July 2016

Of course the LNP want to dismantle Medicare. Conservative parties all over the world want to do that, and do it. They already did it once here, under Fraser, it's part of their core philosophy, to not have universal health care. They just do it bits at a time so it doesn't look like that.

All the reality TV and manufactured pop haters, take note.

Happy birthday Jas! Hope you got to spend it somewhere warm.

Even dogs dance better than me.

The planes we fly in are on auto pilot a lot of the time, have been for years. Just a matter of time. http://www.news.com.au/technology/innovation/motoring/the-first-tesla-driverless-death-has-happened-another-one-could-stop-driverless-cars-in-their-tracks/news-story/0ccb24206dc934fbad29ffb8809f0739

Gotta wonder if having the "luxury hotels" banner right there underneath Malcolm is a good look for him.

Happy birthday! 25 today?

Happy birthday Michelle, I envy you your retirement :)

Still not 100% sure why they don't count any more votes until Tuesday, but the counting rules are complicated.

I wonder if he means Tony Abbott. Twit.

The Australian people got this absolutely right. Lots of chest thumping and bluster at the moment, but like Brexit, this election result is exactly what people want and need.

Here's one for Pauline.

Boom.

Happy Birthday Captain Nimmo! What's planned? Bringing me up some cake?

One is amused.

Even more, religions have been the institution that more than any other have stopped us from exterminating one another. And I'm not a card-carrying member of any of them, it's just an historical fact. We live in dumb times.

Best Bon Jovi cover I've ever heard.

Delightful to see the Tories in the UK pushing the ladies to the front of the queue to be next PM. Equal opportunity for all!

Michael Drengenberg and Jan Christoph Kersig, was gibt's?

So much of the mood is gloom. But are we blaming the wrong things? We attack religion, we attack politics, we attack unions, we attack business. We attack institutions, basically. But institutions are the answer, not the problem. We're looking in the wrong places for blame and for relief. Conservatives used to know this, now they're the biggest smashers of all. Everybody is an iconoclast. There's nothing more unhappy than a naked, individual, 'free' human.

Have a good birthday today Tobe!

So much professional sport is now rubbish, and the players are just as much to blame as everybody else. Fans walk away in disgust and then nobody gets paid. I haven't watched cricket in 2 years, F1 is an absolute joke, NRL and AFL have become about beating up women, under-the-table cash payments and fixed games. Best sport hands down to watch now is netball, it's still pretty free of this crap. V8s seem to have escaped a lot of it too.

Yeh.

This is the time of the year energy suppliers tend to raise prices, so they can add another layer of 24-carat gold wire to the networks. I hadn't seen this site before, the government provides a price comparison tool to help you get a bit less screwed: https://www.energymadeeasy.gov.au

Been working on a variation of this for a long while now. Love the ingenuity. Hot and cold actually aren't opposites, although that's what we're taught.

Primary school teachers. They say it how it is.

What's frustrating about this is that a high speed rail line from East to West could transform the country. But it will go North-South (if it ever happens) because that's where the population is now. And they already have fast transport options.

I've never really seen much Louis CK, but people seem to love him. First 5 minutes of this clip made it easy for me to decide never to bother.

It's not often something really usefully new comes out about insomnia. But this could fit the bill.

Happy birthday Lisa :)

A better question is why the pretty feeble academic challenge that is school today for most of our kids stresses them so much that they end up with anxiety and depression. http://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2016-07-17/beautiful-failures-education-making-kids-sick/7589084

The Kettering Incident is wow. Genuinely spine-chillingly creepy.

Happy birthday Lisa! Have a wonderful day :)

Possibly a mistake to read "possible late showers" as "impossible morning showers".

Life is full of struggles. And some people put it all into perspective.

The dilemma of who to back when Queenslanders play New Zealanders.

A bit of a guilty secret of mine, that I don't much like travel. I also don't like that ever more places in the world are spoiled by people 'finding themselves' through travel. Nomads historically are peoples who move constantly from place to place, to *stop* them having to change their way of life - they use up a place, and move on to the next. Just like tourists. Or to quote a travel writer: "Fuck, I’m in a different place. But I’m still here. Shit. A holiday is just me, somewhere a bit diferent… fucking great."

An interesting piece of trivia is how Apollo astronauts did number 2s on the way to the moon and back.

Another guilty secret. I love plastic. Bags, the lot. Fabulously versatile material. Yes it can have environmental effects, but there are ways to make plastic to get around that. And bacteria will eat it all eventually anyway. I don't see people giving up their wood fires yet, and those are toxic environmental disasters.

Wonder if I could beat Todd at this one Chelsea Walsh?

Its time will come.

Sometimes a picture really does tell a story. What a bunch of Henny Pennys we've become.

Anybody else lukewarm on split bills? And shouts, for drinks?