willedoo

The commentary I read was of the opinion that Biden holds enough sway in the party that the decision to stand down would have to come from him. It was also said the only people with a chance of influencing him are Obama and Pelosi. Also mentioned was that he's a stubborn person and that Jill is right behind him pushing. Biden can possibly still beat Trump if he keeps away from debates and other non scripted appearances. When he has a good day he's still an effective campaigner. The problem is the good days are getting fewer. It's one thing to have long term speech issues that make communication more difficult, but to regularly lose the train of thought when speaking in public is worrying. Losing one's train of thought is not a speech issue, it's a brain issue.

According to exit polls Marine Le Pen's far-right National Rally party has won the first round of France's parliamentary election. Her party is on 34%. The New Popular Front, a newly created far-left coalition, has taken 28.1 per cent and Emmanuel Macron's centrist Renaissance party has taken 20.3 per cent. France is first past the post which means if it was a single round vote, Marine Le Pen's party would be in government. Under a preferential voting system like we have, her National Rally party would lose. All parties who get more than 12.5% of the vote go through to a second round vote in a week's time and first past the post wins. France has a tradition of ganging up on parties they don't want to win. Various interests are encouraging those in third place to drop out and throw their support behind those in second place to keep Le Pen's party out. That's the thing with first past the post - you can have a government that two thirds of voters voted against. A lot of people say first past the post is the most democratic, but it can also result in a government that a large majority of people oppose.It all depends on your interpretation of democracy.

Quote from Barack Obama on his Xcrement account - "Bad debate nights happen. Trust me, I know. But this election is still a choice between someone who has fought for ordinary folks his entire life and someone who only cares about himself. Between someone who tells the truth; who knows right from wrong and will give it to the American people straight — and someone who lies through his teeth for his own benefit. Last night didn’t change that, and it’s why so much is at stake in November."

When I was in London in 1985 you could buy cans of VB at a liquor store but you couldn't buy them in a carton. You had to buy 24 separate cans and try to juggle them home in a large brown paper bag which is not easy when you have the wobbly boot on. Very primitive I thought. You couldn't buy take-aways at a pub when I was there, at least not at the ones I went to. At closing time, if you wanted take-aways, you had to wander down the street to the liquor store and do the juggling act.

My wavy hair started waving goodbye to my forehead when I turned 30. As the years go by the memory of hair recedes as well.

I wonder if they'll have any more debates. They seem a bit pointless when you have Trump dodging every question with his usual waffle.

I sometimes wonder whether if any of these candidate debates make any real difference to the electoral outcome. I doubt many of them would look forward to having to do it.

The Democrats have a big problem. At the debate, poor old Joe looked like he should be in aged care. I only saw cherry picked highlights, but most of the time he was staring into space with his mouth open. Obviously he was trying to understand Trump speaking (not an easy task) but he was really struggling. My first thought was that they had Joe medicated. The format was always going to be a disaster for Joe with no notes allowed or any contact with their respective teams. They could have note paper to write things down, but no pre-written notes allowed. One good thing was the mute button so only the candidate who's turn it was had a live microphone. Some critics of the debate are saying it was elder abuse to allow Joe to go through that. It wasn't a good look.

It's another perspective, but I still don't see what that has to do with the intention of Red's post. Maybe I'm just not reading enough into it. I thought it was a straightforward post and couldn't see any hint of support for America's actions against Assange. I'm not debating the issues of Assange's guilt or not or the US deep state thing, or the issue of transparency; all I'm saying is I think his post was misinterpreted and quite wide of the mark at that..

Re-read Red's post and think about it. If Assange had obtained classified Australian military and government documents via illegal hacking and published them, he would have been charged with very serious offences in this country. That's the first point I think Red is making. The second point is that because he has not committed a crime in this country he's being white knighted here. I didn't see anything in Red's post to suggest that Red supports the right of the US to murder civilians and keep it quiet under the threadbare fig leaf of "National Security". I think it's a bit distasteful that you would ask him that. You seem to have completely misinterpreted his post. I think you owe him an apology.

I didn't see anything in Red's comments to indicate that. Marty, you are delving into whataboutism there. It's like arguing that because you don't like Holdens you must naturally like Fords. It's a weak way to argue a point and doesn't stack up.

Opponents of it cited cases of fatalities due to severing of the femoral artery and the victim dying of blood loss.

One figure I read was a Climate Council estimate of 12% of power needs by 2050. I think their estimate is based on one reactor per site. That poses another question - will the seven sites have only one reactor per site or will they eventually have multiple reactors per site.

Growing up as a kid, myself and almost everyone I knew was on a soldier settlement block. It's just a pity they weren't a bit bigger. As time went by it became harder and harder to make a living off those acerages. These days a lot are aggregated.

Here's another one: did you know that the real name of Mister Ed the talking horse was Bamboo Harvester.

60 hours as quoted in the article - 'The 60-hour trek began on June 4, JJ told Yahoo News, when he packed up his 2023 M3 RWD and moved from Melbourne to Magnetic Island in Queensland with his friend Siouxsie joining to help break up the drive.'. That's 2.5 days, not too bad really.

I did away with the 45kg bottles years ago when they brought in the annual rental fee. I use my own 9kg bottles and get a refill from the local hardware store for $25, which is equivalent to $125 for a 45kg bottle. There's no rental and a bottle lasts ten years between testing. It's only viable for someone like me with a low gas usage household; with a higher usage there would be too many bottle turnovers to bother dealing with small bottles.

I wonder how much money I've saved over a lifetime of never having comprehensive car insurance, only compulsory third party insurance. The most expensive car I've ever had cost me $5,000, so none of them were worth insuring. I've had that $5,000 car for ten years now and the only time it's needed repairs was one time with a blown power steering hose. Edit: I've replaced the fan belts as well.

If a vegan didn't like oil it would cut them out of plastic shoes. I wonder if they have synthetic oil based shoes.

I'm not sure how many vegans would be conspiracy theorists. Possibly no more than other groups that make up the conspiracy theory population. One of the biggest groups is the heavy pot smokers. Not all anti-vaxxers are into the conspiracy side of it, but definitely a fair few are. It would be interesting to see how many vegans are anti-vaxxers or how many anti-vaxxers are vegans. The only difference between vegans and vegetarians is that vegans won't eat or wear any animal products, so no dairy, eggs or gelatine products. Some vegans might avoid vaccines because they can contain animal products and the more activist ones possibly would object to animal testing in pharmaceutical products. My next door neighbours are anti-vaxxers and make meat pies for a living, so no vegan connection there.

For anyone with an Xcrement account, this lady has a very accurate take on putler's achievements. https://x.com/Gerashchenko_en/status/1802644117341491484

I guess it's whatever floats your boat. Some people like to get involved in military reenactments, but they don't look very serious about it. More of a military enthusiasts get together/fun run by the look of it. Looks like a few serious reenactors with a lot of others just along for the ride.

It's a Quarter Horse. Maybe one day AI will be able to draw a Full Horse.

A lot of old Harleys on a reenactment run: https://www.facebook.com/mavrickmavroux.kuypers/videos/339210275644284

Isn't that the airfield where they used to do runway runs with the Lightning.