Originally Posted by klinton

Originally Posted by Captain Kawaii

My thoughts exactly. - It's a nice distraction from the CIA report and Cheney's rah-rah on Sunday supporting torture. He must be back in the Golan personally sucking the resources from the ground...

Originally Posted by bhutocracy

Social Progress Index != Social Progress Imperative which is a group that amongst other things measured tolerance etc across all countries.

I honestly don't know what you're talking about. No one here has picked a line of behavior, no one is not welcome here. There have been a handful of people banned, Irving, the holocaust denier.. Snoop Dog (once, and probably due to feminists complaining about his misogyny) and a couple of terrorist preachers.

If we have jews operating under jewish/talmudic law and erecting eruvs around whole suburbs here we can't exactly stop muslims operating under sharia law where it doesn't conflict with Australian law (ie the barbaric parts of any religious laws).

You seem to think Australian culture is markedly different and less PC than Canadian culture. We both colonized a native people from England, dig shit out of the ground and sell it and have multicultural tolerant societies that culturally follow both America with a side serve of English.

If you came here thinking we're a tough crowd of line-in-sand-drawers I think you would be disappointed. It makes the fucking NEWS when someone is racially/religiously intolerant on public transport and they're tracked down and punished. A few bogans wearing "fuck off we're full" shirts doesn't change what it's like to actually function as a part of the society here. This motherfucker was out on BAIL after murdering his wife, 40 counts of sexual assault and writing nasty letters to soldiers wives. Yeah we're a tough bunch.. really screwing the lid tight on behavior we don't approve of lol.

A couple of right wing politicians doing badly in the polls dog whistling to racists (and I honestly don't even know what you're referring to, probably something Tony Abbott said) doesn't exactly colour the culture of the country any more than taking something Bush or Obama or Harper says as a significant cultural identifier.

Originally Posted by thecatwrites

I would rather talk about the two hostages who lost their lives by trying to protect/save their fellow hostages rather than putting the spotlight on that loser of a hostage taker.

Originally Posted by GspotProductions

agreed, a shame to hear the manager died, just doing a normal every day job, a barrister, having her morning coffee. We should treasure our lives

Have to say, what an appalling entry the Australian tactical team used. They we're all falling over each other because so many went in & the amount of bullets used, single shots & double taps should only be used in house clearance rather than spraying the place.

Wonder if those bullets in the hostages are that of the gun man or that of the police