You’re not wrong, but Howard’s was a very different matter, because he started the institutional vilification of refugees by making the public aware of what was previously (to use Morrison’s language) on-water matters.

Wow, that was…something. Completely dumps the rhyming “ee”. If kids are having trouble with understanding elemeno, a better solution (IMO anyway, as someone who is not in any way an early learning educator) would be to just be more staccato with annunciating the l. m. n. o. peee.

Not really. Wikipedia is not a democracy. It would only take a handful of dedicated zionists to kick up a fuss to create the debate. The fact that it arrived at the right conclusion is a testament to Wikipedia’s editorial policies.

So does it no longer go to the tune of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star?

Oh very well done, you found the one dictionary that limits the definition of ball to spherical objects. That, unfortunately, makes that dictionary wrong, because a dictionary’s job is to describe language as it is used, and you’d be hard-pressed to find anyone in good faith who does not call the ball used in Australian football, American football, or the two rugby codes, a ball. Oxford does a much better job:

a solid or hollow spherical or egg-shaped object that is kicked, thrown, or hit in a game.

And so does (unsurprisingly, since it has the tendency to be the most complete source for a lot of words) Wiktionary:

An object that is the focus of many sports and games, in which it may be thrown, caught, kicked, bounced, rolled, chased, retrieved, hit with an instrument, spun, etc., usually roughly spherical or ovoid but whose size, weight, bounciness, colour, etc. differ according to the game

The history is actually interesting. The story you told is one I’ve heard before and at one point believed myself (though I’ve never heard someone take the inflammatory tone of calling it “cheating”, so much as it usually being described as him being so wrapped up in the heat of the moment). But it’s not quite right.

The truth is that prior to the mid 19th century many different forms of “football” were played across England, and whenever teams from two different areas wanted to play each other they would have to agree on a set of rules. It may have been sort of like how International Rules Football today is a compromise ruleset between Australian and Gaelic football. Then in the early to mid 19th century specific codes started to coalesce and become more standardised. Rugby has its first written standard ruleset in 1845, and what we know today as soccer followed shortly after in 1863 with the formation of the Football Association (from which soccer takes its name).

For a time between the formation of the FA and its first finalised Laws of the Game, rugby clubs remained members, but following a decision to remove the draft rules that would allow carrying the ball after “he makes a fair catch, or catches the ball on the first bound”, rugby and soccer went their separate ways and eventually evolved into the sports we know today. (Incidentally, while I knew the information from the previous paragraph already, apart from specific dates, this whole paragraph was entirely new to me in looking up those dates just now.)

The use of the term “football” for all these sports, incidentally, comes from the fact that they are propelled forward on foot, rather than on horseback as in polo, or with a racket as in tennis. The origins of football sports are so intermixed it is impossible to say that one inherently has a better claim than any other. I would certainly not claim an Englishman is wrong for calling it football. But in this country, it has always been soccer, because we have our own local football codes.

Huh?

Tell me you have no understanding of the history of football sports without…

Also that you don’t know what the word “ball” means.

Zee, candy, cookies. All that American language creeping in shits me.

And yet we also see “football” being used more and more often to refer to soccer. The one time Australian culture and American culture should be in sync, some of us decided to copy the bloody poms.

America is the country’s short/familiar name. Like how the Commonwealth of Australia is just called Australia, the United Mexican States is called Mexico, and the Republic of China is called Taiwan.

Mexicans are americans.

No they aren’t.

Colombians are americans.

No they aren’t

Brazilians are americans.

No they aren’t.

In every country in the anglosphere, the word “America” is synonymous with “United States of America”. If you want to speak Spanish and talk about America as a single continent as I know is common in Latin American countries, go ahead. But that is not the way the English language is ever used by native speakers.

It also frankly doesn’t make sense. It’s based in the popular idea in Latin American countries that there are 6 continents, including one called “America”. I know the definition of “continent” is fuzzy and categorising them is ambiguous, but I maintain that the only sensible 6 continent model is one which merges Eurasia, relative to the 7 continent model. If you want to talk about the Americas as a single continent, the only way to do that without blatantly coming across as ridiculous is to have a 4 continent model containing Afro-Eurasia and America.

I think I could have agreed with you on Howard except for two things. Children overboard was not just had in itself, but it basically set Australia on its now 20 year history of politicisation of refugees’ lives. It was bad enough in its own right, but looking at the long term ramifications of his actions, I rate him as one of the worst we’ve ever had, even if he’s not quite in contention for the #1 spot.

Turnbull I agree with you. In an alternate universe he could have been one of the best LNP leaders we’ve ever had. But the fact is that he had no spine and was more than willing to throw the country and his own personal beliefs aside for the sake of retaining power, and I cannot forgive him for that.

I would think that if something were established with legislation capping how much can be spent, it would (a) be very difficult to get past the Senate crossbench and (b) be very expensive in terms of political capital, if you didn’t take it to an election as a core issue.

Oh yeah Fraser was definitely not good for the country. But compared to every Liberal who came after him?

Don’t make the mistake of falling for Abbott’s image. He was a very clever and calculating man who knew exactly what he was doing.

It’s definitely a competition between Abbott and Morrison.

You could make an argument for Fraser, but that would be purely on the fact that he got into power initially in a completely undemocratic foreign-backed coup. His actual governing was relatively reasonable.

Olive oil is a deeply important cultural touchstone for Palestinians, according to a post I saw a day or two ago.

I Qld they introduced laws “banning” no grounds evictions. But here one of the “grounds” is “end of lease”. Which has simply meant that every lease is accompanied by an automatic eviction notice, which will be rescinded upon re-signing a new lease. Completely undermines the government’s efforts.

And boomers were not 25 in 1991. That would mean being born in 1966; the cutoff I’ve usually seen is in the early '60s.

You also get way more comfortable seats on a train. I’d rather be on a train for 2 hours than on a plane for 1 hour, even apart from the airport time. And the environmental benefits are pretty great too.

I’m honestly impressed that someone who knows their shit as well as this guy clearly does did the analysis and presented quite a realisticly-achievable plan that managed to meet the completely aspirational goal I had of needing an average 200 km/h travel time for it to be viable for the average person.

26,000 people travelling this corridor every day makes this a complete no-brainer to build.

I don’t really understand how he’s arrived at his “plane time” in the comparison at the end. My own searching suggests he’s added on some random amounts.

Personally, if I were doing the comparison, I would add a minimum of 1 hour to the plane time to account for the recommended 1 hour early arrival at the airport. Then I’d add on some amount extra to account for the fact that airports are typically less-centrally located than central train stations. Maybe use average public transport time from the centre of the CBD (where it takes you if you just put “Sydney” etc. into Google Maps) to the airport. You can do the same for the rail too if you like. That would improve how rail looks, especially on the Melbourne–Canberra route where it would become properly competitive.

I dunno the difference between “Metro to Metro” and “City to City” as he puts it. Plane time increases for some reason, but rail time doesn’t.