Duffman

You two are significant underestimating the connections and influence that Dastyari has. He's a former general secretary of NSW Labor and one of Shorten's key backers, he would be one of the most influential factional figures in the party. Suggesting that he got to the top by positive discrimination is a bit insulting to him, you can say a lot of things about him but you can't deny that he is one of the most effective political figures moving about today, he was secretary general of the country's biggest Labor branch before he turned 30.

How's that so? Is there a big difference between a futures market and an informed betting market? To me it seems like it would operate in much the same was as the political markets.

An interesting thing is that betting markets tend to be so accurate that the US Government was at one point looking at setting up what were in effect betting markets to predict global events https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/csi-studies/studies/vol50no4/using-prediction-markets-to-enhance-us-intelligence-capabilities.html. Apparently it got shut down because the public wasn't too happy that terrorists could make money by gambling on where they would next carry out an attack. http://www.economist.com/node/1957767

And we don't even like him that much anymore

Yeah, it was so clearly a way of shifting the blame for he eventual rise to the states. Leave it at the same level for a couple of years and wait until they demand it.

Strange plan that got shut down quickly. While I agree it makes a lot of sense to allow the states to collect their own taxes for their constitutional duties this idea didn't go far enough to allow them to do that. Turnbull made it clear that the states wouldn't put up the taxes any more than the commonwealth lowered their, and since the taxes would still have to be paid to the ATO it doesn't really seem like it would have made a difference to the current system. More red tape for no public gain.

I am not looking forward to a 15 week election campaign.

If he accepted my bloody Facebook friend request I would

Completely agreed. I used to be on Clisby as a bit of a joke but over the last couple months he has genuinely impressed me, sure he still makes mistakes but he has made a couple of great tackles each game I'd say. Definitely a solid option and glad he got a new contract.

I, for one, welcome our new terrace overlords.

What's that huge thing near the away fans corner and can we organise one for home games?

Yeah I saw that too. God knows why man city would want to buy Brattan. I don't really see why we'd need him either but not complaining about extra depth which bypasses the salary cap.

Iraqs only roughly 60% Shia, arguably that's why ISIS got so much support, the Sunnis to the north were completely disenchanted by the Shia government in Baghdad. I think a Saudi Arabia vs Iran proxy war is probably closer to the mark. no way am I taking that bet, betting on anything in the Middle East would be like putting a multi on the last weekend of the afl.

Iraqs been a Shia for years, the government the U.S. installed was Shia. Sorry but you clearly haven't followed a lot of Iraq. They want a united strong Iraq, if they wanted a Kurdish state there would be a Kurdish stage. America bought Iraq an army, a shitty poorly trained but well equiped army

America hasn't actually chosen either side really, they just go with whoever suits their strategic instance at that time. The Iraqi government is practically propped up by them, yet it is shi'a and is very very close to Iran. In fact Iran and the U.S. are reportedly sharing intelligence is the fight against ISIS. So the region is basically a clusterfuck and America is stumbling around making reactionary moves to try and bandaid the problem while actually making it a hell of a lot worse. bahrain's tiny so I suppose we can let them off. And from memory they have a Sunni king but a majority Shia population, so they probably have no inclination to mess with that balance. add to the Syrian mix that Assad is an alawite which is a arguably a sect of Shia but arguably not.

They didn't support him absolutely. 55% supported him remaining "motivated by fear of civil war," and of that 55% percent half believe there must be "free elections in the near future". So the majority of Syrians were actually in favour of a free democracy rather than a civil war. That isn't a very surprising result, probably why it didn't make any major news. Yeah so what the US was giving fairly small amounts of support to the groups which most closely aligned with western ideals, big surprise. Plus, the group doing the fighting was Syrian, at least they were until they were crushed between ISIS and Assad's forces. My article had a brief description of why the protest movement emerged.

That's an easily disprovable conspiracy http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-26116868.

So poor Assad was forced by the big bad US to use nerve gas (http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-23927399) and barrel bombs (http://www.smh.com.au/world/assad-regimes-barrel-bomb-attacks-caused-many-civilian-deaths-in-syria-un-envoy-20150722-giihvw.html) against those damn opposition groups which want democratic reforms. I didn't know a democratic and liberal society was a left wing concern.

I don't think it's fair to blame the US for destabilising Assad. That happened when his own people rose up in the Arab Spring, it's just he was one of the the only leaders desperate enough to declare full-scale war on his own population. I think he means through official UNHCR channels, which I'm pretty sure means straight out of camps based overseas. This makes sense because that is of course the only place we take them from but it is disingenuous considering countries in Europe or the Middle East which have to take the ones which show up inside their land borders. http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-opinion/fact-and-fiction-with-prime-minister-tony-abbotts-refugee-intake-numbers-20150906-gjgc7q.html

That's probably true, even without the loss of credibility the US-backed groups probably would've been too weak. I'm glad it's not my decision to make and that it doesn't directly effect me.

We (or rather the US) could've gotten rid of Assad when he crossed Obama's "red line" of using chemical weapons against his own people. Not doing anything about that showed syrians that the free syrian army could never win and the US would never help meaning they could either join ISIS with the hope of beating Assad, sit back and pray Assad didn't drop a cluster bomb on them or get the fuck out of the country ASAP.

Your analysis in the second paragraph is spot on. First generation migrants tend not to be the ones who carry out attacks, the are too busy trying to settle in a new country and rebuilding their lives. It is almost always the second generation which has difficulties as they struggle to fully integrate into society. This is true of all those idiots who have gone to join or tried to join ISIS. There's probably not gonna be any ISIS fighters trying to infiltrate the west through refugee immigration because for one they've already got sympathisers over here and two they're doing their best to build a state over there. There's no way they're gonna be sending anyone half-decent to the west when they're in a battle to the death with Assad and Iraq, the individuals might be dumb but their leaders aren't.

Biggest refugee crisis since WW2; should Australia take more?