Bruce

I think this happened in NZ because it is easier to buy this weaponry there than in Australia. But I think the original intention was to bring the weapons back to Australia. If this was the case, and the guy later decided that it was too hard to get those weapons back here, then chalk up a big victory for Howard's gun control laws.

Don't be like my old Auntie Pat, Space. She paid for private medical all her life, but when she became too sick to be profitable for them, they dumped her on the public system. As for me, I don't want to give my life savings to the medical profession when the time comes. I have yet to see a happy outcome from an old person with a serious medical problem, and the sooner they have died, the better off they were. I'm open to suggestions....

Marty thinks the aboriginals "cared " for the land. I reckon that they just didn't know how to exploit it better.

Nomad, try and see it from the wasp's point of view.. there he was, enjoying a nice flight when...pow! Trapped in a nightmare place!

Octave, you are avoiding the fact that the average height of many tribes of Africans is greater than the average height of any asians, Cambodians included. Mind you, it is a real good point you made about how knowing about different racial characteristics is of no practical use. For example, you select a basketball team on their heights, not on their ethnicity. It is only afterwards somebody notices that they are mainly negros and no asians.

You only have to look at how big they are to see why asians are not as fast as negros. Don't tell me that size is determined by cultural stuff. As for typical Australians, how can you have such a person when they are so many born overseas?

Yep I've never read it either. But it is tainted by puritanism I would bet. Most of those so tainted have no idea and think of their ideas as being wholesome, when in fact they are the opposite. There is a Mormon church not far from here, and if I am ever in danger of thinking there is some hope for the human race, I only have to drive past it to be corrected. It is the most opulent building in the area.

Once we were needing an ambulance at 3am to transport a mentally disturbed ( but oth erwise docile ) girl to hospital. I offered to drive her there, but the local GP who was there said I wouldn't get in. Initially, the GP was told that because there was only an all-female crew on that shift, they couldn't take a mental patient. This was their rules. I present this as evidence that gender equality is just not true. Those female crews could not offer the same service at all. Now you can think of gender-neutral tests, like can the ambulance crew subdue a violent big man.. I can imagine some females who could, and some males who could not. So why not do tests like this to determine who gets the job?

Yep those Mormons have this in common with the Islamic state fighters.. they have they puritan brain poison deeply in their delusions.

The long-term psychological damage was done not only by Pell, but also by our puritan society. There was this boy in Salt Lake city who was a straight "A" student, the leader of the church group and a top athelete. He suicided.... Why? because he couldn't stop wanking. So who was to blame? I say all who supported the evil puritan culture which made this poor boy think he was sinning in an unforgiveable way.

Since I accept that different groups have particular characteristics, I hereby bet that I will donate to Octave's choice of charity $50 every time a person of Chinese appearance ( Includes Japanese, Koreans etc ) wins the 100 metres gold medal at the Olympics. And I'm not a racist because my bike is too slow, I'm only a bit misogynistic and only a bit alcoholic.

Yep space, this mate of mine ( who looks Chinese on account of being of Japanese genes, but still 5 generations in the US) had a kid and he looked into trying her out for that school. I really don't think I'm a racist, but I do have some baggage in my head from growing up in Alice Springs in the 1950's. For example, I tend to unconsciously stay upwind of black people. This is unreasonable these days where I live. I have not struck one around here who smells bad, but imagine an adult who has never washed or wiped their bum in their whole life. Well that is what I grew up with. Not their fault, how could desert aborigines possibly have washing in their culture?

On differences between the races... Very hard to separate out culture from genetics, but there are clues. How many Chinese do you see in the final of the 100m sprint? Surely that's not all down to culture, but as soon as you mention genetics, you open the possibility of other differences which are not so readily apparent. You are racist when you don't give a person a fair go based on their race. Not when you are being scientific. There was a school for gifted kids in Menlo Park. They wanted the mix of kids to reflect the catchment suburbs. They had to adjust the entrance test scores thus : subtract 6 points if you looked Chinese, no change if you looked white, add 20 points if you looked African. Now this says nothing about individuals, the top kid could well have been African. Look at Obama for a high achiever...

space, you do need to think of yourself in the reverse situation, like suppose you and your family had moved to china. Would you really speak chinese at home? But I am interested in finding out how those doctors from overseas got qualified in Australia.

Even when you study the labels, there might be several slightly different things. I always guess the wrong one. But it might be me who mixes things up... ever found a better deal than what you have in the trolley? Well most times I do return the other thing back where it came from...most times.

yep good question storchy. Renewables are as good and cheap as their storage system, and all these storages are pretty expensive. But coal may turn out to be the most expensive fuel of all, if using it renders the planet uninhabitable. That's why I have always said that nuclear would be best. Mind you, the regulations around nuclear have pushed the price up a lot, and storage of renewables may have got cheaper. It is not that I like nuclear much, what I like is money and employment and stuff like that.

You get more roots for being an alpha male, as determined by winning such stupid races. I was amazed to read that hoon drivers among teens get more sex from more girls than the rest of their peers. Yet in stone-age times, it was those hoon guys who killed the big animal whose meat helped their family survive the winter.

I went to see one of the pudgy asians who was young enough to be a product of the system I am complaining about. It was for an area of my thigh that had less than normal sensation. I wanted MS etc to be checked out. Well this GP said ( sitting at his desk ) that he didn't know what it was next patient please. I bet he was on a million a year from govt rebates alone, so quickly did he dispose of patients. Yes, I should have put in a complaint. At the next place, I was checked over very competently. Octave, that's a good point about other countries... I wonder where the best one is, and it might even be here. That story would be the worst service I have ever had, and yes he was the less than 1% who slip through. OME, I have socially known 3 psychiatrists and they were all crazy. The least crazy one was struck off for sex with an underage patient, the other went so far off the rails that he locked his doors and refused any communications. The third one was such a bad father that his kids left home and cut him off. I reckon it must be a feature of the job, maybe insanity is more communicable than we think.

Times have changed, and these days a mate who doesn't drink is in demand to drive you home.

There was no "exclusion" of white Australians at all. There was an "adjustment" to the raw scores if you were of " non-english-speaking background" as I have explained. It was this, combined with the very high scores needed, which had the ( unintended ?) effect of excluding most whites. There was another thing... you could take 2 years to do year 12 ( without penalty on your scores ) and this option was taken up by people from hard societies ( refugees ) much more than by locals. So the first year medical class was filled with pudgy asians who had studied 16 hours a day and done no sport and did only 3 subjects a year. Plus a few Greek males. And yes, they realised that this was making the wrong people into doctors. They only wanted the million dollar incomes. As regards " foreign " doctors, I ask you to consider the Bundaberg Dr Death. gosh I'm glad he didn't kill all the Jabiru lot. I wonder where he is now. But as I said, this was only during a small window in time. In my day, I could have done medicine if I wanted to. The only person in my class who wanted to was a very religious kid who wanted to heal like Jesus. Personally, I indicated I wanted to be an airline pilot, much to the horror of my teachers who thought this was a very downmarket trade.

Octave, it is my understanding that British qualifications for medicos are accepted in Australia without any more exams. The pathway was from India and Pakistan through London to Australia.

The anglo students would have found it easier once they got in, it was the getting in that was harder for them. It was done on academic points say out of 100. Now the cutoff was at say 97 points. But if you were of non-english background, you got 3 bonus points. This was the case in South Australia at about 1990, and I was a no-account member of some committee that had to do with recruiting students, but we had no say in the number of medical places because the federal government had the say. We could have filled a thousand places with straight "A" students but were limited to about 60. Lots of things have changed since my day though, so I bet this has. Here in Western Victoria, the local doctors consist of an Indian woman and a devoutly moslem Pakistani man. It was unkindly said of the Pakistani that he would not examine women's genitals because of his religion, but when my daughter-in-law asked him about this, he vehemently denied it and I believe him.

Thousands of Australian straight "A" students were denied a place in medical school by order of the federal government of the day, both Labor and Liberal did this. The reason was to try and limit the medicare payments by limiting the number of doctors. They sure were stupid, and they applied the rule so stupidly that regional places could only get a doctor from the third world. Some were ok, some were dr deaths like the one in Bundaberg.( I bet none of them could have even got into medicine as students if they sat for year 12 exams and used an anglo name) Then some smart person realized that you don't need to limit the number of doctors, you only need to limit the number of medicare provider tickets. They still haven't figured out to make these geographically based and solve the regional problem. I dunno how hard it is for a school-leaver to get into medicine these days. There was a time ( when I was a school-leaver ) when it was easy. This changed to be impossible for anglos when the score needed was so high that without the bonus points for being of non-english speaking background, you would need over 100 % to get in. ( ok, this is a slight exaggeration, but not by much. Maybe the top few anglo students in year 12 could get in.. But the first-year medical class looked like an asian convention. )

Wow space, that 363 days is just the same time as a mate was told it would take to see a neurologist about his CJD. The main problem is that you only live about 6 months with CJD. My mate was tough and he lived 9 months. He got to see a neurologist sooner by turning up at casualty.

My Jabiru is Left hand drive. Well those yanks did have the first plane to fly.