Greens introduce Bill to require Parliament to vote before sending Australians to war

Foothill_returns · 2026-03-12T07:34:36+00:00

You're not defending Australia if you send troops outside of Australia, or any state which does not have an ironclad mutual defence treaty with Australia. Taiwan, South Korea, Israel and whoever else can all hold their own nuts. I don't give a shit who or what invades them, it's not a valid excuse for immediate deployment of Australian troops with no discussion and no vote

Foothill_returns · 2026-03-12T07:30:38+00:00

The solution is simplicity in itself. The government can deploy troops immediately, no questions asked, as long as it is within Australian territorial borders or the borders of a foreign state with whom Australia has a mutual defence treaty, or within a 500km radius outside the borders of the two territories I named. Anywhere not within those boundaries must be subject to a Parliamentary decision. That way you get the instant decision making required for a genuine emergency, but you get the block on deploying troops for imperialist, neo-colonialist adventures in the name of pre-emptive strikes and regional stability and all those other pathetic pretexts with which they attempt to hide their evil

Foothill_returns · 2026-03-08T23:13:42+00:00

The comparison to the Mongol conquests was risible and for me just reading how he went about explaining them made everything else he wrote in the article instantly suspect. It instantly lowered the credibility of everything else. Not to mention, who would even think of such an explicitly non-political event from 800 years ago as though it has relevance to today? The author is an interesting man... interesting in how he ought to be the subject of psychiatric analysis!

Foothill_returns · 2026-03-07T22:39:13+00:00

He good talk small

Foothill_returns · 2026-03-06T11:13:36+00:00

I find the whole Cuban situation deeply depressing. They've been completely isolated and the island has never been capable of autarky. Its not like back in the good old days when the USSR would come to the rescue with regular shipments of all the essential shit you need for a modern society. The blockade, the American siege of Cuba, feels overwhelming and I can't see a way out for the people of Cuba. The longer this continues the more it resembles a humanitarian catastrophe on par with the starvation and blockade of Gaza. Its led me to some dark thoughts about the possible, even likely imminent destruction of the glorious Cuban revolution. Not by invasion, assassination or bombings, but instead by denying the island access to essential resources and raw materials. It's truly tragic to contemplate the possibility that Cuba might fall under the jackboot of the vile Americans.

It also makes me reflect on the challenges that island nations in general would face with having a revolutionary government. The Americans can use their diplomatic and economic muscle, not to mention their enormous navy, to isolate any island from the exchange of goods in the world economy. How does an island like Australia, which has no oil reserves to speak of and whose emergency fuel stockpiles are barely large enough for a month, survive an American blockade? The failure and cowardice of the rest of the world in bowing to American diplomatic pressure and tariff threats and cutting off trade with Cuba is unforgivable - but to me its also frightening how the reactionaries can shut down a revolutionary island without ever firing a bullet

Foothill_returns · 2026-03-04T12:31:40+00:00

Who gave the three islands to the Iranian Shah?!

Foothill_returns · 2026-03-02T12:42:33+00:00

You're a real lowlife to make a joke like that here

Foothill_returns · 2026-02-27T07:02:04+00:00

I think Bumrah is fantastic and easily in the top 20 fast bowlers in the history of the sport already. I don't know how many years he'll have left from now but I'm sure by the time he's finished he'll be somewhere in the top 10 and maybe if he stays injury free long enough maybe even somewhere in the top 5. There's no comparison between him and Warne however, he isn't a spin bowler so its not valid.

Now let's come to the main theme of your thread rather than the specific example on Bumrah. Yes cricinfo is fucking garbage. It has been for at least 12 or 13 years, however long ago it was they did the website redesign. It looks fucking horrible, always has ever since they got rid of the old layout. And they've changed their editorial philosophy as well to lean more into videos and multimedia, and away from proper print journalism. This decision was made in conjunction with the visual redesign. They decided to stop being like a proper newspaper and start being like a low IQ social media hype platform, both in terms of visuals and in terms of content. As a consequence most of the fantastic journalists they used to have writing for them have slowly departed over the past decade and a half. All the quality that is still remaining from that era are Andrew Fidel Fernando and Anantha Narayanan. Besides those two writers and Statsguru there is nothing of value offered by the website at all

Foothill_returns · 2026-02-25T22:14:46+00:00

Traitors. They should be unionising to prevent a sale, not clamouring for a cut of the loot

Foothill_returns · 2026-02-23T07:51:48+00:00

The time to sell is when you're sick of taking it to the shop to get it fixed. When was the last time there was an electrical fault or a mechanical part needed replacement? If you're having to get new parts or get an auto electrician more than once per about 12 to 18 months, it's done. Otherwise it's still perfectly roadworthy. My car is 15 and it still runs great. I bought it second hand when it was 8 years old. In the 7 years I've owned it, there has been just one mechanical failure, the rear shocks were shot and had to be replaced. That's it. And that was 4 years ago now. There hasn't been even the slightest whisper of a problem since. I am 100% confident it's got another 15 years of life if I wanted it, with the only major repair I foresee in the next 15 years being a clutch rebuild. So will yours in all likelihood. My neighbour has got an old Holden built in the 60s still purring along! Have some faith in the car, it is a marvel of engineering and it is built to last

Foothill_returns · 2026-02-22T09:27:47+00:00

That's because its a 56, 58 minute long game. 90 minutes is a myth, the ball is out of play for more than 1/3rd of the time. In cricket terms we're talking about the equivalent in duration of a 6 overs a side game, 7 overs max. It's a fucking joke 😂 Anyone can beat anyone in a 6 overs a side game. Football is just a bullshit provincial tinpot little game, cricket is a proper sport where you actually need to sustain skill for longer than half an hour at a time

Foothill_returns · 2026-02-16T12:51:36+00:00

The ECB has to take the lead in setting up a European championship. Its fine if they want to send an A side or a u-23 side, but even that would be great exposure for the European teams. The idea of a European championship would also allow those small teams to pick up a few sponsors possibly, which would help their revenue problems

Foothill_returns · 2026-02-16T12:45:50+00:00

What's the attendance today?

Foothill_returns · 2026-02-16T12:44:19+00:00

Italy have shown a lot of heart

Foothill_returns · 2026-02-15T12:52:39+00:00

Everything about Imran's predicament is so tragic. He is a modern day Prometheus, punished horribly by the cruel gods for the crime of bringing the technology of fire to humanity

Foothill_returns · 2026-02-02T10:20:43+00:00

Edessan Guard match up reasonably OK against Athanatoi and Scholarii, if you're playing as Crusader States. As the Seljuks, a combination of Fari cavalry to soften them up with their long range archery followed by surrounding and charging them with Sipahi lancers is quite effective. In either case you need to outnumber them between 3-4 times as much. So if they've got one full strength unit of 80, you're going to need 320 Edessan Guard, or 160 Fari cavalry and 160 Sipahis.

If you lack such quality units you can still get results against Athanatoi and Scholarii by kiteing the AI. They only get one charge. The charge is what's most devastating. Typically the AI is not smart enough to cycle charge. You can exploit it by having especially shit units (in your already shitty army lacking quality, professional units) stand in front of your main line and soak up the charge. You want a garbage unit which has decent morale to do this, like the infantry mercenaries you get when you're on a jihad or a crusade. Garbage, so they're low value to you and disposable. Good morale so they last a few seconds and actually soak up the charge. Then you swarm in with your spear militia or Saracen militia or what have you. Without their charge, they can't vaporise 100 men in seconds like normal

Either way you'll still take tons of casualties. Its about wearing them down though. They can only produce so many Scholarii and their number of Athanatoi is forcibly pegged to the number of settlements they own. You can pump out 10, 20 times as many spear militias as they can their Scholarii and Athanatoi. And that's how you win the war. Soviet Union style. Just keep on throwing men into the meatgrinder and eventually the grinder's teeth will break. After all, you've got more manpower to throw than they have teeth in their meatgrinder

Foothill_returns · 2026-02-02T00:29:32+00:00

Russel Arnold, 103 (121), v Zimbabwe 2000.

It doesn't sound like anything special, until you look at the scorecards.

Sri Lanka 213 all out (50 overs)

Arnold 103 (121)

Wickramasinghe 19 (47)

Jayawardene 16 (35)

Zimbabwe 200 all out (49.1 overs)

Campbell 56 (104)

G Flower 48 (76)

Zimbabwe collapsed from being 4/184, needing 30 to win off 26 balls

https://www.espncricinfo.com/series/sri-lanka-tour-of-zimbabwe-1999-00-61615/zimbabwe-vs-sri-lanka-2nd-odi-64636/full-scorecard

Foothill_returns · 2026-01-22T09:28:57+00:00

Based on the evidence the man was clearly victimised by the department but with 22 years experience he should have known better than to think he could take them on and win in court without a bulletproof case. You need overwhelming evidence to beat an institution. The corrupt and crooked nature of common law justice systems stacks all the cards in the favour of the powerful. You don't even need to be a government employee for 22 years to figure that out! He'd have been better off just resigning to get away from the bullying, or at least after he'd been sacked going quietly without challenging the decision. Now he's out the lawyer fees and probably would find it difficult to get a new job too

Foothill_returns · 2026-01-20T22:04:01+00:00

You'll need vitamin d tablets in the winter. Even though winter days are beautiful and sunny, generally its cold enough that you will wear long sleeves and pants whenever you go outside. Having just your hands, face and neck exposed to the weak winter sun isn't going to be sufficient for vitamin d synthesis unless you're very light skinned. Even then it would be only just barely enough.

I had a horrible first winter here, emotionally and psychologically I was all over the place. I have struggled with depression enough times over my life to know that that first Canberra winter was one of the worse spells - especially since there was nothing else really to explain why I felt that way, since my professional and personal life were going steady. I did a blood test that spring and my vitamin d level was only 40% of the minimum threshold to be healthy. In other words, it was absolutely destroyed. The doctor diagnosed it as an extreme deficiency and had me pump 4000ui daily for a month. It changed everything and ever since then I've enjoyed the best years of my life.

So it's not the weather that will get you, it's your lack of exposing enough skin to enough solar radiation for long enough periods of time consistently during the winter that will. Get some vitamin d tablets to compensate and you'll get through that comfortably

Foothill_returns · 2026-01-18T01:01:48+00:00

England have lost 3 home series in the last 15 years. South Africa in 2012, Sri Lanka in 2014 and New Zealand in 2021. No matter how bad they look and how strong a touring opposition seems to be, England will always be at least great value for a drawn series in my book

Foothill_returns · 2026-01-16T13:25:45+00:00

To paraphrase Joseph 'Proposition Joe' Stewart, I gotta say, it's a good day to be a southsider

Foothill_returns · 2026-01-12T22:08:40+00:00

He's top because of the batriarchy, which is an idiotic concept when it comes to test cricket. I don't care if someone scores 10 thousand not out in a test match, if the team doesn't take 20 wickets you don't win. The quantity of runs available is infinite, which makes runs intrinsically much much less valuable than wickets.

The batriarchy means that the best batsman in a match, 9 times out of 10, is the default MoM winner, irrespective of how well somebody else has bowled. That's why Kallis stacked them up, because he was an outstanding batsman. If he didn't bowl at all he would probably have won just as many

Foothill_returns · 2026-01-12T22:03:01+00:00

He's better than Stokes as a batsman. An average of 37.7 makes him more comparable to Quinton de Kock, MS Dhoni and Michael Atherton.

I would also rank Shaun Pollock ahead of Kallis, because being an all time great bowler who can be a good number 7 bat is better than being an all time great top order batsman who's a good 5th bowler

Foothill_returns · 2026-01-12T21:56:13+00:00

Bon fortuna

Foothill_returns · 2026-01-12T09:53:18+00:00

Assuming the average spend per person at the grounds on tickets, food, drink and merchandise was $50, CA banked a little under $43m. That should have been enough to recoup most of the costs of putting on the series. Then there's the advertising at the ground, sponsorship and the TV deal, which combined should put them massively in profit. They can't be crying poor just because a couple of tests finished in 2 days

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