old man emu

Add to those losses the losses from reduced number of tourists coming from everywhere else. Why would you risk being detained at an entry point because you posted something that was critical of Trump and his government?

There are more than enough recordings of the incident made by independent witnesses that any body-cam video would be redundant. The problem is that a Federal Authority is ignoring the sovereignty of a State, something that is unconstitutional. But we are talking about the Trump Federal Government.

There is no doubt that Australains who have not been directly impacted by the recent fire and flood situations are sympathetic to those who have. Merely say that the impacted are in our thoughts and prayers doesn't seem enough. What can we do? Many victims only have the clothes they stand up in. Should we send clothing? Nice thought, but impractical. I volunteer at a charity shop where we receive bags and bags of donated clothing. It is a daily battle to sort through these donations to classify them and prepare them for display for sale. Even when that is done, we have difficulty in storing them. If we wanted to dontate them, where would we send them, and how? Clothing is not the only thing that these victims need. Where's the bog rolls; the baby nappies, the female hygeine products, the incontinence pads? Did you ever think that these might be more important to some victims than a selection of clothing? The National Emergency Management Agency https://www.nema.gov.au/ is a Commonwealth agency whose goal is to lead and coordinate national action and assistance across the emergency management continuum. To do this the agency works with State and Federl entities, Charitable organisations and leaders of the Public Sector to get aid to victims of disasters in the immediate aftermath and later in the recovery period. The best way for individuals to give help is by donating money to funds properly set up through charitable organisations and the like where monetary donations can be lodge into accounts managed by the major banks. The warning that must be given about donating is to never donate following a request made via a communication medium. If you want to donate, it is best to walk into a bank yourself.

I wouldn't wear thongs away from home. They are simply handy to slip on to go outside into the yard. I found that walking any distance in thongs gave me pain in the hips.

So many points tocomment upon. I believe that the American influence has not been introduced by police. In my opinion the generations which have come after the Boomers have had their attitudes towards Society molded by what American entertainment media has poured onto them. There is definitely a failure to acknowledge that the exercise of one's Rights as granted by Society has to be balanced by the acceptance of one's Responsibilities towards Society. It is that abandonment of Responsibilities that has lead to Society reducing many previously granted Rights. Should our police regularly carry long arms? Definitely not, for the simple reason that using high powered firearms requires a lot of skill to avoid 'collateral damage'. Gaining those skills takes long and frequent training to do which would markedly reduce the number of police available for the day-to-day duties involved in keeping the Peace. Competency with firearms cannot be obtained through a one day per year revision session on a range under virtually stress-free conditions. I agree that a small police unit of police regularly trained and disciplined in the use of these more powerful firearms is required for those operations aimed at the arrest of person reasonably expected to be prepared to use firearms to avoid arrest. These are planned operations in which each participant has a defined role within the team. Arrest by persons other than Police. I've explained before that anyone can arrest an offender in the act of, or immediately following the commission of an offence. Obviously a security guard would not want to do it because such an action is likely to result in loss of time by the employer if the security guard is required to attend Court as a witness. From my expereince, security guards are mostly just full of piss and wind. The Media. Once again the Media make matters worse by publicising situations when specialist armed police are in action, even if that action is simply patrolling on foot at New Years Eve events. One heavily armed police constable wearing body armour gives a false image when the majority of police are getting atound in cargo pants and shirts. When you see those bulky vests that regular police wear, they are not wearing body armour. The vests were introduced becasue police were carrying too much equipment on their waists and this was causing lower back injury. The introduction of vests was a Work, Health and Safety measure.

It's been so dry at my place since April that there is hardly anything in the paddocks to carry a fire. I'm even noticing that trees in the paddocks away from the creeks and gullies are starting to die.

It's halfway through summer and the pair of thongs I have ware standing up to daily use quite well. The sole is compressed a bit under my foot, and my son's dog chewed a bit of the sole off, but not enough to make the thongs unserviceable. However, years of experience have taught me that a good pair of thongs can suddenly have a strap broken or suffer some other catastrophic failure. So today I went into town to get a spare pair in case the inevitable happens, leaving me unshod without replacements. So I drove the 75 kms to town and hit Big W and K-Mart. I had no success at K-Mart because they had no stock, but Big W did. Would you beleive that the regular retail price for the pair of thongs I got was only $1.50? Nice! While I was in the shopping centre I had a look for a pair of casual shoes to backup the ones I have been wearing this summer. You could have knocked me down with a feather. A pair I saw was priced at $160.00, and I bet they were pumped out at some Chinese manufactory.

That's easy for you to say.

"The price of liberty is eternal vigilance." It pays all free peoples to be vigilant to the possible loss of liberties. That means careful monitoring of our system of leadership. Fortunately our Australian system has the means to remove leaders who remove liberties. However that often simply results in placing a similar type in the role.

What the USA is doing is proving that the US style of democracy is a failure. In other countries with true democracies, Trump would have been ousted from power by now.

Oh that we should do the same.

If it was anyone else than Trump, you'd say that this was incredible. Trump orders that a person be extracted from his place of residence by the use of military force. Then the person is transported in chains from his home country to another. There the person is taken before a Court in that destination country and accused of the leader of a terrorist organisation. It looks like the person is done for. However, for the person to be done for, the accusation must be proven. Obviously one thing to be proven is that the organisation at least exists. In a prosecution, every element of the acusation hs to be proven. Don't prove one element and the whole allegation gets thrown out. In the many indictments brought agains Manduro, the alleged terrorist organisation is mentioned 32. The name of this "organisation" is Cartel del al Soles. Unfortunately for Trump, no such organisation exists. The term was created years ago by the Venexualan media to describe government officials who are corrupted by accepting drug money. It's equivalent in US slang is "on the take". It seems that, despite being a totally horrible person, Manduro will walk away a free man. If that happens, and I were him, I'd make a bee-line to a lawyer's office to commence an action against Trump, the US Government, and every individual soldier involved in his detention, abduction, false imprisonment and malicious prosecution. Take a look at this video. The stuff about the prosecution starts at time marker 3:30.

I mistook that to mean that you were originally from Melbourne and moved away.

Yeah, but you emmigrated for a better place to live.

I wonder what law was alleged that Maduro has broken. He has been indicted in a US Court, but what is the jurisdiction of that law? Here is the indictment. https://www.justice.gov/opa/media/1422326/dl The last few ages nominate the actual part of a law that it is alleged to have been broken.