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I was going to tell a time travel joke, but you guys didn't liike it.

The bloke is not a down and out cobber struggling against a unfair system. Nor is he a person with a disability and or mental illness that can be treated. He is a sociopath with murderous intent. His sense of self entitlement is complete, sovereign citizen or not he would still be like this. He has jumped on the bandwagon to justify his actions, he would always find a reason to act this way. Irrespective of the societal ecosystem, he would always be a angry defiant violent person. I doubt he will surrender, instead he will try to murder police and feel self justified and see his actions as heroic. I hope they get him alive and no more innocents are hurt. He deserves a life long cell with no opportunity to commit suicide. Sadly is he is killed other nutters will see him as a matyr.

Well, the daughter's time at EDF is coming to an end in a couple of weeks. She didn't realise it, but she has racked up about 2.5 weeks holiday leave (we get sometehng like 6 weeks standard, here, but there is no long service leave, but they allow sabbaticals after 5 years (November for me), and pay you up to three months of your basica salary - no pension, medical/health, bonus, additional holiday accruals). Anyway, we are on a long weekend this weekend, but daughter and one of her good mates are driving to Cornwall for the week from Monday arvo. Two 19 year old girls - nay - women (using girls here is common parlance), are going to have a week of fun and frolics. My daughter asked me if I was going to be sad or have any reservations about her going. I looked her in the eye and said I am really happy, a father will never stop worrying ever slo slightly about their adult children, but that she is miles more mature at her age than I was at that time (and probably now). Since she could crawl, she was always fiercly independent. I recall her dropping something when she was still crawling, and when I picked it up for her, she slapped my wrist and got a right strop with me. I put it down, and she picked it up, looked at whatever it was in her hand, and lifted her head to look at me, ans then smiled a very wide grin. Admittedly, the grit has waned slightly, but she is a determined daughter of a bastard. In two weeks she starts univesity. Her employer wants her back for the breaks; I am going to miss her at home, but the university is quite close (unlike Aus, kids often go to unoversities the other side of the country form where they live). But, I am so proud of her. I know we are all proud of our kids.. and rightly so. I just wanted to share it.

I have started this topic becauseit it has been taking over the Trump topiv. BREAKING: MAGA world flies into panic mode as the grandmother of Charlie Kirk's suspected assassin Tyler Robinson reveals that his entire family is hardcore MAGA. The Republican narrative has collapsed in record time... “My son, his dad, is a Republican for Trump. Most of my family members are Republican. I don’t know any single one who’s a Democrat," the suspect's grandmother Debbie Robinson told The Daily Mail. “I’m just so confused. [Tyler] is the shyest person. He has never, ever spoke politics to me at all," she added. The Daily Beast reported that both of Robinson's parents are registered Republicans who hold hunting licenses. They appear to be run-of-the-mill conservative gun nuts. In the immediate aftermath of Kirk's assassination, Republicans rushed to blame Democrats. Donald Trump pointed a finger at the "radical left" and MAGA influencers, including Donald Trump Jr., gleefully embraced the false narrative that the shooter was transgender. We now know that the alleged shooter was a 22-year-old white Mormon man from Utah. It seems increasingly likely that he was a far-right supporter of the white nationalist Nick Fuentes. The engravings on the bullets found appear to be references to memes popular within Fuentes's "groyper" movement. Groypers despised Charlie Kirk because he wasn't right-wing enough for their taste and they believe that he sold out the "America First" movement. One bullet was engraved with the phrase “Hey fascist! Catch!" but it does not appear to be a left-wing "antifa" message as Republicans originally claimed. Instead, it seems to be a reference to a satirical slogan in the popular video game Helldivers 2. Video games are a crucial cornerstone of the bizarre groyper worldview, along with misogyny and racism. In the coming days we will no doubt learn more about this twisted shooter and his hateful beliefs but we cannot allow Republicans to slink away without taking responsibility for their lies. Yesterday, they were promising now civil war. Now that it appears the shooter was one of their own, they want to move on. We must hold them accountable. The shooter is not transgender, is not a Democrat, and is not an immigrant. He's an unstable homegrown white man with access to firearms. America's gun violence problem is a Republican problem.

Copied from Facebook: BREAKING: Donald Trump's niece Mary Trump enrages MAGA world by sharing the cold hard truth that her uncle is responsible for the "political violence" that he is desperately trying to blame on Democrats. We won't allow these fascists to gaslight us... "Political violence and the rhetoric that drives it are almost entirely on the side of the Republican Party, and no person is more responsible for it than Donald Trump,” Mary wrote on her Substack. "Facing that truth does not mean rejoicing in what happened to Charlie Kirk. Quite the opposite: It means coming to terms with what is driving the political violence in America today," she wrote. President Trump exploited the assassination of right-wing demagogue Charlie Kirk earlier this week by calling him a "martyr" and blaming the "radical left" even though the identity of the shooter wasn't known at the time. Even now, it's the killer's motive and political beliefs are unknown. Trump doesn't care. He saw an opportunity to sow division and he seized it. Mary pointed out that Democratic lawmakers rushed to condemn Kirk's shooting while Republicans have sought to turn it to their political advantage by blaming Democrats and journalists. Comparatively, when Paul Pelosi was attacked in his home, conservatives celebrated and mocked the horrifying incident, with Donald Trump himself even joining in. Republicans demand an endless supply of empathy from liberals but provide none themselves. "Donald has almost single-handedly created the conditions in which his grievance, his vengeance, and his cruelty extend to anybody that supports him," Mary Trump continued. "Anybody who opposes him or stands up to him or simply doesn’t support him is his enemy and is therefore not worthy of protection. Worse, they are considered legitimate targets of abuse or revenge, cruelty or violence." "He has incited violence against his perceived political enemies as well as against his own government and then pardoned those who committed it on his behalf," she went on. "This is not a 'both sides issue.' This is not a moment when we put aside our differences to come to some agreed upon notion about how to move beyond this. With Donald Trump and those who support, enable, and capitulate to him in power that would be impossible." "We have arrived here in large part because this country has been purposefully and maliciously divided against itself because of the rhetoric coming from Donald Trump and the Republican Party," she added. She went on to quote Kirk's own now-viral words. The MAGA demagogue said that the price of an "armed citizenry" is a certain number of guns deaths. "But I think it's worth it. I think it's worth to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the Second Amendment to protect our other God-given rights," said Kirk. "That is a prudent deal. It is rational. Nobody talks like this. They live in a complete alternate universe.” Mary Trump empathetically but forcefully addressed his words— "Well, unfortunately, the universe we live in is a universe created by people who actually think that guns in our society are more important than the lives of the people living in it," she wrote. "Unfortunately, we live in a universe in which violence, political or otherwise, has been normalized by one party and one party only. The Democrats should condemn what happened today. Any decent right-thinking person should condemn what happened today." "But we are missing the point, we are, indeed, missing an opportunity if we do not take the tragedy that unfolded today as permission to start a broader conversation about how we got here, who's responsible, and quite frankly what the hell we are going to do about it," she concluded.

I wonder if he'd included himself in those "necessary" gun deaths? What a prize dickhead. The fundamentalist Christian BS is overpowering. They're not "God-given rights", they're rules made up by old men from 234 years ago, when a firearm took two minutes to set up and fire, and the firer was as much at risk from getting killed by the firearm, as the target was. And these morons treat these rules as something that came down from Mt Sinai with Moses. Jesus wept. They're prepared to keep sacrificing their children on the Altar of the Gun, on a par with worshipping Baal.

What do call you 10 rabbits walking backwards? A receding hareline.

I was never fearful of being conscripted, it was just another challenging life adventure to be faced, as far as I was concerned. I've faced nearly every major life challenge that one can face - poverty as a child, bullying at school, mistreatment by teachers, conscription, car crashes that weren't my fault (I was 5 and an innocent passenger when that first happened), plenty of close brushes with death via machinery, and also being in a combat zone, lost my house and virtually all I owned in a fire that was no fault of mine, had a bank destroy my business and all my assets after 30 years of asset building, endured deaths of close family members, some at a young age, and suffered from severe stuttering from childhood until around age 40. I was never involved in any traumatic treatment in the Australian Army, but I was on the receiving end of extreme dislike, that bordered on abusive treatment, by some of the Army regulars, who often viewed conscripts as unworthy trash who diluted Army morale. I was called "reo shit" a few times in Vietnam by a couple of hardened Army regulars who were essentially drunken deadbeats, anyway. "Reo" was the slang for "reinforcement", as troops rotated into Vietnam were deemed "reinforcements" in official-speak. I shrugged off their abusive comments and ensured I associated with them as little as possible. The situation wasn't helped by the fact I wasn't a drinker (and about 20% of the troops didn't drink alcohol, or drank very little, which may come as a surprise to some), so I wasn't part of their "boozing" group, which made up a large part of the regular Army culture. There are stories of supposedly legendary regular Army NCO's, who made their platoon members drink beer from their (NCO) boots, supposedly to bring about cohesion and mateship in platoons. IMO, this is the height of Army dickhead thinking and outlook, and I certainly wouldn't take part in any BS moves such as that, which moves I would consider divisive, rather than uniting. But there were a lot of Regular Army dickheads one had to work with - it was no secret that a lot of Army Regulars were in the Army because they couldn't hold down a job outside the Army, or fit in with civilian life. Despite all that, I was still promoted and given NCO rank, which was extremely rare as a "nasho", because the Army normally saw giving rank to nashos as a useless move, thanks to the fact they were only there for 2 years. Regulars had to sign up for 6 years and nearly always got priority in promotions.

A postman goes out on his daily delivery round. He comes across a house with a pile of beer bottles and wine bottles near the door. Just then, the household comes out. The postie says, "Hi Bob, looks like you had a good night last night." Bob says, "It was a few nights ago, and I'm recovering." The postie says, "It must have been quite a turn." Bob says, "There were about a dozen couples here. We got so drunk, we ended up playing Who Am I." The postie says, "I'm not familiar with that game." Bob says, "The men all go into another room and get undressed. Then they come out covered by a sheet, with only their manhood showing through a hole in the sheet. The women have to guess who it is." The postie says, "It sounds pretty wild. Sorry I missed it." Bob says, " You'd better keep a low profile for a week or so. Your name was mentioned seven times."

These Christian Fundamentalists are worse than the Taliban, with their BS religious beliefs and biblical interpretations. They're not Christians, they worship Guns and Money over God. They're continually in the grip of the Gun Lobby, and they continually rave on about the "freedom" of the Second Amendment. Their BS line is the Second Amendment protects them from a "tyrannical" Govt. What a crock of sh**. Armed civilians have no hope of overthrowing a Govt that possesses all of the most sophisticated military equipment that they need to win wars against similarly-equipped enemy nations. It is propaganda on a level that would make Goebbels envious. They are fully prepared to keep worshipping the Gun God and sacrificing their children, friends, family members, and leaders, endlessly in mass shootings - because any crackhead can acquire a hundred firearms of their choice under their f*****-up Constitution, that they refuse to modify, because they insist it came from God on stone tablets. One can only wish that all the sensible people leave America to move to countries where common sense reigns, and Christian Fundamentalist BS has no sway. Moloch the Gun God - https://www.abc.net.au/religion/the-price-of-freedom-child-sacrifice-and-the-american-gun-cult/10095320

Daughter moves into University today - studyign what the world needs more of: law. Over here, it is virtually mandatory that first years move into on campus university accomodation and then from second year on, find their own way. It is also common that the students move to the university of their choice across the country. Thankfully, daughter had Exeter as her first choice, then York, then St. Andrews. Exeter University is 35 miles away. York is 270 miles away, and St. Andrews is 483 miles away. The car is packed with all the accroutments she needs, and I am glad it is only a 35 miles away. We are both excited and sad because of the hole her moving out will leave at home. But it is wonderfult o see her thrive, and I am confident she will do well. Although there is a lot of the world she has to learn, she is mature and has a level head; something that I have yet to attain. Life changes, and we are always better mving with the change than trying to stop it; we can learn and continue to develop every day - and the positive for me is that her moving to the next chapter of her life brings my great joy, but also reminds me that we have to continue to learn and develop. She has reminded me that also I should be retired this year and the body has slowed a bit. the mind thankfully hasn't (not that I would notice, of course), and there is still so much to do.

The question is, what comes next? He has become a martyr to the Republican cause and we could well see more violent incidents. Trump is stoking the flames as usual.

Mike the lawyer died suddenly at the age of 46. The check-in angel said, "Here finally. We've been waiting you for a long time." "What do you mean? I'm only 46." The angel replied, "Our records have you as 82." "You must have the wrong person. I'm only 46. I have a birth certificate to prove it." The angel said, "Let me check the records again." She disappeared for a while, then came back. "No, definitely correct. We totalled up the hours you charged customers for. You must be 82."

Aint that the truth!

I'll take the real wife with her arguments, attempted dominance, occasional drama (not that many in my case, fortunately), occasional moodiness, and the extreme sensitivity - because at the end of the day, no robot could ever replace her heart of gold, her loving nature, and her willingness to share everything. I'd be lost without her.

I am going to come across as all wokey pokey, butr clearly, he is deranged, as are probably most soverign citizens. What intrigues me is why they are like that? Our society allows a large degree of individualism and freedom of expression in so many different ways; it allows dissent, but like all social entities and societies, there are a set of laws/rules that society is governed by to balance individual rights and freedoms against others as a whole. When we compare ourselves to other countries such as China, Russia, some Eastern Eurpean countries, many Asian countries, African countries, etc., we have a lot of freedoms - we can openly and savagely criticise the government; we can practice whatever religion or ideology we like, we can participate more or less in captialistic through to communist agendas with impunity. So, why do these sovereign citizens feel their rights and existence is threatened? Why do they (and others, such as MAGA Maniacs) latch onto conspiracy theories without any evidence whatsoever (and, as it turns out, those they support are more likely to establish some of those conspiracy theories, such as the deep state - just look sat Chump's actions). Have they been harassed, bullied at school? Is it hard wired into their brain (and we are learning that nuero-plasticity means nothing is hard wired and anything can be changed about us, if we are willing, assuming no physical brain damage? Are they suffering drug/alcohol abuse or foetal alcohol.drug syndrome? Or, do they see something us lemings don't? Are they society's forgottens that are helpless and alone - those we should take care of as a society but have become too individualistic and too materialistic to care? For example, the government is now winding back NDIS, which may push many people the way of these people, rather than attackt he root causes of the issues - the rorts, potential convenience diagnosis, etc., which means those in genuine need can live a somewhat normal life - which is selfish of me because I don't want to have to people who become desperate beggars or criminals. There was a time where there was nary a beggar or vagrant on the streets of our cities.. now look at them? Why can't we properly tax multinationals rather than give them corporate welfare so their investors can continue to rake in the cash as rent takers - and use that money for the betterment of all society - better transport infrastructure, targeted investment to stimulate innovation and growth, better safety net, better education, health services, and the like. Norway does it, and while Australia has a much larger GDP, Norway's GDP per captia is 30% more.. so taxing your resources properly; taxing multinationals properly seems to be an economic benefit - and those companies do not leave because they are still making money. For example, Starbucks in the UK started in 1998 and never showed a profit until 2015. Of course, that was on paper - there is no way Starbucks would operate at a loss that long - they only took two years to exit Australia the first time where they were really making a loss. Instead, they had to start showing a semblance of profit after it came to light they were abising transfer pricing, and HMRC knew about it. Eventually, in 2016, HMRC (our ATO) agreed to a lower tax rate (how they could do this when the rates without discretion are defined in law - another controversy) after which they miraculously started showing small profits. What has this to do with a few nutters? Well, the more we don't look after our people, that is, spend the resources to assist, manage, etc,. the more that are vulnerable to this sort of behaviour will turn to it. I could count the times I saw vagrants/beggars on the streets of Melbourne witht he fingers on my hand before I left for the UK aged 30.. and I worked and socialised preedominanlty in the city. Last time I was in Melbourne, quite frnly, it was a disgrace how many there were, and how can a society not look after them? Why are we always in debt as a society and not have those that benefit from our society and society's investment in education, infrastrcutire, etc contribute to our society, so we can better our society? The way Australia (and the UK, and France, and to a lesser extent Germany) is headed is very much the American way. It is gradual, so we don't notice it, but the frequency in which the solcial ills that brings is increasing. It's a hell of a problem to sort out, and the longer we leave it, the longer and more expensive it will become.. The US seems to have abated from being on the bring of civil war (or we are so desensitised that the news isn't even registering it), but there is still a volatile underbelly that could go ballistic. That will be a hell of a price to pay.

Not a good look to have go all around the world. Nev

GON, you have certainly made me think. In the past, I considered it an injustice to force people to go to war; however, I never really thought of those who were forced to train, even if they never ended up in Vietnam. I fully support recognition for these people. Having said that, you cannot change the past. I am definitely not saying that "it was a long time ago, so just get over it." Those 2 years can not be retrieved, but this makes it all the more important to make the remaining years as joyful as you can. As I posted elsewhere, we spent 20 months almost as prisoners in our own home due to knife and gun-wielding drug dealers next door. Against all odds, we won. We did consider that we would not win, and so we worked on a plan on how we could cope and still have a happy life. We found that when it was getting us down, taking action (even if not an immediate game changer) improved our mental health. Despair is bad enough, but adding helplessness makes it so much worse. I did see a petition online that was asking for "Nashos" who did not end up going to Vietnam to be granted the same benefits, such as a gold card. Although perhaps the odds of success are low, the act of taking positive steps is mentally healthier than just dwelling on the original problem. As a non-believer, I accept that this life is all there is, so I don't want to waste it getting hung up on past injustices or past mistakes. The past is unchangeable, but the future is something we can have some control over

Before I was married I would sit at the traffic lights for hours because I had no-one to tell me the lights had changed.

He probably dimly realises by now that he’s been done over by Putin, so now he’ll try and save face by picking a fight with Zelensky and blaming him for his own pathetic failure.

Judging by his performance so far he'd give away the lot. What a twat. Achieved nothing but making things worse for Ukraine. "Master of the deal" my arse.

When the Russians invade Alaska, how much of it do you think Trump would give them to get a ceasefire?

https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2024-07-16/chinas-renewable-energy-boom-breaks-records/104086640

Criticising Netayahu for what HE does is Justified and NOT antisemetic. No one can demand a BLANK Cheque to do what they want. IDF own database shows 83% of DEATHS are civilians. An "Unparalleled level". Nev

I thought they should rename the Ministry of Defense (MoD), To "The Ministry of Peace." Like everything a dictator does, it needs denial of reality.

I'd say that the repression of women in Western Christian countries has only been addresses since the late 1960s, and near fifty years hasn't been enough to overcome millenia of repression.

Those abilities are what "management" is all about. "Admin and yappin'" does nothing for the productivity of those one is supposed to be managing. The Manager, alone, can't achieve the goals of a plan. That's why a Manager has people to manage. The skill of management hasn't eluded you. Knowing what teh skills of management are seems to have eluded your managing director.

You ride Motorbikes on and off then I gather? Nev

Got the car to day. Coming here Now. Best away from there. Nev

We got our NBN line (FTTC) installed down our street about 6 years ago. Our area was late in the NBN rollout, so we ended up with FTTC, instead of the earlier, less-satisfactory version, FTTN. I find it amazing that the NBN and internet providers wanted a serious amount of money to connect fibre from the footpath to our home, at the time the NBN was installed in the street. Oh, yes, FTTH installation was a big-ticket item, back then. So, I was quite intrigued to get an offer from Iinet just earlier this month, for them to connect FTTH for FREE! I wonder what has changed in the interim? They've all made so much money from the NBN, it's embarrassing? - and they feel the need to hand some back? Needless to say, I accepted their offer, and we had the fibre run into the house last week. I was expecting they would run the fibre in the conduit that held the copper line - but no, they couldn't pull the fibre cable through the conduit because the last installation clowns squashed the conduit somewhere along its length, making it impossible for the techies to pull the cable through. So they had to dig up all our paving and install a new conduit. Then, they found the conduit along the footpath had been crushed too! What kind of incompetents are the NBN employing? I might add, ALL the work on any of the fibre has been carried out by people from the sub-continent! Is there some kind of lesson in this? I'm reminded of Prince Phillips gaffe, when he sighted a crappy piece of switchboard work in a factory in Edinburgh, and let rip with, "It looks like it was put in by an Indian!" Somehow, the latest bunch of fibre installers managed to find a way around the squashed conduit in the street problem, and all is well, and it was left in operational condition as they departed. I also got handed an NBN Connection Box user manual that was just slightly water-damaged, but at least it was readable! I did have a fair bit of trouble understanding Drhuv, the leading hand, simply because of his dreadful thick accent, and mangled English. But he did seem competent enough. We had to have the NBN box installed on the front wall of the house - but our office is at the rear of the house - so we had to call in a sparky to get him to install a data cable to run the NBN signal to the router in the office. Simon, our local sparky turned up today. and he roared into the data cable installation like a man possessed. He and his offsider were finished inside an hour, and that involved pulling tiles off the roof, pulling the fibre the length of the house, and down inside a rear wall. He's an excellent sparky, and always does a good job - and does it fast. We hooked the computers up to the fibre, and I must say I was quite surprised at the increase in internet speed. We're now running at 108.8 Mbps download speed, and 18.48 Mbps upload speed. I have to admit, I thought the upload speed would be higher, but it is late afternoon, and possibly the upload speed is being affected by that timing.

I wasn't sure whether to post this obit given that this fellow may not fit into the "well-known: category. I do tend to judge people as to whether they have heard of him or not. The brilliant Tom Lehrer died on the 26 of July 2025. at the age of 97. He was known as a musical satirist, mathematician, and scientist. Tom worked at Los Alamos and Harvard University, among other places. Lehrer quit writing and performing satirical songs and went back to teaching, stating that "Political satire became obsolete when Henry Kissinger was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.” In our house in the 90s, Tom was played daily. We even still have a recording of our son, aged about five, singing along with every song (including the elements). Perhaps that is why our son turned out smart, woke and happy. Here are a few examples of Leher's whimsical music.

That's not conscription's fault, that's your parents' decision.

Octave, Thank you for sharing your experience. It highlights a major ongoing dilemma that, even though it only directly involves 5% of housose, also indirectly causes harm to larger communities.

Wine exercise.

You need that Israeli guy, Netting Yahoo.

Jake Bro is usually pretty sensible. He says it was NOT Putin in Alaska!

I have permanent AF and the doc says not to worry about it, just take the blood thinners to prevent stroke.