Referendums generally fail, people don’t like changing the constitution full stop. I know quite a few left-leaning people that voted no because they wanted the voice to he legislated but not constitutionally enshrined.

Rhipidura leucophrys :)

He/she came right up to me! I was having lunch by the river and the little fella just ran up to me and started singing. They eat bugs and don’t really scavenge off people so I don’t think he was even after my food. He even hopped on my foot briefly!

So, the government’s picking up the funding slack… right?

… right?

Nothing escapes, not even light… awesome song, everything Arjen touches is gold.

I don’t know what to think about housing anymore, I’m just so tired. The new builds around my parents house look shoddy and just plain ugly, not to mention first thing developers do is remove any and all trees and put concrete over the entire block. “Nimby” has become such a buzzword and a scapegoat but like, it’s hard not to have a bit of empathy, and anecdotally lots of people would be supportive of these new developments if they weren’t all shit. These concrete jungle suburbs will be around for decades at least. But also, the housing crisis is real and developers are saying that red tape around building quality is slowing them down. I desperately want a place to live, nothing fancy but at least safe and liveable. Is it genuinely impossible to have density and build quality?

Been meaning to get into these guys. Album artwork is sick, awesome growls, and cool mastodon vibes in the music too. Will definitely listen to some more!

I think we agree here in the sense that MSO are within their rights to dismiss him. But I think that the public backlash is very predictable outcome, and the public are right to feel outraged at the MSO for this. I can understand they’re in a tough position but cancelling the soloist’s performance was really the nuclear option. The cancellation is a much bigger political statement than the soloists comments (which were ultimately about the composition anyway), and if that’s the statement the MSO wants to make they’re free to do so but they need to accept they’re being perceived as not only silencing their own artists, but also defending war crimes (whether that was their intention or not). Just terrible management of the situation.

Concert security is getting really stringent atm. With the government raising the terrorism threat to probable, large events are increasing security measures. Given how much publicity this has gotten, how controversial it is, plus how intensely passionate people are about the palestine/israel conflict, I can see why they wouldn’t want to go ahead with this. Someone was stabbed at a world music concert at the Perth concert hall last sunday too!

Eh, they played the ukranian national anthem before concerts in 2022. I could see where you’re coming from if the soloist actually said something controversial but his statement was literally along the lines of “war crimes are bad” - cancelling his performance for that is a much more inflammatory political statement (hence the huge backlash) than what he said in the first place imo.

It does seem like whatever integrity there was in politics is quickly vanishing. I’m relieved we don’t have quite the same attitude towards religion compared to the US at least. I think Australia is a long way off being a theocracy, whereas the US could be one as soon as next year.

Can’t mentally decline if you were never sound of mind in the first place!

The Mountain is probably their best and it’s also pretty accessible.

Pure nostalgia for me. I went on a small road trip for my high school leavers and had some Ayreon CDs playing the whole time. By the end of the trip everyone was singing along. Absolute classic.

Free them 😢

Shame, i thought Furiosa was awesome, although there were only about 5 people in the cinema. The critics seem to be giving pretty favourable reviews too, would definitely recommend going and checking it out. Hope this isnt the nail in the coffin of Mad Max.

I frothed over this song so much in high school. Changed the way I approached playing the drums, especially when Portnoy (usually over-the-top as we all know - in a good way!) comes in with a more simple, heavy beat during one of the breakdowns. Gotta be up there with DT’s best songs.