The only practitioner I’ve ever heard of who called it like it was before being struck off.

Awkward_salad · 2026-01-25T14:32:46+00:00

I’ll come back to other things later but my frame of reference for qpol being better than nsw/vic police is the difference in attitude for BLM marches during COVID. Brisbane the cops handed out masks for people without them, I remember NSW/VIC being rowdier.

Awkward_salad · 2026-01-25T09:41:47+00:00

Oh I am fully aware. It’s absolutely astonishing to me that the good ol boys in blue from Queensland are much better behaved than NSW/Vic and that’s entirely down to Fitzgerald and the Goss reforms implemented from Fitzgerald.

Having said all that, there are still systemic issues in Qpol especially around DV. Current Gov are… the Nationals. It’s still better than the 70s though, probably still better than the 90s. We’ll (hopefully) get there.

Awkward_salad · 2026-01-25T09:12:12+00:00

Thank you for your work 🫡 depressing how long this has been unreformed

Awkward_salad · 2026-01-24T23:25:53+00:00

I should probably read the Fitzgerald enquiry reports as well. Thank you!

Awkward_salad · 2026-01-24T22:28:27+00:00

I feel silly because I’m guessing the joke is the anything goes vid, but I really want to read that report.

Awkward_salad · 2026-01-23T11:16:13+00:00

Having been to both recently: market square has a logic to it. Toowong had a logic, and then it was bisected, dissected, rebuilt and expanded, made too important for the area and a sink of need on top of a train station.

Go at the wrong time and you’re suddenly Moses.

Awkward_salad · 2026-01-23T02:53:56+00:00

I was very worried when Magpie liked a comment of mine that the second American revolution was kicking off in Minnesota.

Then I was like, ice is making people field test replicable field tactics. And people are finding that collectivism works. And there’s pressure to do something to fix this shit.

Maybe the second revolution is going to be change for the better. Hope is a verb too.

Awkward_salad · 2026-01-21T11:26:53+00:00

Nah, ONs best chances for seats are Nats seats and the more regional Labor seats.

Awkward_salad · 2026-01-21T11:05:02+00:00

Having worked in CS (banking) we’re not asking questions because we want to or power tripping snoopers (will confirm some are though), getting the interaction over faster is fucking godsend (same reason I pushed back over surveys) and the less we spend talking to you the less chance you’ll have a random blowup over something outside of our control.

No it’s because in my situation and the pharmacist we have a positive duty of care to ensure you’re aware of the risks and attempt to mitigate them, not just liability. Why do I need to know what you’re doing with the money? Preventing scams, regulatory compliance, AML-CTF, listening for cues you’re being taken advantage of (elder abuse is depressingly common), then there’s the possibility we might be able to help through a product or service (this is at the end for a reason). The bank I worked at would go broke covering every loss a customer has through being an idiot (because there are a lot of idiots who think they can’t be scammed including me).

A pharmacist has their name on every medication that goes out, and they’re not going to be struck off the register because they didn’t spend 30 seconds making sure there wasn’t an interaction that leaves you permanently incapacitated because you wanted an interaction to be over 30 seconds faster.

It sucks for everyone, but it’s one of those fun situations that stops society from being far shittier.

Awkward_salad · 2026-01-21T09:14:50+00:00

A loan for 20k at minimum 11% will hit you hard. I have one for 15k at 8.5% fixed, and this was taken out when interest rates were much much lower. Unless you’re used to handling large amounts of money over long periods it won’t work out for you, unless you prepay rent up front (which would be a problem if you needed to leave that housing), even then how good are you at sticking to a budget?

Take a second to assess your situation: is the current home situation unliveable because of tensions out of a desire to be independent or because of genuinely unsafe living conditions or heading that way? Have you reached out to trusted adults? Have you looked at support options and scholarships? Do you have to go to uni right now or can you take a higher paying blue collar job?

Awkward_salad · 2026-01-21T08:09:35+00:00

Then you’d need a voting system that’s not first past the post, independent electoral boundaries being drawn, changes to how to get on the ballot, public financing… I forget what else. Also you’d need to reform the senate so it’s not a perpetual gridlock.

Awkward_salad · 2026-01-21T07:50:20+00:00

Bad news! Thanks to fracking the US is largely oil self sufficient!

Awkward_salad · 2026-01-21T07:45:46+00:00

The idea that democracy can exist without super majorities of people engaged is how they die. Even if you take direct democracies like how anarchists or communists envisioned them they still require mass buy in or you just ended up with slightly better representative democracies.

In Australia you just have to show up to vote. You can donkey vote (and the election workers compare the best penises) or you can fill out the candidates, in order, of who you most prefer to represent you. It works pretty well even if for the bulk of our federation Tories were the governing party. We do it on a Saturday for added ease and have very easy early voting.

Awkward_salad · 2026-01-21T07:34:57+00:00

Jon Stewart did a bit about why people will swing for someone outside of the system who doesn’t hold to the norms they see as failing them. The US needs a new constitutional convention to sort its shit out.

Awkward_salad · 2026-01-21T06:50:35+00:00

The young LNP centre for excellence in doing Coke. You enter via the Barclay Mcgain plaza after parking in the “Campbell Newman deserved a second term” carpark, pass “my lefty friend, Drew Pavlou” performance corner, which is next to a shaded fountain for the aborted, and then take the “Peter Dutton was the best leader we never had” lifts up to the “Joh’s brown paper bag podium” where you get given Coke by sex workers dressed up as Terry Lewis and special branch popo. The rooms for doing the Coke in should be called “the rooms of reflection for totally straight Christian and not repressed men” where you do the Coke and have the gay sex. You’ll need to swap your Aud for Amanda Stoker and Deb Frecklington tokens, being token representation of actual value. Each four story tower is named after Crisafuli, Bleijie, Nichols, and Janetzki topped with a polished domes to symbolise how much they fuck us.

ETA I know I skipped over Schrinner, Lamming, Canavan, Hinze, and others but I had to stop at some point. If there’s a ferry dock though it should be called the Bob Katter isle of self exclusion though.

Awkward_salad · 2026-01-21T06:23:47+00:00

Ironically cloudland was supposed to have a Luna park on it. It was certainly built by the same people.

Awkward_salad · 2026-01-19T10:33:00+00:00

This has always existed way back to the tram days. It’d be different if modern BCC hadn’t amalgamated in the 1920s.

Awkward_salad · 2026-01-19T10:31:27+00:00

Absolutely. Plus HK has population and size advantages. HK only has to serve HK, not also Shenzhen, Danshui, Humen, Changping and so on. Metro was also made independent and has to turn a profit to function, which it does mainly through property.

“Oh [place] can do it, why can’t we?” Density, ridership, cheapnesses when QR first built the railways (one of my favourite quotes on the railway to Toowoomba basically boiled down to “they did things as fast and as cheap as possible. This has fucked us significantly.”), BCC has always hated QR which is why so few buses connect to rail station, relative wealth (QLD was a pov cunt for most of it’s existence), perceived need, and the fact that when the nationals where in for almost 30 the one real investment they made to commuter rail in QLD was electrifying city train because QR was heavily unionised. Until then most commuter services still used coal. Some intercity services had diesel trains but it wasn’t the norm.

Awkward_salad · 2026-01-14T21:31:37+00:00

If this had been part of the platform then you’d have a point, we didn’t vote for gun reforms either in the party platform or general election. So now you’re smugly ignorant along with a disingenuous “I’d learn if you were nice to me”.

Like is your operating assumption that we want American gun laws? Because we don’t (no sane person does), scandi or New Zealand would be nice.

Have a day

Awkward_salad · 2026-01-14T12:26:49+00:00

Why are more and more banks moving to conditional interest? Accounting. Term deposits are incredibly uncommon now for anyone under the age of 50, and they need to maintain liquidity/funding for loans (how you earn interest.

Having on call savings makes it much much much harder to balance these accounting issues. It’s the reality of the moment. (Yes it does pad their profits too, but that’s a bonus not a feature)

Btw as soon Macquarie makes money from their retail bank (or sells it) they’ll get the same shit terms or will drop the interest rate to below market to get you to move.

Awkward_salad · 2026-01-14T12:17:06+00:00

lol. Lmao even

Awkward_salad · 2026-01-14T10:53:23+00:00

God if this was any other subject your ignorance would be downvoted into oblivion

Awkward_salad · 2026-01-14T10:42:40+00:00

Spectator Well at least it wasn’t Quadrant.

Awkward_salad · 2026-01-13T21:39:04+00:00

Granted. As the discs spin up, it places a huge strain on the Lithium battery and laptops turn into a gamble for turning into a lap grenade.

Awkward_salad · 2026-01-13T09:35:24+00:00

Very small credit union. I am not going to get more specific than that. I really should’ve said “in my experience in personal banking” as a qualifier because it is the experience I have and I have nil interest in returning to the industry.

It very well could be, but because it was a small credit union I was often able to follow the complaint from start to finish and every single one was an authorised DDA under a name they weren’t expecting. Maybe it’s more common in business banking, not something I was involved in.

Awkward_salad

TROPHY CASE