rgmwa

Here's a little anecdote. A friend of ours is a nurse and she recently spent a year in an aboriginal community halfway between Kalgoorlie and Alice Springs. There were about 150 people living there but usually only about 70 at any one time as the others were away visiting or on sorry business or some other reason. (Those families that were there were often feuding with each other, so it wasn't a particularly harmonious community). She was running the local clinic, and a few of the locals who worked there told her one day they had to travel to Port Augusta for a funeral, but would be back soon. A couple of weeks later she got a phone call saying their car had broken down so they would be away a bit longer but would be back as soon as they got new transport. She was short-staffed and really needed them back at work. A few more weeks went by with no word, but then she got another phone call. They had managed to get a car and would be back soon. More weeks passed, and finally another call. They now had wheels for the car and were on their way.

Reading that article makes you wonder how anything could be done to make a positive long-term difference in many of these remote communities.

I think the biggest reason it failed was because the aboriginal population itself was so clearly and loudly divided on the issue. Had they all been for it there's a good chance it would have got across the line despite Dutton's scare campaign. But even if it had succeeded, I doubt that much would have changed because half the aboriginal population would have ignored it as a waste of time and the other half would be squabbling over who was going to represent them. Even having a Voice in the Constitution would not be a guarantee of permanent representation, because the government of the day could just choose to reduce their funding to make them ineffective. I was on the `yes' side on the basis that it was worth a try, but now the onus is on `no' side to figure where they go from here to solve all the problems. If they can come up with a better solution then maybe something will change.

I can’t see how this brutal attack by Hamas on civilians furthers their cause. They must have known full well that Israel would attack Gaza in response and make the lives of their own people even worse. Stopping the Saudis from normalising relations with Israel may have been a reason but probably a bigger concern for Iran than Hamas. If Iran was pushing Hamas to attack, the Palestinian people are paying a heavy price for Hamas’s hatred of Israel.

Trump has already been found guilty of fraud by the judge who has cancelled his licences to operate businesses in New York State. The civil trial now is just about how much money he has to pay as restitution for the fraud.

He's probably stressed about the weight his wallet keeps losing.

I thought Jones had retired. I'm surprised this twit is still around. He forgot to mention Trump's criminal credentials.

The way I read this judgement, `any other entity controlled or beneficially owned' would mean that neither he nor his kids could own shares in any company that owned or controlled the assets. As shareholders they would be part-owners and beneficiaries. If this ruling stands whatever he can throw at it, I think he's done in New York.

When you’re a very stable genius you never make mistakes. Haven’t you ever heard of alternative facts?

Who would have guessed. Reminds me of me at 21 compared to the person I see in the mirror these days. Big difference and not for the better.

Colonisation is probably a more accurate description of what actually happened. Governor Phillip made a pretty good effort to get along with the aboriginals in the first few years, even getting speared for his trouble once the locals realised their visitors weren't intending to leave. The whites at the time also clearly recognised that the aboriginals were people and not fauna.

I thought I did.

I didn't know Einstein had a brother so out of curiosity I looked him up in Wikipedia. Until then I never realised I was an idiot.

Two of our daughters are primary school teachers. Given the number of kids that have some intellectual, social, medical or other problem it's a wonder they are able to teach them anything useful. They need to be social workers and carers as well as teachers. From what they describe, it seems to me that a lot of the problems for many of the kids stem from a chaotic home life and poor parenting.

Let's hope it gets cancelled.

Could be a scam.

That'll be $12 for the part and $300 for knowing where to put it.

Or alternatively his body double is alive and well in the undisclosed country. Who knows what to believe.

I did one year of a post graduate course in computing years ago as I had thoughts of a career writing engineering software as there was virtually nothing available for desktop computers in those days. Unfortunately I couldn't finish the course due to pressure of work and family. The peak of my achievement was adding some language extensions to a compiler and learning the difference between my self taught programming and how real programmers did things. Nevertheless, I enjoyed it and spent some three thousand hours programming over the years. Even sold some software as well developing applications that our company used. Eventually, professionally developed applications outpaced what I could do on my own and the world moved on, but it was fun while it lasted.

Doesn't Excel have Visual Basic embedded in it? How will that work if they bring in another language?

I’m sure it was well rehearsed before he went in. It’s all about sending a message to his followers that despite his persecution he is still defiant and will get his revenge. To the rest of us it just confirms his scheming nastiness

Dmitry Utkin was apparently on board as well, plus another senior Wagner member. Wouldn't surprise me if Putin decided to get rid of the lot of them.

You can look around a large crowd, say 50,000 people at a football match, and know that in around 100 years almost everyone there - young and old, will have died. It’s a sobering thought.

Even if he doesn’t get in he won’t go away. He’ll try and trash everything from the sidelines.