Old Koreelah

True, but Australia ranks well economically…so far.

Neither you or I can vote for most of the people and entities that control our lives.

Crickey, it feels weird to be knocking the republican movement that I supported for so long. With our national cultural cringe, Australia has always looked to a bigger brother role-model. Since WWII the influence pendulum has swing heavily towards the US, but now their Orange Caligula has done lots of damage to Australia’s republican movement. I bet the ongoing American disaster is causing a swing back to supporting reliable, time-tested UK institutions - at a time when the unity of Britain itself is looking shaky.

I’ll defend Charles; he’s a cut above the average royal and definitely more in tune with the needs of our future than most politicians.

Depressing reading. My shed is full of treasures, part-finished projects and “stuff that might come in handy one day”. My kid assures me that when I fall off the twig, she’ll give it the BryMay Bulldozer treatment…

The Maori used trenches, forts, muskets and cannon in their wars against the Pakeha. Born warriors. One story from that time has the white fellas running out of gunpowder and the Maori so enjoying the fight that they gave them some more ammo.

Probably both.

The Guardian loves to get stuck into The Establishment and this article by a Canadian reporter contains a classic description: “Christianity has been reduced to a scandal management system, with costumes”! https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/may/03/king-charles-iii-coronation-canada-britain

Hard Quiz beats all of them: plenty of fascinating trivia, but best of all, lots of laughs.

Tonight we watched the latest episode of Alone on SBS. The only “reality” TV I watch and quite absorbing. The tension as each hungry castaway tries to find food is enormous.

About 38% of Earth’s, so we’d lose muscle and bone mass, grow plurry tall and spindly.

I guess that’s the main reason they are going underground, like on the Opal fields. The good news is that lava tubes are predicted to be common on Mars, and probably much bigger than the ones on our planet. Cosmonouts would be smart to do their breeding before spending too much time in space. The Soviets pioneered long-term life in zero-G and learned heaps. A few years on Mars is likely to make the human body much less able to survive on Earth.

I’m with Red, in general terms. Everyone should contribute, nobody should get anything for nothing. The problems is partly geography and poor management (the jobs are often far from the unemployed) but also social. We should be making it easier for people to escape our ghettos of welfare dependence; they are a ticking time bomb for our civil society. It starts in the cradle: every little kid should learn to clean their own room, their classroom, etc and take their turn to take away the garbage. All kids should develop an appreciation of where stuff comes from, from food to their clothes and toys.

Yet another great Canadian: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/may/02/gordon-lightfoot-canadian-singer-songwriter-dies-aged-84

The same applies to road vehicles: the MB bus that I drive burns 9.3litres/100km, shared by nine seniors. That’s not much more than my 4WD, shared by two of us.

A generation before Howard’s infamous scare campaign against “boat people”, Fraser made me proud of Australia. When many boatloads of desperate Vietnamese refugees were reported, he mobilised the Navy to rescue them.

Of course; he celebrated at the news. Churchill had form; it is said he schemed to cause an “incident” in the North Atlantic to draw America into WWI.

Both Churchill and FDR wanted America in the war, but the US public needed plenty of convincing: a surprise attack by Japan would be the perfect solution.

True, but if Germany had kept Britain out of the war, who would have stopped Japan spreading their “Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity” empire? Not America, which was firmly in the hands of pro-fascists and US firms were making lots of money in Germany.

Trump supporter?

Was he once a swimming coach? My other half trained under a Stan Tilley and helped coach an Olympic Gold Medalist.

There is little doubt that the treacherous bastard did. His hatred of Jews and left wingers is also well documented. https://qz.com/423449/king-edward-was-apparently-pro-nazi-wanted-england-bombed https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/nazi-sympathiser-and-former-king-the-duke-of-windsor-wanted-england-to-be-bombed-international-archives-reveal-a33161.html If the former king had his way, Britain would have been forced into a peace with Hitler, condemning Europe to decades of Nazi extermination camps. Jews, Slavs, Poles, Gypsies…who knows where the butchery would have stopped? Even worse, the Axis Alliance with Japan would have given Imperial Japan free reign to slaughter its way across China and SE Asia.

A disproportionate number of our fatal accidents are Landcruisers, which easily get crossed up, especially on tar roads. Their smaller cousins are called Rollux for good reason. The good news is they are improving; we’ve seen amazing survivals in later models with lots of airbags.

I agree it sounds fishy that Hess was locked up till he died, when Nazis who had overseen horrific cruelty were set free after a decade or so. His crime seems to have been to try to negotiate a peace with Britain. What secrets did he take to the grave? It’s now clear that the previous king was a fan of the Nazis and is on record advocating the bombing of London. Hitler had plans to return Edward VIII to the throne after Britain was subjugated.

I doubt that will be a problem. The current lot have sure learned that the survival of the family Firm depends on public support. While ever the RF are seen to be decent role models, people will support them. Contrast their behaviour with that of our elected leaders, many of whom are very dodgy characters.