Bruce Tuncks

I always wondered what the locals would have made of some of the stories like the prodigal son. They had no concept of the idea of private property for example, a thing which still makes trouble today.

I reckon many gods resemble tribal leaders with their faults and virtues. Unfortunately for the Abrahamic religions, they made their god too powerful, in that he could fortell the future. This makes nonsense of lots of the other stuff. My understanding of the Aboriginal "gods" is that many were human-based, only with superhuman characteristics. But I have to agree that they also had animal "gods" ( the rainbow serpent comes to mind) which similarly had super-powers. If you want a story that would be humorous if it were not so sad, look up the true history of Hermannsburg mission. The first lot ( from germany) found it easy to get the locals to accept jesus etc, but after many years, they could not shake off the other gods the abos had.

I buy lots of stuff online, and I know I should keep records but don't do it. If I can, I use paypal but not all accept it. SO.... I tried to use the computer, asking it for details of online purchases recently from this computer... I just got a lot of gobbledigook, trying to sell me software etc... Did I do something wrong?

I do know that the silent "k" used to be pronounced. A few of the other silent letters ( Read vs red) I reckon help to convey more meaning in writing.

But, I still think that contracts cost the government heaps more than they first say. Maybe they have a schedule of costs and the customer ( govt) wears the increases?

I live in a farm south of Edenhope vic. On a trip to Portland, we saw lots of strange little trees left over from bluegum harvesting. We were told that these were left for the koalas. There must be some around, but I have not seen one myself.

Thx jerry. I don't understand about " cost blowouts" on govt jobs. The users finish up paying about twice the "contract price". How does this work, and how are the profits fitted in if costs rise?

my wife has got 2 emails now, apparently from paypal, asking her " to confirm tax residency information" She forwarded the second one to me without opening it and I forwarded it to paypal phishing. What do you guys think?

I don't agree that " salaries are set by an independent body". Who appoints the "independent" body? my opinion is that such salaries are quite obscene, and the getting of them is worse than honest bank robbery..

But english does not have genders.... German has 3! Male, Female and neuter.... and the gender of the noun effects a lot of other words too, like die and das instead of "the". Gosh I think we need another language, like Esperanto, if we are ever going to make sense in the world. There was a guy who tried his best to introduce SR1. ( Spelling Reform 1) He actually edited a model plane magazine for awhile so we could all see the idea. The hard "e" sound, as in "red" was going to be consistent so if you "red" a book, it was spelled the same. Well, even though I agreed with the idea, I didn't like it in practice. So, "said" should be spelled "sed" etc. I like this more than "read" becoming "red". Well, just like Esperanto, SR1 has quietly died from lack of interest. Some things I reckon are better left alone. ( The qwerty keyboard is a good example, sure they may have got it wrong, but it is just too hard to want to change it)

And, nev, I think that the silent "k" used to be pronounced . Gosh it would be good to go back to Chaucer's time and see.

I was under the impression that lots of Australian place names are various versions of " Get fu#ked whitefeller". I can imagine the white mapmaker asking his trusty black helper "what name this feller place Jacky?" and carefully writing the answer on the map. As for Goondiwindi, the locals were impressed by how much better Gunnedah sounded, well it doesn't make you feel like a goon huh, if you live there that is.

Well I often seem to disagree with Marty, but not this time. 52 years is a VERY long time. There would be no way that the person now has much in common with the young person locked up. Have another look at the shawshank redemption movie. The part where the old negro says how he would council the young hothead he once was. I reckon the American sentences are far too long and the pommy ones are better.

Things would have to stay just the same for thousands of years for your prediction to come true Marty. I personally reckon that our present society is going to collapse within a hundred years. BUT at the beginning of a great book on the subject " Guns, germs and steel" the writer relates a discussion with a PNG native guy. The question the PNG guy asked him was "why you whitefellers come here, why not us png guys going to Europe as anthropologists? The writer goes on to explain that it takes much more brains to survive in a jungle than a city. I don't think he knew about how brain size has got smaller since the invention of agriculture, but this observation sure is in agreement . This is where I got the idea of a canoe-full of Australian blacks paddling up the Thames and declaring that the land belongs to Aborigines. After meeting some of the inhabitants, they could well declare the land to be "terra nullius" too.

I really am unhappy about the cluster bombs. I wish that russia alone used them and we sent more fighter planes instead.

Yep, and girls are the best!

Reminds me about the thundergod, who interrupted his cruise ( riding on a thunderbolt) to rape a golden blonde on a deserted beach. Later, back cruising, he said to himself " That was a bit rude, you should have introduced yourself" So he did a U turn and alighted near the woman with a thunder noise. Bowing deeply , he said "pleased to meet you, I'm Thor" She replied " Yeth, I'm thor too, its very thandy here.

78 years ago, there was only one country that had such bombs. I reckon the question is "why didn't they use them much more and stop any other from having them?" My answer is they they believed their own propaganda and thought that they had plenty of time to decide.

Was I right in thinking that the enemy would use it's biggest and nastiest bomb on the other sides capital, thus risking the pro-war pollies and their generals?

Me too, I was born 2 days after Hiroshima and I studied civil engineering in the 1960's. I always thought that the first engineers were military ones and civil engineers came later. Anyway, my life has been relatively free from wars, and I give credit to the atomic bombs for this. Alas, they figured out how to have a war by attacking countries with no bombs, but by then I was a bit too old to be conscripted.

It was a french foreign legion guy ( well, he was on the run from being conscripted ) who caused my very first driving mishap.... I was backing into a steel rack..... Keep comminggg,,, he said....crunch went the tailgate on a bit sticking out.... Ooooh, I didn't see zat whunnn he said

I freely admit to being slow.

You got me old K... whats a wythp?

BUT I hasten to add that affirmative action should stop when proportional representation has been achieved.

On the subject of oligarchs, I would like anything more than about 2 million to be confiscated. What I have trouble with is just what should be done about racial inequality. In California, it has been established that if you want a school to reflect the racial mix of the contributing populations, you need to subtract 6 points from Asian-looking kids and add 20 points to black kids.( This was on the basis of IQ tests.) I suspect that this is racist, but I think it is justified. Personally, I would like to see the tests expanded to include ( say) social skills, but I have doubts about if this would be enough. So, since I do agree with the idea of equal proportional representation, I guess that I am stuck with a racist idea. I really don't like it...