Bruce Tuncks
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Everything posted by Bruce Tuncks
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Your memory will depend on how old you are. I was the last of the civil engineers who were in great demand in the 1960's. They were lucky to get taxi-driving jobs in the 1990's. Only medical graduates have hung on in recent years. Tertiary places succumbed to managerialism and this caused standards to drop badly. The new directors were mainly concerned with the money the institution got from selling degrees. There was a scandal when Flinders University was caught giving 2 week " courses" in english to chinese students. They of course learned nothing in those 2 weeks, but I bet the subsequent lecturers all got into trouble if they failed them.
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In Hawaii, the state flag has a union jack plus the US stripes. Apparently, it was the union Jack after Cook "took possession" of the islands and the local chief was uninterested in flags. He thought Cook was just a guest who he could have eaten if he chose. Anyway, the union jack flew there for years until a sealing-boat stopped one day and the chief was told that he was flying" the enemies' flag". Still uninterested in flags, the new chief obligingly added the stripes. Personally, I reckon those Hawaiians are smart.
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Not so different here PMC. It was my first time going, and I went to support the council etc who put the thing on. ( the correct day too! ) .We finished up in the bowls clubrooms because of the weather forecast. There were plenty of 40 -ish people there.
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It was about the only time me and Malcolm Fraser really agreed. I would have loved to have a song about a thieving swagman as our National Anthem. Instead we got some nonsense about "golden soil and wealth for toil" which proves that the author was a rich Sydney suburbanite who knew nothing about farming. Or overpopulation either.
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The guy giving the Australia Day speech at Edenhope didn't know.
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Here's one for OME... The original tune of "waltzing Matilda" was a recruiting song for the Marlbro wars. " Who'll come a-soldiering for Marlbro with me" True or false?
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And what about the banning of an undersea pipeline in the Timor sea " because it would disturb the repose of the Rainbow Serpent?"
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Here's an example of why I dislike Woke people.... They want us to NOT climb up rocky hills . I see why a calorie-deprived folk should have such a taboo, but it's totally unfair to ask silly whitefellows to do this too. Yes, the Grampians and now parts of mt Arapiles are included in their silly taboo ideas.
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The lame old woman just couldn't keep up with the more able-bodied tribesmen.
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I personally will be really hostile to the idea of giving billions to the abos to " buy" Australia. I reckon I own it as much or more than a younger black.
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My understanding was that the first whites were seen by the blacks as a resource to help them fight their real enemies, that is the other tribes. There could have easily been a "treaty" formed between the first fleeters and any local abos they could find, in fact there was between John Batman in what is now Melbourne. They could only catch up with a lame old woman, but instead of killing her, they gave her mirrors and blankets and a bit of paper asking her to sell them Victoria. She signed ok, and the batman lot were sorely upset when the govt, then based in Sydney, refused to honour the sale.
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Celebrating Positives (offset of the Gripes Thread)
Bruce Tuncks replied to Jerry_Atrick's topic in General Discussion
Electric bikes are wonderful things! I really recommend you try one out onetrack. You can exercise as much or as little as you like as long as you don't go so far as to flatten the battery. -
The climate change debate continues.
Bruce Tuncks replied to Phil Perry's topic in Science and Technology
My understanding is that the 2 places were deliberately mis-named from the start, in what may be the world's first real-estate scam. -
But you can't get around land tax, without saying that you didn't own it. So the roomful of tax books would be replaced with a single A4 sheet. This would alone put thousands of tax accountants in search of an honest living.
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Could they find a way around your tax, onetrack? There was a party which once got a few seats in NZ which pointed out that the ONLY thing you needed to tax was land. You could not deny owning the stuff and you can pass on most costs to the productive user . It never got a try.
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I liked the way that the negro was arrested.
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According to the "fatal shore" book the local aborigines didn't even look up from their oyster-gathering as the fleet went by. This was noted by more than one of the passengers. Some invasion, thinks I. Well not up there with d-day huh.
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Does anybody remember what the seven taxes were? I think that land tax was one.
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Well it sure sucked me in..... I guess I'm a sucker huh? I actually believed it when they said that the GST would reduce my tax bill! Hewson was there saying GST stood for "Goodbye Seven Taxes ". A guy I knew was more realistic.... "nahhh", said he, "it will turn out to be just another tax"
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Thx Ome etc. I always thought that the supermarkets were bound by legislation to display the price on the shelf. This is not so huh?
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I hasten to add that the kids were told that ladies with shopping etc always had the right-of-way on the footpath.
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Apparently elite cyclists go to Europe to practice cos the european motorists have some respect for cyclists. In Australia and the US, I reckon the odd 4wd driver gets road rage on seeing a cyclist. We always insisted that our kids ride their bikes on the footpath. Even before it was legal.
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Celebrating Positives (offset of the Gripes Thread)
Bruce Tuncks replied to Jerry_Atrick's topic in General Discussion
At last I ( sort of) understand the soldier who wrapped his falcon round a power pole 20 feet up, and it was a flat suburb just like yours! -
good onyer guys. I am getting old ( 78) but my health is ok and I have a j230 at the local airfield. So no personal gripes, but I still worry about trump and putin and global warming and a list of other things which will effect my offspring. Yep I am a worrier.
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Why can't they take the "administration fee" out of the main payment? Haveing said this, when I collected my paper today, I paid with a card and was told that there was a 50 cent fee on all sub-$20 transactions. Now I have to tell the paper that I am giving them up. Surely this is evidence that cash will not be phased out? Mind you, I am so old that I remember the promise that this would never happen when they introduced the bankcard of yesteryear.
