old man emu

That'll make the Jan 6 pardons shaky in 2027 when there's a Democrat in the White House holding the pen.

That's kinda surprising.

The value given for the diameter of the moon is probably derived from a straight line measurement from one side of the Moon to another, through the centre of the sphere. The value for the distance across Australia is probably derived from the length of an arc of a Great Circle passing through both points. If a chord was drawn through the Earth's sphere between the two points, then the length of the chord would be less than the length of the arc. Therefore the straight line distances, diameter -v- arc, would have Australia being narrower than the Moon.

Have you bought any avocados recently? A doctor told me that eating them is a way to control one's bad cholesterol. I had never really developed a taste for them, but I did find a way to enjoy them, and have started eating more. However the quality of avocados has been very poor recently. They are small, hard as rocks and will not ripen. I thought that the poor quality available locally was due to my supermarket buying cheap, but enquiries with café owners and chain supermarkets revealed the same thing. Perhaps the poor quality is due to growers harvesting what could be saved after the terrible weather on the east coast growing areas.

European nations are actively involved in submarine production, with key players like Germany, France, Sweden, and the UK building both conventional and nuclear-powered submarines, with some focusing on export markets. At least if we bought from Europe, the nuts and bolts holding things together would be Metric.

We grew up knowing it as French Indo-China.

Hey! We have a celebrity member! That shit could only have come from the keyboard of one Elon Musk.

The questions that should be asked when purchasing military goods is, what do we want the item to do? In the case of a submarine, the task is locate, track and destroy if necessary. Does the submarine really have to be nuclear powered? The way I see it, we are buying advanced detection and attack systems which the Yanks want to pack into a boat with a certain type of power generation system. Nuclear subs have very much greater operating ranges than diesel electric, but while operating under electric power, the D/E is much quieter and hence more difficult to detect by listening equipment. The only drawback is that the batteries go flat, forcing the sub to rise close to the surface to allow its diesel engines to recharge them. During recharging, the operation of the diesel engine makes noise. Do we need subs that can range far from our shores, or simply ones that can operate along the boundaries of our territorial waters.

I heard on the ABC (Australia) news this morning that there are strong calls from Labor rank and file members to withdraw from AUKUS, for much the same reasons as Portugal is backing out of its arms deal. I have just finished reading a book giving a potted history of Australia's submarine service, which has been closely aligned to the Royal Navy. Dealing with WWII, the author tells that when the Royal Navy was able to send a fleet to the Pacific after the fall of Germany, the US Navy didn't want anything to do with it. The RN brought midget submarines with it, which often had Australian crewmembers. The Yanks wanted no part of them, until they were presented with a plan for the subs to cut the undersea telephone cables the Japanese were using to avoid interception of radio traffic. If you look at the history of the war against Japan, you will find that the Yanks paid little attention to the defence of Australia, or cooperation with any other Nation having interests in the area.

We should first look at what industries we could either start or expand. I reckon we should look at value-adding to our minerals and agricultural products.

How does one know that the advice to use "Delete Me" isn't a scam?

A man was sitting in his doctor's waiting room when a nun burst out of the doctor's consulting room; raced, screaming, across the waiting room to the exit, and charged out of the building, still screaming. The doctor looked at the man and called him into the consulting room. Puzzled, the man asked the doctor, "What was that all about?" The doctor replied, "I told her she was pregnant." Incredulous, the man asked, "Is she?" The doctor looked at the man and said with a hint of a smile, "No. And she doesn't have hiccoughs any more."

Where, where?

The point I wanted to make is that evapotranspiration is never considered when we talk about the weather. Evapotranspiration happens day in, day out, 365.25 days per year and 366 day every fourth. We don't get rain with that frequency. Rain comes sporadically, and the majority of it runs away, and is of no use in sustaining plant populations. Just talking about air temperature rise ignores the effects of those rises on both soil moisture and atmospheric moisture.

The question asked related to a leader having qualifications which would aid in leadership. I was looking at qualifications that would affect policy, not morality. Morality is something else that one would look for in a leader, but that is not linked to what one gains from study and the application of that study. There are many things which make a good leader. Too many to list here, so I restricted myself to academic qualifications to restrict the conversation somewhat.

"begins to here hear

The only thing I want to eliminate is all this fundament about Trump.

Just thinking of our Prime Ministers. A quick check indicated that from Whitlam to Albanese, all our Prime Ministers (except Keating) held Degrees in legal or economic studies. Maybe we could say that Keating attended the University of Hard Knocks. So you can't say that our Prime Ministers didn't have suitable qualifications for the job.

But can't we have an Intermission like we used to at the pictures?

It was Mildred Dorothy Roper (née Tremble) is a fictional character from the Thames Television sitcoms Man About the House and George and Mildred. She was portrayed by Yootha Joyce, who died on 20 August 1980. Here 'husband', George. played by Brian Murphy passed away on 1 February 2025.

Il Papa has spent his life extolling the joys of Life Eternal to all and sundry, but when he begins to here the Archangel's call to savor those joys, he fights hard to resist answering it.

He quotes from Alexander Pope's Essay on Criticism

The only BBC show I can recall that might be the one is Keeping up Appearances whose character was Hyacinth Bucket (Patricia Routledge), who insists that her surname is pronounced "Bouquet", although her husband Richard has said, "It was always 'Bucket' until I met you!"

Hoy! Wathchit mate! That mob has two "D's in the name. The original and best family only requires one.

On a more serious note, we talk about how much rain falls on our blocks, but we never talk about the other water factor that really stifles plant growth - evaporation. Just think about the weather at your place today. It's hot. Humidity is low. The Sun is belting down through cloudless skies, and there's a bit of a breeze. Excellent weather for the missus to get the washing dry, but think of the amount of water being drawn out of the ground. The rate of evaporation depends on factors such as cloudiness, air temperature and wind speed. The evapotranspiration rate is the amount of water which evaporates from an open pan called a Class A evaporation pan. A standard pan is 121 centimeters in diameter and 24 centimeters deep. It is set on a wooden platform close to the ground as shown below. Measurements are made by the addition or subtraction of a known amount of water, which then tells us how much water has evaporated from the pan. Here is a link to the evapotranspiration data for March 2025 at an agricultural research station abut 65 km from my place. http://www.bom.gov.au/watl/eto/tables/nsw/trangie_research_station/trangie_research_station.shtml The data shows that there was only 1.8 mm of rain, but 78.9 mm of evaporation. The amount of evaporation is calculated using this formula where: Emass = Evaporation rate (mm day−1) m = Slope of the saturation vapor pressure curve (kPa K−1) Rn = Net irradiance (MJ m−2 day−1) γ = psychrometric constant = 0.0016286∗PkPaλv (kPa K−1) U2 = wind speed (m s−1) δe = vapor pressure deficit (kPa) λv = latent heat of vaporization (MJ kg−1) And no. You can't borrow my calculator.