Gnarly Gnu

Gutless. Post a ramadan joke on the madhi-al-imam forum in Iran then brag to us about it.

Hey you selling waterfront cheap O-K? Then like Flannery I'm buying for sure. The irony is that not only is the extra CO2 not causing catastrophic global warming or significant seal level rise but it is beneficial to flora (and thus fauna also).... no-one likes to be conned, open your mind to the reality. No warming in 17 years, every computer climate model shown to be wildly wrong. On topic PA may be about right, it seems there isn't even a single item of debris washed up. Sad for the families to disappear without a trace, but then I guess it happens to a lot of people each year although not in such a dramatic way.

Well he was 'very confident' based on what the experts told him at the time. Just like the left are 'very confident' about the catastrophic anthropogenic global warming hoax based on BS experts. Both turned out to be dud claims in reality. How you react when you discover you have it all wrong is the critical part. Sure you would know about 'saving face' and all...

I understand they still believe it's in the southern Indian Ocean (the southern arc), just that the initial signals they picked up in the water were not from the black box. It was a confused message in the media, but then that would be normal... the intent is get get attention, sell some stuff.

I'm astounded the folk in western Sydney are happy with almost nightly drive-by shooting, the government should ban the guns.

It will make it safer in the context that banning or very restrictive rules will make the situation worse than it currently is. Yes, let's ask eBay, Shanghai lucky drone, Aliexpress, Amazon, Wing Dungs Hong Kong toy shop, Alibaba, Guangzhou most excellent gifts etc etc to comply with that. Not to mention all the kit versions and hobby guys.

Well perhaps not for a thick-skulled Gnu but interesting nonetheless. Germans think very logically and methodically of course. Dunno what happens if your passenger is a hottie and your thoughts drift from flying... " [/url]Pilots of the future could be able to control their aircraft by merely thinking commands . Scientists at the Institute of Flight System Dynamics of the Technische Universität München have now demonstrated the feasibility of flying via brain control—with astonishing accuracy. The pilot is wearing a white cap with myriad attached cables. His gaze is concentrated on the runway ahead of him. All of a sudden the control stick starts to move, as if by magic. The airplane banks and then approaches straight on towards the runway. The position of the plane is corrected time and again until the landing gear gently touches down. During the entire maneuver the pilot touches neither pedals nor controls." Pretty sure there was a science fiction type novel about some Russian fighter jets in a dogfight operating under thought control.

That's a shame you aren't interested in educating yourself a little Marty, the clip is informative and has nothing to do with politics only tax competition and the effect of tax havens. Both clips are relevant and simple to follow. You can berate companies for chasing profits but I suspect that is exactly what you do every week also if you have a job. Would you be OK if your boss was a bit flexible on the hourly rate & superannuation he paid you or do you insist on maximizing your profit for time expended and be paid the full amount due? Recall that if you claim any deductions on your return you are also a tax minimiser.... As Keating said always bet on the self-interest side first, it's human nature.

Beautiful thunderstorm and rainbow combination:

This one is too good not to include also (I like this guy) - Tax competition & how we all benefit:

Agree with you on 'corporate welfare', the govt should treat all companies the same however I admit it is complex with auto manufacturers given distortions in other countries. But so-called tax havens - and tax competition - are actually beneficial to our economy. In fact we all indirectly benefit. This guy explains it well:

^ Haha, you make it sound like visiting some remote corner of the Amazon basin - turn and point along the strip and leave your engine running in case the crazy locals try to knock your teeth out

The Laffer curve has just bitten France on the butt, President Hollande (now 20% popularity rate) is dismayed at the 'unexpected' low tax return from his 75% top income tax rate & now has a 14b euro black hole and a 0% economic growth rate. [/url] French President Francois Hollande has raised income tax, VAT and corporation tax since he was elected two years ago. The Court of Auditors said receipts from all three taxes amounted to an extra 16bn euros in 2013. That was a little more than half the government's forecast of 30bn euros of extra tax income.... The figures come a week after French Prime Minister Manuel Valls, who was appointed in March following the poor showing of Mr Hollande's Socialists in municipal elections, appeared to criticise the president's tax policy by saying that "too much tax kills tax". I wouldn't be surprised if the extra 2% on the top tax rate here could also prove to be income negative for the government, certainly producing a dud budget with new taxes has come back to sting them already. No, the top rate certainly doesn't directly affect me but high taxes are simply bad for the economy as they discourage productive activity which in turn effects everyone financially. Abbott himself acknowledged this - before he went ahead and raised taxes anyway.

Search for 'Van Demons Land'.

Some photos:

See I reckon this is your problem Marty, always looking to government like it's your sugar daddy (yeah, I know you and I both live in mendicant states where this attitude is ingrained). But the correct course of action if you really care about asylum seekers is to take a family of them into your house or to volunteer at the local detention centre, that sort of thing. You can demonstrate you are legit on these issues by spending your own time and money, not asking the government to spend everyone else's money on your behalf, otherwise the rest of us just figure you are just another agitator / activist.

Well personally I enjoy hearing the Marxist's heads exploding. Just seeing the words 'Prime Minister Tony Abbott' written down gives them the vapours...

How come your photo doesn't show the snout Squidi?

Get your moneys worth Daz. Find a hot looking doctor then figure out what ailments you have....

Well not so busty but he certainly has a stoney stare!

Tax avoidance is illegal Marty and the ATO can very much do something about that. Tell me are these "mega-rich" people avoiding paying tax or not? Or are they legally tax-minimising (which everyone that claims a deduction does)? If they are avoiding could you explain how that works and why the ATO is powerless? I'm not a fan of negative gearing either as it has fuelled the property bubble but it's going to be an interesting exercise to unwind, I believe home loan repayments should be an income tax deduction.

OK, so let's reason through that dog-whistle article a bit. Notice these mega-rich seventy are un-named and that the process by which they pay almost no tax is just mysterious, some black magic that their accountants did which the ATO is powerless against. "70 Australians with incomes of more than $1 million each in 2010-11 paid no income tax.The statistics released last week show that the 70 earned $194 million among them but by the time their accountants had finished, that had been cut to less than $20,000 in taxable income, or $1 of taxable income for every $9999 that went untaxed." So their income wasn't actually "more than $1m each" and an average of $2.77m but less than $20k each. So there are two possibilities here: 1) They have a large turnover but also high deductible expenses so they get to keep very little of the money they handle, so actually a low income. This happens to many businesses and sole traders, especially at the moment. The article states "Most of their tax liability was wiped out by deducting tax losses from earlier years" no crap - so they should pay tax on losses also? Does Fairfax do this? 2) The option that the hack journalist would of course like us to think is that these people are CHEATS by some mysterious un-known mechanisms that isn't available to average Australians. Somehow they can fiddle the negative gearing process or other deductibles and pay large sums to other companies like accountants which must somehow get back to their own pockets untaxed in ways the journalist is unable to explain to us. The obvious problem is that the ATO are apparently aware of what they are doing yet are not acting. In reality we know the ATO are actually pretty good at tracking this sort of stuff within Australia and watch the wealthy closely.

The data is from ATO, there are other chart versions of the same information out there. To refute something you need to provide some countering evidence. Got data that shows the opposite? Let's see it.