Bruce

Around here there are several good sites for the cabins. For example there are schools which are no longer used . Their grounds would be great and the buildings themselves could also be used gainfully. As for economic sense, where is the sense in spending billions on completely useless submarines?

I too delivered telegrams storchy. The worst delivery point was to an illegal bookie who had a pack of savage dogs to warn him of police raids. Too bad for the telegram boy who had to deliver all those betting telegrams right to his front door. Dunno why I never thought of giving them dog biscuits, I used to throw stones to keep them at bay.

And while I think that professor is wrong, or at least his timing is too soon, surely the onus of proof should be on those who are seeking to double our population to explain how they are planning to overcome resource depletion, climate change and overpopulation.

I agree Storchy, but it wouldn't need even one billion to provide a cabin for every homeless. My whole point is that it would be easily affordable to get them out of the rain. Then you could start sorting them out into those who would be safe to upgrade from the ferals who would seek to foul whatever was provided. How awful are our fellow citizens that the homeless are not offered shelter.

I don't think that the Aborigines had any idea Nev. A striking bit of the account of the arrival of the first fleet is about how the local aborigines didn't even look up from their oyster-gathering to watch the fleet arrive..

Australia needs immigrants like an alcoholic needs a drink. Short term benefits but long term disaster.

Jerry, I recommend breaking the law. A lot of regulations are there to protect the 1% most stupid from themselves. As an example, bathrooms here legally have big vents. If you block these vents, you can regulate the temperature better BUT you must remember to open things up when you have finished, or you will get mould. On the subject of saving the planet, I would love to do this but can't afford it. So in a place with unlimited firewood I don't even have a water-heater coil around the flue. The cost of a green system compared to bottled gas was just too much.

Its a sad story about the Gigant powered gliders carrying fuel to Rommel. Beyond the range of their own fighters, they passed through the range of Spitfires based in Malta and they were sitting ducks. And, old K, don't forget the Americans had the atom bomb in 1945, persuaded by a German Jew called Einstein. Who knows what would have happened? A nuke on Berlin? Even without using the atom bomb, the material superiority of America was overwhelming. My once next-door neighbor Ludwig was, in 1945, an 18 year-old German who finished the war with 300 or so other Luftwaffe groundstaff, told to defend their ground at all costs. Well the Americans came at them with 3000 tanks plus everything else. As an aside, Ludwig sure would have illustrated Nev's point about how nobody ever got an informed vote about going to war. Ludwig never would have voted for war or for Hitler. Not now or in 1939 or any other time.

Yes Phil, Rommel was a good field guy but he found stuff like logistics too boring to bother with and this helped bring him down. This is according to Deighton.

Rommel gets poor marks in a Len Deighton book where he debunks most of the generals of WW2. Recently I read that Australians used a tactic against Rommel where troops hid underground while the first Germans went overhead . Then the Australians came out from under their lids and got the Germans from behind. Apparently the Viet Cong copied this idea years later.

Marty, if ever I am in trouble I would like you to be there, but I disagree about the level of benefits as seen by refugees. There was apparently a sales video (shown by people smugglers to prospective customers ) with images of this family living in a nice house driving a car, all done on welfare, in Canberra. Yep the house and car were cheap, but the man was a millionaire by the standards of what he had been used to. Nearby us there is a house occupied by Sudanese and their next-door neighbor says their total income ( 2 or 3 kids ) is better than $60,000. He reckons that they should not be on so much more than he gets as an ex-taxpaying pensioner. Well this neighbor is of questionable reliability, being a born-again christian, but he does help them with advice I know. Getting back to the video... I have seen a copy of it but of course I wasn't there where it was said to be shown to prospective customers of the people smugglers. The video just shows the housing commission house and this guy and his family coming out and getting into a ten-year-old car and driving off.

Australia will be one of the worst countries for climate change dropping our food supply. We are just too close to the equator. The only advantage we have is a relatively low population. Of course we are giving this advantage away just as fast as we can. I agree with helping people where they currently live but not making some of them like lottery winners by bringing them here.Our centerlink benefits are riches for them.

And Williedoo, if society continues on the present course, most people will be on welfare and few will have jobs. The aborigines have been like this forever, and it is not so bad. Bugger, I don't know any abos with a Libelle and a Jabiru. But remember the US professor who says we are all about to go extinct ( 10 years) ...so there are other possibilities.

And yet we pay out 100 million PER DAY for military spending. Today I did a bit of an informal survey of our gym group. the most common guess at our military spending was 5 million a day. Why is not the real figure trumpeted? could it be an object of shame?

That's one sort of wickedness Nev, there is a worse sort, which it the bleeding hearts who are apparently able to prevent suitable housing ( small cabins ) from being built because they say the homeless need "proper houses " knowing full well that this will lead to the homeless having nothing. I never thought I would see homeless on display like I do now. I have no memory of it in my younger days.

These cold nights, I feel sad for the homeless. That there should be such people in Australia is disgraceful. For less than 1% of our military spending, the 116,000 of them could be provided with individual small cabins where they could lock their door and be protected from the weather and predators. That this has not been done is evidence to me of widespread wickedness.

What's a garnishee notice space? what can they do to the franchisees ?

The cheapest and most effective defense Australia could have is hundreds of Jabiru- powered drones carrying nuclear bombs made from Roxby Downs uranium. Alas we would not be allowed to build the nukes. Guess who would stop us. But we sure would save lots of money.

The only male teacher who was that way inclined was a religious instruction deacon and he was attracted to this other boy who was cuter than I was. All he ever did was let us know he was attracted and we were quite safe. Me and my mates thought the girls were unattainable and so we responded by saying how they were not good enough for us anyway.

Me too , wrong group. I really would have liked to be molested by one of the women teachers but that didn't happen either.

Sometimes I walk 7 km to the gym. I don't eat sugary stuff at all and I have trouble trying to lose weight. I wonder if it could be the red wine I'm not prepared to give up.

Exercise is also important and this is just becoming recognized and researched. We have a problem in that we are hard-wired ( doctors included ) to avoid exercise except when needed. This has survival value for stone-age people. They have a hard enough time getting enough calories to survive without wasting any on useless pursuits, like climbing Ayers Rock. But I personally know some old people who are really suffering from lack of exercise and not much else. One of the things about the Mediterranean diet was that they have more walking there. In the meantime, some advanced doctors are writing prescriptions for exercise.

Yep Space, cutting hands off thieves does seem to work. In those countries you feel very safe with respect to thieves. Gosh I hope they don't do it to kids though. I don't know of any places that stone rapists . They are more likely to blame the woman than the rapists, that is if the woman is stupid enough to complain to the police. AND there is this problem with the death penalty... it is irreversible if you have made a mistake.

That's right Nev. Some are vegans for their own health and they are different from those who are vegans for animal-rights reasons. I guess they are all healthier than the rest of us, but it can't be by that much or we would be swamped with vegan centenarians.

Darn it . The Royal wedding is on and I feel ill.