Dead1

37 minutes ago, AlSymerz said:

I've done the Indian Specific twice, once from Radelaide in a sleeper and once from Melbourne, (Overland change over) in a seated cabin. Fucked if I'll ever go on such annoying fucking transport again. Buses and trains for me rate lower than cruise ships. At least on a cruise ship there is shitloads to do while the thing is moving and you can keep away from people. On trains the walls are thin, the corridors and skinny and people are everywhere.

I don't like buses.  I am 6 foot tall and you can't really get up and stretch on a bus.  Difficult on a plane too in economy class.  You can do that on a train - you can even go for a walk..

Airplanes for short routes are a pain - a 45 minute flight actually requires 3-4 hours!  You have to get there 45 minutes to an hour before (and sometimes more - during COVID it was 2 hours before flight)  and it's often a 15-30 minute drive to the airport.  Then fart arsing around at the airport waiting for luggage and trying to source transfer into town and the transfer.  And planes are usually late (at least here in Tasmania - my wife's flight on Sunday was delayed by an hour).  In Australia your flights often get changed too (sometimes by whole days - happened to us for a Melbourne to Cairns flight).

Trains (and bus) stations are often smack bang in the middle of the city in Europe so you can walk to the station.  There's usually no mega customs or whatever.

So we figure:

a.) Trains are easier to get to and often don't have all the customs and other bullshit you get to with planes.

b.) They're often cheaper that air travel.  Indeed Vienna -> Zagreb flights are horrifically expensive.  Plus one saves on airport transfers due to central location.

c.) Sleeper Paris -> Vienna - save 1 nights accommodation as well as a days travel as we're travelling over night.

d.) In Austria, trains are fast (up to 230 km per hour) and pretty regular.  So Vienna -> Salzburg is reasonably fast.

e.) You get to see more country side than a plane.

f.) We haven't had trains in Tasmania since 1978 so it will be a novelty for my wife and daughter (I've caught overnight trains as well as lots of metro trains as a kid in Croatia and Sydney).

Just booked flights to Europe for Apr-May 2024.

Going back to Croatia (where I am from), Paris (for daughter) and Vienna (wife and I favourite place) but also adding Venice, Salzburg and Bratislava to mix.

First time travelling on a sleeper train.  In fact we're catching a few trains which are more environmentally friendly, you get to see more and you avoid all that airport bullshit.

Jane's Addiction - Ritual de lo Habitual

Yes I know it's not metal but it still rocks pretty hard.

Amazing how often I have conversations that remind me that in fact most people on this planet deserve whatever suffering and depravations they get.  Hypocrisy,entitlement misguided loyalty and protecting wrong doers such as pedohiles at my work  because they didn't want to rock the boat.

Reminds me I should tune in on news and revel in all that inflicting of suffering in Ukraine and Israel and bishfires in north Australia.  Humans getting what we all deserve.

Humans are shit and deserve themselves.  Shame about all the other creatures that will suffer through our demented xenocodal reign on this planet.

RIP Steve Riley, drummer for WASP in their heyday in 1980s and LA Guns.  Only 67 but these guys partied hard!

I will be cranking some classic WASP tonight in memoriam.

https://www.metal-rules.com/2023/10/27/steve-riley-the-former-drummer-for-l-a-guns-and-w-a-s-p-has-passed-away-at-the-age-of-67/?fbclid=IwAR2u7MiRQaC4jO9D6c6BUT2DEbnqRig3j-NKGdxgEE1oiRKkDEn-hwGfsGY

2 hours ago, Sheol said:

That's the Volbeat-guys death metal project, right?

Yep, the singer from Volbeat plays guitar.  He actually started in a death-turned groove band called Domius in 1990s.

Rest of band is old Morgoth singer,Marc Grewe and a drummer who played in Hatesphere.

Gorefest - False

Sarcofago - I.N.R.I.

End - Sin Of Human Frailty

Mate of mine recommended this.  Disjointed as fuck technical/avant garde death metal/grind/metalcore/industrial/math metal/powerviolence/insert genre here with a hint of melodic, symphonic and progressive wierdness.  

It's actually not that bad and it sounds authentically fresh and surprisingly coherent.  

@Thatguy @markm perhaps one for you two more open minded souls?

Link to whole album

https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=-Ooh4p1K2Nk&list=OLAK5uy_kG1kRedggo6f87-qKG-PiWoWHe9n81bJo

It's scary how immigration to Australia is creating a massive new underclass.  When we came to this country in 1982, my dad's first job was a lowly cleaner but salaries at his unionised workplace (textile factory) meant we could afford to live very comfortably on a single wage (my abusive, financially clueless and insane mother fucked it up by racking up credit card debt in late 1980s but that's another story).

Now the stats show immigrants to Australia are on average earning only the minimum wage ($45,000) and lag some $7,000 behind Australian median wage ($52,000).  And here in Tasmania their median income was a dismal $31,000.

They had higher unemployment yet large numbers of them needed more than 2 jobs (3.6 million migrants working 5.3 million jobs).

Another report I read said at least 9% were not paid legally required minimum wage.

https://www.abs.gov.au/media-centre/media-releases/new-migrant-jobs-and-income-data-release#:~:text=Personal Income in 2019-20&text=Migrants living in the Australian,had the lowest (%2431%2C093).

Latest inflation stats show housing, fuel and food continuing to skyrocket, ironically fuelled by really high immigration (Net Overseas Migration was near 500,000 in period March 22 to March 23).  We're literally creating poverty.

Blood Lightning - Blood Lightning

Meaty traditional metal.  Guitar tone nearly reminds me of really old Entombed, Edge of Sanity and Bolt Thrower (but that could be shitty computer speaker).

6 hours ago, MarkhantonioYeatts said:

JELLO BIAFRA AND THE GUANTANAMO SCHOOL OF MEDICINE - The Audacity Of Hype

PHANE - Police System

BRUX - Working Class Drama

MONEY - Money

 

Listened to all 4 off these.  All rocked hard.  Was surprised Jello is kicking so much butt - I hadn't heard any post Dead Kennedies stuff but thought he might have lost the plot like so many old punk guys!  I was so wrong!

Asinhell - Impii Hora  on vinyl!

Good enough to buy but this is exactly my kind of death metal.

Gravesend - Gowanus Death Stomp

This is pretty cool!  

ore

In other news, finally an event in Tassie that @GoatmasterGeneral will want to attend!

https://www.facebook.com/goatfesttasmania

In Flames - Colony

Nuclear Assault - Handle With Care

Power Trip - Manifest Decimation

Spiritworld - Deathwestern

14 hours ago, JonoBlade said:

This is personally my biggest hurdle. I think I have a fairly sensible handle on consumerism and do not live beyond my means. I could live in a house that is three times the size but don't because I don't need it (nor want that level of mortgage debt, whereas others wouldn't care and will max out whatever they can get from a bank).

 

I agree with your entire post, especially about heavily regulated capitalism.

This part of your post resonates - I used to try to live with a far smaller footprint than on average.  But my wife is 100% Australian and that means seeking to expand your consumption as much as you can.  And she won,

Hence we moved to a 4 bedroom house with 2 bathrooms and so big it needs 2 heat pumps (there's only 3 of us) that was further away from town and where we worked.  So now we have to run 2 cars (I used to be able to walk to work) and have to travel 30 km return each day.

Our environmental footprint has expanded massively as such.

She also wants to get into the rental property game which I am highly opposed on both ethical and financial grounds.  On paper she is more "progressive" than me.  She will spout environmental concerns when she's trying to convince me to spend more money on things we don't need.

And there's the rub - with the destruction of old Protestant and/or social democratic values and promotion of consumer excess for over 30 years, even the most "progressive" Australians are tacitly fucking over the planet and their fellow Australians over.

Australians are one of the highest polluters per capita after Canada.  Australians don't care about anything save their large houses, large SUVs and large TVs.

9 hours ago, GoatmasterGeneral said:

Please don't lump me in with the Orca.

It's not that I'm "happy" or I think things are better than you suggest. Maybe I play devil's advocate with you more often than I realize. I do basically agree with almost all of the stuff you're pissed off about. I don't even personally know anyone more left-wing or more anti-establishment than me, unless maybe if I were to count you.

I became an angry leftist when that scumbag Reagan was running for POTUS the first time in 1980. I went down and registered to vote specifically so I could cast my vote against that stupid son of a bitch. I've been an angry left-winger ever since then, and at this point after 43 years of being an angry young man, I'm not that young anymore and I sometimes get weary of being so angry all the time.

So maybe I've somewhat resigned myself to our fate. (by 'our' I mean good people like you and me everywhere) Because I just don't see anyone or any way for the trajectory of this shit to change. Politicians come and go and they talk a lot of shit, but they don't ever do anything. Nothing ever changes. In my online travels I tell everyone who'll listen: "watch what they do, not what they say." They need things to be somewhat fucked up and dysfunctional so they have some good shit to blame on ther opposition party in the next election and fundraise on. Even the small handful of idealistic "good ones" you see coming in as freshmen Congressmen quickly get assimilated and absorbed into the corrupt system. Sooner or later it will all come to a head and the shit will hit the fan. And then we'll come to the crossroads and we'll either pull our collective heads out and fix this shit or we'll let our western societies self destruct. But I don't have that many years left to walk this earth so I probably won't be around to see it.

I do still have the capacity to get quite angry over specific things though, just like it was 1984. Like currently I'm pretty fucking pissed off about the way the mainstream establishment is trying to shout down and squash any criticism whatsoever of the barbaric Israeli government by conflating it with anti-semitism and accusing us of supporting terrorism. All while the bloodbath rages on, and the bodies pile up. And that has my blood boiling today. But that's probbaly not the best topic for the metal forum, so maybe I'll just leave that there.

Totally agreem  Israel is runming an apartheid state.  Hamas' actions are despicable but Israel have been the bad guys here for decades.

Great irony is Israel fostered Hamas as a counter to secular PLO.  Much like US and its 1980s friend, Osama Bin-Laden,Israel's relationship with its religious zealot spawn has been a disaster for the Israeli people

14 hours ago, navybsn said:

...and will lead to eventual change although it will likely be nonviolent and a couple generations later than what is needed.

I don't think any change will be nonviolent, at least in US with its increasing social divison and armed populace.

To be honest I expect no change.  Things will continue to decline until living standards and social structure in many parts of the west comes to look more like places like Phillippines or India or South Africa - handful of rich, small middle class and endless poor living in squalor.

It is already happening slowly.

Modern westerners have no ability to truly change the system:

1. Socialist imcludong true social democratic ideology is completely discredited even among the supposed left.  That only leaves increasingly deregulated capitalism as the only ideological choice for organising society.

2. Hyper individualism,social fragmentation  and consumerism- people no longer care as much about the collective.  They are even happy to lose rights as long as they can access consumer goods.

Western societies were a lot more collectivist when they fought laissez fairre capitalism between 1800s and 1970s.

Now most people have no interest or connection to their communities save consumption of goods and services.

3. The ruling system is engrained in every aspect of society and far more comprehensively than in the past .

Everything from control of money to supply of food to governance is now part of a massive global network. 

4. Eveything today is so deliberately overcomplicated to reduce transparency and accountability and increase risk if changed.

System has been designed to promote inertia and confusion and thus create aversion to real change in both political elites and the populace.

5. The youth are willing participants in the system even if they are main victims of adverse changes

The modern youth don't care even when their lives are at stake eg average age of Ukrainian soldiers is over 40 years old.  The youth would rather just avoid the war or even emigrate out.

If they can't even stand up to a barbaric, murderous invader how are they going to stand up tp the corporations and their political lackeys?

TL:DR no change in foreseeable future.

1 hour ago, AlSymerz said:

You fill in too many blanks. The number of assumptions you've made about me, my political views, my status in life and my business is amazing. Sure I've deliberately left holes in statements to see what reaction it gets, but you're forever jumping to the conclusion that fits your argument, making up information because the details aren't specifically spelled out. That's politician behaviour, two sides, black and white, no medium ground, no alternative option, agree or disagree.

 

 

All happy for disagreement.  But one can only make so many assumptions about what people think based on what they say.  If you say "things are fine" then I will take that at face value you think things are fine.

The details are the guts of any human endeavour.   Literally the details determine true outcomes.  And trust me when I say the true outcomes often differ to stated outcomes due to details.

Vague statements are true politician behaviour - eg "we promise to fix the health system" or "we declare war on terror."  You can literally use such vague statements to achieve anything you want eg "fixing health system" by privatising it and washing government hands off it or "war on terror" to invade Iraq even though they had nothing to do with terrorism or actually support jihadi terrorists in Syria, Libya and Yemen to wage war against legitimate governments of those countries. 

Indeed the recent Voice referendum was great example of why details matter.  Literally the whole premise was vague as fuck.

It boiled down to following equation:

"Permanent non-binding Aboriginal advisory council = improved outcomes for Aboriginal people."

There was no detail on how it would operate, how it would base its decisions, what its scope was, how its membership would be determined etc etc let alone how this would result in improved outcomes for Aboriginal people.

Black Sabbath - Sabotage

9 hours ago, JonoBlade said:

One beacon of good news is that Tory control is collapsing. It is a zombie government at the moment. However, the opposition must be nearly as incompetent as the government itself for it to have taken this long. 

In politics you seem to have those that are blatantly out for themselves and those that are slightly less blatantly out for themselves. Hopefully, we will soon enter an era of "slightly less blatantly out for themselves" in Britain that will marginally improve conditions until the next swing around. 

 

We're the same in Australia.

There are simply no more competent politicians from the perspective of being good leaders and administrators.

However in the past the public service managed to hold up the strain of incompetent politicians and governments. 

But professional public service is destroyed in both Britain and Australia.  The system of appointment is now much more politicised and career public service has been replaced by careerists and corrupt opportunists who weave in and out of private and public sectors to advance their careers at the expense of good policy development and implementation.

Deregulation, privatisation, a propensity to over complicate, hyper-individualism and associated entitlement and the modern media have also helped this.

I saw the last of the career public servants retire in my department in early 2000s (many through lucrative voluntary redundancies).

Their replacements have often been terribly incompetent, nepotistic and sometimes corrupt.  Things are now significantly worse than when I started in government in 2005. It's become a vicious circle of decay.  And the results are obvious - wait times for elective surgery are worse (often years), wait times to be seen at department of emergency have been getting longer and longer, ambulance banking is now common and ambulances are often unavailable due to be banked (ie patient waiting in ambulance outside of hospital due to hospital being full). 

This is why I find GGs and Al's attitude of "it's just change" and "things are much better than you say" irritating. It's not good change and things should not be deteriorating, they should be improving.

And how Americans can be happy with the "progress" of their country is beyond me.  Eg this cartoon referencing an area in Pittsburgh (part of rust belt).  But that's across the US.  The US minimum wage has been frozen at $7.25 since July 2009.  And many people aren't even paid that as they collect tips.  

And that $7.25 per hour is 40% less than value of minimum wage in 1968 in today's dollars.

In other times such actions would have led to the toppling of governments by violence force.

Asinhell - Impii Hora

Vomitory - All Heads Are Gonna Roll

Been a pretty good year for death metal!

On 10/21/2023 at 12:10 AM, JonoBlade said:

By "malaise" do you mean stagnant or apathetic? The Attlee government came in in 1945 which was an unusual situation where the population actually voted for its universal best interests. Churchill had just won the war, yet lost the election.

The policies at that time were quite radical and served the greater good. I wouldn't call that stagnant. 

"Most historians argue that the main domestic policies (except nationalisation of steel) reflected a broad bipartisan consensus. The post-war consensus is a historians' model of political agreement from 1945 to the late-1970s. In 1979 newly elected Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher rejected and reversed it."

 

 

I mean stagnation. 

Attlee government certainly did bring about some positive reform (eg NHS)*.  But Britain was struggling economically even in 1950s despite other western economies booming.

In some ways  Britain didn't stagnate, it collapsed  - empire largely dismantled by 1960s (mainly a good thing), industrial might started declining in 1950s and was crippled by 1970s (bad thing), social welfare system (eg public housing) also stagnant by 1970s and since in decline (bad thing).  In fact public housing in Britain peaked in 1967 and then declined massively in 1970s and collapsed during Thatcher era.

*I know a few Brits and the NHS is very much a hollowed out thing according to them these days.  

Great post Goatmaster.

Mastodon - Once More 'Round The Sun

obituary - Dying of Everything

31 minutes ago, GoatmasterGeneral said:

Deadly has fallen in love with a romanticised 1960's/70's version of Tassie he's conjured up in his head. He fantasizes about living in the Tassie from that 35 year period before he was born but after the war, because that was their hey-day before all the commercialization and incompetence and corruption and immigration and criminal element had worked their way all the way down there. Progress in other words, which he sees as anti-progress.

 

I don't think it was all ideal.  There was a lot of bad stuff and a lot of horrific shit.  But there was progress ie things were improving (even if it involved blood and tears ala Civil Rights Act in US).  And not just Tasmania but also rest of Australia, the USA and west in general (only UK was in a state of malaise which started in 1945 and has continued ever since).

Now we're regressing.  The homelessness, drug epidemic, increasing wait times at emergency, lack of doctors, 50% functional illiteracy, lack of housing unaffordability, lack of access to affordable healthcare, increasing congestion, stagnant wages,  declining public transport etc attest to that.

These are tangible things too, not nebulous concepts of bad.  

That's not just Tassie, that's Australia, the US and large chunks of the western world.  Basically around late 1960s something broke in the west and especially the English speaking world.  Not talking about hippies but in the thinking of the elites.

And things that should have got better haven't eg you still have massive race riots in US (but also now France and elsewhere).

I actually want things to change for the better - eg not having to walk by new homeless encampments on my lunch because the former homeless have access to affordable/subsidised and decent housing.

Quote

But in a lot of these more remote places they're not ready to embrace all this shit just yet because they thought they'd be insulated from it for a lot longer than they were.

We shouldn't embrace regression.

Ideally we should fight it like people in the past fought for it, but the people are too drugged with consumer manna to give a fuck.

26 minutes ago, GoatmasterGeneral said:

So what are you gonna do with them, have a yard sale or sell them on Guntree or something? 

Well turns out no-one else wants them cause they're shit!  😁

2 hours ago, AlSymerz said:

You forgot the cold and shitty weather. Coming into summer and in the last few weeks Tassie has had snow, high winds and his weekend some parts look like they might get more than 100mm of rain, all while remaining under 20 degrees. Even Victoria isn't that bad!

 

I like cold and even wet.

It was 24 or 25 today - intolerable!