What made you want to throw a brick at the TV today

[142857]

I was watching one of those panel shows with the professional opinion givers on the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Commission - publicly owned station/s with traditionally a left-of-centre bias) and they were discussing skilled immigration.

They were talking about the shortage in Australia now of people studying Information Technology, and how of the 12,000 people studying IT, 8,000 are foreign students. Very few of these students are stopping in Australia once they complete their qualifications.

One of the panellists said "We should be stopping these people at the airports, throwing our arms around them and begging them to stay. The talented IT people in Australia are all going overseas and the foreign students don't want to stay here and work".

Dude. There is a reason why foreign students finish their degrees and head back overseas. They want jobs and commercial experience, and those are extremely hard to come by in Australia. So many people are buying the idea that the way to have a healthier IT industry in Australia is encouraging more people to work in the industry. When, in fact, it is the lack of employment opportunities that are driving people out of the industry in Australia.

I just read that 51% of qualified IT professionals in their twenties in Australia are NOT working in the IT industry. 51%. And it is common knowledge that there is a heavy bias by employers towards hiring younger people.

Meanwhile, people who are finishing contracts or being laid off in the real world of IT in Australia in 2013 are too often giving up on finding another job.

[skyblue1]

Talk about Syria

[Genesis]

Theres alot of stuff that would make me want to throw a brick at the TV. Yet all I do is yell in Klingon at the TV instead.

[MarioDoesntLoveBowser]

Does watching Star Wars episode II and III count as making me want to throw a brick at my television set ?

[d_olson27]

(09-10-2013 11:40 AM)MarioDoesntLoveBowser Wrote:  Does watching Star Wars episode II and III count as making me want to throw a brick at my television set ?

Absolutely! Well, Episode II does. I haven't seen Episode III because I saw Episode II.

[142857]

I have completely avoided the Star Wars prequels. I've caught snippets when they've been on TV, but I changed channels after a few minutes.

And Syria. If the Arab Spring has taught is anything, it's that even if the government is evil, things don't tend to get better when the rebels take over.

[MarioDoesntLoveBowser]

(09-10-2013 11:47 AM)d_olson27 Wrote:  

(09-10-2013 11:40 AM)MarioDoesntLoveBowser Wrote:  Does watching Star Wars episode II and III count as making me want to throw a brick at my television set ?

Absolutely! Well, Episode II does. I haven't seen Episode III because I saw Episode II.

Lol XD Well to save you the trouble and make it worth make it worth skipping, all I can say is that episode III was a lot like a teen drama because Anakin whines ... a lot ...

I was really disappointed in it because Anakin doesn't seem to keep continuity with the Darth Vader from the older movies. He whines and whines and whines ....

[142857]

I'm smiling at my mental image of Genesis yelling at the TV in Klingon.

[Alison]

Televisions are expensive! I'd resort to turning it off, rather than throwing bricks about.

Seriously though, I get fed up with all the hype at the moment on Australian TV about the election. There's been a change of government: get over it! It's cyclical and I have lived long enough to know that none of the parties ever stay in longer than a few years and each are as bad as the other, mouthing empty rhetoric and invective against each other.

And it seems that, as Terry Pratchett has said, the same people that cheer at your crowning, cheer at your beheading.

Another one that I get bored with is the apparently-constant fighting that NTs go on with in countries around the world. They act like so many preschoolers and I want to sit the lot of them on the Naughty Seat. This current trouble within Syria, for instance: whatever happened to letting people fight out their internal divisions by themselves? And I know it sounds unpopular, but if the rebels stopped fighting and melted back into the general population, the government would have nobody to fight back AGAINST. So to arm the rebels or go in guns blazing just prolongs the whole thing.

I'm old enough to remember when the Americans helped the "brave rebels" in Afghanistan against the Soviet Union. The "brave rebels" were the Taliban, so that worked REALLY well when they turned around and bit the US in the butt after the Soviets left. With the same weapons that the US had given them, in many cases.

[Genesis]

The Syria situation is bad enough... yet its not as worse as the State of Emergency in Pakistan in 2008. Musharraf resigned, and when he got out of exile in UK trying to come back... they are putting murder charges on him. (They claim that he organized Bhutto's Assassination.)

Shame Peoples Party of Pakistan.... seriously... for shame.