Bruce Tuncks

thanks spacy, I never knew.

Good onyer Nev. I hereby bet a bottle of red that he ( trump) will not win. Mind you, I also didn't think he would have beaten Hillary Clinton but he did. I think he had Putin's assistance. Anyway, I have been reassured by a book I just read where he gives lots of examples where : 1. you needed to be a trumpist to get republican endorsement most of the time. 2: being a trumpist caused you to lose 5% of the real vote at an election. Personally, I can imagine a "respectable" republican lady secretly voting Democrat after wondering what would happen if her 12 y/o daughter got pregnant from a rapist. Of course she would never admit to this. I have also been impressed by the drop in women applying for the armed services. They can easily be got pregnant and they are unable to choose their place of abode.

I like the definitions you come up with OME. I associate "sectarian violence " with the Irish protestant vs catholic stuff, and this is proof to me that we, as a species, seem to need an enemy all the time. Personally, while I did notice some anti-catholic stuff among the older generation, it died out before I got any. I wonder how those old bigots would have coped with the 800,000 moslems we have imported...

Kg has it right.... I can't help wondering why the religious never seem to blame their ridiculous deity on misfortunes like earthquakes. My best guess is that they don't really believe their own stuff.

I found it hard to believe that Australia is now listed as a dangerous place for Jews. Sure, we have taken in 800,000 moslems when we only have 100,000 Jews, but surely we didn't import anti-semitic types? Personally, I have never met a true anti-semite and I don't expect to... how awful can they be?

I reckon "flawed democracy" is a good description of the US. They too would be given a good kick up the bum if they had to apply to join a " democratic" group of nations and were only given partial membership till they improved. I wonder if the pure dictatorships would still bother with things like sham elections?

I once read how plantation workers in Brazil could not afford orange juice for their kids.

Yep Nev, even a real democracy has to continually fight people like Trump.

It is impressive that " pure" dictatorships dress themselves up as democratic from time to time. Russia has elections for gods sake. I still reckon that outing this nonsense is a worthwhile thing to do.

Farming sure is dangerous, and this danger makes it impossible to afford an employee. The cost of providing the employee with legally sufficient training and safety equipment would be prohibitive, especially given the fact that the job changes all the time.

At the Alice Springs show, many years ago , I took a pic of the wife standing next to a sign .." Bitches on heat not allowed on the grounds", the sign said.

Thanks OME. I never tried to use a rewards card but now I know the check the fine print really well. I'm surprised that the expiry business is legal.

Wonderful idea spacy, but I reckon the answer is "no".

I looked up democracies and the US is listed as a "flawed" democracy. There are about 25 percent of countries which are properly democratic, plus a lot of flawed ones and several of the dictatorships list "elections" etc as they wish to pretend. Wouldn't it be great if the real democracies formed a "UN" and penalised those flawed democracies , thus encouraging them to try harder. I reckon this would make it harder for dictatorships, excluded very publicly, to pretend. I would allow the US to remain aloof and say how they were not among the proper democracies anyway.

I would like to see all the democratic countries leave the UN and set up their own organization. There would be lots of dictatorships suddenly feeling exposed, which would be great to see.

I reckon the world is divided into 2 camps, democracy and dictatorships. Of course, one can easily flip into dictatorship as we have seen recently with Trump. There is such a blurred line between them , even Putin is going to hold an "election". So what criteria should be used to decide if a country is what?

OME, When you are a funeral director, you will find that people are dying for your attention.

I would much prefer the fire brigade to nobody. Anyway, I reckon there is far too little attention given to the benefits of democracy vs dictatorships. Sure, we can vote in some silly and lazy farts, but at least we have the ( theoretical) possibility of voting them out again. I would like to see the true democracies of the earth form their own association and not allow dictatorships anywhere near.

Nowadays the area is devoid of rice and geese. I personally would have allowed geese to be harvested along with the rice. This was the area near Darwin.

Well the chinese system works for me. I always add the postage to the price when comparing deals.

Great story Nomad, and hard to explain without the idea that the birds were playing with the cat. Birds do have good brains, I guess that they need to be fairly smart to avoid flying into trees etc, especially on windy days.

That's right willedoo. The magpie-lark is the same as the pee-wee. They are NOT magpies. The reason birds attack their image in a mirror is that they are vision-dominated animals. Dogs will not be taken in by a mirror because it doesn't smell right. What good would it do a bird to be scent-dominated? Apparently there is a higher ape that can understand a mirror, but mostly even apes can't so they try and fight the image then they try and suck up and then they get depressed cos nothing worked.

I'm surprised that gaza, for example, is not a sought after place for its cheap labor.

I notice the chinese are not so silly.... the postage rarely puts me off.

I reckon the last packet of fags I bought cost 3 shillings and 4 pence. But the worst thing I ever saw was a fat family at an "all you can eat" restaurant in the USA. It was breakfast time, and the two fat boys piled their plates up with a mixture of bacon and eggs and ( truly!) chocolate icing donuts. They used one big plate each and the pile was a pyramid about a foot high. You could see strata of bacon, eggs, sausages, donuts repeating as the layers rose and had to get smaller .