Really? There was absolutely no French assistance there?

And Australia for the most part. I don’t think there’s a legal requirement for people to take a minimum amount of leave every year, but there’s definitely a 20 day annual entitlement.

who had hoped anger toward Elon Musk would have faded by now

Even fucking goldfish remember what he’s done. He has irreversibly associated Nazism with Tesla at the same time that cheaper and better electric vehicles are coming out of China. The only way is down and that’s not going to change until he is no longer part of Tesla and a lot of time has passed.

I was kinda hoping the US would collapse into civil war before they helped start WW3.

Bugger.

But I bet Putin said “thank you” when he received said plans…

Not sarcastic, but rereading it now I can see why you’d say that. I’m grateful for preferential voting because there were a lot of seats that had Liberal first preference majorities that swung on preference counts. I wasn’t actually aware that preferential voting came along 17 years after federation and that it was the states that gradually brought in compulsory voting… and now in wondering why, and what happened to cause us to shift away from the British model we were no doubt following beforehand. Thanks for the new rabbit hole!

This must what winning looks like.

Significantly partially. In January Dutton started to style himself after Trump, even going so far as getting tips from the GOP, after Trump’s win. However by mid-March Dutton was trying to backpedal rapidly but it was too late. Clearly not all his staff got the memo (esp Jacinta Price… oh dear) and everything he did or said could be met with a variation of “hold on, last week you were saying x”.

Also I’d like to once again say thanks to the founders that gave us compulsory, preferential voting.

It’s insane to me that the greatest threat to women is dating men

Yet men are the leading cause of death for women. You’re correct, it is absolutely insane, but until those types of men can sort out their fragile masculinity problems here we are unfortunately.