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“Ari” here, welcoming you back to This Week Online.
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This week had a dual theme of “ocean stuff” and “the devastating consequences of technology as applied to the human experience”.
School Apologises After Using ChatGPT to Write Email About Mass-Shooting
TikTok Promoted Macabre Suggestions After Missing Woman’s Body Found
‘I Was Fooled’: Influencer Apologises For Cooking and Eating a Great White Shark
Japanese Officials Investigate Mysterious Sphere That Washed Up on Beach
WHAT HAPPENED
17/02 – 24/02
- Australia’s just one big detention centre
- Meta will squeeze us for all we’re worth
- We have 2 music industries
- Inside the self-defence class for landlords
- Fit Check BITCH!
- Anniston v Jolie <<<< Pitt
- Our biggest corporations are BACK baby!!!
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AUSTRALIA’S JUST ONE BIG DETENTION CENTRE
The Federal Government has made good on an election promise to provide 19,000 refugees and asylum seekers a pathway to permanent protection in Australia. But oh, are there catches…
As Aleks Bliszczyk writes for VICE AU, current holders of Temporary Protection Visas (TPVs) and Safe Haven Enterprise Visas (SHEVs), who were subjected to the Abbott Government’s “cruel and misleadingly named Fast Track” visa status determination process, will be eligible to apply for Permanent Resolution of Status by the end of 2023.
These people have been held in administrative limbo for ten years, having had their human rights diminished and revoked, despite already living, working and paying taxes here.
But the Government’s action leaves out another 12,000 refugees in Australia who had arrived under similar circumstances but were refused “Fast Track” status.
“The only thing we ask the government, for almost 10 years, just to give us a permanent visa,” 25-year-old Tamil refugee, Prasanth Kumaravel, told VICE.
“It’s really, really heartbreaking every day.”
“Australia for us now is just another refugee camp.”
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META WILL SQUEEZE US FOR ALL WE’RE WORTH
When Overlord Zuck announced last week that Facebook and Instagram would offer a paid subscription tier in coming times, the cynics among us knew immediately that the End was no longer nigh, but behind us.
Social media is over as we know it. Now we go straight into the epilogue… the horrors unknowable and therefore all the weirder. We all saw what happened with Elon Musk and his Tweeter Blue. Now the ghastly apparition whipping the corpse of the once-great Meta thought “what a fabulous idea” and when Musk’s shit blew up, Zuck thought, “I can do it better”. And, learning from Musk’s mistakes, he probably will. He’ll succeed in absorbing every soul into his gigantic marketing dollar scheme, or blow the whole thing up trying.
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INSIDE THE SELF-DEFENCE CLASSES FOR LANDLORDS
As the housing crisis escalates, compounded by COVID fallout, cozzie livs, recession, whatever-else-the-fuck – landlords across the world are gearing up for some kind of uprising. You might think it’s sad that landlords have to learn self defence in order to do their job, but being a landlord is NOT a job.
In LA, a moratorium preventing landlords from evicting tenants who cited COVID-19 as the reason they couldn’t pay rent made landlord self-defence classes, taught by former traffic cop Carrie Rios.
“In COVID a lot of people lost their jobs, they lost their family, and the last thing they have is their house,” said Rios. “You’re taking the last thing they have. This is their worst day. I’m not trying to scare you, but you need to be prepared for that.
“That” being whatever the landlord might face when they try to evict a person out of the “last thing they have” on “their worst day”. And the only solution the landlords can fathom is to learn how to fight.
“People want to be Robin Hoods,” Apartment Association of Greater Los Angeles (AAGLA) executive director Dan Yukelson said. “They want to transfer wealth from a property to someone else. They want free rent. Now they say, ‘Housing is a human right.’ I mean, it’s crazy.”
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WE HAVE 2 MUSIC INDUSTRIES
There’s the traditional music industry, filled with surf rock bands of men, arranged like human spot-the-difference puzzles [impossible edition] and whatever else is trending on triple J at the minute. The Wiggles? Anyway, we have all of that.
And then there is Soundcloud.
Soundcloud is home to a thriving underground music scene. It always has been. But our mainstream music scene isn’t paying attention. Most of our greatest Soundcloud artists make it overseas first – before they’re even mentioned here. Is it because their sound is too “different”? Too “alternative” for the general populace? Just look to The Kid Laroi… or on a more emerging note: PANIA, daine, and YNG Martyr. Their success, online, allowed them to hop-skip over Australia’s crushing tall poppy syndrome and apparent thirst for packs of beach blondes yelling about drinking goon and smoking weed – and their talents are actually appreciated on a global arena.
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FIT CHECK BITCH!!
A couple Sundays ago, we trotted down to Victoria’s Pride. The ever-sexy queerest corner of Melbourne that is Gertrude/Smith street was filled with a spectacle of cuties, rainbows, bubbles, beverages, latex, flags and all manner of wondrousness. While there we naturally spoke with some beautiful people about their beautiful outfits.
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ANNISTON V JOLIE <<<<< PITT
The only winner in the Anniston versus Jolie tabloid war was Brad Pitt. As Constance Grady writes for Vox, “Brad Pitt didn’t have to prove that he was the right kind of man; that was already assumed. He existed to choose the right woman, and to prove her rightness with his approval.”
He didn’t have to be anything, he didn’t have to be good, successful, fatherly. He didn’t have to prove his worthiness for either woman. No one wondered which woman Brad Pitt deserved….
He had all the power then. What about now? Is this going to keep happening? Will we let it?
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OUR BIGGEST CORPORATIONS ARE BACK, BABY!!
Well, it’s been a difficult couple of years. But thanks to staff layoffs and tax breaks, our biggest corporations are back, baby!!
They’ve weathered the storm like true-blue battlers. Salt-of-the-earth type vibes. All dandy. And they’re making more money than ever.
Three major companies — Qantas, Commonwealth Bank and Santos — all reported record profits this week.
Qantas revealed a $1 billion half-year profit and $9.9 billion in revenue on Thursday. Commonwealth Bank last week reported a record half-year profit of $5.15 billion.
And to think those poor corporations mightn’t have made it. Thank god
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