government is useless and to blame for everything? Blame for what? That we have it so damned good??? I just don't get it. It doesn't make any sense. Unless you accept what I've been saying. That our media has incredible power over what the populace thinks and it has on the whole been strongly campaigning against the government.

    Just who's got it so damm good? I've just had my worst year in business ever and so has just about everyone I speak to! Retail, manufacturing and construction industries have been decimated in my region. Finding work is hard, getting payment for it is even harder.

    I have three friends that have lost their local jobs in the construction industry. Two of them now fly in and out of WA mining towns, the other one drives 8 hours away to a NSW mining town for work. I have another friend in retail that doesn't know how he'll make through the next year (he's been in business 16 years). There have been job losses a plenty in this region. Most people have been lucky enough to pick up jobs in the coal handling facilities industry. This IS the reality! To suggest that this is some kind of imagined scenario due to the magical, brainwashing powers of a handful of media Shock Jocks is laughable.

    The two tiered economy is reeking havoc on Australian businesses. I've witnessed it first hand. Sure, some people are just out chasing the big dollars that mining attracts but most are doing it through lack of any real alternative and avoiding unemployment.

    Australia's current economic situation has sweet FA to do with the Gillard governments policies and everything to do with the current resources boom (currently 20% of G.D.P.). If it wasn't for the resources boom we would be in exactly the situation as Europe and the U.S. So it's now either green dole queues or dirty black prosperity. Not hard for the media to portray mining magnates as super heros in this environment. How did we get here?

    I find it ironic that the incumbent government's partnership with the Greens has seen Australia move about as far away from 'Green' as you can get. Your right about one thing though. Dark days are coming soon. They will be about as dark as the filthy black coal that we all now heavily rely on and will one day run out.

     

    Maybe it's a different scenario down where you live, I don't know. All I can tell you is that's what happening here and I don't listen to Alan Jones, John Laws, Kyle Sandiland or Usain Bolt (or whatever his name is)

  4. I didn't think you'd answer that one.

     

    I don't dispute most of what you say. It's just that I don't think people like Jones have as much influence over the broader population as you suggest. I just don't see them as pied poppers, dragging along the masses behind them.

    The mad monk will fall on his sword. People are already seeing through all the fear mongering. Gillards popularity is rising. Give the people some credit.

     

     

     

  5. As a kid I remember shopping with my Nanna in the same street that is practically derelic now. It was thriving back then.

    The reason for the decline is obvious here. Two massive shopping malls that I have witnessed grow 6 fold in size.

    Working mums, busy families and the need for convenience has killed the main street.

    It's a way more efficient way to shop but I hate malls. Probably because I work in them a lot.

    It amazes me the effort to detail that the management with go to to ensure the perfect 'shopping experience' for the punter.

  6. Dead as a door nail here. Every year some council member comes up with a new way to revive the area. It's just like you said, half the shops closed, the other half selling very cheap crap. At least in the UK the main street building have some kind of charm to them, out here a lots of them are 1970's concrete and glass boxes.

  7.  

    I'm talking about the general swill out there. You know the masses of people who think people like Alan Jones and Andrew Bolt are fonts of wisdom! :sj-lol:

    No, not really. Just because someone get a bit of a following doesn't automatically elevate them to Messiah or denigrate the listener to Swill.

    I know a lot of people who listen to Alan Jones, they are the same people who watch Q & A, Media watch, Insight and other reputable media outlets.

    Alan Jones is a F@@@wit. That's a given, but he adds balance to the spectrum and that's a sign of a healthy democracy, You just can't put a muzzle on a prominent media outlet/ or personality because you don't agree with what they are saying.

    You've been in Japan too long ;)

  8. Mantas people on the whole anywhere in the world are dumb as dog shit and Australia is no exception.

    Whoaa? Great opening line.

    That's a failrly elitest view for someone obviously from the left side of politics. You would get a gernsey on Jiohn Howard's dream team.

    Lazyness and dumbness aren't the same thing. Most people know what's going on but couldn't be arsed to do anything about it or even form an opinion. Probably just as bad I know.

    I agree with what yo say about the media. Commercial media that is. They are not a community service. They are a business selling a product just like any other business. I just don't know where you get this idea that everyone except me is as "dumb as dogs shit"

  9.  

    I'm happy to watch/read the news from any outlet, but always look with a filter that deletes bias from the reporting. (Not always easy!)

    Yep, it's a bit like junk food. We all know it's crap but eat it anyway. I don't think there are too many people here that lap up whatever's served to them. Aussies generally have a healthy dose of scepticizm. That's why politicians are greeted in public with boo's and cheers rather than cheers and pomm Pomms like in the US

  10. I think a lots of Aussies don't realize that what they are watching/reading is a 'product'. Therefore the content needs to be entertaining.

    Outrage is normally a good seller. Power prices, Asylum seekers , politicians wasting money, that sort of thing.

    I think we are fairing a lot better than other countries though. The ABC has a lot of interesting unbiased news content like Insight, Q &A, Four corners, Foreign correspondent etc. It's just that they can't compete with all the other trivial camp on commercial networks.

  11. Not from me. Others definitely.

    Pretty bold statement to come out and blatantly accuse someone of being a drug cheat.

    i hope she's as clean as a whistle.

    I hope we can just except that a 16 year old Chinese school girl swims faster than a 28 year old Male veteren gold medalist in the same evet because of umm.. better training techniques. ;)

  12. UK news sites making a fuss about it and also the "sweatshop, torturous conditions" that young Chinese kids are brought up in.

    Must say there seems some sour grapes in the mix to me and while they certainly do seem to push their young kids - perhaps too far - this swimmer should not be branded a cheat before there is any kind of proof that is true.

    Which is what is happening now.

    She should in a perfect world be applauded for being an amazing swimmer. We're way far from that ideal though hey.

    I think the extreme scrutiny of the result is valid, given china's extensive state sponsored drug cheating program that went on in previous years, Perhaps it shouldn't be done in such a public fashion though. Also you would have to be naive to think that the chemists doing the drug screening are somehow automatically more advanced than the chemists doing the cheating just because they are on the side of good. No sour grapes just a sad reality of modern sport.

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