Bruce Tuncks

I wonder if corruption is not linked to a free press in that we hear frightening things all the time... Far better, says me, to be like this than live under a muzzled press. But then the countries above us on the "corruption-free" list also have a free press. Just maybe not so murdochified?

One thing that has come from trump's win is that wokeism is finished there in the usa. I reckon that is the only thing that can explain what happened there. I wonder what they ( Trump voters ) would think of the likes of Lydia?

For Marty's benefit, how does he think that aborigines would fare if whitemen never arrived? Personally, I think that they would be fewer and poorer than they are now. But we can't put our modern selves in their shoes ( oops, they had no shoes before ) because we can't restore the past. My objection to the "welcome to country" thing is that it is transparently just a precursor for asking for even more money.

The only reason I can think of as to why this is not done already is the kind of "inverted racism" we see around today. For example, the lack of appropriate housing ( Simple and built with non-flammable materials as well as non-shattering materials ) is an example of the stupid kind of thinking that says " abos are citizens and will be provided with the kind of housing that others get." completely disregarding culture.

I was thinking about abos and wondered what if they were paid "siddown money " once a year. Well there would be a great binge and six months later, the kids would start dying of hunger. OK, so what about the other way? They are presently paid every fortnight, I think, and the kids sometimes don't make it till payday, but they often do. So what about paying them every day? This would once have been an expensive idea, but it is no longer. They would stop starving the kids and have "lots " of money for grog. I reckon the once a fortnight was a hangover from pre-computer days and it is no longer necessary or desirable, especially for people with very limited time horizons.

Here's my guess.... Trump is going to lose, and by quite a margin. Last time, I didn't mind him so much, but for a second run? Yes, I know there are crazies out there but hey they are not in a majority. My main worry is that lots of women will vote against Kamala on sexist grounds. I sure don't understand just why they will do this.

Thanks Onetrack, here's a question that I asked the medicos without getting an answer: Our blood is about 900ppm salinity. Q: Is this equal to the sea salinity when our ancestors left the sea? It is a LOT more saline now, so the 900ppm seems about right for hundreds of millions of years ago. Our ancestors at the time were of course fish. ( The coelecanth fish looks like a candidate.... alas, the ones around now lack the five-fold symmetry of their appendages which apparently mark a true ancestor)

AND SALT NEV! in rainwater.... not enough to worry about ( ec reading of rainwater = 20 dS/m I think, anyway the 20 is correct. This compares with 30,000 ppm for seawater, or about 22,000 ec units. But if the catchment is big enough, by the time evap etc has concentrated the salt, it is no longer negligible. For the murray-darling , this salt is significant. How does it get from the sea?... just look at the white haze in a sea-breeze, it's salt dust. It gets into the air when sea-spray evaporates.

Nope nev, I haven't been back to Alice Springs lately either. I was told at Coober Pedy some years ago that the ban on grog sales did a lot of good. I found out about this after being refused to buy wine at the pub take-away. The guy said how all the cash-registers in the town were connected together so competition didn't work so good. The abos hanging around the grog shop were a lot fewer and cleaner than before... I wonder if the woke lot have stopped the whole thing , I would expect them to try.

I just googled the thing up and found that the legal age is as if your birthday was on march 1st.

surely the powers that be are not so silly that they would accept a lie such as your true age?

Two things I have learnt: 1. A contractor works for whoever is actually paying him and nobody else. 2. It's more fun being a farmer than a contractor. Point number 1 explains why a pensioner gets short shrift from a medical specialist, and point 2 explains why successful business people buy farms.

I have read about some feel-good things that are going on, but australia is still not climbing up to no 1 on the scale. Just why Albanese is not making more of the Liberals failures in the past is a mystery to me. As a contractor wannabe in the NT, I had a first-hand look at how corruption works here ( We were sent packing from govt jobs in the nt, by a person who soon afterwards was rewarded with a big job for a big phone company. The clients had to accept poorer service for more money as a result of this corruption. ) I don't think they ( the corrupt ones ) were breaking any rules or laws either then or now. I sure could write up some rules to stop this sort of thing, starting with a big increase in the time between leaving a regulation job and starting as a executive for a company hitherto regulated by the likes of the person concerned.

It was with horror that I read about corruption in ukraine, Personally, I reckon that there is no punishment bad enough to deal with corrupt officials. What can we do here? I suggest that we can at least write to our mp's asking for action here in Australia.

But, Gareth, what about the pollies who sent them there? I reckon they are fair game, although I tend to agree with you about prosecuting " for war crimes". What about the blatant cases .There are some stories coming from ukraine about terrible atrocities inflicted upon defenceless captive soldiers by the russians.