old man emu

It's really a great feeling when you see your kids leave the nest and soar to the heights. We can puff out our chests and say, "I made that', even if you know in your heart that you only set them off on the path to success when they were kids.

Albo's mob is walking the tightrope between Chinese economic activity and US military activity. Albo has to show loyalty to treaties between the US and Australia while acknowledging the economic importance of China to Australia. I've said it before that I don't think China will take military action any further than the South China Sea. The legal and governance issues of the South China Sea are complex and contentious. China’s nine-dash-line claim, and the other maritime states declaring their overlapping 200-nautical-mile exclusive economic zones under the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea, tend to dominate Asian and global dialogues. Taiwan is China's major territorial goal. Taiwan, formerly known as Formosa, by the Qing dynasty of China to the Empire of Japan in the Treaty of Shimonoseki, which ended the first Sino-Japnese War. The Republic of Formosa was a short-lived republic that existed on the island of Taiwan in 1895. The Republic lasted 151 days; it was proclaimed on 23 May 1895 and extinguished on 21 October, when the Republican capital Tainan was taken over by the Japanese. The territory remained in Japanese hands until Japna's defeat in WWII. The politics of Taiwan soverignty is complex. At present, domestically, the major political contention is between the Pan-Blue Coalition, who favors eventual Chinese unification under the ROC and promoting a pan-Chinese identity, contrasted with the Pan-Green Coalition, which favors eventual Taiwanese independence and promoting a Taiwanese identity.

Question Time has always been a "reality TV show". It is an opportunity for whichever Party is in Opposition to make it look like they are "keeping the bastards honest". It is also an opportunity for the Government back benchers to ask Ministers "Dorothy Dix" questions so that Moinisters can heap praise on the actions of teh Government. Watching it reminds me of unversity debating club meetings. We only ever hear of the contentious Bills being argued over during normal House business times. It would be interesting to find out how many Bills, or amendments to Bills are passed if the Buill or amendments are not controversial.

Peta Credlin is an ultra Right Winger. She was an advisor to Abbott. I wouldn't beleive her if she said G'day to me.

I wonder what Peter Dutton is doing for a crust now.

US President Donald Trump has signed an executive order to open both US and international waters to deep-sea mining, ignoring a global treaty that controls the high seas. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-05-02/deep-sea-mining-us-executive-order-sparks-condemnation/105224062 The order sidesteps the UN's International Seabed Authority, which has prevented such mining in international waters while it works on governance frameworks.

I have had two instances of the "hitting the gas instead of the brake" incidents in the past month or so. In both cases it was becasue I was wearing work boots that were wider in the sole than the joggers I normally wear. Very frightening, but now I am extra cautious when I am drivbing with them on.

What political parties we once considered to be Leftist are really Centralist.

Trump's presidency isn't exactly the Doomsday that Doomsday Preppers were prepaing for.

It is exactly the same with the NSW Sunday Herald and Sunday Telegraph. If it wasn't for the Harvey Normal ads, the papers would go broke.

I wonder if the Indigenous people had experience gained, over the past 3500 or so years that dingoes have been in Australia, of dingoes carrying off infant children? Surely the Chamberlain incident could not have been the first.

More often needle in a haystack.

No insult. It's a statistical term. In populatin statistics, if you plot the data you will often get a curve that looks like this: The graph shows the distribution of results around the "mean" or the value representing the "centre" of a collection of numbers and is intermediate to the extreme values of the set of numbers. In this diagram 68% of the numbers lie close to the mean value, but a very small percentage lie well away from it. The numbers exist, but the probability of encountering them is low. These numbers are called "outliers". They are the rare ones. If we are looking at those who have contracted chicken pox, then those in the popuolatin who have never contracted it would be make up those numbers whose probability is low.

An immune system seems to be unique to the individual. Theinformation that health care workers depend on to formulate advice is based on population statistics. What happens to the majority of the population determines the advice given. There will always be outliers from the data. Octave seems to be an outlier. However you have to remember the two parts of statistics - the possibility and the probability. Possibility is our recognition of something happening, while probability is the chance of it actually happening. Immunisation is simply a means of reducing the probability of something happening. It is a form of health insurance. If it's free, grab it. Don't forget that on this forum we learn from the experience of our fellows. Listen to what Red and Litespeed said. If we had all our immunisations, we might end up like a wornout pub dart board, but we would not suffer the consequences of the illnesses to the extent that we would if not immunised.

And here'e the fun part. They landed in a pile of manure which softened their landings.

It certainly stirs up the animals. There are horses in the npaddocks around my dwelling, and they get really spooked when earthquakes happen.

Defenestration is the word which describes one particular historical event. In Prague on May 21, 1618, two Catholic deputies to the Bohemian national assembly and a secretary were tossed out the window of the castle of Hradschin by Protestant radicals. Clearly that was a case of these blokes getting the sack, and being informed of it by being thrown out of a window. https://www.britannica.com/event/Defenestration-of-Prague-1618 Its later use is similar to the way we use "Waterloo" to mean a defeat, as in "He met his Waterloo."

Me name's not Rip van Bloody Winkle. But when I fall asleep, I sleep the sleep of the Just. Mag. 3.1 earthquake - Gilgandra, 55 km northeast of Dubbo, Western Plainsal, New South Wales, Australia, on Monday, Jul 7, 2025, at 01:15 am (GMT +10)

We are more aware of all the wars going on around the world becasue of the amount of access we have to them nowadays due to our worldwide communications being so much better than in the past. In the same way, we are more aware of natural disasters and things like earhquakes and erupting volcanoes. The other night I slept through an eathquake whose epicentre was only 50-odd kilometres away. When I made some enquiries on-line, I found that it had been reported on a website originating in the USA.

Net-in-Yahoo has written to the Nobel Peace Prize committee nominated Trump for the Peace award. Was it seconded by Putin?

Having posted what you have done so on this forum, do you think that you would get past US Immigration sceening? You have not been praising the exalted Leader sufficiently. In facvt, sometimes you have commented on his new attire.

Plucked it from the air. My intention was to suggest that the percentage of psychos in a population is very low. I was just operating under the protection of my poetic licence.

I'd like to take a trip to the USA solely for the purpose of viewing some of the magnificent scenery. I'd love to drive Route 66. However, as has been said, it is a dangerous place due to the human inhabitants. One could say that only 0.001% or less of the population is pshcyo, but when you have 300 million people, 0.001% still is a lot. And that's the diagnosable psychos. There are also heaps of people who just don't like strangers.

I've ressurected this thread. It is interesting to see what we were saying in 2020/21 and to compare it to what we are saying in 2025.

Do you realise that if you have participated in this thread, and posted any comment that is not a posite reference to Trump personally, or his policies, you have given US Immigration cause to deny you access to the United States? Also, if you happened to have a few puffs of weed 50+ years ago in your youth, you can't come in. So, if you had thoughts of watching any 2026 FIFA World Cup games in the USA, think about your chances of getting into teh country.