Bronwyn that wasn't a cheap snipe, I am bored with the topic. I have expanded recently why I am bored with it.

How is that a swipe at you, and how is it 'cheap'?

'now that the thread's degenerated into a slanging match, you're suddenly finding it interesting! '
I'm all about entertainment. It was boring until people started to get wound up. Now it is interesting. I usually storm chase the lively arguments, and there haven't been any gender wars recently. I miss ginx and everyone attacking antiseptic and r0bert apologising all the time.

'Right from the moment you first posted on OLO you started taking cheap shots from the sidelines.'
My first post was

'Is it more plausible that there actually was a talking snake or that one of the people who wrote the Bible made up or repeated a story with one of the characters in the person of a talking snake?'

Or even that hallucinogenic drugs were being used?

Not really a shot at anyone. Maybe at Moses.

My second post was 'Pray for Australia? I didn't know praying was even a competitive sport.'

'Perhaps we all need a repeat of Pelican's very successful dinner guest list thread from about this time last year. It mended a few bridges at the time, even if they were soon broken.
'
Yeah I remember that. Everyone else was hosting a Twenty20 summit and trying to sound intelligent and appropriate the standing of the guests they were inviting, while I invited a bunch of people who would add to the life of a party. Not much has changed. You lot are all still trying to be serious and sound intelligent as if your life depended on it and I'm still keep'n it real.

*they don't recognise what they're doing, even when it's pointed out to them*

Hang on there Bronnie. When the animal welfare threads were on the
go, I was called every hostile name under the sun, by a bunch of
crazy, nasty females. I did not cry that I was being "bullied"

All I am doing with you, is pointing out your foibles :)

*You need to 'shoot me down in flames', as you put it, with valid reasoning of your own,*

Well I thought the valid points made by the ambassador, made many
of your arguments look rather silly. Perhaps you dismissed the
article without reading and digesting it.

*Perhaps, we could have some Sri Lankan related examples of this*

My comment was about NGOS in general and I gave a great example.
Perhaps when they are in Sri Lanka, they are struck by lightning
and change their behaviour? I doubt it lol Many zealots work
for NGOs, hardly dispassionate observers.

You are quite correct of course. Not all Tamils are terrorists.
It seems that around 127000 LTTE fighters, or terrorists, had to
be weeded out by the Govt, to reintroduce the rule of law.

If 12700 armed Australians tried to overthrow the Govt, shoot, murder etc, what would you call them?

Examinator, go check your data. Western Australia, with roughly
10% of the population, generates roughly 50% of our exports. In
other words, without us, your economy would collapse.

Examinator,
I’ve picked up what I could –some of your comments were a little hard to follow. Let me know if I left anything important out.

1) ---“Sinking their boats burning papers sure… They're desperate”
Oh, so it’s alright if you’re “desperate” –next time I’m applying for that dream job and I don’t have the right qualifications I’ll simply make it up, lie and cheat and when they finally catch up with me, I’ll say: “I was desperate”, it will be interesting to see their reaction!

2) --- “I was exploring the potential and causal links …A gram of prevention is worth a kilo of remedy…One wonders how you divorce war, abject poverty, ethnic and other internal strife from refugees in beyond me”
If you look at the wider picture , many illegal immigrants are emanating from locations with no strife (other than criminal strife which you’ll find everywhere)There is no Taliban in Mexico , no war – but have a geeza at the number fleeing to the USA.There are thousands poring into Europe from Africa but by-and-large they are not from war zones.

They are not choosing SAFE havens –but the most AFFLUENT havens.
There are plenty of options along the way –which they choose to by-pass.

You may in the depths of your bleeding heart have much sympathy for such relatively worse off persons.But the refugee convention –under which many are seeking to justify residency – does not list escape to relatively better economic prospects as a legitimate reason to seek refugee status.

You says you’d fix the causes/push factors; poverty & strife – fine .
Bare in mind the “context” :hundreds of sovereign entities, each with different population levels/growths , on different resource bases, with differing value systems. How?
“You say you got a real solution
Well you know
we'd all love to see the plan”

TBC

3) ---“I would like the issue solved not some temporary store of future hostility as the ex-colonies are turning out to be. Take your pick then look at the pent up distrust”
[ not sure what this was all about!]
When you talk of ex-colonies, are you talking about ALL ex-colonies –or only the ones in vogue at Marxist Summer School.
NB: Colonialism and Imperialism is not a endemic European or American affliction!

4)---“ Which ever extra number of men go to Afghanistan the equation is going to end up sandwiching the people forcing numbers to flee (refugee)”.
“Refugees” were fleeing Afghanistan long before Westerners arrived. For years they would flee to Pakistan & Iran to avoid periodic drought/famine.And, if we had sat back and not become involved in the current conflict (or similar) --I seriously doubt we would have escaped your criticism – you’d likely have said : “ why we didn’t do something” ala (post) Rwanda or Srebrenica.

5)---“ What makes you think Sri Lanka is going to allow its Tamils to live a fair life (forgive and forget)? It has been a military controlled govt before and I have concerns again.”
Well look at this way, It was never the case of all Singhalese embattling all Tamils.
The LTTE were always only a small portion of Tamils.
Tamils can cite discrimination/abuse –you bet!
But so can ,and do, practically every ethnic group in our liberal multicultural Australia!

PS Don’t be so down on Nirvana they produced some good material.

Horus
NB it is not my intention to convince anybody of anything only that they should understand what I meant.

1. Dream job V fleeing poverty, oppression. Come on not exactly comparative. I also don't claim it's necessarily correct but merely explainable.

2. Show me a war that doesn't have refugees. Nor did I say that was the only reason for refugees. Hunger, violent social unrest, natural or man made disasters feature too. Mexico has a drug gang war raging. I think it's a long bow to link Mexico with and our region.
Sure there's a plan some of the current articles allude to the solution.

3. Where have you been? Have you any idea how unpopular Anglos are in PNG? India, Afghanistan, the middle east?

4. Possibly but they've been at war of some type for 100 years latest USSR, Taliban, USA. We can't claim the high moral ground as some seem to.

5.Different order of magnitude. Bitterness dies slowly
14 years after the war Rwanda is still suffering the same ethnic unrest etc.

Nirvana good? come on emotional angst personified.

Examinator,
"3. Where have you been? Have you any idea how unpopular Anglos are in PNG? India, Afghanistan, the middle east?"

Holy cow, Examinator, you’ve just explained a mystery that has been bugging me for ages.
Why would someone do this?
http://static.squidoo.com/resize/squidoo_images/250/draft_lens2117266module31383502photo_1241533952Hooks_in_the_back.jpg

Perhaps, for the same reason(s) so many of them want to spend weeks crossing seas in a small leaky boat, just so they can live next to neigbours --on your testimony-- they hate: those “unpopular Anglos”

They must be all masochists
ROFL