I was peripherally a part of AWC as it was getting started - from the original Karakamia and Paruna sanctuaries around Perth into the new conservancy. I knew the founder, Martin Copley. I spent the first season setting up Mornington Station as AWC took it over in 2003.

It's a great organisation. Very lean on admin budgets, heavily invested in the actual conservative side. Even seeing how big it has gotten in the 20+ years since I was involved, I'm impressed by the 5% target.

The very fact that they're not that well-known even now is a plus as far as I'm concerned. It tells me that they're spending their donation money on conservation and not on advertising.

I think this but of context is also important:

His mother says he was diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder and could become "fixated on certain things". He'd been living with her rent-free in a rural town west of Brisbane because he was depressed, withdrawn and "in debt up to his eyeballs".

She believes he met a man online playing "live-action war games", who convinced him to fight for Russia as a solution to his problems.

"He was just a desperate guy trying to get some money," she said.

"They got him at the right time when he was weak and vulnerable. They said everything magical, and it worked."

Coupled with how he was treated - getting injured in training and subsequently sent into the meat grinder while not being able to even run, tells a tale all by itself.

His value was in propoganda - never as a soldier. He had served his usefulness before he reached the front lines.

The stations selected under the scheme include Bassendean, Carlisle-Oats Street, Claisebrook, Cottesloe, Glendalough, Morley, Mosman Park and Swanbourne.

Only three of these suburbs are "Western". Not that I'm against these buildings, I think they're a great idea if you can get them past the NIMBYs. Singling out Western suburbs feels like bait though.

In the 80's it was just a political slogan. It wasn't a cult.

She is nothing so complicated. She's merely a relic of the old white, stupid and racist class that was fairly commonplace 50 years ago.

She was screaming into the wind about "Asians" before the US president tried his thing as a Democrat 25 years ago (which nobody seems to talk about). She pre dates tea parties and Maga by decades.

I'm happy to make it - you got a post ready to christen it? Go post in it so I can make you a mod.

Happy to help you with setting it up, but it's pretty self explanatory.

There'll be a window where rates come down and houses are still low (at least compared to now). I'm hoping we are ready to buy a house in that window.

It's the downside of the global economy. Facebook will be headquartered somewhere with low corporate tax.

'Oh yes, we made a Billion dollars revenue in Australia, but after we pay all our licensing fees and stuff to our parent company, it turns out we didn't make any profits 🤷'

Many companies so this. I'd love to see a study on how much tax revenue we lose to this practice, then compare that figure to the sorts of stuff we could buy with it like free universities etc.

On interest rates, the government doesn't control that. The Reserve Bank is independent to the government. Rates are tied to inflation though - which the government can influence somewhat. It's a tangle, but as someone wanting house prices to come down, I'm not against the rate rises.

I think he cooperated and stuff. Also on the abuse scale he was just starting to dip his toes in/caught out at the start of his descent.

It makes more sense for the police to sweep him up at this stage where has only a few incriminating files than to let him go deeper and potentially put kids in physical danger. He was a literal celebrity to kids and had access to them through school visits.

But the trade off is a pretty weak prison sentence. He'll still be paying for this for life, though.

This is posted to /C/Australia. You'd be pretty hard pressed to find an Australian anywhere who doesn't know what the Melbourne cup is.

Didn't this happen six months ago? It was pretty big news in Perth.

Ahh - he pleaded guilty in May - this is about the outcome of the trial.

Anyway - way to speed-run destroying his life/career. 🤦‍♂️

Huh. You are correct. BOM isn't backing me up. I'm left to fall-back on "Trust Me Bro", which is rather problematic. Especially because I checked back at the Yandicoogina camp (where I actually was) records and even they don't back me up! 😱

I was only up there for three days one summer, but yes - it hit 50 two of those days - peaking at 53. However - it turns out that was not the official temperature. The proper BOM station is in a little enclosure out of the elements, measuring ambient temperatures. The thermometer outside the mess however was reflective of what we were living with - with heat radiating off the ground. I was assured that this was normal (50+) and to get used to it. Being a computer nerd from the city visiting for a few days, I had no reason to doubt this was typical. Nobody was complaining about the heat, though. Apparently, it's way worse in the pit - but I didn't need to experience that.