Cynicarc comments

The same way that many of the state and local governments in Australia have 'Privatised' water and waste water utilities by making them wholly government owned corporate entities (some of which are owned by multiple governments, i.e. multiple local governments split out their water and waste water divisions and combined them with nearby councils' divisions to form a corporate entity) which are 'For Profit' organisations. However on the front of being 'For Profit' not many are currently capable of producing said profit.

Sounds a little like both the ex and the new husband liked her, but only the husband called 'Shotgun' ;P

That said, best of luck to the three of them (mother, father and little bub yet to come).

@ka_chan The Australian gov has been bickering about fibre to the home for decades and now we're only putting it in to the nearest node, with capacity for around 25Mb/s (with the maximum possible reaching 100Mb/s) ... 1Gb/s would be a miracle down in Australia, maybe we'll see those kinds of speeds in 100 years time ..... that is if we haven't destroyed the world by then, and by that time, you will be well beyond 1Tb/s for home connections.

QANTAS is a ripoff carrier. One of my flights (domestic) that I take for business is more expensive than flying overseas, and QANTAS is the only carrier between my base location and this other one, so I am forced to fly with them.

@shonanbb - Not going to happen, the Abrahamic religions have vested interests in killing each other (for total domination and right to be called the one true faith), even though they all worship the same Abrahamic god ....

Watched that match. Was a great game to watch, good going Nishikori.

@Daniel Neagari

Soooo, the poll was made by the Australia - China Relations Institute... that means that they very well be tempted to do the poll with a high participation of Australian-Chinese people isn't it?

With this in mind only 4% siding with China vs 15% siding with Japan means this Aus-China relations is off to a great start? So if they did chose a higher percentage of people of Chinese decent, surely this would then say that Australia really doesn't like the way China is pushing and that this Higher % of Chinese people actually support Japan more on this issue? Sounds like a "Survey" trying to make China appear as the favourite side kind of back-fired.

@bgood41 Majority = greater than 50%. When the results of the survey say that 15% back Japan over the 4% backing China, 9% completely unsure of what should happen and the rest (71%) say we should stay out of the issue entirely. Also I think you got a little confused with the numbers there. Aus+Japan = 15% and Aus+China = 4% ... 15%>4% therefore LESS back China than those that back Japan and yet you're saying Australia would back China over Japan? Go re-learn your maths.

That said, the article/survey seems to have skipped 1% of the population surveyed when announcing figures. 15+4+9+71 = 99 ... where's that last 1% sit? Same again happens in the second set of percentages, 68+14+17 = 99. Someone seems to have arbitrarily identified 1% of the responses as invalid and thus not included them in the results for announcement.

I dare you to watch a month of Australian TV then comment ... Even the adverts in Australia (please shout every second/third word at me while saying I really need this product to live my life like a normal person or better than a normal person, or grab some hungover guy/girl to drone on about the quality of product with sufficient gaps in between for dramatic effect, again in a mono-tone voice) pale in quality compared to Japanese TV. Then there's the never-ending dramas which are supposedly classic Aussie Drama, even though filmed and produced in the US of A. Then there's the drama filled cooking drama showoff drama competitions... Then there's the 5 or 6 Australia has talent/idol/voice/drama/X-factor/lack of morals/dancing/bile inducing/judge panel shows that hit us every year.

So while Japanese TV might actually be fairly bad, Australian TV will always be worse...

I still have the original PlayStation and the PS2 as well, and to the credit of the amazing staff involved with both machines, they still work too.

@crazyjoe I believe it should be "You don't have to fool all the people all of the time - just enough of the people at the right time for you."

Engineers claim the robot's artificial intelligence has allowed it to expand its conversational ability by listening to what customers say.

Oh dear, I can already see the headlines "Puerile Teenagers corrupt Robot's conversational ability with inappropriate language" Poor robot, it was so innocent...

I for one would welcome our Pocky Overlords to Australia, I occasionally manage to catch them in the Coles or Woolworths stores here but only in small quantities and limited to only Chocolate and Strawberry flavours.

There's 7 now? Yeesh, I stopped after the second one.

Agreed Thunderbird2, smoking in public places which serve food should be banned for safety's sake.

breadth of expertise in the ICT sector ... As the country's leader in telecommunications and research, the state was chosen to host the key technology facilities of the Australian government's National Broadband Network.

AH HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHHAHAHAHAHAHAAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Obviously not enough expertise ... Abbot's National Broadband Network .. Yesterday's Technology to be ready by 2025. Sigh ... why couldn't they use their expertise to convince Mr Abbot that Australia really needed Fibre to the Premisis rather than to the Node (50 year old technology today will still be in place in 11 more years time between the node and the premisis).

Israel says it reserves the right to take military action against Iran’s nuclear program if a deal is not reached to dismantle it.

In other words, Israel says it reserves the right to go to attack another sovereign nation if a deal is not reached to dismantle it's nuclear program. This would probably bring in all the other nearby Arabic nations friendly with Iran and that would then bring in the friendly nations of Israel .... oh dear, we seem to have stumbled on someone saying they reserve the right to start WW3...

This is wonderful news! Congratulations to the Indian Space and Research Organization and especially all the staff involved in this particular project! The world looks forward to your continued contribution and advances in this field.

When I read this article the one thing that really comes to mind for me is the Quantum Entanglement Communicators (QEC) in the EA/Bio-Ware game series Mass Effect which enabled people to talk to each other within different star systems in near real/real time without it being listened into by vastly superior AI constructs. Now all we need is an Alien species which threatens to enslave/destroy human kind in order to bring us to a common purpose coalition/federation regardless of religion or regional politics ....

@ WakarimasenSep. 10, 2014 - 06:03PM JST

Price always wins these days. Too expensive to make anthing in Oz (eh, toyota?)

You can also add to that list GM (group who bought out Holden), Ford Australia, Renault Australia, Mitsubishi Motors Australia, Rootes Australia, Chrysler Australia, British Leyland, Nissan Australia, Australian Motor Industries, Volkswagon Australia and a bunch of other small scale manufacturers...

Australia supposedly has High Speed Rail in the form of the 'Tilt Train' in Queensland, but, you can't call it High Speed Rail anymore. The last few times I've been on it (since 2010), it hasn't broken the 110km/h mark and actually takes longer to go between the main destinations I use it for than it takes on a bus or driving in my own car. This is in part due to the 15 to 30 minute stops it takes at each station...

In May 1999 the Tilt Train set an Australian train speed record of 210 km/h (130 mph) north of Bundaberg, a record that still stands. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tilt_Train)

This is all nice and all, but there's still the matter of all the older vehicles not utilising this technology will still allow people to get into crashes, or people who just ignore the warning alerts...

@jumpultimatestars and likely they wouldn't understand the meaning of the word "satire" either, therefore the tag would be useless to them even if it had it.

Isn't Goldman Sachs the company that initiated the last global financial meltdown? US citizen tax dollars hard at work?

Holy Bog-strap! If that's the same girl in that split image she achieved a lot more than double eyelids...

Also important is not taking "Duck Face" photos, seriously, they're just plain ugly and make you look stupid. Just don't do it!

@falseflagsteve that's the Xbox360, not the "One", the "One" is locked to the region for your console, so if you lived in Australia, but wanted to play some games that are only released in the USA or Europe for the Xbox One, you would need to buy another Xbox One from those regions in order to play the game, which means you would also need separate Xbox Live accounts as no doubt, Xbox Live will pick up on your region. Then again, the Online Authenticating process might still say you can't play these other region's games because your Xbox's IP address is not in those regions. Also, I doubt they'd let you work in a proxy navigator on the xbox in order to fool it into thinking that you are in those regions...

Yeah ... Microsoft claim that it's about their poorer sales in the area from previous editions of the Xbox, but the real reason is well known. It's because Sony performed some extreme pelvic gyrations all over Microsoft at the E3, and everyone lapped it up with abandon.

@Equality, Same here, but in my case I also add they're also OK (more than usually) with it if I don't sing.

@some14some - Unfortunately for me, I can say both....