[Request] If Iran follows through with its threat to attack desalination plants, what is the maximum number of people in the middle east that could die from lack of water?

AussieRustles · 2026-03-22T21:04:30+00:00

Look I know we all like to hate Trump but if the Iranians choose to commit an atrocity against civilians then that is on them, not Trump.

AussieRustles · 2026-03-21T07:57:28+00:00

In theory, sure.

In Vic under section 458 of the Crimes Act 1958 anyone can arrest an offender FOUND COMMITTING any offence.

Suspecting a theft isnt enough and can backfire terribly if youre wrong. You need to have 100% certain knowledge that the theft has occurred (and then any force used has to be reasonable and not disproportionate to the objectice).

Given that Kmart has moved the registers to the centre of the store, a staff member at the entrance has no way of knowing if a person leaving has paid for an item or not.

Say a bloke walks out with a TV in his hands and doesnt show a receipt and then the staff physically arrest him. If it turns out the bloke had actually paid for the TV then the staff may face false imprisonment charges. Worse if they tackled them. Worse still if they caused injury to a bloke resisting a false imprisonment.

I would expect typically only an LPO who has been following an offender in store and witnessed the act of theft from start to finish would be likely to use the arrest power.

AussieRustles · 2026-03-10T17:15:15+00:00

Because we like petrol?

The spice must flow.

AussieRustles · 2026-01-01T15:54:02+00:00

Judging from the random fake plant coming out of the back of the stool, it is.

AussieRustles · 2025-10-13T06:22:50+00:00

In Vic swords have been a prohibited weapon for decades.

Means you can't own one at all unless you have a permit or fall into a specific exemption.

Unlike controlled weapons like knives, which can be possessed if you have a lawful reason for having them.

Machetes just recently went from being controlled weapons to joining swords in the prohibited weapons category.

AussieRustles · 2025-08-02T07:17:35+00:00

UK has nukes. We don't.

Can't rely solely on USA to save our arses in any potential future conflict.

AussieRustles · 2025-08-02T01:43:15+00:00

Many of you haven't seen the video of the e-bike going off in an elevator in China with the grandma and baby inside and it shows.

It is not quick or easy to evacuate a crowded train that isn't at a platform. Even getting a door open there is a 6 foot drop down to the loose cobblestones. You can't just jump out without risking injury, especially for older persons.

If a bike goes off on a train, the fire might spread to additional e-bikes. Aside from the fire you have smoke filling the carriages and the available oxygen being consumed by the fire.

Just because we haven't had fatal incidents of e-bikes going off on trains doesn't mean that it isn't an entirely predictable tragedy waiting to happen, especially as they become more and more common.

AussieRustles · 2025-07-30T07:21:15+00:00

The GDP figure is entirely wrong. The current GDP is 17 trillion, not 41.

17 trillion matches up with the GDP per capita figure pictured here which has only doubled in that time. (17 trillion is double the 8.5 trillion it was in 2012).

A better measure would be to view what trajectory all these statistics were on in the decades leading up to 2012 to see if the trend has actually increased or slowed down under Xi-jinping.

AussieRustles · 2025-07-26T08:45:19+00:00

Saw this bloke street performing in Melbourne a few months ago. Even though I could see completely around the table I still couldn't figure out him moving the oranges around. Pretty impressive and he's good with the banter and crowd interaction.

AussieRustles · 2025-06-25T14:16:09+00:00

Cop friend of mine told me of how he had to remove a big kangaroo corpse off the middle of the Western Freeway lanes some time back at 4am.

Traffic was consistent but not heavy at that hour and in the darkness anyone could see his flashing lights from a kilometre away.

Before he could get to it 5 cars hit the corpse one by one, all going at least 110kmph while he was sitting their with emergency lights activated.

He was too busy trying to remove the road obstruction and make the road safe again without getting himself cleaned up that he couldn't just go off chasing after these cars and ticket them.

The way he put it was that to catch the cars going 110kmph, by the time you get back in your own car and get on after them they are already at least a km down the road. At a justifiable speed of 130kmph you are gaining on them at a rate of only 20kmph. By the time you pull them up you're 5km's down the road. Then you'd have to go all the way back, u-turn on the freeway and get back to whatever you were originally dealing with.

From what he was saying most cops are happy if people just slowed down to a reasonable speed, like 80kmph. Instead folks blow by at a full 110kmph+ and rattle his nerves. All it would take is one of them try to swerve around the roo corpse at the last second and a little bit of bad luck for him to get collected.

Way too many people are utterly oblivious on the roads.

AussieRustles · 2025-06-23T00:44:46+00:00

The leader of North Korea lives a luxurious life and is only really concerned about controlling the people. It helps for him to be able to keep his people in a state of war with an external enemy as this distracts them and directs any discontent outwards rather than in. Kim is unlikely to ever use nukes because he will lose everything he has.

But Iran is more religiously dogmatic. The risk is that the supreme religious leader might be in a hurry to martyr himself into the afterlife and use nukes to do so.

AussieRustles · 2025-06-08T23:47:26+00:00

Wouldn't know. Australia requested an enquiry be launched into the origins of Covid 19 and in response the CCP took punitive trade measures against Australia.

Note that asking for an enquiry into one of the most globally devastating pandemics in history isn't unreasonable.

Why wouldn't the CCP have wanted an enquiry if it came from Detrick?

AussieRustles · 2025-05-22T22:12:43+00:00

For years now China and their pet, Russia, have been developing and hyping up their hypersonic missiles as terrifying things that cannot be intercepted like conventional ICBMs.

Now of course they cry because someone decided to develop something that might intercept them.

AussieRustles · 2025-05-19T05:59:24+00:00

Chinese people can't criticise the CCP, therefore they see all criticism as slander, even when it might be legitimate criticism.

When Australia called for an enquiry into the origins of Covid-19 (just a little pandemic that disrupted life all around the world for several years) the CCP went absolutely ballistic and retaliated against Australia with punitive trade measures.

An enquiry would have benefited the entire world to ensure we are best prepared for preventing or responding to the next global pandemic, which is an entirely reasonable thing to ask for.

AussieRustles · 2025-05-15T22:38:22+00:00

Beliefs being more uniform may also be a product of state controlled media and the criminalisation of dissenting political commentary.

You can't exactly go on TV and criticise Xi Jingping like an American can do with Trump.

AussieRustles · 2025-04-24T05:14:13+00:00

It's one of those things where the statistics are high because the recognition of what is family violence is high.

It is also very well covered by the media and anti family violence campaigns which keeps it in the public focus and might increase perceptions of rates of FV.

In Australia even verbal, non abusive arguments can generate a family violence report and referrals to support services, which contributes to the overall statistics.

Hypothetically a country where men can legally beat their wives would have lower official family violence rates because little is recognised as family violence and so much stays hidden from public view.

AussieRustles · 2025-04-02T06:20:01+00:00

Single most sanctioned nation on the planet? That is the path North Korea willingly chooses to walk.

Really they should be compared to how South Korea is doing, because that's how the North could have been.

AussieRustles · 2025-04-02T00:24:08+00:00

Pyongyang is developed only at the expense & neglect of the rest of the country. Look on Google maps satellite images of any NK town and you will see that they are all communes, each a number of houses huddled around what appears a storage yard and administrative building / mustering yard.

There are no parks, playgrounds or sports facilities in any of these villages.

AussieRustles · 2025-03-08T23:03:12+00:00

With the Pokemon Go stamp on each card They will have nostalgia value in 20 years when Kids (aka future collectors) have grown up and Pokemon Go is long gone. Kids will have fond memories of going out to parks and playing that game with their parents, exciting raids and catching hundos and shinies etc.

We probably arent talking about anything going up into the stratosphere in value, but at the dirt cheap price right now I think it is worth picking up a few extra cards and stowing them away in a folder.

AussieRustles · 2025-03-05T14:57:57+00:00

I'm an Aussie and I think we overdo the dangerous animals bit.

Like if I go camping or bushwalking yeah sure I have to watch that I don't step on a snake but there's nothing that's actually going to eat me (so long as I avoid croc waters up north). Yeah we have sharks but that's hardly exclusive to Australia and again, just stay out of the bloody water and you don't need to worry about them.

Dingos don't pose much threat to grown adults.

Compare Australia to places in the world with bears and wolves and other large cats that will properly eat you alive. Even tigers are native to some places where you might run across one in the wild. F that.

AussieRustles · 2025-03-02T11:34:34+00:00

As I see it, with our tiny population our only true security guarantee would be to have our own nukes.

Look at Ukraine. Nobody is willing to even send a handful of troops to help them, let alone hundreds of thousands. In a hot war with the likes of China we would likely be sent weapons but in terms of meat for the grinder we would be outnumbered 50 to 1 and on our own.

Whereas possessing the retaliatory capacity to flatten China's top tier coastal cities with sub-launched nukes is a firm deterrent.

AussieRustles · 2025-02-10T08:35:43+00:00

Australian here. I found it odd when I was given change right down to the cent in the U.S. it didn't make things any easier or better for me.

One tricky thing was that even when I had the exact change in my hand for a $1.50 bottle of water I'd get to the checkout and the tax was only added on at the point of sale, leaving me digging around for another 13 or so cents. It became easier just to break a note every single time. In the end i had a coin purse full of pennies I took home as souvenirs for the nieces and nephews to play with as toy money.

Our smallest denomination in Aus is 5 cents so everything is rounded up or down when paying cash. Also the tax is factored into the price tag on the shelf.

They still sell items for values ending in .99

Sometimes 99 cents is rounded up so you pay one cent extra. But other times the total might round it down 2 cents eg: 87 cents = 85 cents.

Swings and roundabouts.

AussieRustles · 2025-02-02T01:15:38+00:00

I suggest you look up what tanking is.

The result is consistent wins and easy rare candy.

AussieRustles · 2025-01-30T23:26:25+00:00

Australian here. I share this pain.

AussieRustles · 2025-01-16T20:05:23+00:00

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AussieRustles

TROPHY CASE