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Messages - DJC

2
The Sports Desk / Re: God help me - the Test Cricket thread
Quote from: LP – on
Quote from: DJC – on
I think that the only thing in Green's favour is that he's six years younger than Webster.
Yes, age, but the selection of the out of form and out of position, 39 years old tomorrow, Khawaja seems to contradict that hypothesis.

Maybe a birthday present? :o

I don’t think Khawaja is out of form, and he would have been carrying the drinks if Smith hadn’t suffered the vertigo attack. 

My main beef with Khawaja is his slow scoring and inability or unwillingness to rotate the strike.   However, it’s hard to fault his innings today.  And that’s the annoying thing about him; just when you think he’s done and dusted, he fires up 🙄
4
The Sports Desk / Re: God help me - the Test Cricket thread
I was about to have a crack at Khawaja for his slow scoring, that I think puts added pressure on our other batsmen, when he started to play some strokes.  Now he's made a 50 and has probably cemented hos place in the team for the rest of the series  ::)
7
Blah-Blah Bar / Re: Shawny’s concerns about Victorian and Australian Governments
Does anyone bother to read the ASIO Director-General's Annual Threat Assessments?

It's here: https://www.asio.gov.au/director-generals-annual-threat-assessment-2025

A couple of excerpts:

"Over the next five years, a complex, challenging and changing security environment will become more  dynamic, more diverse and more degraded.

Many of the foundations that have underpinned Australia’s security, prosperity and democracy are being tested: social cohesion is eroding, trust in institutions is declining, intolerance is growing, even truth itself is being undermined by conspiracy, mis- and disinformation.

Similar trends are playing out across the Western world.

So what does this mean for our security environment?

Australia is facing multifaceted, merging, intersecting, concurrent and cascading threats. Major geopolitical, economic, social and security challenges of the 1930s, 70s and 90s have converged. As one of my analysts put it with an uncharacteristic nod to popular culture: everything, everywhere all at once.

Or as I described it a moment ago, more dynamic, diverse and degraded."
...

"The war in the Middle East has not yet directly inspired terrorism in Australia, but it is prompting protest, exacerbating division, undermining social cohesion and elevating intolerance. This, in turn, is making acts of politically motivated violence more likely."

Terrorism is a subset of politically motivated violence. It covers acts or threats intended to advance a political, religious or ideological cause through intimidation. So while a protest or an attack on an electoral office might be an act of politically motivated violence, it may not meet the threshold of terrorism.

We raised the national terrorism threat level in 2024 and I do not anticipate being able to lower it in the foreseeable future.

Politically motivated violence is raising the temperature of the security environment and making acts of terrorism more likely.

At the same time, traditional transnational terrorist groups such as Islamic State, al-Qa’ida and their affiliates are exploiting permissive spaces to revive and renew their capabilities, particularly in Afghanistan and parts of Africa. The groups have demonstrated their ability to conduct successful external attacks, although I stress that none of last year’s terrorist incidents in Australia were directed by an offshore group, and our greatest threat remains a lone actor using an easily obtained weapon."

Our greatest threat in part because, despite all of the surveillance and intelligence at ASIO's disposal, lone actors are almost impossible to detect and apprehend.
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Blah-Blah Bar / Re: Shawny’s concerns about Victorian and Australian Governments
I try to transition from work to relaxation with at least 30 minutes of music every evening.  The artist/genre depends a lot on how I'm feeling, what's going on locally or globally, or who has just died; my Jimmy Cliff collection got a work out recently.  Tom Waits, and particularly, Road to Peace, are regulars.

When I heard that one of the terrorists was a licenced shooter with six firearms, my immediate reaction was why have six.  I have four firearms, one of which is deactivated.  But then I live on a property where I'm obliged to control pest animals and each of those three firearms has a specific purpose.  I'm not sure why a gun club member, who may hunt and/or target shoot, would need six firearms, one of which seems to restricted to a very limited number of licenced shooters.

I really find it hard to believe that Queensland, South Australia, NT and the ACT don't have state of the art firearms registers - not that that would prevented the Bondi massacre and the recent Yackandandah and Wieambilla shootings
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Blah-Blah Bar / Re: Shawny’s concerns about Victorian and Australian Governments
Quote from: Gointocarlton – on
I will just add this, thankfully the animals on Sunday didn't have semi automatic rifles or automatic assault rifles as the carnage would have been horrific (double or triple the toll). One shooter however appeared to have a pump action shotgun of sorts and these need to be made illegal immediately as the Howard ban intended after Port Arthur. Automatic shotguns have popped back into circulation (legally obtained) with a special condition licence. I have always been against this as in my opinion, there is no need for them whatsover. Break open over/under or side by side shot guns (2 cartridges max) should be all that is legal along with bolt action rifles for registered hunters and target shooters, nothing else.
Over and above this, without going into a racist type commentary, the authorities need to revamp who holds a firearm licence. Currently, If you have a mental illness and are taking medication, you cannot hold a licence for obvious reasons. The authorities need to extend this by tracking down all the members of known terrorist organisations and remove their licences (perhaps before deporting them altogether). As for people who visit and frequent known terrorist training camps and hot spots like in the Philippines for example, those people cannot hold a firearms licence IMO. Extreme measures and strategic tactics are needed to combat this.

I thought that it was a pump action shotgun too G2C.

I don't know the NSW regulations but assume they're much the same as Victoria.  If so, owning a self loading or pump action firearm requires a category C or D licence that is only available to primary producers or professional vertebrate pest controllers.
10
Blah-Blah Bar / Re: Shawny’s concerns about Victorian and Australian Governments
Quote from: LP – on
The pain is palpable, but the conclusions are all wrong, I understand they want to blame someone, the person firing the gun is the best place to start.

Further laws, further words, won't stop what is happening, the solution lies beyond Australia's border. You cannot escape a religious war by crossing a border, it goes where you go, you have to solve the problem at it's genesis.

The footage I saw shows the rock throwing man pick up the discard shotgun, aim it the terrorist then put it down again before being shot.  It's not clear whether he was shot while aiming the shotgun.  Not everyone is capable of shooting at another human being and the rock throwing man may not have known how to fire the shotgun.  Either way, he was another hero and his daughter's words are powerful, but wrong.  Governments can only do so much to minimise terrorist attacks and it seems pretty clear that the perpetrators were radicalised long ago and not by those protesting against Israel's genocide in Palestine.  In the words of Tom Waits:

"So thousands dead and wounded on both
Sides most of them middle eastern civilians
They fill their children full of hate to fight an old man's war
And die upon the road to peace"

It's people, not governments, that allow terrorists to strike.
11
Blah-Blah Bar / Re: Shawny’s concerns about Victorian and Australian Governments
Jeremy Liebler, who is head of a Zionist group, was on the wireless a couple of days ago and one of the things he said that I agreed with is that now is not the time to look at gun laws.  However, what Albo is talking about is establishing a national register and ensuring that all States and Territories have digital registers.  Queensland, South Australia, the Northern Territory, and the Australian Capital Territory still have paper-based or outdated firearms registers and that is unacceptable.

I now have a digital shooter’s licence on my phone.  If the Victorian Government can manage that, Albo should be kicking arses to get the lagging States and Territories to bring their registers into the 21st century.

Of course, having a national digitised register won’t prevent terrorist or sovereign citizen attacks but it would make it easier for ASIO to determine whether radicalised nutters have access to firearms.

13
Blah-Blah Bar / Re: Shawny’s concerns about Victorian and Australian Governments
It's easy to lump the protests against the Israeli genocide in Palestine into the antisemitism basket.  However, the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance makes the point that "criticism of Israel similar to that leveled against any other country cannot be regarded as antisemitic".  Many of the Jewish callers to the ABC this morning made similar points and said that they would maintain their protests against Israel's actions in Palestine and Lebanon.

That said, It would be refreshing for all Australian governments to ban all protests at least for the duration of the festive season.