Nath

I think the quintessential NZ video involves how Dumb Monique thinks you are, and whether you'd like some Ghost Chups.

Yep - I read an ABC article this morning about the same topic.

tldr; it's about how the government just yoinked a chunk of Arnham land away from Aboriginal people to make mines. Because the land is only reserved for first Australians until rich people have a use for it.

Well, to defend the politicians a bit: The ones who built the facility are still in power and haven't caved to the ones calling for the facilities to be repurposed. Yet.

Hopefully after this incident, they won't, either.

I mean, was this not obvious from the beginning?

I don't know whether it's the reason, but a super obvious one would be to be able to measure how many people consume different shows etc.

If you read their articles or listen to their shows on third-party feeds, they have no way of knowing. Before you claim this is a good thing, some show you love might get cut because they don't know it's actually popular.

I just use their apps, so I'm not affected. I can see how people who prefer aggregate apps would dislike this, however.

I have no idea how to even begin to fix the whole "oh we owe 70% of our revenue to our international parent company for licensing and stuff" tax loophole. But that loophole costs our nation so much money that it boggles my brain. I assume it can't simply be closed. But wow would that be neat!

And this is a company that actually paid most of a Billion dollars in tax.

Nah, there are plenty of local acts that I would think of as the States best loved artists. I don't just mean the unrealistic ones like AC/DC - they're too big to play at some hick town like Perth unless it's in the Stadium.

We have:
The Waifs, John Butler, Eskimo Joe, San Cisco, Karnovool, Hoodoo Gurus, Tame Impala, Birds of Tokyo.
(This is by no means an exhaustive list. Just pointing out that there are very different names I'd put on a 'best loved artists of WA' list)

I readily recognise that I'm old and out of touch, but I've never heard of any of "Twenty of the state’s best loved artists".

Is anyone looking at this lineup with excitement?

Disappointed that today's emoji was not the fire one, @YarraByte.

Really? Giving lessons on taking off/landing on short runways - lessons that could be applied to air operations on an aircraft carrier, constutute state secrets? He hasn't denied teaching pilots this stuff, though he claims he never knowingly taught Chinese airforce pilots. He also taught tight formation aerial exhibition flying, which again could have military applications.

From what I can tell, that's the main thing he's accused of. There's been no accusations of weapons or combat training, actually landing on aircraft carriers etc. As I read it all, I thought "that's it?" He's also accused of sending money abroad in some sort of laundering thing, but I can't see how the US military would care about that enough to extradite him.

They might have more charges once he's in US hands, but from what I've seen in the indictment documents, people could probably learn that stuff in Australia.

What a fascinating case! Former US fighter pilot becomes an Australian citizen. Then trains pilots in Australia and overseas.
Is he training pilots in military flying? Or just civilian flying? Is he breaking any laws? Who bloody knows?

Reading more about his case:

The 2017 indictment said "Duggan provided military training to PRC (People's Republic of China) pilots" through a South African flight school on three occasions in 2010 and 2012.

He's denying this. Though the fact that he lived in Beijing for eight years looks pretty sus. He claims he's just teaching civilian flying.

His defence lawyer is claiming that ASIO gave him a security clearance to acquire an aviation license in 2022 while he was still in China, enticing him to return to Australia. That clearance was revoked a few days after he arrived and suddenly he's facing extradition to the USA. The defence is saying they lured him to Australia only to extradite him. And to be frank, that holds water. Though, I could probably also be convinced that US officials were monitoring his movement and started proceedings once he entered a country they had an extradition treaty with.

Dude has been in solitary confinement in Lithgow for over three years so far. That's frankly pretty damn harsh all on its own for the accusation of 'three cases of military training'. Three years in solitary for a person who hasn't even got a guilty verdict? Are the yanks saying that you go to prison for a year per military flying lesson? Are they going to recognise time served if they find him guilty? Are both government going to compensate him for what this has all cost him and his family if he's found innocent? They have frozen the family home half-built. It can't be sold or lived in. The family have racked up half a million dollars defending the case so far.

I have trust issues around releasing an Australian citizen to the mercies of the present US administration/military. I am unconvinced he'll face a fair trial.

You ask this like we don't know the answer. We had the draft in living memory.

We need a proclamation of a call to war before parliament 90 days before it can be activated. The government needs parliamentary approval from both houses. All Australian residents 18-60 can be called up (not only men in the 21st century) but the government can call up a subset of this cohort ('only men', 'only women with red hair', 'only residents of Bankstown' or whatever 'class' they wish).

Then everyone loses their shit, we storm our politicians and threaten them with being the first to war or something if they even think of voting this in. It would be so wildly unpopular and I can't see any government passing it.

It's not something the PM or Governor General can unilaterally do. Hooray for checks on politicians in Australia.