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Another reason not to become a soldier

By Sean Maguire

Soldiers are afforded a special place in our society, they're treated as defenders of our country and always as the victims of others' choices. 

This has to change.

Soldiers might have a chain of command meaning that they're always "under orders" (read: never to blame for what they do) but the decision to enter the army in a free society is one that is made freely- and really popular culture has made sure that you know what you're getting into when you sign up.

So recently with an Australian soldier dying who is 22 (the same age as me), I know I should be feeling sympathy, but he knew he might be sent to an idiotic and pointless war, he knew he might have to kill civilians and he knew he might die.

So my sympathy can only stretch so far for someone who has willingly made themselves a marionette of death and destruction. I pray to God this makes others find another reason never to join the army. 


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The Bumbling Foreign Policy of the U.S
30 may  |  By Stephen Myles

For Barack Obama there's an essential contradiction about formulating the foreign policy of the United States - how do you lead a world when your decisions are controlled by an ignorant public?

Reports constantly come out showing how little Americans know about the world and the nature of democracy means that they're idiotic voices have to be heard.

How wouldn't you bumble when you're accountable to the anger and ignoranc of the United States?

What do you think of the U.S' foreign policy? Tell us and remember...Disqus!

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Lest we have already forgotten
6 may  |  By Simon Moore

History is once again slowly fading into irrelevance. The world has now farewelled the last veteran of the First World War, Claude Choules who has passed at age 110.

We can now no longer look into the eyes that saw the horrors of that conflict and as we move further and further away from it, it becomes one of the archived conflicts that fails to bear relevance to the modern day. American Independence, The Mexican victory against the French that is celebrated today, cinco de mayo. These conflicts are now merely notations in history. 

Someday we too shall look back at the War on terror and fail to see any connection between the idiotic antics of Osama bin Laden and how we are living life - probably by then we shall be consumed with other battles and other wars. Yet today we close a chapter on living history as Claude Choules is farewelled and in the same vein we saw the fullstop on America's prolonged search for revenge for 9/11

What other living history are we slowly seeing fade from society? What do you think? think, reflect and remember... disqus!!!

N.B Inspired by Sean Maguire who is enduring an intense hangover from defying the HPD rules to drinking over the last 24 hours.   . . read more

Last Call for Army’s ‘Flying Beer Keg’ Drone
13 jan  |  Last Call for Army’s ‘Flying Beer Keg’ Drone . . read more
Subs, Prime Minister? – From The Outsider
27 dec  |  Australia is ‘investing’ in sexy new submarines at a cost of $25bn (make that $40bn!) over the next 20 years. But what is the investment ‘in’ and what will it ‘produce’ as a return? Certainly not security as Australia is not physically defendable.

Defence expert, Ross Babbage tries to help us out by saying, "We’re talking about a new security paradigm – learning to walk among giants". Walking under water? Really? But if ravens cannot fly under water, why should we be able to walk? And are there really giants down there, anyway?

Truth is Ross, you’re just living up to your name. It’s plainly daft for us to have even one submarine. Can’t our PM come up with a real paradigm shift and find better things for us to do with our money?  . . read more

Australian soldiers behaving badly, as opposed to what?
16 apr  |  By Sean Maguire

There has been a lot of discussion about the behaivour of Australian soldiers and the apparently sick culture that breeds sexual abuse and misogyny with the Skype scandal that rocked the Australian Defence Academy a couple of weeks ago, 

The reactions have been interesting; there has been a massive media push to see the army reformed and also a lot of defenders of the soldiers saying that this is an isolated incident and not representative of the whole.

The defence has even led to a Facebook version of a chain email being sent around, it reads:

"Sources revealed that today 99.99% of the ADF did their job without scandal or inappropriate behavior and showed dedication and commitment to ADF Values. The source went on to say that unfortunately this doesn't sell papers so is unlikely to make mainstream media. Post this to your status to show your support for these ADF members."

A great statement and perfectly true.

It's true that the vast majority of Australian defence personnel do engage in behaivour up to scratch with their values.

Values which tolerate repeated invasions into other states, mass murder of civilians and state endorsed torture.

Kind of makes non-consensual filming of a sex act seem insignificant. . . read more

Peter van Uhm: Why I chose a gun
31 jan  |  Peter van Uhm: Why I chose a gun . . read more
Pentagon Wants to Give Troops Terminator Vision
24 dec  |  No more will soldiers’ vision be limited to the socket-embedded spheres that God intended. The Pentagon now wants troops to see dangers lurking behind them in real time, and be able to tell if an object a kilometer away is a walking stick or an AK-47. . . read more
Lord Monckton on Climate Change - Melbourne
10 feb  |  Here is Lord Monckton, the now infamous Viscount in Melbourne talking about his theories on climate change, the environment and global governance. The fact this man gets listened to is terrifying, his ideas and ability to attract attention could literally destroy the earth. We can't allow his inane chatter and idiotic rants to gain strength in this country or the world in general.  . . read more
Gay health ads get pulled off
1 jun  |  By Sean Maguire 

In Brisbane, bus shelter ads recently appeared which showed two fully clothed men in a one armed embrace with an unopened condom in hand.
 
The ads were continuing the fight against sexually transmitted diseases amongst the gay population, yet a concerted effort by the Australian Christian Lobby to get them removed has been successful.
 
To me this says two contradictory things, Christians in Australia either don´t like gay people or don´t like condoms.
 
The church´s stance on condoms has been pretty constant, every sperm is sacred, so we have to ensure that every one of them gets the chance to fertilise an egg.
 
Without condoms gay people are pretty unlikely to have children, so can´t really see what the church has against popping on some rubber to avoid diseases.
 
The second scarier implication is that the Church doesn´t like gay people and hopes that if they have sex without condoms maybe diseases will spread more easily, hopefully wiping them out.  
 
So is this a well organised homocaust?
Or just a universalisation of the anti-latex movement?
Think, reflect and remember disqus!

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Future Fly Spy
31 jul  |  A team of researchers at Harvard has created a 'spy plane' that's roughly the size and shape of a house fly.  . . read more
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"Government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it." -- Ronald Reagan (1986)