rgmwa

If Putin moves on to Moldova, it might motivate the West to take more action.

Unfortunately, you're right. To make matters worse, the conflict in Gaza has taken the world's media attention right off Ukraine.

If he became president and therefore POTUS, as he’s married to another man, would his partner still be referred to as FLOTUS?

I think you’re right, but he’s articulate, talks sense, and gets things done. He’s also not Biden or Trump.

I think his planet is in a galaxy much further away than even Trump's.

I think they should give Pete Buttigieg a go.

For someone who's a compulsive liar, he's actually told the truth about his plans for a next term. Hopefully enough Americans may eventually believe what he says and vote against him, but half the country believes all his other lies. Churchill said "You can always trust the Americans to do the right thing ........ after they've tried everything else". Hopefully he's right or the next few years are going to get ugly and not just for the Americans.

The judge in that case, Aileen Cannon, is slowing the trial process to make sure it doesn’t start until after the election. She has already been criticised a couple of times by appellate courts for making rulings in Trump’s favour. It’s noteworthy that Trump has not said a word about her while calling every other judge he’s up against every name and slur he can think of.

Outrageous, ignorant, corrupt and dangerous. Unlike other dictators like Hitler and Mussolini his aim is not world domination, but just to look in the mirror and see the most powerful person in the world. He has no guiding philosophy other than devotion to himself. A hollow and fundamentally weak character but with an army of sycophant enablers behind him. Hopefully American Democracy, flawed as it is, will see him in jail and not in the White House.

What is it about Linux that would make it a better choice than Windows for the typical user?

That clock's for semi-retired people like me. When my dad retired he used to say that every day was a Sunday.

He got to 95, but maybe he would have made 100.

Sounds quite reasonable to me.

Another good one is insurance for houses in cyclone-prone areas such as around Karratha and Port Hedland in WA. The insurance companies charge home-owners unaffordable premiums because of perceived risk, ignoring the fact that houses and other buildings in those areas have to be designed for the expected cyclonic wind speeds. For example, buildings in Perth need to be designed for (generally) 45m/sec (162km/hr) basic wind speed. The same building in Port Hedland needs to be designed for 80m/sec (288km/hr). Since pressure is a function of the square of wind speed, that means 3.55 times more wind pressure on the building and therefore a much stronger building, but try to convince an insurance company that they shouldn't charge any more than for a building in Perth. On the other hand, Cyclone Seroja wiped out half of Kalbarri in 2021, because it came unusually far south and hit an area that is not considered cyclone prone, so the buildings are designed to a lower wind speed standard. I'll bet their premiums went up - at least for those owners that still had buildings.

I work for a large consulting engineering firm, mostly from home these days as we all got set up with the necessary hardware and software during Covid. I use my own PC to link remotely to my office computer. Simple to setup and I could switch screens between my home and office computers with one key press. Everything worked like a charm. Last weekend the firm installed a new VPN system which promptly locked me out of the office system on Monday, Two days of on-line troubleshooting with our IT guys finally resulted in them driving out to my place to set me up with a new laptop and screen. I can now connect to the office with the laptop but no longer with my PC, so I have gone from one computer, one screen, one keyboard and mouse to run everything to two computers, three screens, two keyboards and two mice and the whole lot doesn't work as well as it did before. Apparently this is progress. ...actually three keyboards if I include the laptop's keyboard.

I just renewed our house (building) insurance. The premium jumped over $400 to just under $2k compared to last year. I’m sure the fact that we claimed last year for the first time in more than 30 years for damage to walls, carpet and bathroom cabinets and some tiling caused by a leaking water pipe had nothing to do with the increase! No doubt the separate contents insurance will also go up when we get the next bill. The plumbers had to remove about 35 shower tiles and cut into the brick wall to find the leak. To my surprise, that damage wasn’t covered so it cost us $1000 extra to get repaired. Apparently the insurance only covered damage caused by the leak, not damage caused by efforts to find the leak! It probably cost RACWA $12k all up and apart from very poor communication and about 4-5 months from start to finish the final result was pretty good, but it was hard work. We also have a small rental property occupied by our daughter at the moment. My landlord insurance premium just went up literally 100% for no obvious reason. I got another quote but it was near enough the same so I just paid it.

Trump is bad enough but it's racists like this guy and others who are underpinning his push to take over. Miller is a nasty piece of work. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/nov/24/stephen-miller-white-nationalist-trump-immigration-guru

I agree. He enjoyed wearing a suit and working in the the city for a while, so I don't think he regrets it too much. It gave him skills, insight into the world of banking and finance, and a maturity and experience that he wouldn't have got otherwise. It's all contributed to where he is now.

What does he want to do? Our son had an early interest in electrical things. He finished year 12 without any real idea of what to do as a career. He had a passing interest in economics so with our encouragement but without much enthusiasm he went to uni and got a degree. After a few years working in banks and gaining extra financial qualifications along the way, at the age of 25, he decided he'd had enough, resigned and got a mature age apprenticeship as a commercial electrician. He's landed on his feet and is now a skilled electrician including both LV and HV work, and enjoys what he does. If we'd encouraged him to follow his instincts more at the time instead of encouraging him to go to uni, which he now sees a largely a career setback, he might have been happier. Nevertheless, no education is wasted and there aren't that many electricians with a degree to their name.

Col. Frank Borman, 9 Nov 23 – test pilot, astronaut and airline executive. He set a then endurance record of 14 days in Gemini 7 in 1965, was on NASA’s review board investigating the Apollo 1 fire, flew around the moon in Apollo 8 in December 1968 and became senior VP at Eastern Airlines after he retired from NASA in 1970.

He already knows that he's lost the fraud case, but he also knows that the court is crowded with reporters who will relay all his antics and grievances to his loyal supporters. His team was apparently sending out begging emails while he was in the witness box trashing the judge and prosecutors. He is just playing to the court of public opinion. Once he's found guilty, he will be off to the appeals courts. I can't fathom the gullibility of the majority of Americans.

Joe Cammileri

As if Trump wasn't bad enough, there is an army of enthusiastic backroom misfits and plotters busily developing policies and selecting potential MAGA appointees to fill influential administrative positions in a Trump government, specifically in order to facilitate his anti-democratic and dictatorial ambitions and further their own careers. As things currently stand, Biden is a lost cause despite being basically competent and decent. Even many who voted for him last time are no longer supporting him because they blame him for the economy and other problems around the world. So much for American Democracy. The best result would be for Trump to end up in jail or be kicked off the ballot in some states. If he gets back in again, it will be a disaster that the Americans have brought on themselves and the world by being thoroughly conned by a vindictive crook.

War and Peace was about 7 hrs

And then lots of people with aboriginal heritage are highly educated doctors, lawyers, parliamentarians and the like, so there is a huge disparity in lifestyle and living conditions across the population. We hear a lot of talk from aboriginal representatives about how the current systems have failed because they have been imposed by governments or badly managed by those in charge who don't understand the real problems, particularly in the remote communities. That may be true, but I have yet to hear any of these critics explain what they believe the real problems are, what they would do to fix them that hasn't been tried before, and what responsibility the aboriginals themselves are prepared to take on to improve their conditions. The kartiya article, Bruce Tuncks' blocked toilet example, Onetrack's Landcruiser story and even the anecdote I posted highlight the fundamental mindset changes that would be needed.