Australia

Not sure I agree with the title that no one can ”escape” it. I think the wealth hoarding class does very nicely out of everyone else's misery. Perhaps if things don't turn around their grand children might go from owning the whole country to facing a guillotine.

More likely once there is a large enough percentage of people who will have no hope of owning, then they will start to have an effect at the polling booth.

These were the top posts across Aussie Zone at the end of this week

Top 5 from Australia:

• Weekly Random Thread #46 14-11-2023
• Disability pensioner charged $6,760 for renting a phone that retails for around $1,800
• Social cohesion lowest on record as Australia reels from cost of living, inequality concerns and voice debate
• McDonald's loses out in legal beef with Hungry Jack's
• [Satire] - People who build wind turbines at sea do not care if whales live or die. Monsters! | First Dog on the Moon

Top 5 from Aussie Enviro:

• El Niño is laying the foundations for unprecedented global temperatures next year
• “Farcical:” Wind industry in shock as draft NSW guidelines say no to new wind projects
• NSW Planning backflips on wind energy map messaging: Everywhere is now suitable!
• Ferrero Group to rip out Australian hazelnut trees due to unsuitable climate
• Deciding on a koala community that will be interlinked with Aussie Enviro

Top 5 from Australian News:

• Renters in every capital city worse off as affordability in the regions deteriorates, Rental Affordability Index shows
• Government formally responds to Robodebt royal commission, revealing 16 public servants being investigated over scheme
• Qantas found guilty of illegally standing down worker over aircraft cleaning safety fears during COVID-19 pandemic
• Whistleblower David McBride declares ‘today I serve my country’ as trial starts over alleged leaking of war crime documents
• Tens of thousands gather across Australia for Israel-Gaza rallies

Top 5 from Australian Politics:

• We could make most Australians richer and still save billions – it’s not too late to fix the Stage 3 tax cuts
• Gregory Andrews used to be a senior Liberal advisor. Now he's 14 days into a climate action hunger strike
• Immigration detention explainer: how is Labor responding to the landmark high court ruling?
• How does Anthony Albanese's international travel stack up against other recent prime ministers?
• 'Call for a ceasefire now': Mehreen Faruqi and Penny Wong in heated debate over Gaza

Top 5 from World News:

• 'Xi Jinping is loving this': Is a US senator's abortion protest threatening America's national security?
• UN official says 'amnesia and myopia' present in international response to war

Norzin Dolma, a minister of the Central Tibetan Administration based in Dharamshala in India, met Australian MPs from across the political spectrum on Thursday to warn against a “quiet diplomacy” approach to “gross human rights abuses” and “brutal suppression” in Tibet.

She also urged the Australian government to use its new Magnitsky-style sanctions laws to target Chinese Communist party officials for “threatening the very existence and survival and maintenance of Tibetan identity, culture and language”.

The acting prime minister, Richard Marles, on Saturday said the Australian government had expressed “serious concerns” to Chinese officials after Australia's HMAS Toowoomba encountered a People’s Liberation Army-Navy destroyer.

The Toowoomba was in international waters in Japan’s exclusive economic zone, having worked to enforce United Nations sanctions, and was on its way to a scheduled port visit when fishing nets became entangled around its propellers.

17 Nov 2023

Afghan war crimes whistleblower David McBride has pleaded guilty today. The people who committed the crimes, and the officers who covered them up, remain without charge or investigation. Rex Patrick reports.

I guess pleading guilty was the right thing for an honest person to do. After you’ve been denied whistleblower protection, after you’ve been told your jury would not be allowed to see all the evidence, after you’ve been told your duty to your country and public interest do not trump obedience with the strict letter of the law, and with the Attorney-General content on letting you face the gallows, what are you left to do?

Legal experts say constitutional challenges to new laws are likely as Labor braces for possible compensation claims following high court decision

New research from the University of Melbourne reveals refugee and migrant communities faced additional barriers accessing legal and justice services during the COVID-19 pandemic. The findings show increased police presence, combined with language barriers and differential treatment of largely migrant and refugee communities were all worsened by Victoria's lengthy lockdowns.

David's book is now available for purchase.

Please support his cause for justice by buying and reading his book; display it wherever you go.

On the street outside the courthouse immediately afterward, Davis told reporters: “We received the decision just this afternoon, which was in essence to remove evidence from the defense. … The Crown, the government, was given the authority to bundle up evidence and run out the backdoor with it. He is no longer able to put it before a jury.”

McBride said: “I stand tall and I believe I did my duty and I don’t see it as a defeat, I see it as a beginning of a better Australia.”

cross-posted from: https://feddit.nl/post/6454045

Whistleblower David McBride has pleaded guilty to three charges after an ACT supreme court upheld a commonwealth intervention to withhold key evidence it deemed as having the potential to jeopardise “the security and defence of Australia” if released.

The former military lawyer’s team suffered a blow on Thursday after they lost a legal bid to overturn a ruling by Justice Mossop preventing McBride from arguing he was fulfilling his duty to the public interest in releasing the classified documents.

Here’s some more coverage of days 3 and 4 of the McBride trial:

Day 4:

• Whistleblower David McBride loses bid to stave off trial over public interest defence https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/nov/16/whistleblower-david-mcbride-loses-bid-trial-public-interest-defence-act
• Duty bound to hide a crime. Appeals Court paves the way for McBride “guilty” verdict https://michaelwest.com.au/duty-bound-to-hide-a-crime-appeals-court-paves-the-way-for-mcbride-guilty-verdict/
• McBride Trial: Appeal Bid Rejected; Public Interest Still Denied https://consortiumnews.com/2023/11/16/mcbride-trial-appeal-bid-rejected-public-interest-still-denied/

Day 3:

• Commonwealth argues against handing more intel to whistleblower as trial delayed https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/whistleblower-s-trial-delayed-after-judge-rejects-he-was-duty-bound-to-leak-information-20231115-p5ek5c.html
• Whistleblower David McBride’s trial delayed slightly over key public interest argument https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/nov/15/whistleblower-david-mcbrides-trial-delayed-slightly-over-key-public-interest-argument
• Is the law is an ass? David McBride case takes another twist on day three https://michaelwest.com.au/the-law-is-an-ass-david-mcbride-case-takes-another-twist-on-day-three/
• David McBride Trial - Day Three - Consortium News https://www.youtube.com/live/ky7B1cckcjs

The Afghan Files, abc News reports that McBride is the source of (2017):

• The Afghan Files https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-07-11/killings-of-unarmed-afghans-by-australian-special-forces/8466642

• A court has ruled a Hungry Jack's burger did not infringe on McDonald's trademark.

• McDonald's argued its rival's product could confuse consumers and eat into its profits.

• A scientist was brought in to weigh the two-patty burgers over the three-year trial.

McDonald's has lost its legal dispute with fast-food rival Hungry Jack's over its Big Mac lookalike burger the "Big Jack".

The American giant had claimed that consumers would confuse the Big Jack with the Big Mac and this would eat into McDonald's profits.

But Justice Stephen Burley ruled against the claim in the Federal Court today.

"Big Jack is not deceptively similar to Big Mac," Justice Burley said.

Relentless cost-of-living pressure, rising interest rates, uncertainty about the direction of the economy and growing concern about inequality has undermined Australia’s sense of social cohesion, according to authoritative new research.

After a polarising voice referendum campaign and amid rising community tensions over the war in the Middle East, the latest Mapping Social Cohesion Report puts the Scanlon-Monash Index of Social Cohesion at its lowest ebb since the survey began 16 years ago.

The social cohesion index provides a barometer of social wellbeing, measuring belonging, worth, participation, acceptance and rejection, social inclusion and justice. The measure declined by four points over the past 12 months, hitting the lowest result on record. Since November 2020 – the peak of social cohesion recorded during the Covid-19 pandemic – the index has plummeted 13 points.

cross-posted from: https://feddit.nl/post/6339559

Here's some more coverage of the first 2 days of the McBride trial:

• David McBride trial: soldiers shouldn’t be guided by public interest, commonwealth says https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/nov/14/david-mcbride-trial-soldiers-shouldnt-be-guided-by-public-interest-commonwealth-says
• McBride Trial Tests Australian Justice https://consortiumnews.com/2023/11/12/mcbride-trial-tests-australian-justice/
• McBride Trial: A Soldier’s Duty https://consortiumnews.com/2023/11/14/mcbride-trial-a-soldiers-duty/
• Whistleblower McBride in court for exposing war crimes, supported by “War Coalition” https://michaelwest.com.au/whistleblower-mcbride-in-court-for-exposing-war-crimes-supported-by-the-war-coalition/
• Bloody Oath! McBride case – does a officer lawyer’s public duty trump his military duty? https://michaelwest.com.au/bloody-oath-the-mcbride-case-to-hinge-on-who-keeps-their-word-and-to-whom/

G'day all! Just thought I'd chuck up this random thread for a bit of a yarn. You know, sometimes it's nice to have a chinwag about anything and everything – could be your latest DIY project, a recipe you're stoked about, or even just how your day's been. It's all about sharing the good vibes and having a fair dinkum chat. So, what's the goss? Jump on in and let's have a good old chit-chat, like a bunch of mates sitting 'round the table. Cheers!

cross-posted from: https://aussie.zone/post/3942359

You've all been waiting for this one. We're going to have a look at Australia's most infamous bird in recent years, the Australian white ibis. They've earned a reputation for bin banditry and being a general nuisance but unfortunately we have created this monster. Whether you love them or hate them, they're an icon.

So it turns out that the cause was indeed a rogue change they couldn't roll back as we had been speculating.

Weird that whatever this issue is didn't occur in their test environment before they deployed into Production. I wonder why that is.

Asking here instead of a more nerdy community as MYOB is pretty much only used in Australia by the looks.

We've run MYOB for the better part of 20 years and it suits our needs perfectly, with one exception - it doesn't support Linux, and with Windows getting more obnoxious every update I would prefer to swap to Linux full time.

Has anyone locally either got it working properly under Linux (using a VM maybe, like VB headless?), or found an alternative that does work under Linux?

Don't really want something web based like Xero (not to mention Xero is missing way too many features we use a lot anyway) though being AccountRight we're hosting the data file remotely anyway.