Frankly, because Australia has things that the USA does not have and really needs. Australia is a stable and reliable political friend in a region of the globe that is close enough to the antipode of mainland USA. Our proximity and unused land affords our US allies with space and privacy to operate with relative comfort. Their bases in Australia also have much shorter logistic chains to operate compared with other remote locales like islands as well.

The USA would be impacted militarily if they lost Australia as an ally. Not irrevocably, they’d get by. But it would cost them a lot more than the simple civility and respect it takes to maintain their relationship with Australia.

Neither nations really needs the other. Our partnership has been convenient for both of us, and it really would be a shame for both nations if that partnership were to lapse.

Apologies all. That user is not representative of Aussie.Zone users. We’re generally a chill bunch.

I’m struggling to believe there’s such a thing as an “anti-vax doctor”. That’s a classic oxymoron.

I grew up on the Gold Coast in the 80s. I have no memory of such a place, sorry.

I’ll grant that we were poor and not exactly visiting the theme parks every week, but I’m fairly certain I got to them all at least once.

His mission was to observe the transit of Venus. The expedition was scientific in nature first and foremost.

You’re speaking of the secret instructions issued to him by the Admiralty to locate the fabled southern continent and hopefully claim it for England. Tasman by this stage had found NZ and I think Van Diemans Land. Yes he found the east coast of Australia and “claimed” it for England. It was all in vain though, the distances were way too far for anything to come of it. To Cook at the time, it was a side trip.

There were two parliamentary inquiries submitted to the British parliament in 1779 and 1785 recommending colonisation of New Holland, but even then: well after Cook’s death, such an expedition was seen as too expensive.

Then the English learned that the French were preparing to colonise and it was suddenly a British priority to get to Australia.

I don’t see how anything to do with the colonisation had anything to do with Captain Cook. You could swap Cook out for any other ship’s captain who was taking the scientists to see Venus and the rest of the expedition plays out much the same. Cook didn’t colonise Australia. He encountered the Guugu Yimithirr people in Northern Queensland and tried to treat with the peacefully - mostly succeeding. He certainly didn’t set about killing them all.

Arthur Philip should be the person people direct their ire at. But he doesn’t have a statue in Melbourne. King George III would be another candidate that made sense. Only George III also doesn’t have a statue in Melbourne.

Captain Cook had nothing to do with the colony. He died in 1779 - years before the settlers arrived. While agreeing with the sentiment that the arrival of Europeans is not cause for celebration, Cook had always been a dumb target for protesting Jan 26.

Southbank had residential high-rise buildings that were at least 60% empty ten years ago - and that’s being generous. It seemed like they were nearly empty. From the outside at 8 pm, there were barely any lights on to indicate the presence of people in there.

They were owned by people overseas and kept in pristine condition to maintain a higher value. Is that still going on?

Insert “That’s bait” meme here.

It’ll be interesting to see what comes of this. Whoever sent this has clearly never been to a WOMAD festival, because that crowd is not likely to appreciate someone trying to influence the lineup.

I can’t think of anything the better the writers of this letter could have done to Streisand Effect that crowd into seeking out some DJ that might otherwise have been one act among several.

I somehow missed this and thought that Lord of the Rings was coming out of copyright about now. It seems not.

New York has a huge Jewish population. This is totally geared toward selling papers to them.

Hrm, yours is a tricky one because I had read it and moved past it. I recognised you came from a place of hyperbole and didn’t think much of it. I didn’t remove it.

But looking at the comment again after it was removed, it does pretty much break all three of the rules I posted. So I’ll not override the mod and restore it.

It’s not that criticising actions of religious people is the issue, it’s grouping them all members of a religion into your criticism that is the problem.

‘Those two guys are bad’ is fine. ‘115,000 Aussies are terrible people because those two guys are bad’ is not fine.

We see you trying to manipulate the vote.

Please address this, @Mazdak@Mazdak@lemmy.org.

Excuse me, that’s a load of horse shit. The modlog is right there at the bottom of the page. From this discussion, it’ll default to filtering mod actions for /c/Australia.

Point me to any comment you think should be restored and I’ll re-evaluate. But don’t sit there and pretend we censor you from behind secret doors like this is Reddit. I see stuff I disagree with on the regular, but I very rarely step in. I let the community votes do that.

The main rules of the site are and have always been:
Golden rule - don’t be a dick. If you wouldn’t say it in front of your grandmother, don’t post it.
No bigotry - including racism, sexism, ableism, homophobia, transphobia, or xenophobia.
Be respectful. Everyone should feel welcome here.

In case this isn’t clear:
Criticism of a government’s actions (Ours, USA, Israel etc) is fine. Start bashing Muslims because of the actions of two jerks or start lumping all Jewish people in with the actions of the Israeli government, and we’ll step in. If/when we do though: it’s visible. You can see what was removed and what justification we used when we did it. Whatever impression left you with the attitude that we censor users is mistaken.

One sister wants cash towards a new motorcycle helmet. So yeah, she’s sorted. 😀

Another sister is all about the thoughtful gesture. It makes her super hard to buy for. She has loads more time than I do.

Hershey’s kisses would be a perfect accompaniment to this specific mug.

Yep I know, but this thing is built like a nuclear bunker. Honestly: 11 years of daily carry, being knocked and crashed and squished about like a set of keys. Even Gotten wet a few times. I have doubts they make them on temu or eBay like this thing.

Lacie made the “rugged” range of disks and this is representative of their build quality. It’s only 32gb, and only usb2. I wish it were bigger and faster, but I’ll take its amazing toughness over those traits.

The utili-key looks like a regular key on your keyring, which is why I’ve never had it confiscated at airport security. Frankly if you can hijack a plane with one of these things, you can hijack a plane without one of these things.

The USB is a “Lacie imakey”. Lacie has since been assimilated into one of the big hard drive companies (Seagate I think). These USB keys are a victim of their success. You just buy the one, and never need another. This one is over ten years old.