Old Koreelah

Perhaps, but don’t forget Russia has produced some of the best pilots. It would have been in their interest to inflict minimal damage, just enough to cause it to land in range of their retrieval team.

Bad piloting? He flew a twenty-tonne supersonic jet just close enough to a slow drone to bend one of its prop blades. That’s surgical.

I predict lots of school teachers will use this app to write kids’ progress reports. It would save an awful lot of tedious repetition and the bot would probably produce more imaginative scripts.

Don’t bet on it, Nev! Lots of wildlife has adapted to suburbia and I fear that includes some types of snakes. My kid often leaves the door open for hours. Plenty of the buggers live in the nearby gully, so I fear they’ll find her garden.

I remember one uncle on Comboyne had a working Clydesdale until the mid 60s. With hooves like big frying pans, it had a good grip on that steep country. When it died, it fell and took out a panel of a stout two-rail fence.

Too many organisations follow a rigid “Top-down” management model. Presumably military in origin, that was the main impressive I got from my dozen years in the SES. The resulting inflexibility hampered efforts to adapt and reform. Many of us left in frustration. Joining the VRA was a revelation: very “bottom-up” with plenty of feedback opportunities for those at the front line. After every training exercise or callout we habitually form into a circle and debrief; the best learning available. These discussions help us to hone our techniques. Sometimes we identify the need for a new tool, which, in the past, we might have built ourselves. These days, we aren’t so dependent on wood raffles and other fundraisers. Government grants allow us to buy the equipment we need.

I fit into that category- to me they’re hideous, loathsome creatures, but if they keep their distance I respect their right to exist. If near my house, that respect disappears. Interesting that my fear of snakes is like my fears of other things, like confined spaces: worse in memory. When I actually encounter a snake, it’s not as scarey as I’d imagined. Maybe age also is a factor. These days I almost have nightmares about the caves I’ve squeezed through.

W see a snake about once a year, despite our block having plenty of places to hide and all sorts of critters they’d eat. Who knows how many snakes per hectare there’d be? The young and inexperienced ones presumably get gobbled up by predators, the bigger ones got that old by keeping out of sight. Suits me.

After a working life inside Australia’s teaching systems, that report almost made me cry with envy for that clever country and frustration at the utter stupidity of our own policy makers. Will our country ever turn away from copying every failed trend in the USA?

The little toddler next door was bitten by a snake that her cat was carrying. Innocent and inquisitive.

An Englishman, Welshman and Scotsman were captured during the war and were sentenced to be shot as spies. When asked if they had any last requests the Welshman asked to hear a recording of a Welsh male voice choir. The Scotsman asked to hear a recording of bagpipes playing Scotland the Brave. The Englishman asked if he could be shot first.

Luxury!

I’ve often taken my kids out of a metal oven to work under a tree. We didn’t have shady olives or a nice cool Medierranean breeze. We were tuff!

I’ve been involved in quite a few anti-war activities over the years and one of our fervent hopes was for the combatants to run out of ammunition. Now that we’re actually hearing of critical shortages, things are real. I hope the good guys get enough supplies to quickly push the bad guys back home before this becomes The Somme all over again.

We saw the alternative to regular hazard reduction burns a few years ago. It wasn’t pretty.

Easy to say, plurry hard to acheive. These are among the most deadly snakes on our planet and need specialised equipment and training (which I refuse to do). Our VRA unit did snake jobs for many years, until all those trained to handle them retired or grew tired of having their time wasted (most snake disappear by the time our team arrives).

Someone earlier used the term “lower than a snake’s belly”. I’m sitting in our local hospital waiting for a doctor. A few minutes ago, out of the corner of my eye I noticed a movement- a brown snake wriggling across the lino. Plenty of room for them to fit under the door. After I’d disabled it with a nearby garbage bin, two nurses performed extra surgery with extreme prejudice. Another day in an Ozzie waiting room.

Now that Kevin Rudd has been appointed our US ambassador, Malcolm Turnbull has taken over the push for a Royal Commission into Murdoch’s influence in Oz. Interesting that the Federal Labor government is not supporting the idea, though even the US is waking up to the insidious nature of the Murdoch empire. If it was me, I would have no qualms about kicking this particular A-hole while he’s down. He and his father have been manipulating our democracy for well over a century. https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/turnbull-to-take-over-news-corp-royal-commission-campaign-20230320-p5ctof.html

As I walked in to cast my(pre-poll) vote yesterday, I was beseiged by friendly, eager politicians and their minions… afteryears of them avoiding us. This says it all, but particularly applies to the MAGA nutcases:

Those were interesting times, when mortal men gambled all on producing a war-winning weapon. I remember a scene from an old B&W movie about the first nuclear pile; a condemned man stood by with a big hammer, ready to smash the apparatus if it went out of control, and thereby ensuring his own hideous death. The future of the world left in the hands of a convicted criminal.

A family member has a gig like that, managing a transnational outfit almost entirely from home. A trip away every few weeks and an occasional 2am meetings to suit the big boss’s timezone. Saves on office rental and rarely wears a suit.

Murdoch’s evil influence is now under threat in US courts and even media commentators are talking about the damage he’s done. https://www.smh.com.au/national/murdoch-succeeded-where-putin-failed-time-for-a-fox-hunt-20230320-p5ctkd.html

Traditional schools, which are mostly built and staffed on a strict budget, have done plenty of damage to kids’ development. Decades ago I copped a backlash from my community when I pointed out that the local horseracing track (used about six time per year) had far better facilities than most of our school classrooms (used 206 days per year). It sure shows where our society’s priorities are.