Jerry_Atrick

I see his supporters, the MAGA cult have vowed violence and retribution for the verdict. That is what I love about ideological nutjobs, whichever way they are bent; something doesn't go their way and they can't rationally put an argument for their way or accept that is the law that they swear to uphold, but have to the ultimate of the thing that the right wing ideology is avowed against - cancel culture. This never seems to be reported. Also, the house speaker has come out and not only criticised, but condemned the verdict and alleged it has been politically biased, etc. No one seems to be reporting the affront this is to any constitutional democracy; the courts are one of the three pillars of a constitutional democracy - and act as a check and balance on abuses of legislative and executive powers.. It is a long held convention that the courts decisions are not politically criticised.. asserting an error of law is one thing, but a political attack is wholly different as it may sway future decisions or any decision on appeal. There is no doubt he will lodge an appeal. I am guessing this will go all the way to SCOTUS (assuming the US federal courts have the same ultimate jurisdiction as the Aus federal courts). @spenaroo - would be interesting to know what the potential misdirection/S to the jury was/were. Normally, in commonwealth derived jurisdictions, an appeal from an already higher court in the hierarchy is lodged, and especially when there has been a trial by jury, the grounds are limited to either an incorrect application of the law (misdirection) or a manifestly absurd decision on the evidence - the latter is rarely granted but usually when they are, it is because of some alleged bias based on the celebrity of the appellant. It can also be heard based on the importance of the case - and on the latter two, Trump is likely to be granted leave to appeal. My understanding is, even in NY law, an appeal does not allow the introduction of new evidence and is usually composed of legal argument; even in the case of a manifestly absurd result being the grounds for appeal, the appeal will be around the application of the law to the facts and not the facts are in dispute. My bold.. The grounds for appeal on this would be dependent on how that stuff was let in. If objections to the subject matter were raised by the defence and they were overruled, then there may be grounds for appeal; however, the judge, in his summing up, stated that the defence did not avail themselves of objections to testimony where he would have been prepared to sustain those objections (apparently some of the Stormy Daniels testimony was cringeworthy and not relevant; and I am sure some of Cohen's would have been, too). An an adversarial system, of which NY is, It is not the role of the judge to proactively determine what is and what is not admissible or relevant - it is up to the adversaries to bring such stuff to the notice of the judge and then he will decide - except in extenuating circumstances which, surprise, surprise, occurred in that trial which required the judge to proactively intervene during the Stormy Daniels testimony. Of course, in the lower courts such as the magistrates/local courts, the magistrate/judge takes a more proactive role.

Ever been to where God resides?

Previous post in response to this.

It is very sad that a nurse's salary is not high enough to pay state housing rent. Is Australia harking back to the ways of the mother country?

I was driving behind one of these yesterday: https://www.renaultgroup.com/en/news-on-air/news/twizy-2/ As a sporty little town runabout, I would think they are hard to beat.. Not sure how much shopping you can get in one - maybe have to go for the two seater. But it looked fun, and the acceleration was brisk...

No worries. I forgot to mention that we do have this (https://www.airbnb.co.uk/rooms/53425871?search_mode=regular_search&check_in=2024-09-09&check_out=2024-09-12&source_impression_id=p3_1716822347_ByFnaugHCmIiBowk&previous_page_section_name=1000&federated_search_id=8a887a79-a4e9-4a46-b094-991e62d661ae), which is the converted stables. My daughter stays in there and I have my computer in there, except we have to vacate for guests. Thankfully it is quiet this year and we have taken it off the market for most of the summer. However, it is still a pain as someone is in tomorrow until Friday, and then a week later, another couple are in for the weekend. So, we can't move all our food down and use it properly. Apart from the kitchen that was in there, that was a complete refurb we did over lockdown. The rains exposed a broken cast iron downpipe which will have to be replaced, and also another blocked drain. Never ending story this place is.

It's been a busy week for me at work - just when I didn't need it. But, here is a quick update on progress. First, we have had a lot of builders in and the dog is thoroughly p155ed off: He is barking a bit more than normal at the moment. We have had cabinet makers in this week as well as builders working on putting in a new steel to be able to remove a nob on the wall. It has been an intrusion - the missus is going potty at the moment, and it is completely understandable. The photo here is the existing steel exposed: The post to the right of the door is dry brick - no mortar at all.. The builders remarked it all could have come down with a good enough bump. To the left and hidden behind the door is the nib we want to get rid of. We also want to get rid of the brick work to the right of the door, thought to be structural before the plaster came off, but turns out to be just to hold the steel up. Below, the builders are leaving the sink and diswasher until the floors have to come up. The below photo shows the two partition walls (one exposed to the left and the other to the right) that are coming out. to open up an already substantial space. The below shows the previous installers "handiwork" in supporting the above wall. I took this photo to try to give some feel for the dimension of the open plan room we will have. Note the piano to the left will be dismantled and thrown away.. You can't give them away these days.. we have tried numerous times. This shot shows the steel exposed with holes taken out of the brick work to insert the supporting Acrows: And here are the Acrows initially supporting the brickwork And the bricks and the 8-yard Skip To give you an idea of the size of the two steels (that is one of the builders): This is them being held up note that are braced together to provide the necessary support (last one photographed upside down for some reason). Buggers put a hole in the wall right the way through to the make shift kitches, so all of our stuff was covered in dust.. Spent ages cleaning it, but still some around: Acrows in the basement (on both sides of the wall) helping to hold things up (not sure why that went in upside down - looked OK in the email I sent myself): The smaller wardrobe the joiners put in in one of the bedrooms upstairs: The shelving units another Joiner put in the study: And finally, the bathroom and shower room that will also get a revamp in the next few weeks... You can see we have made a start to the flooring on the bathroom: I have no idea why some photos have gone in upside down There are hiccups, of course. Our vanity unit for the bathroom that was supposed to have a lead time of two days has a wait of 6 weeks as they are out of stock. And the flooring we have selected is also out of stock and not expected until July. We take delivery of the kitchen on Tuesday (without appliances). But the next bit of work is the following: Building inspections on the steels - Wednesday Ceiling replacement and light fitting in the kitchen and bathrooms - By Friday week. I'll be taking two weeks off work soon and it will be for the benefit of working on the house. All the windows are being replaced - drawings to the council for listed building approval. That will take about 6 weeks. Then the windows go in. That will make a huge difference. Have to order a burglar alarm. That is about it for now.

Ahh.. the American way.. Don't like what you hear, use a bullet.

Really? What about the overly pessimistic falsehoods that are spread around about EVs, much to the delight of the fossil fuel industry? DO they not warrant posthumous adulation from Goebbles, as well? Sorry about the cynicism, but there is so much propaganda on so many fronts - why single out EV evangelists?

Another round has passed and the balance has increased a bit: But, there was a salient lesson in this week's results, and that is, stick to the strategy. Here are my bets for the week: The one witht he red about is my losing bet this week. As you can see, I don't bet the family silver, and yes, I do lose. Most of my losses have been genuine in the sense they were on my win list, or they were specualtive because the odds v probability of winning looked like an outside change, but I had also laid on hedge bets the other way to minimise the impact of the loss while, should the outside chance come home, still have a good return. But this week, I was like a pilot with a sever case of press-on-itis or get-home-itits looking at a marginal weather forecast. As you can see from the betting amounts, I don't bet the lot - in fact, I am quite conservative. I bet on the Hawks beating Brisnabe depsite the then disparity in their ladder positions, because, in my estmation, the Hawks, with star players coming back and Brisbane's atrocious away record this year, it seemed to me a very high probability they would win. And they did.. Nice one, because it paid for that blunder confirmation bias bet I put on Geelong. This round was very tough, and I had only three bets. I like to have four, psychologically, because I feel I have diversified some of the risk away, even though statistically, I doubt it could be the case. So, looking at Saturday's games, this was the only one that had the return over 25% that was remotely near where I wanted to be. However, my gut feel was that GWS would win, but for some reason, but it was so against my system (Geelong had a couple of stars coming back; no significant changes to the GWS lineup, and it was away for GWS). I let all of these factors confirm my bias of Geelong winning at the Cattery and literally at the last minute, because of press-a-button-itis, confrimed my bias and put on the bet. Unfortunatly, I couldn't execute my new in-game strategy, as I was doing a software release at the time and only have one monitor due to building works. So I had the match on the TV, and after the first quarter figured the odds for GWS would have skyrocketed because they were 3 goals down and now was the perfect time to place that in-play hedge. However, at that time, a problem with the release surfaced, so it was all hands on deck... and then GWS rocked away to a 3 goal lead at 1/2 time and there was an opportunity lost. In the end, GWS beat Geelong by less than a goal, but it is £40 dropped on confirmation bias.. A valuable lesson, otherwise my "investment" may vave been closer to 500% return... but, one has to roll with the punches, and 400% return isn't too bad. so far! It provided a good lesson though on confirmation bias, and one I can apply to flying (although, I have already learned from flying about that!). The other thing I have noticed is that this betting is a lot like gambling on the pokies, or casino, in that if you lose, you lose it all (that you have bet, that is). However, it is a bit like investing in derivative financial instruments in that it is not all down to luck; there is research, developing a strategy, taking the losses with the wins, making the mistakes, tweaking the strategy, etc. For some derivatives, like commodity derivatives, it is also a zero sum game.. if you lose, you lose your whole bet, but you can manage the ups and downs in between and get out ahead before the bet is called. I have final semester exams next week, then four weeks off study; I have to get on with the reno (posts on that to come), but I am thinking of buiilding a database of player, game, and playing conditions stats and seeing if I can make a predictive model of who will win as a result. A couple of weeks ago, my interest in this was waning. Admittedly, it was a bad week in which I went slightly down in the cash balance and I was thinking this is all pure luck. With the odds I normally play (around 1.4 on average), to be 400% up (and yes, admittedly, I can be down next week), there may be something to my quasi-statistical methods.

To be fair, a lot of questions that they are asked for a yes or no answer are more nuanced than a simple yes or no; But thee are times where they go nowhere near answering the question,

Doesn't sound like they are killing them for food... The ranch is satisfying a demand.. makes you wonder about anyone that gets pleasure of killing purely for fun. And while it is hosted in Texas, it seems like Aussies are willing to pay a lot to do it.. so is it disgusting from the US or Australia?

Veering of topic, but the whole net-neutrality thing, to me is BS.. It is basically saying let's keep the wild west, wild. The internet is a media channel, just likeother media chennels - with one exception - there is no governance andf anyone can say what they like. Yes, you could argue there is not enough governance with MSM, and I would agree, but at least it is not open slather.. well, not until recent times.. which I can't help but think is allowed to allow them to compete with the internet.

That sounds like a Donald Rumsfeld comment 😉

On Autonomous Vehicles, I haven't read the AV Act, but the legal commentary has been it is largely tweaks to facilitate AVs to be able to be rolled out. There is no suggestion that by 2026 there will be a mass of AVs on the roads all of a sudden, nor the current government expect or are encouraging AVs to be flooding the roads in 2026. So, to frame it as some sort of policy failing waiting to happen is inaccurate. Thanks again, MSM. Of course, it depends from what side of the fence you are looking. If you are a wealthy Russian oligarch, quite a lot ;-). Seriously, there are some things they have got right, or more right than others. The furlough scheme here, which was Sunak's design, was far better than the crap they served up in Australia for lock-downs. The aggressive pursuit of a vaccine was also seen widely as a success; of course, the dilly-dallying with the lockdowns wasn't, but if ScoMo has the same power as BoJo did, it is likely the deaths would have been much higher in Aus. And the UK has been investing heavinly in renewables and are way ahead at rolling out EV infrastructure. I agree their overall scorecard has been bad, but would argue not that much worse than under 13 years of Aussie conservative rule. But this looks like something they have got a positive start on. What they have said is, that when a car is driving in autonomous mode, someone has to bear responsibility - in othe words, the usual strict liability liability that is on the driver at fault under the Road Traffic Act passes to the manufacturer while the car is in autonomous mode. This seems reasonable (as OME alludes to, depending on the meaning of autonomous mode). The driver has surrendered control of the car to software and hardware which was manufactured or purchased by the car manufacturer (and distributed by the distributor). It also has had to meet standards specified by the Act and regulations (to be written) under the Act and of course, it has to be tested to meet standards. The manufacturer, not the driver, warrants the AV mode meets requiremens. The driver has had no input and does not know how the AV system was built, nor tests it (well, production useis the ultimate test). Therefore, should the liability at the point the dirver surrenders control of driving the car not transfer to what has control - the car, and therefore, the makers of the car? As an example, if a driver of a normal new car has an accident which was the fault of a design flaw of that car, doesn't the obligation shift to the manufactuer of the car from the driver who was under control? What the Act is doing is setting a standard I don't know if there are limits, or some form of contributory negligence - for example, if the driver neglects to meeet maintenance schedules, or drives and engages the AV mode after an accident or a sensor has been compromised through a shopping trolley interaction that ought to have been identified. I have yet to read anything that suggests that manufactureres liability will be an issue as it was in the US. I agree, manufacturers will be apprehensive at first, which is why it is doubtful that there will be any AVs in mass numbers by 2026. BTW, in the UK, the aircraft operator has absolute liability for damages caused by an accident. That means, the wing can fall off through a manufacturing fault, and the operator bears all liability for claims of damages that arise from the accident. The answer - insurance. My guess wuill be the AV components manufacturers will have to provide indemnities to the car manufacturer and that the manufacturer/distributor will take out an insurance on a per-car basis, which they will simply pass onto the consumer.

@Litespeed - that first post is a really well thought out and articulated post - and not much I could find fault with. I am not sure how one could hold nefarious states to account, but my shifting the obligation to the social media propviders, it would at least halt the march. In fact, it is in the interest in the more integral political parties in the west to do exactly that, so I wonder why they don't as they have power at least in the US, Canada, and Australia; and while NZ has a conserative government, compared to the right in the US and Europe, they really are more aligned to the moderates. Agree, but there has to be strong controls and a totally independent and transparent body that has power to oversee and haul the govenment into line.. it should be funded by the industry through a tax rather than direct contribution so as to be truly independent of govenment and the industry - it probably should be a body along a commission or court so that it remains constitutionally separate from the legislature and the executive.

Getting back to whether or not anonymity should be allowed on social media, here is a good reason why not: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-05-20/kidfluencers-children-brand-army-social-media-four-corners/103820492?utm_source=abc_news_app&utm_medium=content_shared&utm_campaign=abc_news_app&utm_content=other

Did you know that Australia is actively collaborating with ITER - an international collaboration in realising nuclear fusion for power generation? https://www.nuclearaustralia.org.au/australian-project-generating-energy-nuclear-fusion/

I may be able to go first class if I can keep this up: I did stray from my system slightly - but to my advantage. I had no idea the betting site I use (which is a "reputable" site as has as betting companies can be) allowed in play betting. I was watching the hawks game and in the 10 minute mark of the final quarter, they were still 2 goals ahead but Port were coming back, albeit still clumsily. For some reason, I went onto the site and saw I could place in-play bets and Port Adelaide were running at 7:1. Since I had the Hawks at 5.25:1, I thought perfect hedge opportunity - throw away £10 of my 42.50 win; or should Port win, pick up an additional £60 Still a win-win... Put a £10 on Port and while I am gutted the Hawks were literally pipped at the post, the betting balance survived. Although the Hawks bet over Port Adelaide was a speculative bet, it was one made with the belief that they had a very good chance of getting over the line. It doesn't change the core of my system but adds to it. If I see a team is behind and coming back with a good chance of taking it, and I haven't already bet on them, then it may pay to hedge a potential loss depending on what the odds are I took the original bet with and what the odds of the hedge bet are.

Can't sell the radiators - they are going in in a couple of weeks.... Yay! Just as the weather warms up.. Maybe I'll sell a child instead. Even someone else's

I very much intend to bring sufficient demand to end the glut.

I wasn't intentind to say that immigrants don't commit crimes or murder people; just, intuitively, without having dived into the numbers, the myth that immigrants bring disproprortionate crime to the country may be a little overrateed.

I guess so... I would not really know.... I am actually already starting to tire of the thing.. I may just throw the remaining I have on the Hawks this weekend and if they win, just cash out.... or... maybe if they win... it is a sign and I will keep going 😉

I started life on minicomputers, then went to Burroughs Mainframes (which at the time were better than IBM,but yanks know marketing). I did migrate to IBM mainframes at what was then Coles Myer... Here is the latest generation of what, IMHO, is still the existing best corproate and AI platform.. But they aren't as good as marketing as they used to be

Wel,, thankfully this week has been very busy and full of what I call.. "career limiting discussions.." such that I didn't get a chance to get my bets on in time this week. Gold Coast absolutely floggingly flogged Geelong in what has to be one of the highest scoring games between two side in a long time.. 100 points (Gellong) to 164 (Glod Coast). I would have picked that cats over the suns any day of the week.. That aurora borrealis (sp?) has wreaked havoc on the game! Got the rest of my bets in.. One speculative, but if the conservative bets come in, it will be an average of 40%,. Will post results at the end of the weekend. (Maybe there is a god after all 😉