old man emu

About the "attempted assassination". The fellow who was involved in the incident recently has been charged with attempting to assassinate Trump, and others. Once again I come to the conclusion that US law is foolish. Just think about it. Trump was well away from the the likely entrances to the room and there were lots of people between those entrances and Trump. The fellow no doubt had the intention to harm Trump, but hardly a viable opportunity, given the layout of the site and the presence of armed security people. In my mind alledging an offence of "attempting" in this case is akin to charging someone with a thought crime. But we are talking about Yanks here, so anything goes. As an aside, I'd like to know what firearm fired the bullet that hit the security guard. The guard survived the hit due to a bullet resistant vest, so I reckon that the firearm was a handgun, not a rifle that the fellow was supposed to have fired. All I can say is that the incident was a missed opportunity. OH! There's a knock at my door. Must be the AFP acting on behalf of the CIA.

Like all new things, if they create a problem, eventually a solution will be found. I heard that solar panels are hard to do anything with, but how long have we have lots of them? I bet people are working feverously to develop ways to get something useful from the junk. I have faith in the fact that someone eventually finds a way to utilise the smell of a turd.

Here's a link to the project's website: https://milpullingwindfarm.com/

Just to clarify teh matter of the US entry into WWII. The actions of the Japanese Empire were as a result of the USA's trade embargo on oil to Japan. Therefore Japan set a goal of capturing the oil fields of Borneo. Like all good politicians, Japan camouflaged its goal by declaring that its actions were to liberate colonial South-East Asia and establish an economic zone controlled by Asian peoples. The attack on Pearl Harbour and invasion of the Philipines and South-East Asia would have brought about a war between the USA and Japan. However, Hitler buggered things by declaring war on the USA a few days later. If he had pulled his head in, the USA might not have entered the Eurpoean war. Not likely, I suppose, since the USA was arming Britain. But who knows? There would have been two separate wars. If there had been two separate wars, the USA might not have come out of the period as economically powerful as it did and Europe and Japan so weak. That would have made the modern world a different place. One could say that Hitler's declaration of war was the "sliding door moment" in human history.

As I said, I drove down to Sydney last week. For most of the way from Mudgee to Mount Victoria in the Blue Mountains the dead trunks of thousands of trees destroyed by bushfires in 2019 stand as ghostly reminders of the ferocity of our bushfires. While most of the damage was done to native forest, there are hectares and hectares of pine tree trunks marking to path of the fires.

The point is that Nev is a Grumpy Old man, and we love him for it.

We had our local show this weekend. I got the chance to speak to representatives of the mob which is in the process of gaining approval for an eighty-tower windfarm within 20 kms of my place. Eighty towers seems like a big crowd, but when I was shown to proposed location of each tower, I saw that they were separated from each other by close on a kilometre. My first thought when I heard of the proposal was that teh towers would be visible from the Newell Highway which is located to the east of the proposed area. I learned that the closest tower woulod be about 5 kms from the highway, with a line of low "hills" between them. So that's no longer a concern to me. I think I've whinged before that around here it can be pretty windy, nd said that it would be ideal for a wind farm. Seems I'm right in some ways and mistaken in others. I experience wind as air movement within about 10 metres of the ground surface. That air movement is very turbulent compared to air movement 100 metres above ground where the turbine blades are. That turbulence, caused by the moving air particles colliding withthe ground and trees and ricocheting into air particles higher up. These collisions rob the air particles of energy due to loss of momentum. If the air movement is free of the turbulence, then there is more energy for the collision between the moving air and the turbine blades. That's why the towers are so high. I was also told that studies locally have shown that the most consistent air movement begins at these heights after sunset and stay pretty good until just before dawn. That means the turbines are best able to produce electricity at night in complement to solar panels. That sounds good. What about the effects on farm incomes? The builders don't resume the land they need like the government does when it wants to build roads etc. It seems that the land is rented from the landholders at a rate determined by the generating capacity of the turbine. An example was that of a property with two towers on it. Based on the generating capacity of the intended turbines, renting the land for two towers would return $100,000 p.a. CPI-indexed for a contract period of thirty years. That's got to provide a degree of stabilisation of farm income. I bet any landowner would love to get that sort of money, especially in the present circumstance when it looks like a drought is on the way. Why does it take so long to get a windfarm up an running. Would you beleive that it is in part due to the very people who pursue a renewable world? One of the environmental reports required deals with the effect of the turbines on bats and birds. Getting the data required a study lasting two years. Then there are the Native Heritage studies and gaining clearances from the local indigenous community. Then there are the geo-technical studies, planning permissions yadda yadda. We should consider the economic benefits. It is said that the workforce required to create the windfarm complex is about 500 persons. These people will be newcomers who will have to be fed, housed and entertained for several years. Already the local Council has allocated an area for an accommodation camp. Someone has to build it. An extra 500 people will hopefully boost local trade, although the proximity of the City of Dubbo, about 30 minutes' drive away might not do good for my town. Still, it's money coming into the district. In my opinion, there is nothing wrong with this project. Really, it is going to be 'out of sight, out of mind' to teh majority of the population. And kn owing what I know about smart crows and blind bats, I don't envisage too many mid-air collsions with revolving turbine blades.

And yet Australia possesses 17% of the World's forest.

Early days yet for an explanation. But look at teh first second of this video wheer you see the intruder running and security people shooting.

I agee. The point I am trying to make is that there is much more oxygen present on Earth than the 21% in free air.

Who did the shooting? The reports I have heard have come from our own ABC correspondent who was in the room, with 2000 others. He reported that those inside the ballroom heard shots coming from outside it. Released video shows the intruder breaking through the security barrier and running towards to room. What do you think the response of the security people would be, given their 'shoot first' attitude? Four shots fired. My money is on those shots coming from the security people. The intruder is most likely to have been concentrating on getting to the door of the room, not getting into a gunfight beforehand.

Is your definition of who is an Australian only include those who can trace an ancestry back to Great Britain and Northern Ireland as well as the Republic of Ireland?

I was thinking about Nev's comment and I began to list all the different things that contain oxygen. Things like water and DNA and carbohydrates and proteins and so on. The amount of oxygen in free air is easily calculated, but what about all the other places oxygen hides? Food for thought, if you want a feed.

That's an intriguing assemblage of words.

Imagine how much oxygen is locked up in mineral ores. Just look at the tonnes of iron ore still undug.

So not all caused by humans.

It's great to see a photo of one's Dad in a museum collection. I've got private photos of my Dad taken during his service, but I got the biggest thrill when I found a photo in the Australian War Memorial collection of my Dad in a war zone. He did serve in the Western Desert, but was wounded. That crearted a disability that made him unsuitable for infantry duty (no right index finger to pull a trigger), so he was attached to an narmy hospital where he was a warehouseman. Somebody has to receive and issue new bedpans. Dad had his own copy of the photo, but seeing it in the AWM collection with him identified by name is great.

If the population of the Southern Hemisphere is much less that thhat of the Northern Hemisphere, where's the heat coming from to create the expected Super El Nino?

Just got home from the daytime service. A large number of people of all ages attended, including kids from the three schools and the pre-school. These kids marched in the parade along the main street to the memorial, and representatives from each school laid a wreath. Seniors from the high school read the poems, At the Going Down of the Sun; The Inquisative Mind of a Child; Commemoration of the Fallen, and In Flanders Field. You know the song, I am Australian? I mentioned the Coo-ee March. We add antoerh verse: I'm a band of Coo-ee marchers, From Gil to Sydney's shore; We sailed to France Fought bravely In the muddy hell of war. I'm a digger. I'm an ANZAC I'm a proud Gilgandra son. My heart, my home, my country. I am Australian We don't have the generic war memorial in the main street with a statue of a Digger standing atop. We have a statue in the main street to commemoriate the Coo-ee March. It was sculpted by a member of one of the local families.

Getting back to topic. Today is ANZAC Day. I've just come back from the Dawn Service in my town. A lot of people came to the service in ages from five to ninety-five. My town has a very strong tradition of remembrance becasue it was from here that the first citizen's recruiting march of WWI began. https://cooeemarch1915.com/ In a while. I'll go back into town for the daytime service at which there will be a lot more people. However, as I was listening to the radio on the way home this morning there was talk of how the change in origin of our population is going to reduce the importance of ANZAC Day to the national identity. To be brutally honset, ANZAC Day is something that relates to those of us who have links to a British ancestry. Aboriginal people did participate, but thier descendants do not seem to want to be involved. The organisers of the serices in my town have tried to simply get the local Aboriginal community to provide a flag to be flown alongside the Australian and New Zealand flags, but to no avail. I don't want to dwell on that point, so don't you. There are only a few people in town from what we might call the immigrant countries. They are good citizens, but do not have the heritage of ANZAC Day. I suspect that in our major cities the ratio of Anglos to non-Anglos is weighted towards the non-Anglos. Those non-Anglos are Australians. Think of the Italians, Greeks, Germans, Dutch, Hungarians etc who came here after WWII. Their decendants are dinki-di. In the future those whose parents came from India, Africa and Asia will reformulate what an Australian is. But I think that the ANZAC tradition will not be a big ingredint in that fomula. Is that a bad thing? Lamentable, perhaps, but as a nation's character evolves, some traits disappear. Should we cling stubbornly to the Past, or accept an evolving Future. I know that you will have strong feelings about this due to how you were brought up, but soon we will be gone. Will our descendants have teh same feelings. Considering what the make up of the Nation will be in say, 50 years, will the clebration of ANZAC Day be important?

At its very simplest, an assualt consists of touching another person, or being in close enough proximity to continue moving towards touching. An assualt can either be consenteed to, or not. If there is consent, then the assualt is lawful. Those sorts of assaults can range from a handshake, to a hug, to a kiss. Even a tackle in a football game is an assault consented to, as long as the tackle style is lawful under the rules of the game. In the situations I have mentioned, consent is normally assumed as being part of normal interaction. In all other cases, touchin another person is an unconsented assault. Have you ever undergone a procedure in a hospital? Do you remember signing a document to confirm your constent to undergo the procedure? In the case of the podiatrist, the more serious assault arises from the use of a cutting tool on a part of the body. If one visits a podiatrist for a procedure, one has in one's mind that the assault is consented to. However, the podiatrist is not a mind reader, and therefore for the podiatrist's protection, that consent must be confirmed. The consent can be revoked at any time thereafter.

There's not much growth whenour manufactruring base has been exported to low wage countries. We still are up there with the leaders in intellectual property, but that too goes overseas. We don't apply it to create employment here.

Have you ever done any geneological research? Pages and pages of records to go through which takes ages. If AI can do the grunt work, then I'd say that it as a good use for it.

Here is an example of how the AI program Claude is being used by the presenter to confirm family records. It is an example of my point that there are so many uses for AI that most of us have never thought of. However, I would rather read a novel written by a real person than one created from prompts to an AI program.

Unfortunately for some of these people with qualifications gained overseas, our, one might say "racist", professional bodies do not accept them. Threfore, while the immigrant awaits acceptance of their qualifications, they have to do menial tasks. I knew of a radiologist who had to wok as an aged care worker because his qualificatins had not been accepted at the time I knew him. In fact, when I last saw him he was starting a cleaning business. His wife's nursing qualificatins had been accepted and she was in employment.