red750

It's not just that one guy. This morning there is a protest outside parliament house with about 500 farmers and 200 CFA fire trucks with sirens blaring. With the drought, they are saying this levy will push many over the top with depression and possible suicides, and prices will explode.

Another totally random thought. I was watching a discussion on TV about the amount of tax that the goverment hopes to collect from cigarettes - $7 billion - but how that high tax is pushing people to the black market cigarettes that are flooding the market, and the illegal vapes that are selling everywhere. You go down the street and see boxes of them in shops and see people puffing smoke like the steam from a steam train. What I can't understand is why people do it, and why they started. I know I am pretty weird, unique even. I have never smoked a single cigarette and couldn't conceive of smoking a vape. It's the same with alcohol. I have probably had the equivalent of two cans of beer over my 80 years. I have probably had 5 or 6 glasses of wine over the course of my life.The only alcohol I have had in the past 10 years is the brandy my daughter cooks in the Christmas pudding or cake each year, maybe half a flask shared by all the family. I don't drink soft drink either. I haven't had a Coke or Pepsi in a number of years, not even a paper cup. I have had the occasional bottle (less than one per month) of zero sugar lemonade, or sparkling spring water. I drink coffee without sugar, one or two cups a day, sometimes none, and water, with zero sugar cordial. Like I said, weird.

We often comment on the abominable education of Americans. Tonight while eating dinner, I was watching Wheel of Fortune. The topic was Aminal, and the letters revealed were D U _ _ - _ I L L E D P L A T Y P U S. The woman had the option of guessing the answer, or spinning the wheel to win more money. She spun up $1,000, and had to guess another letter to lock in that money. She guessed F and naturally lost.

Weird weather lately in Victoria. A few days with only 2 or 3 mm of rain. Worst drought in years. So bad they've had to fire up the desalination plant, and rationing is on the cards. And last night was the coldest this time of year for 79 years. Minimums of 2 deg in the city, -1 in the eastern suburbs and -5 deg at Coldstream. Supposed to be colder tomorrow, before winds turn northerly and end frosts for a while.

Interesting fact: A shark will only attack you if you are wet.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14725483/TWU-Michael-Kaine-transport-Labor.html?ito=social-facebook

Sorry Nev. Afraid not.

A man bought a $600 Trump inauguration watch for his wife, but they were bitterly disappointed when they received it.

Jerry, that's just part of the things going on. There is the North East Link, a freeway running from the Eastern Freeway at Balwyn North to the Western Freeway at Greensborough, the Metro Tunnel, under St. Kilda Rd from the Shrine , under Swanston St and around the north of the CBD to join up with the Sunbury line, and the Suburban Rail Loop from Cheltenham, via Clayton, Glen Waverley, Box Hill, Heidelberg, Reservoir, Fawkner, Broadmeadows, Melbourne Airport, Sunshine, to Werribee, mostly by tunnel. They gave also announced a large upgrade of the Albert Park circuit to lock in the F1 GP till 2037, and spending lots to get Rory NcIlroy to the next two Australian Opens, all the while that we have a deficit bigger than any other state. Yes, they will be great assets in 20 or 30 years when they are finished, but can we afford them ALL now?

Right again Pete.

Yes Nev, you are correct. However, the point of the question was to highlight that while "right" can be the opposite of both "left" and "wrong", "hard" can also be the opposite of both "easy" and "soft", so the disired answer was simply "hard".

Correct Nev.

It is interesting that Chump has been busy kissing the a** of jihadist supporters, while signing an executive order directing the immediate deporting of foreign nationals including students who support pro Palestinian and jihadist protests.

I post this from Facebook. Read it or ignore it as you choose. The $400 million jet from Qatar and the late night Taylor Swift posts are designed to distract you from what happened on the first overseas trip of Trump's second term. I am not referring to the highly choreographed, censored, Hollywood version of his Middle East tour. I am not talking about the tepid and inaccurate reporting from failed legacy media outlets, who only repeated his claim of 'hundreds of billions in deals'. I'm talking about what really happened between the Trump family, the US oligarchs, and the Sunni dynasties which control the Gulf states. Let's provide some proper grounding. Before departing on Air Force One, the White House informed the most reliable global news agencies, often referred to as 'the wire', that they would not be joining the administration. This marks the first time in history that journalists from the wire services (like Reuters, Associated Press, UPI, etc) would not accompany the US president on an overseas trip, especially one of this magnitude. Upon landing, Trump and his family, top aides, and the CEOs of at least 20 major companies scurried to make deals as fast as they could. Trump's large adult sons wrangled a few billion out of Qatar and Saudi Arabia for golf course resorts. They also landed major crypto deals where cartel members, terrorists, and other illicit offshore wealth will be funneled into their own crypto coins. There's nearly one crypto coin for each member of the Trump family. The biggest single item of the deal was Saudi Arabia's pledge to purchase 500,000 semiconductor chips from Nvdia, for purposes that remain unclear. Saudi Arabia has zero computer talent as their ruling families are accustomed to not working for anything or providing any value whatsoever. Saudi Arabia is apparently going to buy 500,000 AI chips, at a cost of $50,000 per chip, to put them in the desert where server rooms need to to remain a temperature of 65 degrees, all without any local talent to do anything of value. China's President Xi must be laughing in DeepSeek. No one groveled more than Amazon's founder, Jeff Bezos. Bezos bowed before Mohammad bin Salman, a man who kidnapped, sexually tortured, and dismembered one of Bezos' journalists, Jamal Ahmad Hamza Khashoggi, employed at the Washington Post. The few remaining talented reporters still employed by Washington Post must rest easy at night knowing in the event someone murders them because they dislike their reporting, the boss will kiss their killer's hand. Not exactly a fantastic workplace vibe for a newspaper, but I digress. To be honest, there isn't enough space in this post, or any post, to describe the torrent of deals that happened. We are talking about the 60 most powerful companies on earth, mingling with 20 or so members of the Saudi and Qatari ruling families, all pitching deals to channel oil money into their pockets. Elon Musk landed a significant deal with Saudi Arabia to use his Starlink system for aviation and nautical systems. The military industrial complex, the tech CEOs, and the crypto creeps emerged from the summit with ear to ear smiles. It was a spectacle for the ages as the ruling elites of Saudi Arabia sought to greenwash, tech wash, and generally launder their oil wealth into the coffers of America's tech titans. To be clear, Saudi Arabia is a backward nation of women-hating oil thieves and slavers who have nothing but contempt for our democracy and values. They have financed terrorist atrocities across the world, including 9/11. The Saudi sultans and sheiks attempt to spin their countries as reformed and modern by investing in goofy golf tournaments, but every single strip, brick, and building of the 'new Middle East' was built on the backs of chattel slaves from South Asia. These Sunni sultans and sheiks, like the Trump family and the Silicon Valley tech bros, are the takers of the world. They contribute nothing. They live solely to extract as much wealth and amass as much power as they can. And the takers of the world, like the Sunni elite and the wannabe dictators like Trump, share a similar model: that vision rests on holding the workers and makers of society in total contempt. The people who build our cities, teach our kids, manage our National Parks, research cancer cures, staff our hospital and hotels, farm our food, and generally provide the entire structure and foundation of modern life are deserving of nothing more than squalor, poverty, terror, cruelty, and denied even the basic recognition of citizenship. This is the model of Dubai. This is the vision of Trump's America. Trump and his dopey sons aren't the captains of this ill-fated journey. Not by any stretch... Peep🧐 Trump's little hands holding onto King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud's hand. At first glance, it appears Trump is gently supporting an old and enfeebled man. Which is weird, because he doesn't even hold his own wife's hand. But upon closer examination, it's the King who has stuck his middle finger right through Trump's palm as he grips his wrists with the other fingers. He is guiding him around like a donkey. Trump is being groomed. The Saudis played the President of the United States like Pinocchio at Pleasure Island. They rolled out their silly lavender carpet. They bussed in a McDonald's trailer so bozo could enjoy a Big Mac in the sweltering 110 degree heat while he canoodled with the people who funded 9/11. They adorned him a Toys R' Us gold chain. They even pawned off a rusted jet they were unsuccessfully trying to offload for years. The only thing the Saudis wanted was the ability to launder their money into America's leading semiconductor technologies and boatloads of our latest weapon systems. In the end, hundreds of billions of dollars changed hands. The number of hands numbered no more than two dozen. The 77 million MAGA muppets who voted for this traitor were not part of any deal. People are asking for sources, which is totally reasonable. This is a highly editorialized version of events, distilled from a dozen or so reports from media. I stitched together from here and there. I'll provide a few here, but it's important to know this is editorialized, which means I authored it. I didn't use AI, so if you steal this, I will legally pursue you. I'll post some sources here but this is original work. https://apnews.com/article/trump-business-interests-family-middle-east-cryptocurrency-cbb7d2354304ce0308800819944cf3f8 https://finance.yahoo.com/news/why-so-many-ceos-crossed-paths-with-trump-in-the-middle-east-from-sam-altman-to-jensen-huang-080000141.html

Correct. The brother and sister rubbish thrown in to confuse when you only have 30 sec to answer.

Correct Pete.

Why women live longer.