Pericles, no wonder we don't agree on much, if you can place Sydney 3 places higher than 7Th on that rather strange grading that gets it in the top couple of hundred.

As an old Sydneysider, I loved the place in the 60s, when it was still a reasonable size. I had the good sense to get out in the 70s but after my recent visit it can not even make the bottom of my list.

The ridiculous traffic, the jammed up houses, the awful six packs, & the large no go areas for a dim dim, [white man in Papuan], place it on my avoid at all cost list today.

I could not find a single redeeming feature, apart from the harbour. Yes the waterways are beautiful, but there are plenty of places with as good waterways, without the hassle of that poor bloated place.

Now where was I bfor the computer system decided to throw a wobbly!

Then of course I had to go down the beach for a while to de-stress, bcoz when that sort of stuff appens, it spins me right out! Aaaargh!.

Oh yeah, Pericles was hangin out for a fuller response.

Alright then, where DO I start?

Well I think only one point needs to be made: I note….again…the amazing duplicity involved.

Dear Pericles, your criticism about me introducing population into lots of threads and thus ‘hijacking’ them is not only completely loopy but extraordinarily compromised by the fact that you so readily aid and abet the ‘hijacking’!

You’re on about population, in quite some detail in your post of Tuesday, 23 October 2012 12:28:44 PM. If ever a population point of discussion is not really relevant to the thread, it is on this occasion.

May I remind you of the thread title: ‘Julia Gillard: superficiologist”.

My point is that Bob Carr is not a superficiologist like many would consider Gillard to be, and would make a damn good alternative leader. His views on population are very important. But your comparisons of pop growth in New South Wales and Queensland are just way off to the side of this discussion.

So please, once and for all, drop your silly rabble about me inappropriately mentioning population (is there ever a time that you would it not to be inappropriate?) and regain a modicum of common sense and an absence of abject duplicity here.

Yes Hasbeen, Sydney is a great place to live… if you only look at how the top 25% are living and don’t consider the no-go zones, deplorable traffic and various other negative factors.

A holistic view would surely put livability in Sydney a long way further down the list of cities on a global basis.

This is actually highly relevant to the thread subject inasmuch as Gillard said in 2010:

“We need to stop, take a breath and develop policies for a sustainable Australia. I support a population that our environment, our water, our soil, our roads and freeways, our busses, our trains and our services can sustain."

Our roads, freeways, busses, trains and services.

Gillard certainly did not show superficiality with this statement. She knows that Sydney, and the other capitals, are all feeling the strain of constant high population growth.

The superficiality comes from those who push for growth, as the answer to everything, who don’t separate the good and bad aspects of growth, who don’t even think of matching supply and demand, who don’t bear a thought for sustainability, who are perfectly happy to allow big business to give big donations and thus highly corrupt the political process and the principle of democracy, etc, etc.

So I’d say that Gillard is actually not superficial where it really counts, but that she has been dumbed down by the powers that be.

But having said that, Bob Carr is certainly a whole lot more worldly wise and would no doubt make a better leader.

Not really, Ludwig.

>>Oh yeah, Pericles was hangin out for a fuller response<<

I pretty well knew that it would be the same old stuff - a little denial here, a little adjustment of history there, and a complete resistance to acknowledging the facts behind anything that you disagree with.

And so it proved to be.

Denial: "...your criticism about me introducing population into lots of threads and thus ‘hijacking’ them is not only completely loopy"

Despite the fact that you do it all the time.

Adjustment of history: "A holistic view would surely put livability in Sydney a long way further down the list of cities on a global basis."

Sorry, but the results are in. Feel free to disagree with them, using the same parameters that the survey uses. But what informs your opinion that it is not "holistic"? Oh, right. It can't possibly be holistic, because you disagree with its findings.

So do tell, which city would be on your list? And why.

A complete resistance to acknowledging the facts: "your comparisons of pop growth in New South Wales and Queensland are just way off to the side of this discussion"

Hardly. Let me remind you of the context:

>>So Sydney and the rest of NSW stayed a great place to live, despite enormous population pressure and a state government that did nothing! Hmmm.<<

Oh look. You introduced the fiction of "enormous population pressure" as part of your paean of praise for the prancing panderer.

>>Methinks you have misinterpreted the data that you provided the link for. Yes NSW has the biggest transmigration exodus, but it also has the biggest immigrant influx. So there is a pretty strong net gain overall, and Sydney’s and the whole state’s population continues to increase rapidly.<<

You do recall saying that, don't you?

And this...

>>You are waffling off on side-issues which even after a cursory glance I can see that you have got fundamentally wrong<<

Oh dear.

Egg, meet face.

Hey Pericles, don’t look now but I just went and gone and done it again – I put up a population post on another thread!

Totally hijacked it!

Better get your tooche over there and straighten me out!

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=14270#246237

Looks like you are not the only one having trouble getting in Ludwig.
I could not yesterday most of day.
And post history, time of last posts, points to it,mate did you, may be wrong, start a thread about staying on subject?