Jerry_Atrick

Them, there are fighting words.. You know they exist, and thay is all that matters 🙂 I have been unusually emojional this eve.

I moved to Brisbane with my then fiancee in about 1993.. In the winter, we would alternate going to the gold coast and the sunshine coast each weekend. The prices in the off season were about as good as the back of a Toowoomba caravan park.. Except for those lovely apartments on Hastings street (the caravan park was long gone). We actually used to stay at Peregian beach and I saod to my then fiancee, we should buy a house there. She refusused.. The same house I was looking at at the time, was up for sale for $4m.. Yeah, it was done up a bit.. but it is land an proximity to beach. Oh, how I wanted to stay at one of those beachfront apartments on Hastings street. Just to be able to walk to the beach would have been such fun. Fortuitously, I moved to the UK when the £ was worth $3. I took my current partner there and we booked 3 nights at a dog-awful rate on Aussie dollars, but bearable on £s. I almost had her moving to Aus then, when after a nice meal we arrived back at the foyer of the apartments, and she said, "what a lovely terra cotta moth is on the wall". It was huge, and she hates living moths with a vengeance. I said to her that I don't recall seeing it before as she went to feel the lovely piece of art.. The wing span must have been 20cm. Well, it flapped its bloody wings and defended itself by going for her hair. Once the screming had died down, while drawing heacy breaths, she commented she cannot move to QLD. F! Another opportiunity missed.

Well, since the Thai food in Australia is the best (I would say better than Thailand, but I actually haven't been to Thailand), Australia will be your second home. Seriously, I was dating a girl once (yeah - hard to believe) and we went to a restaurant in Malvern (suburb of Melbourne) called Beau Thai, and she dreamt about the food she ate... and it woke her up - it was that good (or she was really a bad cook.. which is part of it). What bachelor degree are your studying? We need more lawyers, accountants, and real estate agents.. not. Seriously, you're welcome as someone into ag and enviromental science.. until the Lib/Nats get back into government. I have strived to become a person of the landed gentry, but alas, my colonial past always catches up with me. Anyway, for foreign students, it is much the muchness you pay your fees. In the UK, it is cold, the Thai food is absolutely ship (replace the "p" with a "t"), and the country is going broke, anyway. Nationalistic politics is on the rise, so if you desire to be labelled a pariah, the UK is a place to be (it is quite funny to lob into a conversation that is bagging immigrants, that I am one; the conversation goes silent very quickly). That's only because you're from Tasmania and they don't have a football team! 😉 As I said, @Natn, you will not get into the country without supporting Hawthorn Football club.. If you become a member, you get priority access 😉

Because getting Back Patio from ac at is pretty awesome.

Of course no one likes to be taken as a sucker, etc. However, Chump doesn't care. Whether done diplomatically or not, the bottom line is that the side that has the most power in an materially asymmetric relationship will always get the better outcome In dimplomacy, often the outcomes are the same - if you have the levers of power well over your counterparty, you are going to win. It has been like this always. The difference is Chump isn't diplomatic about it at all. He has no issue telling the world he is going to use the same levers.. he publicly rather than privately threatens. The bullying tactics are part of him, like they are in many. Tarrifs ensure the US taxpayer pays more tax.. The importers pay the tarrifs, not the exporters. Either they take a hit or they pass it on. Either way, it is the US that pays the tax. It is there for one reason and one reason only.. Making the wealthy wealthier. Those big tax breaks to the wealthy are not going to pay for themselves in a developed economy. Getting back to Chump and his antics, and why he remains popular relative to the deomocrats. And I think it is in the culture of the people. Americans like the hollywood BS.. Everything is brute force with them. Die Hard, etc. I remember when 9/11 happened there were people wondering whee the real Die Hard shoot-em-up law enforcers were. You only have to look at the reaction in the aftermath where people were seriously calling for pilots to wear guns.. Look at their law enforcement (sadly, some of it has spilled into Australia) compared to the unarmed bobby. The other thing is that America epitomises selfishness. It's al me me me me me me me me me. They could not care about what anyone outside America thinks. I seriously think that most people who live in America think the rest of the world is a third world backwater, anyway - at least those that haven't ventured anywhere else. And there's a lot of them. So Chump shafting the world is seem as power, being tough and brutish.. which is what they want. We call him dumb, but he plays his audience very well. And only they get to votet him in. And yeah, you can argue that he was voted out, but he was voted in after the democrats fixed the economy and their foreign relations after the first bout of Chump. And this time he was ahead in the popular vote and took both houses! The yanks do not care. Like everyone else, it is "what is in it for me?" A lot of them were convinced the crap he is doing is better for them when iut is worse at every level.. I still love the US, but I no longer preference by spending on US products over Chinese (yes, I know US brands are largely manufactured in China, but at least some of the profit went back). I am more inclined to buy non-US brands in may things. And although I won't use Temu nor Ali-Baba, I no longer spend as near as much as I used to on Amazon. I use Mistral LLM AI over Chat GPT. I have made my decision with my wallet.

You don't do crytic crosswords, per chance?

I am going to get the popcorn while the responses come in 😉 Welcome to the forum Natn... What country from SE Asia are you from? What do you do for a living? What do you want to study your masters in? What country these days isn't corrupt? Why not jump on the band wagon and get those favours for a few $ (US, of course) 😉 Seriously, Australia has a large SE Asian immigrant population - well certianly on the Eastern seaboard. As long as you're intentions are pure and your are willing to put positively into society, as far as I am concerned, you're welcome.. but I live in the UK. Australia has some of the best SE Asian food outside of SE Asia.. If you come in to study, I hope you have lotsa money.. As a foreign student, you will be full fee paying and it ain't cheap. Australia is expensive to live in - there is a rental crisis, so for the price of a 5 bedroom apartment on Lexington Avenue in NY, rubbing shoulders with the rich and famous, you can share a 2 bedroom flat in Sydney, 2.5 bedroom flat in Melbourne, and a mosquito cage in Brisbane. Just remember, it is a legal requirement to support the Hawthorn football club for all temporary and permanent migrants from SE Asia into Australia, and you will be fine. You won't get your visa without it.

(I must pay more attention).' Getting away from it all.

Garlic Press Conference 😉

That was the first that popped into my mind.. wasn't the rule that when a letter is selected, all occurences of the letters are exposed? Guess not...

Agree, except the demand of the goods of the muscled are likely to drop or their margins are,which affects their profitability, even if they spend money finding other markets

Thought it was too easy

Jeez, I'd be happy if one of my team took my job.. they get to have the fun.

All star time?

Indeed a rip off.. a little over 15% to withdraw your money. These are private operators who pay network fees, cash carrying charges and the like.. thought they would have all gone bust by now.. Can't you get your money fee free from any bank's ATM regardless of who you bank with?

Who wants life to pass them by?

Isn't that a plus - to extend the gene pool... 2 heads and all of that?

Well, if that is the case, then pollies and/or science has let us down... and to be quite frank, I know which genre lets us down far more often.

Fair call... But that article claims it is 800 a year; not sure if it is just in the region or for a station, or Australia wide. But the fisherman in the article is laying the blame of the take on the station owners not managing their cattle properly, so I am guessing this could be avoided. But even if it were 8,000 per year Australia wide, at $2K/head (and not all of them are worth that), we are looking at $16m/year.. still not a huge amount for the size of the industry. And some of these stations hold thousands of head of cattle, and still doubt it adds that much to the food bill at the check out.. But, if it makes sense to cull, they should be. Sometimes, I am argumentative SoB

This was a ruling back in May: https://tax.thomsonreuters.com/blog/u-s-court-of-international-trade-rules-certain-emergency-tariffs-illegal-what-businesses-need-to-know/ Here is an article in June where a federal appeals court granted an injunction on the tarrifs: https://www.dentons.com/en/insights/newsletters/2025/june/2/trump-2-0-navigating-change-in-canada/appeals-court-halts-united-states There is nothing on the CNN website front page or recent US stories that I can find that talks about it.. Doing a search on the court of international trade on CNN gives this page: https://edition.cnn.com/search?q=court+of+international+trade&from=0&size=10&page=1&sort=newest&types=all&section=, whin at the time of the search goes back to July 16 on the first page, and there is no news of this on there, either. A Youtuber looks to have put up some old news to get clicks.

Part of the reason I am questioning is that I recently stumbled across the importance dingos provide the the biodiversity, and ultimately, the economic performance of agriculture in Australia, yet they are still baited and culled. Here's one example where a pastoralist sees the economic benefits for cattle farming: Of course, it may be a different story for a sheep farmer in terms of pedation rates, so there may have to be some more innovation of managing flocks with dingos, but clearly, it it can be managed without culling, the farmers will be much better off and more productive. Which is why evidence based policy in this area (as with any) will lead us to inversting the resources in activities that will really solve the problems - not the gut reactions that can make it worse for us

You raise a good point, Nev. Crocs do play an important part of the ecosystem: https://chatgpt.com/share/688464ca-87e8-8008-91e9-a7cb5f702e72 But feral pigs and waterbuffalo are also on their diet and they help keep the numbers down. Feral cattle may also be taken. So, it helps keep at least some of that population in check. Yeah, crocs are a threat to humans. But there are a lot more humans than crocs, and a lot of humans do frequent where crocs live. Yet, very few are taken. Of course, a croc isn't that fussy an eater and will take people, but people are normally very adept at living in their environment, which contributes to what appears to be an extremely low rate of fatalities. So, if we are going to invest in control of animals, it may be better for Australia's environment and food production to invest in control of the feral species, while maintaining investment in education and safety of the public. Also, I am not saying a cull isn't on the cards.. Over-population of any species should really be kept in check and if the apex predator is not taking care of its own numbers through territorial fighting, etc, but I would liketo see an evidence based approach rather than anecdotal based approach. I am not suggesting Chat GPT is accurate either.. If there's a case to supportit, it should be supported with the requisite quota in place to ensure no overculling. Would also like the controls in place to ensure there is no overvulling and leaving carcasses in situ to avoid detection.

Depends on who he ate, I guess 😉

I accidentally hit save and by the time I got the rest of the response in, my time was up, so here is the rest: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-11-30/fact-check-does-a-crocodile-kill-someone-every-three-months-/9202902 I checked how many head of cattle per year are taken by crocs, and it is estimated to be around 100: https://www.abc.net.au/news/rural/2017-01-17/crocodiles-snapping-up-more-than-100-cattle-a-year/8187352. In the biullions of dollars that the Aussie beef industry is worth, I would expect that to be tuppance. Yep, those in affected areas have to spend a bit keeping their herds safe, but if it were not economic, they would get out of it. I wouold have thought snakes were more of an issue, but apparently not or there is little evidence, anyway. BTW. googleing current price for middle wight steers for beef in Australia yielded about $1900/head. That makes it less than $190K per year out of a multi-billion dollar industry. Say there are 500 farms/stations affected and they need to each spend 100K per year protecting their herds, that is $50m/year in a multi billion dollar industry.. I think it doesn't add that much to the price you pay in the supermarket or butcher. I couldn't find any information on the amount of food crocs take in Australia that would deprive humans of their food. I would wager that societal inequities are probably a far bigger contributor to malnutrition in Australia than the croc's diet. I have no idea if the above is accurate - there is very little to go on, but as humans, we adapt to changes in our environment are able to exert influences on our enviromnment more effectively than any other species.. Maybe we can lear to live with them - or maybe we already have?

I have no idea of the subject, but as always, I like to turn to facts. Suprisingly, when I key historical rate of crocodile fatalities in Australia into Mr Google, there really is scant info, but this did turn up, and was quoted in an ABC fact check that labelled as false Katter's claim a person is torn to shreds every three months by crocodiles in QLD alone: https://aussieanimals.com/reptiles/fatal-crocodile-attacks-australia-timeline/