do you find the australian better than the smh?

Maybe there's still hope that I can be Chief Justice in the Nicoletti Administration

Two grown men comparing who has the bigger...fortune

Modern Warfare 2

Not-so-crisp

"Are you serious?" said Tyreice Jones of The Jug Shop, a leading Australian specialist wine merchant in San Francisco, when told of the new brand. "They're calling it Down Under? Jesus. Does it come with a free download by Men At Work?"

Hilarious.

Legal Gymnastics

How much do you want to watch this show?

If you're into this sort of thing...

the more you play, the closer you will get to the theortical house advantage, which isn't far from 2%.

Baccarat anyone?

Between June 2005 and August 2006, Mr Kakavas turned over almost $1.5billion at Crown's baccarat tables. His total losses reached upward of $30 million.

You know, a 2% loss isn't that bad...

i suppose "asylum seekers" is more positive than "innocent".

whereas innocent is neutral, asylum seekers might carry connotations of them being victims, thus them having more of a case to be granted asylum...

and of course illegal immigrants paint more of a negative picture.

maybe we should call them aliens like the US does. :D

this is now purely an exercise in language and how the media/government wants to portray these people.

/me bows out

Illegal or not, boat people receive much disproportionate time-coverage in the media compared to say, formerly legitimate visa-holders who have [intentionally?] overstayed their welcome e.g. students and backpackers.

---

In Cairns, I had the honour of being insulted by a drunk local bogan who must have assumed I was a foreigner. The irony was that while she was pouring hate on me for assumedly being foreign, when we were in fact surrounded by European backpackers, whom she did not breathe a word about.

This is why, when I apply the word xenophobe to hardcore-white Australia, its somewhat of a misnomer because that assumes that they fear all migrants equally.

When they screen Border Security, I think they should just remove all footage of visitors from Western European heritage, then people won't be tempted to change channels for the entire duration of the show.

so because they came on a boat and sailed from whichever country they've come from - that means they're seeking asylum? that was the crux of my gripe. oh there are boat loads of people attempting come here undetected and stay permanently - they must be asylum seekers.

that is analgious to saying "oh he killed a man, he must have been doing it in self defence".

john: But didn't you just conversely label all asylum seekers as illegal immigrants in your initiating post?

That's okay Yi, your with friends now, john can't touch you anymore.

Eric: that's your job to worry about funding. Gimme dat cash!

Wow...havevn't been on this for ages!

Anyways, just went to the ANZ Federal Budget Dinner and listened to Swan's budget delivery. For those who were interested enough to listen, it was the the most amusing budget delivery ever! Lots on spending, but where's the funding?!?!?!?

asylum seekers

this is called giving people the benefit of the doubt.
if this wasn't granted to you, then i can file charges of sexual molestation on you and you'd be guilty until proven innocent.

calling them illegal immigrants will obviously be the other way round.
thankfully in a first world country, we grant people these privileges.

do tell me if i've got the crux of your gripe wrong.

the difference is in execution.

we afford a special status to asylum seekers as a class of people as deserving of protection and accommodation. i think it is irresponsible to callously label all illegal immigrants as asylum seekers; it devalues the whole exercise.

What's the difference between that and you wanting a better paying job?

yes, every single person coming here is being persecuted from whatever evil from their home.

there's a difference between genuinely seeking asylum and wanting to live here because this is a better country.

is it a goal of a country to be the top choice of middle eastern conflict region people? do we win brownie points from the moral police and feel warm and fuzzy inside? i couldn't care less.

Just wanted to post that I miss you racist bastards.

ETA! Runnnnnn.

mrrowww

We have a casualty.

Well personally if I were persecuted for my race, religion, alignment or whatever with immediate threat of death, I would calmly queue at an intended host country's embassy for an asylum visa rather than foolishly take matters into my own hands.

In actual fact, in the global game, Australia is only a minor recipient of the total of "illegal immigrants" coming from the middle eastern conflict regions and in their view Australia is seen as a pretty piss-poor choice compared to the US/Europe (yes, as Australians we find it difficult to imagine that there is a better country from which an illegal immigrant could be ejected from).

Does that fresh Southern Cross tattoo still hurt, john? XD

detention or not, these people are breaching our sovereign borders, attempting to evade detection with the intention to stay permanently without proper visa or authorisation. to me, that is the definition of illegal immigrants.

Because its a change in government. The Rudd administration says its not cool to mandatorily incarcerate them so from that they will be labelled asylum seekers.

The Howard government thought mandatory detention was cool. So to make it sound cool, they label them illegal immigrants.

rather than calling them asylum seekers, why don't the media say what they really are - illegal immigrants?

this may make some ppl cry, but any student who recieves some sort of financial aid from the aussie govn will also get a further $950 from the ATO :)