old man emu

The etymology of the word 'caravan' as it applies to an unpowered, solid-walled vehicle towed by an animal or a powered vehicle which can house people who move from place to place shows how a word can develop various meanings over time. The word 'caravan' is Persian. It comes from the the word 'karwan' which means a group of people travelling together for safety through a dangerous place. The image that word can produce is of a group of Arabs and their loaded camels travelling in single file across a desert. This meaning is akin to that of 'convoy' which comes from from Vulgar Latin conviare, literally "go together on the road". On the mud-laden roads of Britain from about 1640, a wagon called a 'stage wagon' or 'long wagon' was used to transport both goods and people between towns. These wagons were colloquially called 'caravans'. Although early English travellers using caravans did not sleep in them and did not travel in convoy, it was the fact that both people and their goods were carried in a single, covered vehicle for security that led to the wider use of the term 'caravan' in Britain. When the advent of the railways led to the decline of public, horse-drawn caravan services between towns, redundant caravans were converted to mobile accommodation for people whose way of making a living involved moving from town to town. When the first purpose-built, horse-drawn recreational vehicles appeared in England in the 1880s, they retained the name 'caravan' because they contained the living and accommodation needs of the owner.

I only picked those two as examples of the expansion of monoculture and to raise a red flag over the detrimental effects on the broader floral and animal environment of any sort of persistent monoculture. I wonder what trees are the source of these wood pellets. Are they from natural forests or plantations?

It's a Chamberlain 40K. The first Chamberlain tractor produced was the model 40K which had 40 horsepower (30 kW) twin-cylinder, horizontally opposed engines. They weighed about four tonnes and were considered to be ideal for the needs of Australian farmers. I wondered if the statue was to commemorate the place of manufacture of that brand of tractor, but they were made in Welshpool, a suburb of Perth. Carnamah is about 280 kms from Welshpool.

I'm trying to work out how to establish a relationship with the Magpie couple whose territory includes my place. I'm pretty sure that their base is amongst the denser trees on the other side of the road, but there is a solitary tree close to my front door which they sometimes come to. Yesterday I had some chicken scraps that I threw near the tree. I think they came down and took them, but their visits are so irregular that it's hard to plan when to put out some food for them.

Question Time in parliament has descended into a farce. It is a time for Dorothy Dix type questions from government backbenchers to government ministers, the answers to which have already been worked out in the Party Room meetings. After those questions, the Opposition has a go a scoring points based on the most trivial of matters. Dutton's question in the posted video made no contribution to benefitting the Nation. It's sole purpose wa to provide a video grab for use by whichever media organisation backed Dutton's mob. The topic of the question also shows that these politicians aren't really interested in promoting the good of the Nation. It's all about gaining and maintaining power.

While it's true that they don't deplete those finite fossil resources, they do create the problems associated with monoculture. Consider two results of monoculture, palm oil and radiata pine production. Palm oil plantations spread rapidly, resulting in deforestation impacts which wildlife habitats and human communities. Similarly, radiata pine plantations in Australia make our already poor soils worse. In China the Great Green Wall project is resulting in monoculture over vast areas.

No coal-fired generation in Great Britain. I guess anyone trying to get a contact to supply wood pellets is barking mad.

Well. Now we know what your vote is worth.

Corset they are. I'll keep you in suspenders while I consider the purchase. Thoughts of the expense involved are girdling my mind.

Today I got the first sign of the approaching summer. One of the straps on my last summer's things broke. Time to buy a new pair.

Especially since Florida is supposed to be strongly Republican.

The first requirement of Plan C, D, E etc is to apply the KISS principle. Getting fancy only makes for a more difficult construction, and introduces more potential failure points.

Will this thread still be active next Christmas?

I was only using a small amount of oil to stop the food sticking to the pan, which seems redundant since I am using a non-stick pan. Old habits die hard. I'm not real keen on fried food on a regular basis. I can't think how long it is since I had some KFC. Since I am only cooking for myself, I find that the air fryer is the most convenient, although I haven't worked out how to cook a steak properly. For doing that I use a griddle pan on the stove. I don't know how much oil is in the batter of frozen crumbed or beer batter fish, or in oven fry chips, but I've taken to referring to the manufacturer's serving sizes on the nutrition panel to moderate my intake of everything from vegetables to meat. I'm amazed when I look at the size of a recommended serving and think of what I my service sizes used to be. No wonder I was so heavy.

To Autumn. John Keats Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness, Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun; Conspiring with him how to load and bless With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run; To bend with apples the moss’d cottage-trees, And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core; To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells With a sweet kernel; to set budding more, And still more, later flowers for the bees, Until they think warm days will never cease, For summer has o’er-brimm’d their clammy cells.

The Shed I am going to (still uncertain about renewing my membership) has a dedicated new shed located on the town's showground. It is well appointed with new woodworking equipment of small commercial standard. I think its biggest problem is membership. I only go there on Wednesdays when I take my mate for the aged person's residence. There are only a few blokes attending, but I'm told more do on Saturday. The problem I see is that the blokes I see are older than me, and this town is one of God's waiting rooms. I heard that Wagga's Shed's youngest member is 18 years old. I think that Men's Sheds should encourage young fellows to come along and maybe pick up some skills. By "young" I mean those who haven't retired as yet. I know I'd love to be able to share learning skills with my 35 year old son. My grandsons aren't "men" yet. This video expresses what I think one of the roles of a Men's Shed is.

Creating more States at this stage of Australia's history would be well and truly jumping the gun. The United States wasn't built in a day – in fact it took 172 years for all 50 states to be added to the Union with Alaska and Hawaii being admitted in 1959. It is not a matter of land area, but population and the self-sustaining economies generated by that population. With a population of only 27 million, and most of that confined to pockets around the State capitals, the economies of those areas outside those pockets are not big enough to support State governments. You can't suggest that mineral revenues could do it. Look what we have learned about Kalgoorlie nickel. Australia is still being fed from the government storehouses. We expect our governments to provide health, education, legal services and transport. Private enterprise really doesn't do much of that, and when it does, it relies heavily on government subsidies. Unfortunately, it is possible that the best solution for the next 50 years or so, is to amalgamate all levels of government into a central National government. I say 'unfortunately' because we now have the knowledge that those who govern have little interest in MAGA (Make Australia Great, Also) but only in holding power and wealth while they can.

Maybe Indigenous Australians should have a voice in renaming the States.

Apart from one bit of rain from the edge of a cold front passing through, I've had nothing for months. Two months ago you needed a machete to get across a paddock because the clover was so thick. Now it's died off, making the paddocks look like late summer instead of mid-spring. I see that the wheat, canola and fava beans are starting to dry off. I think that is just the normal end of their growing season, but it contributes to making the place look miserable. I was waiting for spring so I could plant out some buffalo runners to establish more lawn. I had a lot of success when I first came here, but that was during the season of excessive rain. Last summer I tried to grow tomatoes and pumpkins, but they just shrivelled up. I'm giving up on the idea of any sort of garden establishment. I've tried for years in varius places. Things look promising in spring, but by Christmas the plants are wilting. The only good that has come from this dryness is that I can get my laundry hung out by 9:00 am and bring it it, dry, by midday.

I'm wondering if the Australian State governments are working with the Israelis to add the drug dealers from Australia who are living in Lebanon and who cannot be extradited to Australia to the list of unfortunate innocent collateral damage as the Israelis target the terrorists they want to get. Secondly, I wonder how much of the drug money raised in Australia flows into the coffers of those terrorist groups.

Next time you watch a Western movie notice that the driver of a wagon is sitting on the right hand side. and driver walking beside the team leaders are also on the right hand side I wonder which country it was that put the driver of motor vehicles on the left.

In the system of noun classification we employ, the noun we use to identify that particular economic system is classed a a "common noun". As such, it is not written with a 'capital', upper case, letter when appearing within a sentence, unless it is the first word of the sentence. Writing the word fully using 'capital' letters can be used for emphasis, usually as headings in lists or document titles. Despite many attempts of State and Federal governments to establish regional centres, the economies of most regional centres depend on service and supply functions. Those economies are mere shadows of capitalist activity going on in capital cities (note lower case). Italic type was first used by Aldus Manutius and his press in Venice in 1500. The decision to use italic type was apparently made to suggest informality in editions designed for leisure reading rather than the roman type in general use at the time. It replicated handwriting of the period. Example text set in both roman and italic type The evolution of use of italic to show emphasis happened in the sixteenth century and was a clear norm by the seventeenth. This often corresponds with stress in speech. So capitalism in that form is not restricted to Italy, but can appear anywhere emphatically. , ,

No. You just flushed out the lazy buggers who don't want to work 24/7

Spacey, Get your historic timeline correct. By the seventh century, Ireland was indisputably regarded as Christian. At that time what we now identify as England, Scotland and Wales were still well and truly pagan, with extra pagan numbers provided by the Norsemen. It was the Irish Christians who converted these pagans to Christianity. By the 12th Century, Irish Christianity had developed its own style, which didn't sit well with the European Christian hierarchy. The Anglo-Normans claimed the invasion was sanctioned by the papal bull Laudabiliter. The bull purports to grant the right to the Angevin King Henry II of England to invade and govern Ireland and to enforce the Gregorian Reforms on the semi-autonomous Christian Church in Ireland. Laudabiliter was a bull issued in 1155 by Pope Adrian IV, the only Englishman to have served in that office. So you can see the political connection between Church and State.