New cases reported in the last 24 hours

0 new cases in QLD today (DONUT TIME)

Potential changes to restrictions from tomorrow (24/9)

" If we have another day with no community transmission tomorrow, the Chief Health Officer will review restrictions on social gatherings, aged care, and hospitals in South East Queensland." Source

Border Restrictions Update

As of 1st October the following regions of NSW will added to the border zone

Byron Shire
Ballina
City of Lismore
Richmond Valley (Casino and Evans Head)
Glen Innes
11 NSL LGA's on the QLD Border

NSW residents can apply for a border pass and travel around Queensland for any purpose, and Queenslanders can travel to those places as well.
Please visit the following link to view the full contact tracing list of places visited by confirmed cases: Current contact tracing alerts.

Cases to date

	Last 24 hours	Total
Confirmed cases	+0	1,153
Active cases	-8	5
Recovered	0	1,124
Current hospitalisations	+0	4
Patients currently in ICU	+0	0
Deaths	+0	6
Tests conducted	+4,879	1,077,563
Cases of First Nations people	+0	10

Likely source of infection

	Last 24 hours	Total
Locally Acquired—close contact with a confirmed case	+0	236
Locally Acquired—no known contact	+0	42
Interstate acquired	+0	21
Overseas acquired	+0	854
Under investigation	+0	0

Active cluster

Outbreak	Suburb	LGA	Last 24 hours	Total	Reported
Brisbane Youth Detention Centre / QCS academy	Wacol	Brisbane	-	48	Sept: 9. August: 31, 30, 29, 28, 26, 24, 23, 22, 20

Note: The above cluster information is accurate as at 23 September, 2020.

Sources:

New cases reported in the last 24 hours

0 new cases in QLD today

Border Restrictions Update

As of 1st October the following regions of NSW will added to the border zone - Byron Shire - Ballina - City of Lismore - Richmond Valley (Casino and Evans Head) - Glen Innes - 11 NSL LGA's on the QLD Border
NSW residents can apply for a border pass and travel around Queensland for any purpose, and Queenslanders can travel to those places as well.
Please visit the following link to view the full contact tracing list of places visited by confirmed cases: Current contact tracing alerts.

Cases to date

	Last 24 hours	Total
Confirmed cases	\0	1,153
Active cases	-1	16
Recovered	\0	1,124
Current hospitalisations	+0	4
Patients currently in ICU	+0	0
Deaths	+0	6
Tests conducted	+4,898	1,072,684
Cases of First Nations people	+0	10

Likely source of infection

	Last 24 hours	Total
Locally Acquired—close contact with a confirmed case	+0	236
Locally Acquired—no known contact	+0	42
Interstate acquired	+0	21
Overseas acquired	+0	854
Under investigation	+0	0

Active cluster

Outbreak	Suburb	LGA	Last 24 hours	Total	Reported
Brisbane Youth Detention Centre / QCS academy	Wacol	Brisbane	-	48	Sept: 9. August: 31, 30, 29, 28, 26, 24, 23, 22, 20

Affected educational institutions

Outbreak	Suburb	Last 24 hours	TOTAL cases	Reported
St Edmund's College - Catholic boys' school	Ipswich	-	1	Sept: 9

Note: The above cluster information is accurate as at 11 September, 2020.
Sources:

This is a cross post from a Medium article I wrote about this, I thought it might be interesting as the state election is next week.

The NSW State election is approaching. I decided it was time to find out what each of the parties had to say about their policies. What follows is a brief summary of all the independents and political parties running stand for. I have done by best to provide a good faith reading of these parties and, when relevant, have attempted to clearly notate any editorial comments.

Legislative council parties:

Shooters, Fishers, and Farmers

The Shooters, Fishers, and Farmers are an agrarian, social conservative, and libertarian party whose policy platform is based around ending the government regulation of environmental protections and standards, as well as laws about maintaining native biodiversity which often conflicts with crop plantings. Their main goal is to remove the ability of external forces (governments, courts, or activists) from interfering with the direct commercial goals of land owners as they prize individual property rights which they believe as violated by land reform legislation. Beyond this, they also aim to assist NSW farmers by pushing for drought assistance to combat the current prolonged drought, as well as pushing for further tax cuts aimed at farmers.
Like many other current right-wing groups, they have coalesced behind supporting the end of renewable subsidies and pushing for the building of more coal power stations. Uniquely, they also want to end the interconnection of NSW power to other states in a pseudo-isolationist move. This also means that they oppose many policies about regulating carbon and other pollutants, however as they also support deregulated fishing they are currently signalling their difference from the NSW National Party by wanting to prevent further mass fish deaths in the Murray Darling River.
As part of their right-wing libertarian streak, this consists of ending most government regulation of gun control, whilst also signalling support of ‘tough on crime’ policies and supporting the police and prison guards.

Socialist Alliance

The Socialist Alliance is a traditional socialist political party who are focused providing a more egalitarian society where wealthy individuals and corporations pay aggressively higher taxes to fund re-distributive policies increase the standard of living for lower income peoples. They also want to expand public transport along with taking privatised assets back into public ownership.
They also want to switch to a renewable energy economy and make NSW explicitly anti-racist and a safe haven for refugees. They also believe that our current electoral system is flawed so they wish to introduce a series of electoral reforms to introduce electoral recalls at all levels, and make all levels of government proportional instead of our current mix of representative and proportional government.

Sustainable Australia

Sustainable Australia is focused on what they see as the issue with our current immigration rate. Under their ideological view, having a high immigration is detrimental to Australia as it causes “over-development”, as their website claims, as well as increasing housing costs, and environmental damage. Whilst not explicitly stating it, they appear to be planning on addressing the predicted losses in economic growth from their policies through diversifying the economy. This anti-immigration view covers refugees, as whilst they will allow them to enter the country they believe they should stay around their local region and work be done to improve safety there.
From their policy platform, it appears as if Sustainable Australia wants to limit overseas trade as they have policies on restarting Australian manufacturingjobs, which would assist our economy if we were no longer utilising low cost overseas manufacturing sources. However, they appear to be on-board with the current environmental consensus as they want to transition to a renewable energy economy and want to protect natural lands.

Greens

As one of the minor major parties, most of their policy platform should be somewhat known. It is dominated by their positions on the environment where they want to rapidly transition towards an entirely renewable energy sector, as well as more general policies about reversing environmental pollution of air, land, and water-bodies. Broadly, they are the most prominent socially and economically progressive party in NSW at the moment. However, they are anti-genetically modified crops [Ed. note — this is due to a flawed belief that ‘organic’ food is better than modified, which is not supported by any current research consensus.]
Of note is a current “civil war” within the NSW Greens between the two faction which respectively believe that the Greens should be focused entirely on the environment, and the other who believe that they should be a vehicle for broader democratic socialist policies. However, there has yet to be any noticeable policy arguments (publicly at least) around this, so the factional struggle may be personality based.

Animal Justice Party

The animal justice party is a leftist political organisation based strongly around broadening animal rights and protections. The majority of their policies are to do with ending the killing, or harming of animals in any way. Seem to want to end the use of companion animals (pets) in general but are addressing that bit by bit by limiting how you can adopt animals. They also view population growth as bad for animals and the environment and thus believe we should keep growth at replacement rate, which implies limiting immigration. However, limited policy detail on environmental and climate action policies, broadly says we need a carbon tax and to shift to a renewable power economy.

Advance

Advance is actually a coalition of the Advance Australia Party and the Motoring Enthusiasts. Their policies goals seem to be addressing housing affordability, increasing Sydney’s desirability as a tourist destination, anti-gambling — specifically Barangaroo, desiring the return of the Sydney Monorail — which appears to be driven by their distaste of the Light Rail, pro-electric cars, and “fixing the roads”. Not sure on their political alignment, appear to be a centrist neoliberal party without a social justice platform or any re-distributive policies.

FLUX

Ah, FLUX. FLUX is not a political party in the traditional sense as they have no actual policies in of themselves. They’re a single issue party, which wants to more or less end our Representational Democracy model and replace it with an electronic platform which is a mix of Direct, Representational, and Delegate Democracy where you use ‘an app’ to either directly vote, or nominate someone to vote for you on every piece of legislation in parliament. Legislation, which I assume is also crowd sourced?
[Ed. note — INTERESTING. Meow-Ludo Meow-Meow (real person) who has been a candidate for the Science Party (formerly the Future Party, now running as the James Jansson group) for the last couple of elections has moved to FLUX and is the candidate for Willoughby. You may know him as the dude who put the OPAL chip inside his hand.]

LaboCountry Labor

NSW Labor has a typical modern centre-left policy platform. However, of note is their recent moves to ban single use plastic bags, phase out single use plastics, invest ~$140 million into local recycling projects, and of particular note they claim to want to seek a treaty with the NSW indigenous peopleswhich would replicate similar treaties in Canada and New Zealand. This treaty would cover: recognition of historical wrongs, addressing health and education services, and language rights.
This election, NSW Labor is trying to differentiate themselves from the Liberal Party by emphasising their goals to decrease housing and hospital costs, as well as addressing industrial concerns, such as wage theft and underpayment, as well as providing increased services such as more education facilities and free public transport for children. Another policy difference is their goal to divert the currently allocated funds for stadium redevelopments towards other policies such as renewable powered air conditioning for public schools.
They also wish to legislate 10 days paid domestic violence pay, in addition to investing $158 million towards building new domestic violence and sexual assault courts, increased victim compensation, and increased funding to shelters and advocacy groups.

Liberal/The Nationals

The Liberal/National coalition will be running this campaign based on their record over the last eight years which has constituted increased building of private toll motorways as well as the building of more commuter lines, specifically the light rail and North-West Metro. The party however has been dogged by their more draconian policies around nightlife and music policiesin general. This has been paired with their alleged failures on environmental policies based on the recent spate of mass fish deaths in regional NSW resulting from widespread rorting of water resources by the large commercial cotton farms.

Australian Conservatives

The Australian Conservatives are a factional splinter of the Liberal Party of Australia. They were started by Cory Bernardi who left the party because of his views of the “corrosive left” of the Liberal Party. As such, they are an extremely conservative party. Their policy agenda does not meaningfully move away from orthodox right-wing business politics, and government regulation, as they are libertarian on this front. Their main focus is on ‘white resentment’ politics. This is as their most detailed policy statements deal with ending “gender reassignment” and “political indoctrination”. Their main goals is to realign Australian with their conservative views on what it means to be an Australian, that is to be white and hetero-normative [Ed.]. Broadly they are quite similar to the current Republican party in American in terms of their social and economic views. This party is part of the current wave of populist(whilst not actually being populist as their policies will benefit the 1% primarily) “Western Civilisation” politics based around Nationalism and anti-leftism.

Keep Sydney Open

Keep Sydney Open appear to be a civil libertarian party based around getting the government and its regulation out of the music scene and Sydney nightlife. Their main party agenda is the end the Sydney Lockout laws and the current government’s policies around policing music festivals. Have no really stated political goals outside of this niche beyond some language around a stronger ICAC, and introducing 24 hr public transport. Of note, not actually running a candidate in the Seat of Sydney, where the lockout laws apply.

Liberal Democrats

The Liberal Democrats are an aggressively libertarian party whose only elected member is David Leyonhjelm. The main thrust of this party is promoting “individual liberty”, which is mostly expressed as reducing the ability of governments to enact regulatory legislation, and letting businesses pay less tax. They see effectively no place for the government beyond Defence, and maintaining property rights.
Editorial: the Liberal Democrats use a very American strategy of campaigning, which is “triggering the left”. They’ve also engaged in sexist and racist behaviours in their effort to gain votes from the same constituency of One Nation, Australian Conservatives, and Men’s Rights Activists.

Voluntary Euthanasia Party

The VEP are a single issue party, and that is enacting legislation for voluntary assisted dying. They appear to be a party dedicated to ensuring quality of life up until death through both allowing death to happen on your own terms, increasing palliative care, and improving access to medical cannabis. Beyond that, they claim to be a moderate progressive party and will vote on a case by case basis for all legislation under that framework.

Christian Democratic Party

Otherwise known as the Fred Nile Christian Democratic party. A Christian religious party aiming to “glorify God in government”. Under that framework, are pro-business. Their main niche is ensuring that NSW remains a tacitly Christian state by legislating SRE classes (they’re the ones who made SRE mandatory and that you have to specifically opt out, whilst also making information about that hard to find). This party is extremely conservative about sexuality and gender identity and believe that there is only two gendersand you should only be heterosexual, and thus want to remove the Safe Schools program.

Small Business Party

Another neoliberal business party whose policy focus is on cutting business taxes and regulation, claiming they’re a drain on the economy. This extends to wanting to reduce housing Stamp duties and power prices. Also are anti-immigration as they claiming current NSW immigration is unsustainable and there is no place for them here. [Ed. note — current immigration rate is reason we’re not in a recession at the moment.]

Pauline Hanson’s One Nation

One Nation is the most prevalent of the current Australian mainstream populist (whilst not being popular) ‘white resentment’ political parties. Under the NSW leader Mark Latham — who has a colourful past — the party has taken a specifically Men’s Rights Activist lens as it has explicit platforms on their idea that white men are being repressed in our society.

Outlaw the new Left-wing discrimination against men, boys, Christians and white people, including a ban on discriminatory ‘employment quotas’ and segregationist ‘safe spaces’ — One Nation policy outline

This platform extends towards explicitly racist policies, and removing recognition of transgender people’s rights. These policies manifest themselves through their anti-Islamist rhetoric, claiming that they’ll end “Islamic Radicalisation in schools”, being anti-multiculturalism, and putting forward a policy that only individuals who “pass” a genetic test [Ed. note — which is bullshit] can get Indigenous peoples specific social welfare.
These policies around Indigenous peoples also extend to the Indigenous Land Reform Councils as they claim they’re hoarding billions of dollars which should be taken. Like other prominent white resentment parties, One Nation also supports pro-business reforms such as protectionist policies to maintain monopolies, and cutting their taxes and regulations, as well as being anti-renewable energy and fixated on coal power.

Seniors United Party of Australia (group G)

The Seniors United Party is pushing forward a policy agenda aimed specifically at senior citizens, such as being focused on increased funding and undoing of Liberal/National cuts to superannuation. They also wants oversight and regulation of aged care providers. However, like many other parties running in this election, they are a anti-immigration party and wants to see reduced in overall migration levels.

Monaghan and Monaghan (group H)

This is a husband and wife duo from the northern beaches and the majority of policies appear to be focused on a “not in my backyard (NIMBY)” agenda in regards to the Northern Beaches. However also wants to ban brothels and 24/7 gambling, and very specifically the Woolworths in Mosman.

Jeremy Buckingham Greens splinter group (group L)

Buckingham is a former Greens MLC who left/got kicked out of the party over allegations he committed an act of “sexual violence”* towards a staff member. This was investigated and dropped due to insufficient evidence to substantiate the allegation. Teamed up with Alan Jones to help stop coal seam gas mining
His policies are a little hard to nail down as his content is limited on his website, but based around his previous statements it broadly aligns with the environmental aspects of his former party, the NSW Greens. Of note however, is his desired collaboration with American Tech Baron, Elon Musk, to build a tunnel through the Blue Mountains from Western Sydney to Lithgow.
\allegation was revealed under parliamentary privilege by Newtown MP Jenny Leong. May have been done as part of the current NSW Greens civil war over whether or not they should be a climate action party or a more broadly socialist party.*

James Jansson (group S)

A re-branding of the Science Party as they aren’t registered at State level. Focused on increased transportation, housing density, etc. Seem to be greenish Radical Centrist party with focus on changing regulation and increasing funding without really rocking the boat or doing anything substantial.

Various Independents

Tony Edwards: no clear policy directions stated, with more of a general anti-right perspective.
Ellie Robinson: Anti-corruption platform and wants to address climate change, disability rights, animal justice, indigenous rights.
John Brett: anti-national debt candidate, focus on removing foreign involvement and getting more people back into trade jobs.
Ron Bogan: pro euthanasia, helping out senior citizens, pro-National Energy Guarantee (therefore neoliberal on climate action), focus on the Shire and Western Sydney. Campaign slogan — “put a bogan in parliament”
John Hunter: no information online about him.
Bryn Hutchinson: “progressive independent” — focus on police accountability and a NSW Human Rights Act.
Danny Lim: this is the guy with the billboard hanging around Newtown and the city who’s billboard said “Tony [Abbott] you cvn’t.” From what I can find, running principles of egalitarianism, anti-racism, broadly leftist, pro-renewable energy, investing in public healthcare, removing private healthcare insurance rebate, increasing refugee intake.
Andre Brokman: found his Medium blog — pro-Council amalgamations to increase centralisation and reduce ‘chaos’ in Sydney planning, appears to be a transportation enthusiast. His bio: “Andre Brokman is a full time city planning student and part time uber driver”

I am a member of the New South Wales RFS, and this post is not representative of the position of the organisation, nor my brigade. Our code of conduct and standards prohibit public comments in any official manner, and so this is a private statement that I am making because this has been a long season (scarcely over) and the tradewinds of the 24 hour news cycle and the court of public opinion means that this subject is the flavour of the month. What I am asking for is a sense of sanity and some measure of practical understanding regarding the question of paying volunteers.
I have been in the service for eight years, and it is true that this is the worst fire season many of us have seen. We have people who have served in fires including 1994, 1997, and 2001, with '94 being considered the 'big one' against which we are measuring the current conditions.
The thing is... public memory is short. My family home in Sydney was evacuated in 1994 - long before I joined the service - but most of the residents who currently live in the area were not living there in 2001, let alone 1994. They do not understand what they are facing because they have never seen it before, and it's natural to fear the unknown.
This is the 'once in a generation fire' that we trained for. This is something the current group of firefighters will recall in years to come as being their first major experience on a running fireground that claimed both lives and homes. This is the literal baptism of fire that future Captains will use as a training experience for the next generation.
This post - this plea - is not about the causes or the politics. That is another matter, and one that you will not find unity on even within the RFS itself. We are a 'broad church' with dedicated members from all parts of the political spectrum, and while I find myself in stark disagreement with many of them on many topics concerning the environment and the future of the world we live in - there is one thing that binds us together as friends, colleagues, and indeed family. And that is our sense of community.
We are overwhelmed by the outpouring of public concern for our welfare and the support you all give us. It is humbling, and that endless, warm, and wonderful feeling of gratitude for our service is the primary reason we continue to do this. Very few of my days in the RFS are filled with firefighting - most days in uniform are spent training, and others are spent at community events like school fetes where we help little kids in and out of our fire trucks. Their smiles, their laughter, are the best thing in the world and make so much of what we do worth it. To have their parents hold us up as positive role models while thanking us for what we do is a great and fulfilling feeling that often offsets work lives that can be otherwise shallow and ho-hum. We work to pay the bills. We fight fires to feed the soul.
What am I saying?
I am saying I do not want to be paid.
And as a member of this specific firefighting agency, I never want to be paid, nor do I believe we should be. If I did wish to be paid... I would pursue a career in Fire and Rescue NSW, who are our salaried metropolitan service.
I believe the moment you place a price on the service of volunteers, you risk damaging our community. Like any other workplace, I love the RFS and stay with it because of the people I work with. We have - for whatever our individual motivations may be - the same core values of service and community. If the policymakers make a precedent that says we will be paid for that time... then you open the culture of the service to those opportunists who do it for the cash as their primary motivator.
This would be horrific, and none of us want it.
What we do want is some measure of understanding from those we serve. There is a great deal of misinformation out there about what we do and do not receive, and the hard truth of the matter is that in an organisation as large as this one... the system is not perfect.
RFS brigades are funded primarily by their local councils - and not the state government. Our station, and many of our issued pieces of equipment come from our local district (which in Sydney carries with it some good amount of capital) and this is always going to vary from region to region. New South Wales is four times the size of the UK, and many of our country brethren in regional towns with limited money do not receive the same quality of equipment that we do here in the greater Sydney metropolitan region.
I cannot speak for those regional brigades, but I can speak of them. I have been out there to places like Casino in the Northern Rivers early in this season, and out to places like Tenterfield and Buxton. I've seen the threadbare equipment they get by on, and I've seen their hospitality when the city slicker Strike Teams ride in from Sydney to assist their aging, tired equipment with half a dozen brand new heavy tankers. They are amazing people who - though separated by almost a thousand kilometers - wore the same uniform, fed us, looked after us for weeks on end.
As brigades - as firefighting units - they deserve better.
As members of the RFS, we are considered state government employees - but we do not receive credit for work for the dole programs, despite however many hundreds of hours we dedicate to this every year,
As firefighters, we often seek to better our own equipment by purchasing better safety gear (better helmets, masks, gloves, or tools), but we are not permitted to claim the tax back at the end of the financial year,
And as employees of other organisations who pay our bills and ensure we have food on our family's tables, we are grateful for the opportunity to do what it is that we do.
But the service is unequivocal - Our paid work and our families come first. The RFS is a hobby, no matter how the media may present us. And this understanding, even in times like this, must cut both ways.
I see so many members of the public calling for the 'naming and shaming' of employers who do not provide paid leave for emergency services duties. A cursory look at the public comments on stories about these fires run by the mainstream media will give you plenty of examples of this. Here's the other side: My wife is a small business owner. If I worked for her, it would be fiscally impossible on the margins of that business to pay me to disappear from work for weeks at stretch to do a volunteer service that gives nothing to the business. She has an obligation to her family as much as I do... so why would I want anyone to begrudge her for that reality?
I am fortunate that I work for a large company that does allow this and I am grateful to them.
Misdirected anger doesn't help us. I appreciate your empathy, and I love your support - but find reason in the arguments.
There are many ways of giving volunteers the support we need. The government could let us claim back the tax we pay on gear, and give our brigades and our districts better funding. They could give financial support to employers who demonstrate that they support us.
But please... do not make this about our own remuneration. Whatever our service may be, we are all capable of making our own decisions - and the choice to remain in the field for so long is ultimately our personal responsibility, and one we are well educated about.
I've said enough, and truth be told I don't know how much more I can say without repeating myself or just going into trivialities.
If you've made it this far... Thank you for reading.

Roy "Sarge" Jovanovic lounged in his pilot's chair scrolling through ship designs, trying to find the one that would make the most tempting target. A screen to his left listed all of the transponder codes in the ship's database and the fleets with which they were associated, a screen to his right held a dizzying array of maps, graphs, news searches, and other information about shipjackings in the local sector over the past year, and the front screen showed a live feed from a scout drone's camera, floating about a klick off the port bow to give him a good view of the ship's current appearance.
Roy was the executive officer of one of the many small, unaffiliated fleets that plied the spacelanes in Human territory. Once humanity finally got around to colonizing other solar systems, seemingly everyone on Earth wanted their own slice of the interstellar pie, but not everyone had the resources for it. Where many governments and international corporations commissioned their own fleets, and the largest governments and megacorps were even able to build multiple fleets for their various departments and business units, a lot of the smaller nations and domestic companies simply didn't have the funds for more than one or two ground-to-orbit transports, if that. So dozens of independent fleets started popping up to service those needs; these fleets often came with range limitations, exorbitant fees, slow jump drives, low cargo capacities, and other annoyances, but their clients couldn't exactly afford to be picky.
He eyed a particular scatter plot to his right for a moment, pondering, then tapped a name on his left. "Hello Alibaba," he called, "Set ship identity to FENL." The ship's virtual assistant acknowledged the request with a cheerful chime. Within moments the front screen showed that the ship's hull now bore the bright and blocky red-and-green-with-yellow-highlights pattern of the Frota Estrela Nacional de Lisbon, the Portuguese starfleet, and the ship's bland flattened-oblong shape now boasted the sweeping curves associated with products of the Lisbon shipyards, thanks to some incredibly illegal nanofabricators placed strategically throughout the hull; actual physical modifications would hold up much better to EMPs and invasive sensor scans than the standard holographic emitters that freelancers generally used.
Independent fleets were hired for all sorts of tasks of all degrees of legality, depending on their individual capabilities. Sometimes they were glorified delivery drones, sometimes ~~pirates~~ asset acquisition specialists, sometimes scouts for colony fleets, sometimes covert assets for larger organizations who wanted to keep their hands clean. Roy's fleet, Charlie's Chameleons, was a well-equipped and experienced mercenary fleet and one of the few trusted to play the deniable-asset role, as they were doing now. While humanity was nearly a decade into the process of officially integrating with the larger galactic society and it would probably be a decade more before their laws, technology, and such were fully integrated with the other species', unsavory types had already set up shop near the borders of Human territory years before and had started to make a nuisance of themselves, and now several Human colonies were quietly starting to take steps to deal with them.
The Chameleons' current target was one Rit!tkatp, an unpronounceably-named and incredibly cunning member of a major T!ka!irtk gang that had steamrolled the other criminal organizations in several systems a few years back and was now running basically every illegal enterprise in the sector from black marketeering to smuggling to things best left unmentioned. If that gang was the Italian Mafia in Space--and they did try to cultivate that impression, to the extent that a bunch of ugly pseudo-insectoids could pull off the "gentleman criminal" look, anyway--then Rit!tkatp was their Godfather, and he had a particular penchant for shipjacking that had led the colonies of Abydos Prime, Malcor III, and Newer Zealand to hire the Chameleons to do something about it, before the gang scared away all shipping from their respective solar systems and left them cut off from the wider sector.
The virtual assistant chimed again. "Ship designation?" it asked in a dispassionate, slightly Chinese-accented voice. Roy tapped his chin and stared at his right screen, not responding. "Ship designation?" the ship asked again after a brief pause, and Roy waved a hand in irritation. "Bah, that won't work. He goes after eighty-three percent of FENL shipping in this region, but we still don't know what makes the bastard pick one ship over another and we can't afford to guess wrong."
"That's a bit long for a name, boss, and it's not Portuguese," the ship remarked, this time in a much more human-like voice and one tinged heavily with sarcasm.
Roy glared briefly in the general direction of the front viewport, trusting that the ship's ex-military AI, Karma, would have no trouble seeing his expression through one of its many cameras scattered throughout the bridge. (Having an AI on a non-military vessel was just as illegal as the transponder database and the nanofabricators. Something of a running theme with the Chameleons, really.)
"What did I say about breaking character?" he asked mildly.
"Hey, I have to play dumb when clients are around, so I have to get my snark on when I can," Karma replied. "Plus, Charlie decided on this personality when you know I like playing Siri better, so you can just deal with disappointment. And before you ask, no, I wasn't able to find any good correlations in the FENL data either, so if you haven't had any brilliant ideas in the past ten seconds you might as well try another one."
"Fine," Roy grumbled. A bit more scrolling and pondering, then: "Hello Alibaba--" "Still right here, boss." "Hello Alibaba, set ship identity to IDF." As the cheery yellow-and-blue-circles pattern of the Ikea Delivery Fleet rapidly painted itself across the hull, Karma asked, "You're thinking he might go for quantity over quality, then, boss?"
Roy glared again, then sighed, giving in. "Maybe. We know he likes the bigger consumer goods shipments, for whatever reason, but none have come through here in a while so he might go for a smaller cargo."
"Makes sense. Designation?"
"Hmm. The IDF Some Assembly Required."
"Good one, boss."
"Nobody asked you."
(The first generation of Earth starships bore exactly the kinds of names one would expect. Every country had so many ships named for historical and pop culture references--the most popular in America being Serenity, Millennium Falcon, and Enterprise among the civilian fleets and Washington, Midway, and also Enterprise among the military fleets--that even prepending ship designations wasn't enough to tell them apart. That, plus several fleets being sued into bankruptcy by Disney's intellectual property division, made most everyone change naming conventions. After First Contact, when it was discovered that a short-irreverent-phrases scheme was both unique among known spacefaring species and also incredibly irritating to quite a few of them, even the most humorless bureaucrat was happy to go along with the trend; the first few years even saw informal contests for the most innuendo-laden ship names until the diplomatic corps begged for it to stop so they wouldn't have to keep explaining the jokes to other species' fleet registrars.)
Within seconds the ship's new name was added to the hull and the ship's transponder was switched to broadcast the new identity, but Roy still wasn't satisfied. "That won't work either. They never send high-tech stuff in their midrange transports, so there's no way he wouldn't pick up the signature of the bombs or the trackers, or both."
"I think maybe you're being too paranoid, boss. T!ka!irtk scanners aren't that advanced compared to Human ones. We can probably risk it."
"Easy for you to say; if he blows us out of the sky, you can just reload from backup. Let's see. Give me SAF colors, designation Not All That Glitters. No, cancel that, same problem...."
Their wannabe Space Don Corleone was one of the best in the business. His organization operated in eighty sectors falling under at least fifteen different species' legal jurisdictions, and not once had any court managed to get any allegations to stick. Rit!tkatp worked through shell companies of shell companies, always had bullet- and plasma-proof alibis, employed legions of lawyers to ensure he never saw the inside of a law enforcement vehicle (much less a jail cell), never put his name on anything if he could help it, and never left witnesses in any state to testify against him. At least three Earth-based governments and several colonial fleets had task forces waiting on hot standby at all times to jump in, arrest the gangster, and seize his assets the moment he gave them the slightest excuse...but he never gave them that excuse, and so their ships were continually restrained by leashes of red tape and impotent fury.
The Chameleons' employers were well aware that they weren't exactly squeaky clean themselves--very few of the transponder codes they used were obtained through legal freelance work, and "aftermarket modifications" didn't begin to cover what had been done to the jump cores and shield generators of the five ships in their small but heavily-armed fleet--but figured, hey, the legitimate government forces can't do squat without evidence and it takes a thief to catch a thief, so here they were.
The next hour or so passed slowly as Roy thought up and discarded dozens of possible fake identities that might tempt Rit!tkatp into a trap, accompanied by Karma's ever-so-helpful running commentary, from the APF Free Two-Jump Shipping ("You know we don't have enough ships to fake an Amazon convoy") to the RSN Duke Duke Duke Duke of Oil ("Nah, he hasn't jacked any Saudi ships since that new petroleum refinery started up on Epsilon Eridani 3") to the RKF Package Delivers You ("He has friends in the Russian Federation and you don't speak Russian, you'd give the game away if he has native speakers in any of his picket ships") to the NSWS Beware of Drop Bears ("Come on, boss, Newer Zealand would never allow a Newer South Wales ship in their territory after that last incident").
Finally, Roy slammed a fist on his armrest, cutting off Karma's latest comment. "This isn't going to work. We're not the first ones to try something like this, and no one's ever pulled the wool over that bastard's compound eyes before. We have to try something new, but how can you possibly catch a gangster who's thought of everything!?" He dropped his head into his hands and gave a muffled order through his fingers to recall the drone and reset everything to defaults.
"You sure, boss? For what they're paying us, you really want to just let Space Tony Soprano off the hook like that?" Karma asked as the drone headed back toward its hangar and the ship's outlines flattened out into blandness. "You tell Charlie you're out of ideas and she's not going to be happy, and after all the wining-and-dining she had to do for the bigwigs on that New Phobos gig, neither is her bank account."
For a long moment, Roy just sat there, thinking, as a smile slowly grew on his face. "Bank account, huh," he murmured to himself, then lifted his head and spoke with renewed enthusiasm. "Karma, change of plans. Load up the Skreaming Skulls paint jobs on all the ships, and then I'll need to talk to the captain."
A burst of static blasted from the speakers before Karma responded, "Sorry, boss, had to do a systems check on my hearing. I could've sworn you just said the Skreaming Skulls."
"You heard me."
"The ridiculously-over-the-top space pirate getup you use when clients just want tons of property damage and for us to scare the bejesus out of whoever the target is? The one that would make me bluescreen with embarrassment if it were possible for my personality template to have gone through a goth phase in its youth? The one with absolutely zero capability for stealth or discretion whatsoever? That Skreaming Skulls?"
"That's the one."
"Are you insane? What happened to being subtle?
"Probably. And fuck 'subtle'."
"Well...you're the boss. Just don't mind me if I take a fresh backup and sync it back to base before we go."
"You do that. Now, give me a minute to write up a proposal and then ring up the captain."
A little while later, Roy leaned back comfortably as the face of Captain Charlotte "Charlie" van den Heuvel filled the screen in front of him. The pair of welding goggles perched on her forehead indicated that he'd caught her in the middle of fixing something, probably the dodgy recirculator on Chameleon One that kept breaking because they hadn't had the time or money to give the life support systems the full overhaul they needed.
"Sarge! I was beginning to think I wasn't going to hear from you today."
"I keep telling you, I hate that nickname."
"Well, tough. Captain's orders. I take it you've figured out a decoy job that'll fool every last one of those bugs?"
"Nope, not a clue!" Roy said with a cheery grin, causing the captain to lose her own grin. "Complete change of plans, and I think you'll like the new plan. I think it's time we called in the big guns."
Charlie raised an eyebrow. "We don't have big guns, Sarge. The Chameleon Base retrofit got delayed, remember?"
"Not those big guns," Roy shook his head as he sent his proposal over to her. "Those big guns."
The captain read it over, as did the instances of Karma on both Roy's ship and hers, then whistled softly. "Gutsy, and stupid, but he'll never see it coming. Gold star, Roy. I'll tell Ace, Tiny, and Eagle to prep for departure. Briefing in twenty, jets up in forty."
A space station floated in the void, far off the established spacelanes and nowhere near anything resembling a planet, or even a large asteroid. Its only company was a fleet of ships and a handful of smaller defense stations, ranging in quality from the finest models that laundered money could buy to lightly used models that had been repurposed after what was left of their prior owners had been rinsed off of the bulkheads. The former sort had been built with the sorts of odd angles and strange proportions that their T!ka!irtk owners found aesthetically appealing and other species found headache-inducing, while the latter sort had been retrofitted to that design as best as possible, and in both cases they were all decorated in a manner that appeared to be boring sheets of uniform whiteness to those inferior species whose visual organs were limited to sensing what they laughably termed the "visible" spectrum of light.
This gathering of vessels was not hidden nor kept secret in any way, despite its remoteness. On the contrary, its master Rit!tkatp delighted in welcoming all comers to enjoy the creature comforts of his station, whether their tastes lay with gambling, racing, mind-altering substances, negotiable affections, or even more exotic pursuits. All beings, from the poorest sight-seer to the most inquisitive government investigator, were invited to partake in its pleasures--provided, of course, that they did not stick their olfactory organs where they didn't belong.
On this particular occasion, Rit!tkatp, patriarch of his extended family and clutch-master of the station, reclined regally in something that only a member of his species would recognize as a chair, as two of his employees filed his dorsal phalanges and several more polished his forearm plates. The T!ka!irtk species was semi-insectoid and covered with something that wasn't quite an exoskeleton, from which protruded many bony outgrowth that served both as defensive spines and as sensory apparatus. They had four bulbous eyes, two compound eyes for seeing motion and two simple eyes for distance vision; four arms and four legs, all multi-jointed and bone-plated; and a mouth both filled with sharp teeth and ringed by pedipalps.
The memoirs of the Human diplomat who had first made contact with the T!ka!irtk famously described her first impression of them being "the result of a drunken orgy between a praying mantis, a wolf spider, and the ugliest porcupine on Earth," and if anything she was being too kind.
Rit!tkatp enjoyed surveying his domain from the control center that was the heart and brain of the station. The clatter of dice rolling in the gambling hall, the rustling of smuggled goods passing through hangars not depicted on the station blueprints, the pathetic wails of those who required encouragement to repay their loans in a timely fashion...these sounds were music to his aural receptors, the rhythm by which he lived his life.
Alas, a flashing light on the proximity sensor board informed him that the intricate symphony of station operations was shortly to be interrupted by an unplanned intermission.
"Look alive, people," the captain's voice sounded in everyone's earpiece, "we have reversion in two minutes. Remember, don't take any unnecessary risks, don't worry about picking good targets, just keep firing at anything and everything in weapons range until you get the signal, then stall as long as you can." Acknowledgements came from Chameleon One through Chameleon Five, and each ship's crew performed a few last-minute equipment checks.
"Cortana, status summary for all ship systems," Roy called. "All systems green," came the cool synthesized voice of the virtual assistant, followed by Karma's voice adding, "Except the long-range transmitters, which are...blue, I guess, since someone decided that pirates like Cortana for whatever reason. Or whatever other color you'd give a system that I'm giving extra-special attention to, so that I can transmit myself out of the mess you meatbags are about to get yourselves into."
The bridge crew laughed, one calling out, "We love you too, Karma!" as the timer ticked down toward zero. The navigator started counting down with it: "Reversion in three...two...one...now!"
Right on cue, the HMS Dead To Rights, Seasons Don't Fear The..., No Kill Like Overkill, Gallows Humor, and Do Unto Others, Repeat As Necessary of the infamous Skreaming Skulls Skwadron popped into existence in a spasm of warped spacetime and hilariously bad graffiti. Each ship immediately unloaded every railgun, missile tube, plasma launcher, and drone fighter on board at the nearest target. They'd chosen their approach vector very carefully to ensure that no civilian ships were in the line of fire, just Rit!tkatp's goons. There were likely to be few civilians around in any case, as station security didn't like having too many ships arriving or departing at any given time.
The ensuing three minutes or so were the highlight of Roy's career thus far. Nothing like blowing up bad guys with no concern for ammo limits or mission objectives to relieve some stress.
But far too soon, the party was over.
"Bad news, boss," Karma called urgently, "we've got a frigate at our two o'clock. Make that three. Make that six. Um. Make that a six and two drone carriers." Roy glanced to the tactical display, disbelieving, but the AI was right: somehow, a mere gentleman crime boss had not one, not two, but eight capital ships at his disposal--and that's just what he had within jump distance on short notice. That would certainly explain how he'd managed some of the more impossible-sounding feats attributed to him, and why most local pirate crews would refuse to cross him for any reason and also refuse to say why. Must have bribed a shipyard or something...or, hell, maybe they were a present from some species that wasn't a big fan of humanity and would love to see someone meddle with their affairs.
Vastly increased danger aside, though, it didn't change the Chameleons' mission profile. The frigates had almost reached firing distance when Ace made his move: in the most hectic region of the battle, two T!ka!irtk gunboats went charging for the No Kill Like Overkill, both sides firing volley after volley of missiles and countermeasures at each other, and only two ships came out the other side of the expanding field of shrapnel and debris that resulted from the skirmish.
On sensors, the two surviving ships were the two T!ka!irtk gunboats, one heavily damaged and one mostly fine, and the expanding hull fragments of Chameleon Three were all that was left of the fake Skreaming Skulls ship; in reality, however, one of the gunboats had been destroyed and, in the sensor-scrambling confusion, Chameleon Three had swiftly scanned its profile and transponder and taken its place. The "damaged gunboat" turned tail and limped back to "its" hangar, immediately forgotten by its fellows.
The plan at that point had been to keep blowing things up while Ace worked to keep the attention on the other four ships, but the frigates changed things. It was all the Skulls could do to avoid the capital ships' guns, and despite some amazing piloting from Tiny and crack shooting from all the Chameleon gunners they shortly found themselves captured by tractor beams and dragged helplessly within range of the station's even larger guns. The crews' former high spirits were understandably shaken, but Roy reassured the crew of Chameleon Two that if they hadn't been reduced to atoms yet they'd probably come out of this alive so just sit tight and wait and everything would be fine, and he was sure the other officers on the other Chameleon ships were telling their crews basically the same thing.
The speakers crackled to life unbidden. "You know, I was having such a good day." Rit!tkatp's smooth baritone echoed throughout the bridge--or, rather, the voice of his translator; T!ka!irtk couldn't make the appropriate sounds for any human tongue, and vice versa for humans. (Unless they were fluent in one of those African clicking languages, from what Roy had heard, but even then apparently they sounded like a dog trying to speak French.) So both species used translation devices to communicate, and fortunately he'd hooked his up directly to the comm system so they only heard the translated voice. Roy had dealt with them in person before, and the way all those conversations would go was that they'd first hear one of the bugs say something in his own language that would sound like someone firing a machine gun at a xylophone, then the translator would speak in a Human tongue, then the Humans would speak, then their own translator would fire yowling cats back at the bugs, and they'd alternate like that for the duration; it was enough to give anyone migraines.
"I slept so well, my breakfast was wriggling, my customers were happy...and now, you jump into my system, the system of a law-abiding citizen, and you commit property damage the likes of which I have never seen. I am well within my rights to confiscate your ships in recompense and send your crew back to T!ka!ir to pay off the damages with hard labor. But I am a generous and honorable being. Tell me who hired you to do this, and I may be willing to let you go. I may not even inform the authorities that you did this, so that you may remain free to continue your detestable activities elsewhere."
Roy had to hand it to him, the man was smooth. Perfect "incensed businessman" tone with a bit of "agreeable neighbor" thrown in, and only a barely-noticeable dash of "unrepentant murderer" in the mix to show he wasn't to be trifled with. He acted just as if he were talking into yet another journalist's holorecorder; he had to, since for all he knew the Skreaming Skulls were live-streaming this conversation back to their mysterious employers in the hopes of catching him admitting to something illegal. That, too, had been tried a few times before.
Before he could think of something to say Charlie responded first in the most insultingly casual tone she could manage. "No one hired us. We decided that you were scum, and your ships didn't have nearly enough holes in them, and it's a weekend, and we were bored, so why not pop in and say hi?"
Rit!tkatp didn't believe that for a moment, of course--mercenaries, do something for free?--so he and the captain traded polite, velvet-coated barbs for a bit while the newer crewmembers waited on the edge of their seats for the moment when the alien gangster tired of it and ordered them vaporized. Roy had stopped paying attention, though. He only had eyes for one tiny corner of his screens, where he waited for a message from Chameleon Three.
As soon as it came through, he grinned fiercely and accepted the data transfer attached to the message, and several minutes later--it was a pretty huge transfer--he gave the crew a thumbs up, waited for them to quiet down, and hit the transmit button while the alien gangster was still speaking.
"Have you heard of an old Earth gangster named Al Capone?" he interrupted, to an uncertain pause from Rit!tkatp. "This is your second who barges into our conversation?" he asked. At Charlie's nod he adjusted something offscreen and now appeared to be looking directly at Roy. "No, I have not. This is relevant because...?"
"Well, I was thinking you might have, since he bears a striking similarity to a Mr. Zhanpeng Lee, a bureaucrat in the office of the Minister of Finance on Xin Beijing. Also a Ms. Beatriz Gonzales, a sales director with Lockheed-Grumman Industries. And oh, I believe also Mr. Dan O'Neill, Mr. Lubo Denisov, and Ms. Sweta Chandragiri. Need I go on?"
No response from Rit!tkatp except a twitching of his pedipalps. The mentioned names were either false identities he used to do business in Human space or bribed and/or blackmailed intermediaries between real companies and his shell companies, discovered in the complete copy of the gangster's financial records taken by Chameleon Three's instance of Karma, and the twitching indicated frantic thought on the gangster's part as to how that information could have been retrieved.
Rit!tkatp wasn't stupid enough to keep his personal records on the station-wide network for any two-bit hacker to find if he or she rooted an information kiosk or gambling machine; everything was in an armored server room directly below his office, hard-linked to his office terminal and shielded from any sort of wireless access, which only he and his most trusted associates could access and in which he could withstand an assault for several hours at least. And of course there was plenty of surveillance and security teams between his enemies and his data, such that anyone trying to dash to the vault would surely be cut down before they got even one floor up from the casinos. He'd taken every reasonable precaution against every reasonable form of attack.
What his security policies did not take into account, however, was an illegally-enhanced military-grade AI gaining root access to the repair bay computers several dozen floors below his office, taking over the station's maintenance robots (glorified ten-foot-tall alien Roombas, basically, and not particularly difficult to co-opt), marking all the corridors between the hangar and his office as closed for cleaning to clear out any civilians, quietly intercepting the camera feeds from the empty hallways, and then using Chameleon Three's boarding lasers to drill straight up through all those floors and into the server room itself, at which point Karma had physical dataport access and the game was up. "Crazy flying AI with frikkin' laser beams" isn't the sort of thing usually covered by standard security policies, so Rit!tkatp could be forgiven for not anticipating that.
"You think to threaten me? In your decidedly helpless position?" Rit!tkatp demanded, still maintaining his innocent businessman air with some effort. "You think that I will be afraid of images of extracted endoskeletons and oxygen-bearing fluids on your ships? No, your Human superstitions do not apply to the T!ka!irtk. We know that death is certain, and because of this we do not fear it."
"Funny you say that," Roy continued, "since we superstitious humans have a slightly different saying. 'Nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.' And that's the striking similarity: None of those individuals pay their taxes."
Now the alien looked honestly confused. "See, I know that a businessman such as yourself would scrupulously pay your taxes, and so would any of your cover identities. Excuse me, your business associates. But you forgot one little thing. There's one backwards little country on good old Earth that's always behind the times and out of step with the rest of the civilized world called America, you might have heard of it. Those crazy Americans have all sorts of crazy policies; for god's sake, it's twenty-one-forty-fucking-seven and they still haven't switched everything to the metric system. And one of their quaint little rules involves taxes."
Charlie chimed in from Chameleon One: "You're damn right it does. See, I'm an American citizen thanks to my mother. Doesn't matter that I've never set foot on Earth in my life, or any American colonies, or hell, even an American-built space station, they take their 'citizens living abroad' thing very seriously, and every year I have to file my taxes with Uncle Sam. Every damn year. Eritrea used to require that too, but they gave up that nonsense almost a century ago. And I complain about it to my XO here every damn year, too...which worked out nicely this time, I guess."
Rit!tkatp had reached both left arms offscreen and appeared to be quietly yet frantically tapping away at a terminal, paying attention to Roy with his right eyes and his computer with his left; it was a somewhat disconcerting sight. Roy glanced over at his tactical display where he was getting a jump proximity notification, probably the same one that had the gangster all upset. Unless he was looking up Al Capone in whatever Human historical records he had access to, which was also possible. "And seeing as no fewer than one-third of your false identities have American citizenship and many of your shell corporations are registered in American colonies, well, that brings us back to Al Capone. When the government managed to show he hadn't been paying his taxes back in nineteen...whenever it was, well, that was a federal crime."
"Yes yes yes, I see your point," Rit!tkatp said hurriedly, chest plates clicking in alarm and dorsal phalanges folding outwards in frustration. "You have uncovered blackmail material on me, and now you will wish something in exchange for not alerting the Human governments, I am sure. So--"
"Nope, too late for that, sonny," Ace interrupted from Chameleon Three, his voice coming from Rit!tkatp's side of the connection since he was patched into the station's comms. "Already sent it all over. Would even have gift-wrapped it, if they had a tri-D printer in their office somewhere. Got a thank-you note back, too, ain't that sweet. Now, normally these things take something on the order of a hundred eighty business days, but I think in your case they'll make an exception. Right...about...."
Silence.
"...about...oh, come on, they said twenty minutes! Damn government bureaucracy, where's a dramatic entrance when you need one?"
More silence.
Then, flashes of light. Four unmarked ships in plain gray jumped into the system in escort formation, heading for the station. They definitely had the highly-functional-with-a-hint-of-muscle aesthetic of American ships, to Roy's eye; he thought the design was a bit boring compared to, say, the Brazilian or Italian fleets, but at least they'd stopped putting red, white, and blue stars and stripes on everything with an engine and a flat surface.
Rit!tkatp hesitated for long moments, all plates and phalanges going utterly still. "You're not thinking of resisting arrest, are you?" Roy asked mockingly. The alien glared at him with all four eyes, then spat, "If that is all the fleet your Bureau of Federal Investigators can muster, I don't see why not." The frigates dropped their tractor locks on the Chameleon ships to go engage the new Human vessels, leaving only the carriers and drone fighters (and of course the station itself) to keep them under guard.
Roy looked on with concern. Surely they didn't send just four ships? When even without the capital ships the region always swarmed with drones and the station itself could withstand a siege for days?
"That's not the FBI, buddy. They only have sub-orbital ships and no off-planet jurisdiction. Check the IFFs," Ace said smugly, and both Rit!tkatp and the Chameleons checked their tactical screens. "IRS? Io Rescue Service?" the alien said with bemused contempt. "Close, you're thinking IIRS, Io Interstellar Rescue Service. Nope, that there's the Internal Revenue Service."
On the far side of the fleet, the frigates were engaging the new arrivals. The front two ships turned out to be torpedo boats, the IRS In Triplicate and the IRS Red Tape, and they were unloading missile volleys on the frigates at a staggering pace while the support ships IRS Credit Freeze and IRS Wage Garnishment raised jamming fields and fired off the occasional EMP burst. The T!ka!irtk frigates, confident in their superior numbers, didn't even slow down as they approached the quartet of smaller ships, and so they were caught completely by surprise when three new ships jumped in right above the others, the destroyers Rapid Depreciation, Asset Liquidation, and Maximum Deductions.
"Your mere tax collectors have capital ships?" Rit!tkatp asked incredulously. Roy wasn't sure if the gangster had forgotten the Chameleons were still on the line or if he just didn't care at this point, but with glee he replied "Well, your mere civilian 'casino owners' have capital ships, so fair's fair."
The carriers were ordered to the station's defense next without even giving them time to collect all their fighters, as were the few smaller stations capable of independent movement. As soon as they were out of range of the main station's protection, though, they were ambushed by yet more ships jumping in. These ships, three frigates and five cruisers, were large enough that both Humans and T!ka!irtk could see that they weren't plain gray at all; they were actually white with thousands of tiny black boxes and tiny black text criss-crossing their hulls. Of course, thought Roy, forms and spreadsheets. Should've known.
The frigates Thorough Audit, Double Entry, and Mandatory Compliance made short work of the carriers without their drone screens to protect them, and the cruisers Let's Get Fiscal, Weighed in the Balance Sheets, Nine-Tenths of the Law, Accrual Intentions, and I've Got 1099 Problems made short work of the defense stations, both mobile and immobile.
Roy didn't know exactly what a crazed T!ka!irtk looked like right before it decided to do something incredibly reckless, but whatever expression was on Rit!tkatp's face probably qualified. The main station began firing every last weapon in the IRS fleet's direction to prevent them from approaching as its long-dormant engines slowly came to life and began propelling it far enough away from the other ships to make a jump; a few foolhardy civilian ships darted out of various hangars and began angling for jump vectors so as not to end up who-knows-where in the hands of an angry mob boss, but most decided that they'd rather not risk entering the crossfire of a major fleet engagement, thank you very much.
He may have lost his fleet, many of his henchbeings, and his untouchable status, but the alien might still escape to fight another day. Roy could hear Charlie swearing up a storm over the comms at the prospect, and he felt the same way, but they were powerless to do anything about it. The Chameleons were still close enough to the station that it had but to pivot a single gun away from bombarding the other fleet to turn them to ash, so all they could do was float there and watch it inch away to freedom.
Until, that is, one last ship jumped its way into the system right in the fleeing station's path, arriving with enough force that Roy swore he could feel the gravity waves rippling through Chameleon Two. It was a dreadnought, and the writing on its bow proudly proclaimed it to be the IRS 3949-A
On screen, Rit!tkatp stared at the dreadnought for a long moment, then drooped like a wilting leaf, all of his plates opening wide in a sign of submission. The station's guns fell silent and its engines spun down before they'd even had a chance to reach full power. Roy almost felt sorry for the bastard.
Almost.
As the dreadnought and cruisers sent out boarding shuttles and his crew started talking excitedly about sending the battle recordings to everyone they know, Roy put on a mock conciliatory tone. "Hey, buddy, don't worry." The soon-to-be-ex-gangster looked up at him with his right eyes. "Sure, you might have been involved in wire fraud, embezzlement, smuggling, theft, grand theft, bribery, robbery, burglary, murder, assassination, illegal gambling, illegal prostitution, drug running, and who knows what else on top of the major tax fraud, but at least you avoided one thing."
He leaned forward and lowered his voice, and Rit!tkatp leaned in as well.
"Count yourself lucky that you never, ever committed mail fraud, because US postal inspectors...well, those fuckers don't mess around."

TL;DR

My actual questions are at the very end of this post. If you're in a hurry, you may skip the rest.

Gambling self-bans

Gambling self-bans are useful for those who want to quit. Often, you can fill in one form and be banned from all the casinos in a state, province, or country. Most problem gamblers don't self-ban, but some do. Self-bans seem to help at least some people to gamble less often. (Source.)
I did some Google searching. It looks like gambling self-exclusion is available in all Australian states. (Source.) The service is also available in New Zealand, the US, the UK, Canada, South Africa, and elsewhere.
Casinos have different ways of detecting self-banned individuals. Some use face-recognition software. It depends where you live.

Liquor self-bans

I saw a post by revertoe, and it got me thinking about liquor self-bans.
Just as gambling self-bans can be useful for problem gamblers, I assume that self-bans from bars and pubs might likewise be useful for people who want help with abstinence.

New South Wales

New South Wales has a liquor self-exclusion scheme. The scheme is described in the Liquor Act, and in a webpage on the Liquor & Gaming NSW website.
You fill in a form (PDF). You attach a photo of yourself. You tick a box to specify how long the voluntary exclusion will continue (e.g. 6 months). You bring a photocopy of the form to each of your favorite bars. Then, if you try to visit any one of these bars, they can kick you out.
It's not a panacea, but if you want to quit drinking, I think it might help.

Great Yarmouth

The town of Great Yarmouth, England, launched an alcohol self-exclusion scheme about a decade ago.
Your information, and your photo, go into a database. (Source.) If your favorite bars or liquor stores don't yet have access to the database, they'll be granted access. (Source.)
There's no law which forbids venues from serving self-banned customers. But it's a bad idea to sell alcohol to such individuals; and I guess that the Count Me Out team is probably skilled at convincing venue owners that this is so.
If you try to buy alcohol, the Count Me Out team may contact your doctor, social worker, probation officer, and/or local police department. These officials in turn may contact you and (if you've consented) your family, friends, and/or AA sponsor. (See this source.)

Everywhere else

As far as I can tell, everywhere else, the liquor self-ban process isn't so well-defined. You can ask bar staff to self-ban you. If you ask nicely, they might well honor your request. (Source.) (If you instead want them to limit your drinks, they again might be willing to help; see this source.) But they're not legally obligated to honor any request.

Note

I've never been to Australia.

My questions

I assume that problem drinking leads to far more injuries and deaths than problem gambling. (Consider, for example, drink driving.)
A) If gambling self-bans are such a well-defined process everywhere, why are liquor self-bans generally not an equally well-defined process outside of New South Wales?
B) (If you have any experience with the liquor self-ban scheme:) In your experience, has the New South Wales liquor self-ban scheme been helpful or unhelpful to participants?

TL;DR

My actual question is in the last line of this post. If you're in a hurry, you may skip the rest.

Gambling self-bans

Gambling self-bans are useful for those who want to quit. Often, you can fill in one form and be banned from all the casinos in a state, province, or country. Most problem gamblers don't self-ban, but some do. Self-bans seem to help at least some people to gamble less often. (Source.)
I did some Google searching. It looks like gambling self-exclusion is available in the US, the UK, Canada, Australia, South Africa, and elsewhere.
Casinos have different ways of detecting self-banned individuals. Some use face-recognition software.

Liquor self-bans

Today, I saw a post by revertoe, and it got me thinking about liquor self-bans.
Just as gambling self-bans can be useful for problem gamblers, I assume that self-bans from bars and pubs might likewise be useful for people who want help with abstinence.

New South Wales

New South Wales is an Australian province of about eight million people. In that province, there's a liquor self-exclusion scheme. The scheme is described in the Liquor Act, and in a webpage on the Liquor & Gaming NSW website.
You fill in a form (PDF). You attach a photo of yourself. You tick a box to specify how long the voluntary exclusion will continue (e.g. 6 months). You bring a photocopy of the form to each of your favorite bars. Then, if you try to visit any one of these bars, they can kick you out.
It's not a panacea, but if you want to quit drinking, I think it might help.

[Edit: Great Yarmouth]

The town of Great Yarmouth, England, launched an alcohol self-exclusion scheme about a decade ago.
Your information, and your photo, go into a database. (Source.) If your favorite bars or liquor stores don't yet have access to the database, they'll be granted access. (Source.)
There's no law which forbids venues from serving self-banned customers. But it's a bad idea to sell alcohol to such individuals; and I guess that the Count Me Out team is probably skilled at convincing venue owners that this is so.
If you try to buy alcohol, the Count Me Out team may contact your doctor, social worker, probation officer, and/or local police department. These officials in turn may contact you and (if you've consented) your family, friends, and/or AA sponsor. (See this source.)

Everywhere else

Everywhere else in the world, the liquor self-ban process isn't so well-defined. You can ask bar staff to self-ban you. If you ask nicely, they might well honor your request. (Source.) (If you instead want them to limit your drinks, they again might be willing to help; see this source.) But they're not legally obligated to honor any request.

Edit

As part of a series of further attempts to seek a good answer, I've cross-posted my question to /australia, here, and to /AustralianPolitics, here.

My question

I assume that problem drinking leads to far more injuries and deaths than problem gambling. (Consider, for example, drunk driving.)
If gambling self-bans are such a well-defined process everywhere, why are liquor self-bans generally not an equally well-defined process?

TL;DR

My actual questions are at the very end of this post. If you're in a hurry, you may skip the rest.

Gambling self-bans

Gambling self-bans are useful for those who want to quit. Often, you can fill in one form and be banned from all the casinos in a state, province, or country. Most problem gamblers don't self-ban, but some do. Self-bans seem to help at least some people to gamble less often. (Source.)
I did some Google searching. It looks like gambling self-exclusion is available in all Australian states. (Source.) The service is also available in New Zealand, the US, the UK, Canada, South Africa, and elsewhere.
Casinos have different ways of detecting self-banned individuals. Some use face-recognition software. It depends where you live.

Liquor self-bans

I saw a post by revertoe, and it got me thinking about liquor self-bans.
Just as gambling self-bans can be useful for problem gamblers, I assume that self-bans from bars and pubs might likewise be useful for people who want help with abstinence.

New South Wales

New South Wales has a liquor self-exclusion scheme. The scheme is described in the Liquor Act, and in a webpage on the Liquor & Gaming NSW website.
You fill in a form (PDF). You attach a photo of yourself. You tick a box to specify how long the voluntary exclusion will continue (e.g. 6 months). You bring a photocopy of the form to each of your favorite bars. Then, if you try to visit any one of these bars, they can kick you out.
It's not a panacea, but if you want to quit drinking, I think it might help.

Great Yarmouth

The town of Great Yarmouth, England, launched an alcohol self-exclusion scheme about a decade ago.
Your information, and your photo, go into a database. (Source.) If your favorite bars or liquor stores don't yet have access to the database, they'll be granted access. (Source.)
There's no law which forbids venues from serving self-banned customers. But it's a bad idea to sell alcohol to such individuals; and I guess that the Count Me Out team is probably skilled at convincing venue owners that this is so.
If you try to buy alcohol, the Count Me Out team may contact your doctor, social worker, probation officer, and/or local police department. These officials in turn may contact you and (if you've consented) your family, friends, and/or AA sponsor. (See this source.)

Everywhere else

As far as I can tell, everywhere else, the liquor self-ban process isn't so well-defined. You can ask bar staff to self-ban you. If you ask nicely, they might well honor your request. (Source.) (If you instead want them to limit your drinks, they again might be willing to help; see this source.) But they're not legally obligated to honor any request.

Note

I've never been to Australia.

My questions

I assume that problem drinking leads to far more injuries and deaths than problem gambling. (Consider, for example, drink driving.)
A) If gambling self-bans are such a well-defined process everywhere, why are liquor self-bans generally not an equally well-defined process outside of New South Wales?
B) (If you have any experience with the liquor self-ban scheme:) In your experience, has the New South Wales liquor self-ban scheme been helpful or unhelpful to participants?

NRL Rookie premiers today Tuesday 31st May 2016 on 9go at 7:30pm.
Some info that's known:

Show was filmed roughly 11 months ago.
28 contestants start episode one with 14 making the cut.
No winner has been announced. This will be done at the Star Casino at the end of Episode 10 (around August I think)

Players in the top 28 info that's known:

Drew Thornton Navy PTI officer (currently playing with Burleigh Bears A grade. Trialled for QLD cup team but didn't make it)
Matt J NSW Police Officer (currently playing in the Illawarra comp for Dapto Canaries, is the leading try scorer of the comp and is apparently a gun player)
David Andgelic (ran through brick wall, is apparently a character)
Lou (Was captain of Sydney roosters under 20's a few years ago, was told he would play NRL but got home sick and left. Apparently got offered a nsw cup contract before the show started but turned it down to get on the show. Is playing at Mounties Ron Masey)
Jordan (ACT local who is a gun. Playing for Mounties Ron Masey, can't get a run in NSW cup side as they're killing it. Is one to watch)
Pete Lee ( Ex Australian 7's player, very good 7's player. Currently playing for Logan brothers A grade)
Daniel ( Ex England 7's player, also very talented. Just put his name into YouTube and watch his 7's highlights. Currently playing in the Illawarra comp for Berkley. Absolute gun)
Luke ( big English lad, played for Great Britain in Union and is just learning the ropes of league but has heaps of potential)
Hamza ( A Pakastani bloke who hasn't played footy in 5 years apparently. Wore a Manchester United shirt to the trials and taped up his arms even though shirt was skin tight? Belter?)
Reece Maughn ( Bundaberg local. Footage shows he's a very talented player. Nick named Gal haha)
Gary ( big bloke from New Zealand. Hasn't played a game of league before entering the show but seems like he has a lot of potential)
Matt Gorman (playing in the Illawarra comp for Corrimal. Had a heart condition prior to the show. Not a bad player, from footage I've seen of his games in Illawarra.)
Brian ( Another Union player converting to league. Don't know anything about him)
Chris Hyde (currently playing in Newcastle comp for Macquarie Scorpions. Has been through the system and played NSW cup a few years back, had big injuries. Is very slow but very very crafty from hooker. Great player)

Anyone have any other inside info on any of the players?
It looks like the show will be a hit. I heard around the traps it may get pushed onto 9 main channel next week if ratings are good?
What's people's thoughts?

So I'm about to be a senior in college and I just studied abroad in Australia. I'm already thinking of places I want to go in the summer of 2016 when I graduate college if I don't have a job offer or anything.
Places I went to when I was abroad:
Thailand: LOVED THAILAND. I wasn't a huge fan of Bangkok, but LOVED the Thai New Year Celebrations on Khao San Road. Also went to Ko Samui where I got stung by a stingray and Koh Tao which I fell in love with. I was only there for a week and on a tour, so would definitely go back. I love Thai food and the people were SO nice.
Everywhere else I backpacked and couchsurfered.
Hong Kong: HATED HONG KONG. The people were SO rude. I've been to Paris and honestly Hong Kongers were 10x worse than Parisians. I went to Starbucks at the mall once and people refused to let me even sit next to them when there were plenty of seats open. Don't get me wrong it was pretty, but the people made it un-enjoyable. Some friends at the Hostel went out one night and taxi drivers would pick up locals and drive right past the Americans.. Also thought it was too overcrowded. I ended up having to go the police station to ask for directions. I was told once, "I don't speak English" in a perfect accent. Honestly it was pretty sad given I was so excited to go. And I did go out one night and didn't find the night life very pleasant. Wasn't a fan of the specific expats I encountered either.
Macau- I LOVED MACAU. It took me a while to find my way out of the casino's and onto the Portuguese tourist attractions, but I loved the mix of Portuguese and Cantonese culture. The people were very friendly and went out of their way to help me unlike in HG. Honestly I loved every minute of Macau (besides the Casino's).
Singapore: I really liked Singapore MUCH better than HG. The people were so nice. It was way easier for me to get around with the subway. It was probably too much like America though and after a couple days I got very bored. I thought there was more to do in HG, but I liked the vibe way better here.
Buton, Indonesia: Was supposed to be a day trip from Singapore and I was there a 1-2 hours and hated it. I went back on the ferry to Singapore. The taxi drivers literally overcharged me for everything and I ran out of money. None of the locals spoke much English here so it was hard to get around given the language barrier. I was going to go to Johor Bahru in Malaysia instead, but I was told it wasn't the safest place for a Westerner to go by myself and there were bad traffic jams so didn't want to miss my flight.
Auckland, NZ: LOVED Auckland. Kiwi's were so much nicer than Aussies. They went out of their way to help me. NZ is a much more progressive country IMO. I really loved everything about Auckland especially K Road. I had more intellectual conversations with Kiwi's in one week than I did five months in Australia. Didn't venture outside of Auckland though (had some difficulties) so would love to go to the South Island one day.
In Australia, I lived an hour south of Sydney in Wollongong. So went to Sydney pretty frequently and traveled mostly in NSW. Visited Sunshine Coast but it rained my whole visit, but did end up going to Brisbane to visit Lone Pine which was cool. Brisbane looked nice. Melbourne was okay, but not really into coffee and didn't get that "city vibe" and thought people were too pretentious with the whole hating on Sydney thing.
I've only been to France in Europe when I was 17 (21 now). I hated every minute of it, but that was mostly due to a bad host family experience. Really loved going to Normandy due to the history, Versailles was amazing, and Brittany was gorgeous.
My grandpa was born in Sicily, so I've always wanted to go there and my grandmother's side is from Bari and Calabria, so if I ever went to Italy I'd be more interested in the South and Sicily (although Sardinia and French Corsica are other island I'd love to visit).
I don't really much much desire to go to South America. Brazil would be cool though. The only know a little French from college/high school (not enough to get by), I don't speak any other languages.
So I've thought mainly about going back to Southeast Asia. I love history so Vietnam would be really cool and would be interested in Siem Reap and exploring Thailand some more. Or I've also considered Eastern Europe- Prague, Budapest, & Warsaw for starters. But I have studied the Holocaust before, so would like to visit various sites in Poland. Thought about the Baltic's with that trip: Estonia looks cool and I hear it's not too far if I wanted to go to Finland. Not interested in Russia or any other homophobic/ultra-conservative country. I know Eastern Europe isn't as liberal as Western Europe minus Prague, but I hear some people wouldn't even classify it as "Eastern Europe" to begin with.
I would also obviously love to explore Western Europe: UK, Holland, Belgium, Scandinavia, etc but it's pretty expensive. I will probably be on a backpackers budget. Amsterdam would be cool though given I am a women, gender, and sexuality studies major.
I'm also a theatre major, so I'm into arts. Like I've stated earlier, I like history specifically World War 2 or Vietnam stuff. Really loved going to a Canadian World War 1 park in Picardy, France though where I saw WW1 trenches. I'm not really that outdoorsy, so not into hiking mountains or camping. I do like beaches, but don't want to spend my whole vacation laying on the beach. I am not the relaxing type: I know it sounds bad haha.
I actually thought about teaching English in South Korea when I graduate, but that'd be too expensive for this trip. Iceland looks like it'd be pretty cool, but expensive.
Anyways any suggestions? Sorry for the lengthy post.

Marianas Variety - Families raise issue of poker addiction with Zoning Board (Micronesia)
$48 mil for problem gamblers from NSW govt (Australia)
Waterhouse defends high-profile role (Australia)
Reforming problem gambler Matt Torcasio on top of 100 day fight to curb habit (Australia)
Counselling for gambling available (Australia)
Archbishop warns Roman Catholics, Toronto of negative impacts of casino plans (Canada)
Retirees cautioned about gambling (Pennsylvania)
Responsible gambling and the spectacle of the 'problem gambler' (Australia)
Ford’s gambling remark hurtful (Canada)
Be aware of problems with gambling (New York)
Gambling opponents cite studies, real life experience as reason to kill bill (New Hampshire)
Branstad vetoes bill allowing gambling addicts to return to Iowa’s casinos (Iowa)
California Could Legalize Sports Betting (California)

Victorian Government under pressure over Crown Casino

casino nsw local news

casino nsw local news - win

Victoria records 3 new local cases and 0 new overseas cases

New cases reported in the last 24 hours

Recap from the Presser

Cases to date

Active cases breakdown

Currently in quarantine (as at 11pm on the 02/01)

⚠️Case alerts – public exposure sites⚠️

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Other helpful information and links

Queensland records NO new cases

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Note: The above cluster information is accurate as at 23 September, 2020.

Queensland records 0 new cases

New cases reported in the last 24 hours

Border Restrictions Update

Cases to date

Likely source of infection

Active cluster

Affected educational institutions

Summary of the 2019 New South Wales State election parties & independents

Legislative council parties:

Shooters, Fishers, and Farmers

Socialist Alliance

Sustainable Australia

Greens

Animal Justice Party

Advance

FLUX

LaboCountry Labor

Liberal/The Nationals

Australian Conservatives

Keep Sydney Open

Liberal Democrats

Voluntary Euthanasia Party

Christian Democratic Party

Small Business Party

Pauline Hanson’s One Nation

Seniors United Party of Australia (group G)

Monaghan and Monaghan (group H)

Jeremy Buckingham Greens splinter group (group L)

James Jansson (group S)

Various Independents

Paying Australian volunteer firefighters

Certainty

Casino self-bans are available in all Australian states. However, liquor self-bans are officially only available in New South Wales. Why?

TL;DR

Gambling self-bans

Liquor self-bans

New South Wales

Great Yarmouth

Everywhere else

Note

My questions

Casino self-bans are available everywhere. Unfortunately, bar self-bans are officially only available in Australia. Why?

TL;DR

Gambling self-bans

Liquor self-bans

New South Wales

[Edit: Great Yarmouth]

Everywhere else

Edit

My question

Casino self-bans are available in all Australian states. However, liquor self-bans are officially only available in New South Wales. Why?

TL;DR

Gambling self-bans

Liquor self-bans

New South Wales

Great Yarmouth

Everywhere else

Note

My questions

NRL Rookie - Discussion Thread