Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

Best.

A fine, fine marketing troll - extends his political reach all the way to Brisbane Australia.

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

Are. They are here in Brisbane- as an introduced pest. They are trying to wipe them out, but I think it's a losing battle.>> ^sillybapx:

So, are there, or aren't there fire ants in Australia?
>> ^dag:
Man, I hope these never make it to Australia- like fire ants.

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

What- where's Brisbane?

Little-known, unless you're from Brisbane! Yeah for Brizbands!

This happened in Brisbane, Australia... so it's *downunder

@rougy

You know, that reminds me of these posters I've been seeing everywhere around Brisbane. They say, "Communism is dead, Capitalism is dying, time for a third way!", leading you on with a sense that if only you were to attend to their gathering, you would be enlightened ... as if to suggest their movement is anything but empty rhetoric and righteous indignation.

I'm still waiting for you to offer that inspiring and brilliant alternative to capitalism that would see developing countries miraculously lifted out of poverty and everyone paid a developed country wage.

Somehow, since I believe I've already refuted what I would expect you to say, I don't think I'm going to get it.

But look, you asked me genuinely about what changed since 1979, so I will provide you with some statistics.

Over the past generation, since launching market-oriented reforms in 1978, China has made impressive gains in overall development. Growth performance - with real annual GDP growth rates averaging at 10% during 1979-2005- - has been correlated with reductions in poverty and with social development.

An estimated 400 million people have been lifted out of poverty within the past 30 years.

At China's official poverty line, the number of poor decreased from 250 million in 1978 (31% of the rural population) to under 30 million in the 2000s (3% of the rural population).

Between 1979 and 2005, average years of schooling in the 15-64 year age group rose from 5 to 9 years and the share of those with junior secondary schooling increased from 15 to 38 percent.

http://www.wpro.who.int/NR/rdonlyres/A1F18401-BE93-44EF-9F76-55DDA2C6E12D/0/hped_en.pdf

China's HDI, which encompasses life expectancy, education, GDP and other factors rose from 0.554 in 1980, to 0.772 in 2009.

Life expectancy at birth improved from 63.2 in 1970 to 73.18 in 2008.

http://bizcovering.com/business-and-society/globalization-and-its-impact-on-china/

Look and by all means point out that access to health care has gone down and inequality has gone up, these are elements that should have been dealt with more directly instead of rapidly liberalising as was the case in Russia as well, but these figures are still irrefutable.

Oh and by the way, I still respect your opinion, but on this I think you're dead wrong.

a friend of mine from Brisbane participated in this. I'm so pleased.

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

We have lots of huntsmen in and around our house here in Brisbane. They eat other pests so we treat them kind of like working pets. It is weird to be watching a DVD or something and see one walking across the floor. They hunt at night.

Times are certainly tough for game developers. In the last year I've seen so many people laid off just in Australia. It wasn't even 2 weeks ago Krome (a major privately owned company with studios in 3 cities) sacked a ton of people, now this (Pandemic had a studio in brisbane).

Cool vid, tickling it with feathers was a great touch but i think they should have gone the whole way and smashed up an Xbox dev kit. Now that would have been gangsta!

Suck up.

Never figured you for a company man, but there you have it. While you're at it, don't forget to cup the balls.

Jesus, what a desperate little fruit cake.

In reply to this comment by rottenseed:
HAHAHA...made me laugh!

In reply to this comment by dag:
^There definitely was a happy-clapper religious fervor about it all. "Cult of Mac" is not just a saying. It's hard not to get swept up in the artificial excitement. To rebel against all this, I've jailbroken my iPhone today. Stand back, I'm bad.

HAHAHA...made me laugh!

In reply to this comment by dag:
^There definitely was a happy-clapper religious fervor about it all. "Cult of Mac" is not just a saying. It's hard not to get swept up in the artificial excitement. To rebel against all this, I've jailbroken my iPhone today. Stand back, I'm bad.

^That video was the reason I posted this one. I went looking for an anti-Mac video after watching that video in your blog post. I half-expected to see Tom Cruise in it.

Brisbane was covered in reddish smog today too, but it wasn't anywhere near as heavy as that ...

Ahh yes, Coffee Snobbery... Gee, if you think it's bad in Brisbane, come down to Melbourne for a while... We RULE in being coffee snobs.

I'm guilty of it to a certain degree, but not much really. I have a home espresso machine, had a course to learn how to make them properly, and LOVE those that I make (if I do say so myself... which I did).

BUT.

I also quite like McDonald's McCafe coffee too (Which, of course, was a MELBOURNE invention, only now rolling out to McDonalds around the world... we have espresso coffee places everywhere. It used to surprise and amuse me to find hardware stores, plant nurseries, hospitals, car yards etc. with espresso bars, but no longer, in fact, I kinda expect it now).

I really don't like Starbucks espresso coffee, but have been known to have it, and in the States it's actually in the higher end of chain places (sadly).

However I don't poor scorn on people who have it, each to their own I guess, and Starbucks does seem to actually do a fair few things right as an empire (pushing for Fair Trade coffee, having their old grounds there in the store for you to take free for your garden etc.).

And I get your preference to filter coffee, well, being an American it's understandable

It amazed me that in all the large stores there in the states there were a huge variety of drip filter coffee machines available to buy and I couldn't find ONE espresso machine. I did find a 'pod' coffee machine, but that's kinda not the same, and very wasteful.

Here in Australia you go into a department store and they'll have the same amount of floorspace given over to espresso machines with maybe a couple of filter machines tucked away at the back.

And yes, that would have been a fine comeback to the woman

Seems to have followed this route: Google Maps Link 1,344 miles. About the same distance as driving from London to Gibraltar, or London to Naples, or Berlin to Athens.

edit: or Brisbane to Adelaide. Australia is big!