red750

I just expanded the map and counted the red dots.

EV Charging Stations NSW (4 in Dubbo)

Who designed this?

Religion, particularly the Catholic Church, has a lot to answer for. Last night/this morning, I watched a horrifying story which would have been shocking in the 17th or 18th century, but took place in my lifetime. In the 1940's and 1950's, giving birth outside of marriage was considered the number one sin. Young girls who got pregnant in their teens, and the babies they had, were treated worse than murderers. The program was a report on the Tuam Home for Mothers and Babies in Galway, Ireland. There is little or no record of what happened to the children born in this horror house. Run by nuns of a religious order called The Congregation of the Sisters of Bon Secours, who run medical facilities around the world. The nuns are all qualified nurses. An Irish woman carried out an investigation of the Tuam home, and found that an unknown number of children were taken from their mothers and sold as adoptees in America, for the current equivalent today of $3000. This was written off as a 'donation' to the institute on receipts located. The mothers were not given the choice of having their babies adopted, they were told "You WILL sign the adoption papers" and if they refused, the papers were signed by the parish priest, and fake papers created. This was a conspiracy between the Church, Irish government and Pan American Airlines, who flew a large number of flights containing adoptees to America. Many of the records have been locked away in secure vaults, and a recent law passed in Ireland provides that these records be kept locked up for 30 years, meaning that anyone guilty of this horror will be dead and free from any prosecution. The mothers were forced to work for the nuns and only allowed to see their babies to feed them. Mothers would come to the 'nurseries' (rooms with up to 30 cots with screaming hungry babies) only to find their cot empty and no explanation of what happened to the baby. But that is not the worst of it. Death records for 796 babies were found with causes of death such as measles, whooping cough or mal-nutrition, all things trained nurses could have prevented. Death records, but no graves. What happened to the children? A map of the institute showed that there was a large sewage pit in one corner of the yard. In 2018, an exploratory excavation located the top of the pit, and 21 compartments with concrete covers. When the covers were removed, an investigation revealed numerous human bones in the bottom of the compartments. It will take a full excavation of the pits to retrieve the bones, and a law was passed authorising this, but it has been four years and no work has commenced. When it is completed, the bones will be collected, then they will need to be reassembled into skeletons as much as possible. DNA testing will be carried out to try and identify them, so they can be rturned to their families and given a proper burial. Some of the children adopted in America have been able to trace their families and meet their relatives for the first time, but as they are in their 60's and 70's their mothers have died. The home had magnificent grounds, with gardens of every kind of vegetable, but the children starved. According to one former adopted child, they were never allowed outsde. They could run in the halls, but not outside. Rooms full of donated toys were found locked up, but the children never saw them. I have watched many episodes of Long Lost Family where children adopted out have been re-united with birth families later in life, but this was the most harrowing program I have seen. More information on the home can be found here.

Not sure if we have had it before, but you are right, the answer is STEPS.

Here I go again with another pedantic gripe. It grinds my gears when people don't know the difference between singluar and plural pronouns. Refer to this comment on a newspaper headline declaring Princess Mary, soon to be Queen Mary, as Scottish because her parents were Scottish. "Fire whoever called Crown Princess Mary a Scottish women," So many idiots on social media refer to 'women' when they mean 'woman'. It's like when they talk about a woman and his husband. Many internet jokes make this same mistake.

There was a video on Facebook this morning of an elderly gent, I think in WA, sitting on his verandah, with five or six magpies crowding round, one on his shoulder, three on his knees, and a couple on the ground, warbling to him as he hand-fed them. I forgot to copy the link, and as usual, when you go back, it's gone.

Ahhhhhthe wisdom of the ages. A female CNN journalist heard about a very old Jewish man who had been going to the Western Wall to pray, twice a day, every day, for a long, long time. So she went to check it out. She went to the Western Wall and there he was, walking slowly up to the holy site. She watched him pray and after about 45 minutes, when he turned to leave, using a cane and moving very slowly, she approached him for an interview. "Pardon me, sir, I'm Rebecca Smith from CNN. What's your name? "Morris Feinberg," he replied. "Sir, how long have you been coming to the Western Wall and praying?" "For about 60 years." "60 years! That's amazing! What do you pray for?" "I pray for peace between the Christians, Jews and the Muslims." "I pray for all the wars and all the hatred to stop." "I pray for all our children to grow up safely as responsible adults and to love their fellow man." "I pray that politicians tell us the truth and put the interests of the people ahead of their own interests." "How do you feel after doing this for 60 years?" "Like I'm talking to a fucking brick wall."

Dead right OT.

NOT a clay pot.

What America needs now is another Lee Harvey Oswald.

New electric motor...

How often do you forget a password like that?

To write 2024, not 2023.

Ran a deep scan of my system last night, took over half an hour. Found a couple of phishing bots which I removed. Some people have difficulty selecting passwords, and have trouble remembering them if they've used random letters and numbers. I use a couple of formats, depending on what they are used for. NOTE: These are not my passwords. Format 1. Car, rego, symbol. eg. Corolla1DT8JQ% (Vic rego format 1XX-9YY) Format 2. Wife's maiden name (or part), wedding anniv, wife's initials. eg. Thom14041987MJ (Maiden name Thompson) Add a symbol if required. Format 3. Mother in law's given names, her birthday eg. MaryLouise1409 . They all have a meaning which makes them easier to remember, and anyone trying to crak them would need to know quite a bit about me to guess them. They fit the requirement of most websites - at least 8 characters long, at least one uppercase letter, one number, and some require a symbol.

Had a knock at the door this afternoon. It was a young bloke who wanted to fit a device in our electrical switchboard. I heard sounds on our metal patio roof and said "Is it starting to rain?" He said "Oh yeah, the whole lot, toonder an' lightnin'. " - broad Irish accent. He said the device is $120, but the government has paid for it, so it costs you nothing. He asked for my smart phone to download the ap to read the device output. He said "Sorry, can't do it. Your phone is too old." (iPhone 6.)

I get emails almost daily saying I am at risk because my Mcaffee subscription has expired, demanding urgent payment. I haven't used Mcaffee, certainly not since founder John Mcaffee died in prison on the US in June, 2021. My wife had the paid version of Avast on her laptop, I have used the free version.

After having dug to a depth of 10 feet last year, British scientists found traces of copper wire dating back 200 years and came to the conclusion that their ancestors already had a telephone network more than 150 years ago. Not to be outdone by the British, in the weeks that followed, an American archaeologist dug to a depth of 20 feet, and shortly after, a story published in the New York Times "American archaeologists, finding traces of 250-year-old copper wire, have concluded that their ancestors already had an advanced high-tech communications network 50 years earlier than the British". One week later, Australia's Northern Territory Times, reported the following: "After digging as deep as 30 feet in his backyard in Tennant Creek, Northern Territory, aboriginal Billi Bunji, a self-taught archaeologist, reported that he found absolutely fuck-all. Billi has therefore concluded that 250 years ago, Australia had already gone wireless..." Makes you proud to be Australian.

No. 1 rule in Russia - stay away from the window.