Simon Biddle

@RichardS7370 1 - Pixies / Surfer Rosa (5pts) 2 - Stone Roses / Stone Roses 3 - Guns n Roses / Appetite For Destruction 4 - NWA / Straight Outta Compton 5 - Crowded House / Crowded House #5debutalbums8589

Hi folks, happy weekend to all, let’s play #5DebutAlbums8589 For this round we are concentrating on debut albums released between 1985 - 89. Pick your top 5 in order of preference and reply to this thread along with the hashtag. Tough one this, I’m going with these five…

It's now unarguable that the war on Iran is one of the most blatant crimes of aggression in history. You now have not 1 but 2 external participants of the US-Iran talks (Oman’s foreign minister and the UK's National Security Advisor) who confirm that the US and Israel attacked despite Iran effectively meeting US conditions for a deal - ensuring it could never build a nuclear weapon, permanently. As per The Guardian article (theguardian.com/world/2026/mar…), Jonathan Powell "believed the path remained open to a negotiated solution to the long-running issue of how Iran could reassure the US that it was not seeking a nuclear weapon," and "UK officials [...] were impressed that Iran was prepared for the deal to be permanent." Concretely, this means the war wasn't a failure of diplomacy but a deliberate destruction of it. And it also means that the US and Israel have irresponsibly plunged the entire world in an unprecedented energy crisis, affecting the livelihoods of billions of people worldwide, when it was completely avoidable. It's beyond me how you can look at this and not conclude that the real threat all along wasn't Iran but the US-Israeli axis - they're the only parties at the table who wanted war and are making every person on the planet pay the price for it. Extraordinarily, even the UK National Security Advisor is now basically saying this.

Is it "how to shoot kids"?

@BernardKeane It is though of course much easier to speak the truth in opposition when it means nothing. Not saying Albanese shouldn’t be less gutless, but he’s got real diplomatic tradeoffs to consider.

Andrew Hastie states obvious truths about Trump that Albanese and his cronies are too gutless to say

@disco___cat @cosmicjester Whilst I don’t doubt there are some who sit in the Palestine-Russia quadrant, I’d suggest it’s a small percentage. I think you’re mischaracterising the majority of protesters who are just normal “libs” who hate us supporting a nominally western country committing mass war crimes.

@simonbiddle @cosmicjester I would hazard a guess that a large percentage of the people who were out protesting about Israel Palestine are either pro Russia or neutral at best. It’s only western ‘imperialism’ they have an issue with

looking forward to the demonstrations against this from the 'decolonisation' left

@ShmickThird On the one hand is kind of not cool the Red Sox had the losing pitcher and the final out for team USA (who had both been excellent the rest of the tournament). But we had one of the home runs for Venezuela in the final so I’ll call it a wash.

Venezuela being baseball world champions was not on my 2026 bingo card, but hey it’s fun. #WorldBaseballClassic

@cosmicjester @disco___cat 100%. Who would a protest against Russia be targeted towards? A protest against Israel’s actions though has at least some logic: our govt tacitly and sometimes explicitly supports Israel’s actions - the protests are aimed to move the needle on that.

@disco___cat Australia has closer relations with Israel than it does with Russia. If the protests are effective is another argument but they aren’t a like for like comparison

@Quillette @clairlemon Because Israel is a genocidal apartheid state and the US still has some connection to liberalism and a functioning international order??

Israel shows rare unity in the war against Iran's nuclear threat. Even opposition leader Yair Lapid calls it a "just war" due to the regime's genocidal ideology and pursuit of atomic weapons. The US remains deeply divided. Why the stark contrast? quillette.com/2026/03/13/par…

Planning deregulationists: here’s something great that regulations are stopping. Everybody: hey, that looks awesome, if we deregulate do we get that? Developers: hahahaha. No.

@disco___cat Sorry, it very slightly meets that aim whilst mostly putting money into pockets of high income earners. I guess it’s not terrible.

@simonbiddle Why?

👏 afr.com/policy/tax-and…

That's his fucking brother right there, a breakdown

Arrested for “wearing a singlet with a banned phrase” 😲 Do you all hear how ridiculous that sounds? How much it implies a tin pot dictatorship. Shame on everybody who supported this or stayed silent. Shame on everyone who supported erosion of free speech when it was convenient

I don’t support the slogan but I 100% condemn the arrest of people for displaying it (or any other words or symbols). But also … most of the left has little ground to stand on as they had zero commitment to free speech when it was those they disagreed with being silenced.

@HartWexford Where do they rank against parents complaining about the rising cost of private schools?

Of all the people I have no sympathy for, parents who complain that it's getting too expensive to buy their teenage children new cars are the ones I have no sympathy for the most.

@taipan168 That he has “skeptical of conspiracy theories” in his bio is just 👌

Check out the brain worms this person must have. 🤪 Firstly, it's an incredibly difficult decision to make to leave your family behind to face the consequences. Secondly, to believe that they are all some sort of spy/jihad network? Seriously? 🤪

@cosmicjester Harsh. Don’t love them but they have some good stuff. The Opener and their Like A Version cover of Maps both excellent tracks for me.

Anything by Camp Cope. Just a band I never understood the appeal of.

@HartWexford The rehabilitation of that turd by Gen-Z is just one of the many proof points that they’re the lamest generation yet.

@simonbiddle Good call

The Horses - Daryl Braithwaite