old man emu

I doubt that Stoker was "using", as it took him about seven years to write the novel, during which time he had a fulltime job as a theatrical manager. He did a lot of research into dialects for saome of the ancilliary characters in the story (mostly workmen who had at times been involved in movin Dracula's stuff around. This novel contains probably the first mention of the use of a typewriter and a Dicta-Phone tpe of device in modern literature. The Dicta-Phone device mentioned was an Edison wax cylinder voice recorder.

No. There is too much rivalry amongst them to ever unite. What "infidel" means: "adherent of a religion opposed to Christianity," from Old French infidèle, from Latin infidelis "unfaithful, not to be trusted,". Originally "a non-Christian" (especially a Saracen); later "one who does not believe in religion, disbeliever in religion generally". As an adjective from mid-15c., "of a religion opposed to Christianity;" So it is wrong to call the USA an infidel foe. It is the USA which should be calling Muslims (and Jews) infidels.

Didn't know thatr about Dcre Stoker. The AE2 played an important part in disrupting the Ottoman Navy on the 25th April 1915. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMAS_AE2

I think that it is a good idea if the number of different manufacturers was reduced, but with no adverse effect on production. My reason for thinking this is that if there are too many little manufacturers, the customer will run into problems getting parts or servicing. How can a mechanic be efficient if the mechanic has to be trained on a number of different vehicles. I know that now there is digital examination of vehicle faults to say what part needs attention, but the same type of part might be located in different places in differnt vehicles. It's not just a problem for EVs. The same thing can happen with any vehicle where there are many makes of vehicle.

Have you read War and Peace, The Great Gatsby, For Whom the Bell Tolls, or perhaps Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, The Modern Prometheus? No doubt you have heard about these books, and maybe even seen movies based on those novels, but radio plays, movies and TV shows very often fail to reflect the actual content of those novels. Recently I took up a copy of Bram Stoker's Dracula mainly so that I could eventually say, "Oh, yes. I've read that." What amazed me was how Stoker's story is so much better than anything produced based on the original story line. I began reading the novel with a feeling that it would be a Ho-hum horror story that focused on Dracula's blood-sucking activities. But as I read, I was drawn into a really exciting story. I suppose that I was looking for all the images that I have become accustomed to from modern depictions. What I found was that modern depictions, which begin with the 1922 German film Nosferatu, concentrate on Dracula himself - his need to avoid sunlight; that he has no reflection in a mirror nor casts a shadow, and of course his penchant for giving women bloody lovebites on the neck. In the novel, while these things are mentioned and used to instil fear, the majority of the novel deals with four men who have seen what Dracula has done to a woman they loved, and take on the task of locating Dracula and destroying him by driving a wooden spike through his heart and cutting his head from his body, all within the aroma of cloves of garlic. The plot line is can be described as a "seek and destroy" mission, but with a lot more effort to deal with what the men are thinking an doing. It would be unkind of me to go too deeply into the plot. All I cna say is that, if you like a really good, ripping yarn grab a copy of the book and settle down for an enjoyuable read. I was lucky to have picked up a copy published by Penquin Books. The copy I read was the 2003 revised edition with chapter annotations, and appendices by Maurice Hindle, Visiting Fellow in the Department of Literature at The Open University, in England. If you want to read the same edition, ask your libraian to use this ISBN-13: 978-0-141-43984-6.

The earthquake bomb, or seismic bomb, or bunker buster bomb, was a concept that was invented by the British aeronautical engineer Barnes Wallis early in World War II. A seismic bomb differs somewhat in concept from a traditional bomb, which usually explodes at or near the surface and destroys its target directly by explosive force; in contrast, a seismic bomb is dropped from high altitude to attain very high speed as it falls and upon impact, penetrates and explodes deep underground, causing massive caverns or craters known as camouflets, as well as intense shockwaves. Note that the way these bombs work is first expending their momentum to get through rock layers, then detonating their high explosive charge to cause the surrounding rock to break up. I would have to think that the effectiveness of these devices would very much depend on the type of rock they had to go through. Sedimentary rock is relatively "softer" than igneous rock, so would be easier to fracture. I have no doubts that the Yanks know full well what teh rock types are overlaying the nuclear facilities they were hitting. Let's see if we can work out some values for impact speed and the kinetic energy of the bomb at point ofinitial contact. To calculate the velocity of a falling object, you can use the formula: v = √(2gh), where 'v' is the final velocity, 'g' is the acceleration due to gravity (approximately 9.8 m/s²), and 'h' is the height from which the object is falling. In a report on the mission, I heard that the bombs were dropped from 40,000 feet, which is 12,192 metres - call it 12,000 metres. Filling in the formula we have v = sqrt (2 x 9.81 x 12,000) = sqrt (235440) = 485.22 m/s (1746 kph) A bunker buster bomb weighs 13607 kg. The kinetic energy of the bomb at first contact is KE = 1/2 * m * v², where KE is the kinetic energy, m is the mass of the object, and v is the velocity of the object. KE = 0.5 x 13607 x (485.22)^2 = 1,601,805,483 Joules One joule is equal to the amount of work done when a force of one newton displaces a body through a distance of one metre in the direction of that force. And from here on I'm lost, except to say that at point of contact, that bomb has a lot of energy to lose before it stops.

Hmmm. He's an evil genius???

The Americans have this bee in their bonnets that every country MUST function as a democracy based on their concept of democracy. What if a country has a long history of some other form of social organisation that has been developed over millenia? The US form of democracy has only been in operation for 250 years, and communism for only about 125 years. We have seen how false the operation of the democratic process is in the USA. Is it little wonder that countries with other forms of social organisation want no part of it?

That's what they said were the only devices that could destroy that underground facility.

So much for waiting "two weeks" to either talk or fight. Will Saturday, June 22nd, 2025 live on in History as a Day of Infamy? Are the events of today Iran's Pearl Harbour? I think it's time for Australia to tell the USA: "P!ss off. Get your military off our soil. You can't be trusted to maintain global security. Call yourself the World's Policeman? You are the World's Terrorist." To give you an idea of what was involved in those raids, watch this video from time stamp 1:52 to see how the bombs work and what the results are likley to be. Take notice of the information of how multiple bombs are used to "drill" down into a structure. Trump said that the bombers dropped "full loads" of bombs, which suggests the drilling procedure was employed.

Sometimes circumstances beyond our control dictate oor outcomes. The computer that I had which was running WIN 10 got the Royal Order of the Rigid Digit. So I had to but a new one. Luckily I the computer shop offered me a reconditioned one for $495. It has 8 GB of Ram, a 256 GB SSD drive and 1 TB of SATA storage and WIN 11 installed. I don't know what all that means, but I'm told that it will be sufficient unto my needs. I had to buy a personal copy of MS-Windows. I also bought and external hard drive caddy into which the shop fitted the hard drive from my very original computer. The shop was able to retrieve recent data from the hard drive in the computer that failed. I've got everything connected, but I have to work out how to move folders onto my desktop from where they are held. But that's a job for later. I've also got to activate the spellchecker to overcome the current plague of keyboard mis-strikes that seems to be affected some of us. Apart from a bit of a different look about it, I haven't had a problem with WIN 11. But then, I haven't explored it much either.

Apart from a very few who are in goal for white collar crime, or for a one-off offence, the majority of persons in goal suffer from lack of education. A lot are more illiterate than your average First Grade primary school kid. That illiteracy means they can’t get permanent employment, so exist on “the dole”. That sort of existence has been happening for several generations now and has become a sub-culture. Lack of education and its accompanying poverty lead to criminal activity. Attempts at rehabilitation whilst in goal fail because education is not provided until the end of sentence is approaching, by which time the person has become enmeshed in another sub-culture, that of the prison yard.

Have you ever got a traffic ticket, or a parking ticket? I bet that if you had, you’d bitch about the heavy penalty.

I’d say that an EV mower’s battery and motor would probably be lighter, or equals in weight to an ICE with battery and fuel. There is a only one thing I have against an EV mower, and all battery-powered devices in general, is that once the stored energy has been used, it takes more time to replenish the energy than simply pouring a liquid into a tank. It’s OK if the job has been done and the battery can be being charged when it is not required to complete a job, but running out of power in the middle of a job is like getting a Three-Cornered Jack in your underdaks.

You can’t cry over spilt milk. And you can’t compare the political culture of 75 years ago with that of today. Who’s fault was it that the Right was in power for 20 years? Labor was cutting its own throat during that time (Laborites think that unfortunate). It was the era of the Cold War and the Conservatives played the “Reds under the Bed” card for all its worth. The voters, weary from the Depression years and WWII, were trying to concentrate on their own battler lives, and had little time to think of politics. They know that affecting how the country was run was pretty much out of their ability. Come the late 60s and the ideas of the Common People began to change and have continued to do so. It’s called Social Evolution. Just like everything since the beginning of the 20th Century, the pace of change has so much faster than ever in Mankind’s past.

Of course Whitlam could not change anything before the 1972 election - the Labor Party was in Opposition, as it had been for twenty-odd years. You make it sound like every conscript was given a firearm and sent off to Vietnam. That is not correct. Also, you are looking at a 20th Century culture through 21st Century eyes. The culture has undergone changes since the 1970s, and even more so since 2020.

I didn’t realise that my off-handed comment would cause so much interest. It’s more than I get for some of my serious posts. 😀 I have a tad under 1/4 acre to mow, which I can do in just under two hours. I use a petrol mower. Pushing it around gives me a bit of exercise. I’ve only mowed a couple of times since last Spring because the hot weather stopped the growth (I can’t afford the electricity to pump the water to irrigate my ground.) Regarding the quality of ride-ons, it is said that in the cheaper ones, the drive gears are not metal, but polymers of some kind, which means that can fail before the mower itself is worn out.

The art of the deal?? Knowing how to deal from the bottom of the pack.

We are accustomed to the issuing of a declaration of war being issued when a country starts using military might against another country. I believe that under International Law such a declaration invokes certain rules of engagement, mainly to protect non-combatants. At present we have the State of Israel and the Islamic Republic of Iran using military weapons against each other, and very often without consideration for the safety of non-combatants. I have not heard that a declaration of war has been issued by either Nation. So are they engaged in a war, or are they ignoring International Law. I suppose that if they are not signatories to those laws, they both can do what they like, but their actions put them outside the pale of acceptable, civilised behaviour. What gets me is that the government of the State of Israel claims that it is acting in self defence, however I see no invading army crossing its borders. In the 21st Century, does the word “invasion” now mean an aerial crossing of a border by destructive devices?

Remember Trump’s meeting with the leader of South Africa when Trump claimed that White farmers were being murdered and their land taken? Not the smart thing to do when the leader of the country is sitting beside you. Trump could destroy the US aerospace and car industries by getting the leader of South Africa offside. It all arises from the availability of the metal Vanadium. Vanadium is used to make an alloy of steel which has extensive uses in those two industries, as well as many others which require high grade steel. There are four main producers of the ore that Vanadium is extracted from - China, Russia, South Africa and Brazil, in that order of most to lesser amounts. You can see the difficulties with the two biggest producers, so the USA would be relying on No.3. Not a wise move to piss off your relatively secure supplier.

I’ve been watching some videos on Australian political history. When dealing with topics related to State politics, it seems that NSW, QLD and VIC have a culture of political corruption. Don’t know about SA or WA. The list of names of the shonky polies is very long. Probably the worst thing is that the creation of corruption finding organisations does not seem to have been successful in rooting out the crooks.

Now it seems that the AUKUS bizzo could come crushing down as the US takes on a “US First” attitude. Perhaps we should remind the US about Pine Gap and Tindal.

Trump refused the frantic request from Congress to deploy them.

People have commented on the way that Trump walks. He throws his left leg in a sort of circular motion. Now the reason might have been exposed. It is possible that he has a Foley bag attached to his left leg. A Foley bag is a device to hold urine if one has a urinary catheter inserted. As the bag fills, it adds weight to the leg, requiring more effort to throw the leg forward with each step. It is an old technique with horses to fix their gait by fitting a weighted shoe to the leg which is producing the wrong gait. Why would Trump need a Foley Bag? At the kindest, maybe it is a way for him to attend public functions without having to pop off to the loo as men of his age often have the need to do. The unkind would suggest that he has some medical condition. Here's my source.

I got angry when I found out that the US had launched bombers for raids against the Houthis from Tindal in the Northern Territory. That puts Australia into the fight with that mob.