Marty_d

The voice is spot on, but it's far too coherent to be believable!

Polyamory sounds far more natural than monogamy. I mean, if you have more than one kid you don't love the subsequent ones any less, so it probably works like that for other types of love. Any experience?

There's no silver bullet. Start with education. Child care is not too early to start teaching kids not to hurt each other when they want something. All through the education system there should be ethics and philosophy incorporated in the curriculum. In fact I'd go so far as to teach kids - all kids - martial arts, because of the emphasis on having respect for yourself and others. Also reduce access to real violence online. If you're talking about current violence, then we need to increase funding for shelters and support services, so people experiencing violence can leave and not have to stay in the home because they have no funds to leave. Court ordered distance from the victim should be enforced by ankle bracelets. We have GPS, AI and Google maps. It can't be that hard to geofence areas the perpetrator is barred from and alert the nearest police station if the breach them. These are just some ideas from one clueless bugger at midnight. Surely if we prioritize this, get the right experts leading it and throw enough money at it to implement their recommendations, change will slowly happen.

Interesting. So you have a pretty good idea that what you're about to say will be shot down. If you could prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that every person accused of premeditated murder (premeditated is implied in your statement "who murder their wives...") is guilty, without reason or extenuating circumstances (eg mercy killing, assisted suicide, years of physical/emotional/psychological abuse committed on them, etc), then go for it. The simple fact is that you cannot. Courts get it wrong all the time. Juries get it wrong all the time. People have been exonerated after spending 20 years in prison. So they should just have been killed by the state... by ALL OF US... and we just shrug and say "Oops, sorry about that"? It may surprise you to know that I fully support the police killing of a person who is threatening the life of someone else or the police themselves. Classic case in point was the knife killer in Bondi Junction. He had already killed a number of people and probably would have killed more if not shot by the police officer. She should be given a medal, and more importantly lots of counselling, for doing her job exactly right and saving lives. Your claim that the death penalty would act as a deterrent to the perpetrators of domestic violence is not valid. There's a simple test. You mentioned that some US states still have the death penalty (while some do not). If you were to look at the murder rates by US state, and compare them to the states which have the death penalty, your deterrence claim should mean those states have a lower murder rate, no? Let's find out. Below are the figures from the CDC's (Center for Disease Control & Prevention) National Center for Health Statistics. These are for the latest available year, 2021. Beside them I have an indicator "Y" if that state has the death penalty. State Homicides per 100,000 Deaths Death penalty Mississippi 23.7 656 Y Louisiana 21.3 943 Y Alabama 15.9 748 Y New Mexico 15.3 306 South Carolina 13.4 656 Y Missouri 12.4 716 Y Illinois 12.3 1,487 Maryland 12.2 709 Tennessee 12.2 810 Y Arkansas 11.7 335 Y Georgia 11.4 1,206 Y Delaware 11.3 103 North Carolina 9.7 991 Y Indiana 9.6 624 Y Kentucky 9.6 408 Y Ohio 9.3 1,020 Y Pennsylvania 9.2 1,101 Y Oklahoma 8.9 342 Y Michigan 8.7 822 Nevada 8.5 264 Y Texas 8.2 2,391 Y Arizona 8.1 562 Y Florida 7.4 1,468 Y Virginia 7.2 606 West Virginia 6.9 114 Alaska 6.4 49 California 6.4 2,495 Y Kansas 6.4 180 Y Wisconsin 6.4 348 Colorado 6.3 368 South Dakota 5.3 45 Y Oregon 4.9 204 Y Connecticut 4.8 160 New Jersey 4.8 409 New York 4.8 918 Washington 4.5 346 Montana 4.4 46 Y Minnesota 4.3 232 Nebraska 3.6 70 Y Rhode Island 3.6 40 North Dakota 3.4 24 Iowa 3.2 94 Hawaii 2.7 39 Utah 2.7 91 Y Massachusetts 2.3 160 Idaho 2.2 41 Y Maine 1.7 20 New Hampshire 0 15 Vermont 0 10 Wyoming 0 16 Y Far from the death penalty leading to a lower homicide rate, it seems to be weighted the other way. Obviously not much of a prevention. Just to drill down those figures a bit. - Of the top 25 states by homicide rate, 18 have the death penalty. - Of the bottom 25 states by homicide rate, 9 have the death penalty. Just for shits and giggles I also overlay the voting results of the 2020 presidential election. *Just the overall state result, not by electorate. Can you guess? - Of the top 25 states by homicide rate, 14 were Republican (Trump) and 11 were Democrat (Biden). - Of the bottom 25 states by homicide rate, 11 were Republican (Trump) and 14 were Democrat (Biden). One more test. How many of the 27 states which have the death penalty voted for Trump in 2020? - 21. So there you go. The death penalty is not a deterrent. Twice as many states in the top half by murder rate have the death penalty than the states in the bottom half. And 21 of the 27 states with the death penalty voted for Trump.

Labor tried to put a price on carbon. The big miners spent millions in advertising against it. Tony Abbott with his "$100 lamb roasts" and "Great big new tax" slogans managed to confirm that a sizable portion of the electorate are f*cking stupid. So yes. We should have had a proper carbon tax years ago.

Well, then so are opium, cannabis and magic mushrooms.

Well, picture #2 and probably #3 are far prettier than me, and even the lady with the fat lips in #1 is too... so I'm not going to judge. As to the injecting rooms, I find that a bit harsh. We don't know what shit people have gone through in their lives that led to them being addicted to drugs. It's a medical problem, not a legal or moral one, and it's bloody hypocritical for us to say that one type of addictive drug (eg alcohol, nicotine, sugar) is legal and another type isn't. If everything were legalised, produced in clean factories instead of basements and tested, there'd be less crime and premature death and the cartels would go out of business.

Out of all the pictures that would be available for World Naked Gardening day, you had to give us an obese bloke in a g-string?

We installed a couple of those Google Nest smoke detectors. Now when someone burns some oil it says, in a female very English voice - "There's smoke in the family room. The alarm will sound shortly. It's going to be loud." That fortunately gives you enough time to frantically wave a book or something under it to fan away the smoke, so you never actually get the alarm (which is loud!)

Is "kiss" a swearword?

I think Musk reckons his spaceships will transport 100 at a time, but in reality there'd only be enough room for him and his ego.

Elon Musk has plans for Mars. We can only hope that he and his best mates are booked on the first ship there.

That's because sexual preference and gender are two different things. I'm a male, I feel/identify as male, and I am attracted to females. For a gay man, they may feel and identify as male, be attracted to males, and in a relationship may be more submissive/"wife-like" (although that generalisation seems pretty fraught too, the power dynamic in relationships can be all over the spectrum), but that has nothing to do with wanting to be female - they are happy as a male.

That raises a deeper question. If a person is born and always feels that they are the opposite gender to their physical sex, and undertake corrective surgery so that their genders and sex align, is that really a "choice"? Kind of like sexual preference, which no-one except the truly ignorant considers a "lifestyle choice" anymore.

He might be using an Irish accent Peter. In that case minus the "u" would get you the right sound...