With apologies to Mojoeaux, some of my birthdays and anniversaries intersect with her weeks.
Birthdays: April 20, an entomologist whom most Glibs will despise for his most (in)famous idea; a pretty decent rally driver; one of the greats of track & field; April 21, a man who demonstrated that, under a parliamentary system you don’t have to win an election to be the nation’s leader nor lose one to cease being the nation’s leader; April 22, a businessman who funded one of the most iconic moments in Australian sport (and there’s a post about it somewhere on the site); April 23, a well-respected actress; April 24, an incredibly talented golfer; a woman who gave Aussies two of their best tennis moments of recent times; a man who wrote one of the earliest classics of Australian literature; April 25, a great Rugby League player, responsible for one of the most amazing title-winning moments; April 26, a partner in one of Australia’s great exploring teams; a man who was a career soldier in the best sense of that term.
This week in Antipodean history:
- April 19, 1770: James Cook makes first sighting of the east coast of Australia; April 28, 1770: Cook lands at Botany Bay,
- April 19, 1984: Advance Australia Fair becomes national anthem, permanently replacing God Save the Queen
- April 21, 1959: Alf Dean catches world-record great white shark,
- April 21, 1970: Principality of Hutt River secedes from Australia. Sadly, the taxman got them in 2020.
- April 24, 1986: the premier of a great Australian movie hit.
- April 28, 2004: Shrek shorn after six years.
- April 28, 1996: a truly horrific mass shooting
- April 29, 1864: Maoris inflict major defeat on British
- April 29, 1930: first Australia/UK phone line goes into service
There’s one more anniversary, but I’ll save that for the end.
News from the Antipodes:
- New Zealand journos horrified to discover that the new government will prioritize, you know, actual national defense.
- In the midst of competing spendthrifts in the upcoming election, a voice of sanity. True wisdom or blind squirrel, you decide.
- Everything wants to kill you: Australian fungus attacks Australian ants.
- New Zealand’s Florida Man?
- Forget Trump, trade wars JUST. GOT. REAL.
- This was just insane.
- This last link connects to the anniversary below. Although poppies are normally associated with Armistice Day, they are also used on ANZAC Day.
April 25: ANZAC Day
It’s hard to find an exact US match to ANZAC Day – sort of a combo of Memorial Day and July 4. Part commemoration, part celebration. There are now major debates over how it is celebrated as well as some of the historical inaccuracies from the original account. Wikipedia offers a decent summary. I found it interesting that, beginning about twenty years ago, young Australians put visiting Gallipoli as a high priority when traveling the world. Here’s a section from the centennial remembrance service at ANZAC Cove.
In honor of ANZAC Day, two musical selections. The first is a sober reflection of Anzac Day and war in general that has become one of the most beloved Australian songs. Bonus track from my favorite socialist band of all time, which includes references to World War I.
“Speaking with ABC News Breakfast, Mr Walters said he took the Vegemite off his shelves and menu to avoid any penalties.” But of course. That said I understand.
Nobody will win the coming marmite-vegemite war.
Except the spectators who don’t suffer either and watch the combatants cull each other.
“Let them fight.”
Exactly what I was hoping it would be. Thank you!
I kinda expected this, but I’m okay with being wrong.
I like that one. Never thought of what it might be about.
April 21, 1970: Principality of Hutt River secedes from Australia. Sadly, the taxman got them in 2020.
RIP
Under Canada’s food regulations, spreads and condiments cannot be sold with added vitamins to ensure Canadians are not exceeding their daily diet requirements.
And here I thought the Canadian government would just recommend suicide as a solution.
How much vitamin B to lethal?
To be fair, you don’t want to overdose on vitamin A.
“exceeding their daily diet requirements”
Does that really happen? Must be nice to have your population so incredibly healthy this is a problem.
Too much fiber makes you too regular.
As I understand it, if you eat a lot of a particular food stocked full of particular vitamins, the vast majority of those vitamins consumed will pass through the digestive system long before the body has a chance to absorb them. Making the concern largely moot.
April 25: ANZAC Day
I should have seen that when you said you were saving one for later.
Why is it not in order? Why? I must know!
Meh, I opted for day/date order rather than year.
🤔
I suppose that is an order.
I want alphabetic sort when spelled out like ‘April Twenty Fourth, Two Thousand Twenty Five’.
ISO 8601, please.
Because time goes backward in the southern hemisphere, like the way water swirls down the toilet.
It is fall there, but is it last fall or next fall?
“It is fall there.”
No, just no. It’s autumn.
Had to explain that to Brit expat. OTH, my Japanese friends know both expressions. Shows the US influence of English there.
It’s that time of year when the leaves turn beautiful colors before falling up.
spring forward, autumn back doesn’t sound as good
Fall doesn’t make an adjective like autumal.
*autumnal
In Toronto, the Leafs fall in the spring.
I can’t believe she just up and left the sport at the height of her powers.
I always thought that was an American movie.
I was expecting a better one from the same year. In case one wonders why I support the Magpies….
Another Collingwood film: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Club_(1980_film)
That looks fun. I’ll keep my eyes open for it.
This part of the year is dead at work which = SLOOOOOOOOOOOOOOW work shifts.
Fuck.
You’re getting paid not to do much.
Yeah. For sure. Paying me is probably a waste on days like these (though it has picked up slightly since it started to rain).
I’d still rather be way busy. No business makes an 8 hour shift feel like days.
No business
Might as werr crose.
One of my oldest favorite bands is probably more socialist than your choice.
Nope. Not even close. Redgum were openly socialist and hated Midnight Oil for being too commercial.
Too commercial? I guess, they did make me want to sell my soul.
Ha! That’s hilarious.
To be fair, I never heard of the other band so I guess they stuck to their principles in that regard. 🙄
Botany Bay?…Botany Bay?!
There it is.
“This Is Ceti Alpha Six!!!!”
CPRM FTW!
Sooo…not much time to post lately. Not a ton of time off between 12 hour shifts…and I’m not logging into any site like this at work ;p – although I still try and read everything. (only got up through Monday’s posts before I finished today). May get some more posts this weekend.
Haven’t really gotten around to playing tourist too much lately…haven’t really been in the mood for my time off so far – maybe if I take some leave in a month or so. May still make it by the palace tomorrow afternoon to pick up a year pass.
Glad most folks are doing well. Take notes periodically on stuff to respond to, but I’m so far behind right now it doesn’t make much sense for most of them. Maybe a few later. Watched “Paul” in the base theater in San Diego when it came out – not a big fan – much as I like Pegg and Frost – more profane than most of the Cornetto flicks. Caught “World’s End” in the theater in Sydney during my 2013 deployment. Enjoyed it a lot. Maybe not as good as the first 2 in the trilogy, but a really good flick on the whole, especially with the ensemble cast – if you know them from other Brit comedies, etc. Great use of music too – good preps for Wright’s “Baby Driver”. I’m a big fan of Scott Pilgrim too, great adaptation work.
Picked up the BR of the Asphyx a little while back. Interesting flick. Just got my Vinegar Syndrome BR of Wesley Snipes in Drop Zone – talk about your 90s sky diving crime movies (along with “Real McCoy”, “Terminal Velocity”, “Point Break”, etc).
Nice to see you’re doing well! My education regarding the Navy continues. My son-in-law ignored the instructions regarding his phone settings, and racked up an $801 international phone bill. They stopped at Guam where they lost a sailor (the search has been suspended), and now they are in the Philippine Sea. My kid’s back home in 2 weeks for a month and a half.
Every deployment is like this. Every. Single. One.
Someone (or two or five) gets left in a port somewhere, no matter how many times reminded that the ship does not fuck around or wait on underway times and that “missing Movement” is a LOT worse than just a straight U/A.
Unfortunately, someone almost always dies. It’s a group of something like 5,000-7500 Marines and sailors (in an ARG, anyway) used-to-be-all-males, aged 18 to mid-30s, and thence unleashed on the city of ___________ after 48 or 57 or whatever days at sea with no beer and no pussy. What could possibly go wrong??
Ah… the good ol’ days.
I’m really disappointed a Navy man has nothing to say about Italian prostitutes.
Are they really Italian these days? I’m guessing Gypsies and Albanians. At least that’s what I saw when driving through one of the seedier parts of Veneto.
Women and seamen don’t mix.
@JaimeRoberto inquiring minds want to know. That’s what I expect our man in the field to tell us.
@Jaime – And Liguria is just Sicilians now. If you want to find ethnic Ligurians, you need to look in the San Joaquin valley of California.
I turn 38 on Monday, April 28. I’ve never been a big ‘birthday person,’ but I certainly have no plans and I doubt I will.
I got in trouble with my parents cuz I went out and didn’t keep ’em updated on my whereabouts. Along with my in-depth neuropsych evaluation from 9am-3pm today, stress + sadness got my tremors to migrate to my right hand.
The great positive is we’re heading to see the 4yo’s soccer game. Hopefully, he’s has more ‘CHASE BALL!’ instinct in him. He showed it at the end of his last game and I hope he keeps it up. He’s the last kid my bro’s gonna have (vasectomy) and I’m primed to be an important part of his life.
There’s little doubt his cheerful buoyancy will inject some smile into me.
Sorry, I’m a bit dour. I spent a loooong time inside my mind today, specifically seeing how certain abilities of mine are negatively affected from The Incident’s damage. Being inside your own mind, when it’s lost, is an odd experience, like you’re lost in a maze and the purpose of the game is to burrow in deeper, to find out exactly *how* lost you can get in your own madness.
But it’s time for a flock of four-year-old’s to run around a field, hopefully in pursuit of a ball!
(/sorry for my mini-rant. But *I* am OP!)
I guess there was no NDA about the NDA.
VA forces staff in workforce reduction discussions to sign non-disclosure agreements
I would think it’s a given you can’t discuss layoffs with the other plebs. I guess the Fed workers have special privileges?
I think NDA/non-disparagement agreements have been part of every RIF I’ve been involved in.
“You want the package, you sign”
slumbrew – the NDA is for the people doing the layoffs not necessarily the people laid off.
It’s just ridiculous that if that IS what you are doing that they won’t keep their mouth shut. But I shouldn’t be surprised.
Ah, didn’t actually RTFL.
That would indeed be odd.
According to my model…
The world’s biggest corporations have caused $28 trillion in climate damage, a new study estimates as part of an effort to make it easier for people and governments to hold companies financially accountable, like the tobacco giants have been.
A Dartmouth College research team came up with the estimated pollution caused by 111 companies, with more than half of the total dollar figure coming from 10 fossil fuel providers: Saudi Aramco, Gazprom, Chevron, ExxonMobil, BP, Shell, National Iranian Oil Co., Pemex, Coal India and the British Coal Corporation.
For comparison, $28 trillion is a shade less than the sum of all goods and services produced in the United States last year.
At the top of the list, Saudi Aramco and Gazprom have each caused a bit more than $2 trillion in heat damage over the decades, the team calculated in a study published in Wednesday’s journal Nature. The researchers figured that every 1% of greenhouse gas put into the atmosphere since 1990 has caused $502 billion in damage from heat alone, which doesn’t include the costs incurred by other extreme weather such as hurricanes, droughts and floods.
Yes, of course. Restitution must be made.
I remember as a child arguing with some dopey teacher that going after the tobacco companies for their advertising because it targeted children was anti-free speech. I was kicked out of class for it. Can you believe that fat, peanut-butter on rice wafer eating cunt had the audacity to treat The First Of All Firsters like that?
Anyway, this is what happens when really dumb precedents are set because you allow ridiculously irrational, unconstitutional arguments to fly in special cases. Tobacco companies ba-ba-bad is as deep as the thought wen ton that one.
This is even worse as these clowns are doing no calculation of how much damage would have been done if these companies didn’t sell fossil fuels to the world. How much wealth would have been lost. We’d be living in dung huts again like they do in Africa still. But fuck me, that’s even if you are willing to accept their bullshit “science” in the first place. Externalities argued for based on flimsy, shitty science and blatantly unconstitutional arguments. It should have been laughed out of court and the lawyers who brought the case censured.
You don’t understand. Nobody wants those products. They are forced to buy them because those greedy companies have offered not alternatives.
Eat shit, Dartmouth College research team.
And in return, those same companies have created exponentially more prosperity than that in the same time frame.
When can we calculate how much damage the government does?
Judge Blocks Trump From Defunding 16 Sanctuary Cities: ‘Here We Are Again’. TW: NYT
You can block funding for states that don’t want DUI laws, but not for those who don’t just refuse to enforce immigration laws, but who actively try to prevent the feds from doing so.
No, certainly no judge shopping going on here. Just a coincidence.
Free fed dollars are a constitutional right.
Let’s see what happens when Trump tells the states they can lower their drinking ages without repercussions.
Silly Kevin, judges don’t have to worry about things like consistency or principles.
Cities (and states) don’t (legally) have immigration policies.
“Everybody’s asking the same question: What can we actually claim about who has caused this?” said Dartmouth climate scientist Justin Mankin, co-author of the study. “And that really comes down to a thermodynamic question of can we trace climate hazards and/or their damages back to particular emitters?”
The answer is yes, Callahan and Mankin said.
Assume a can opener.
Once you assume that any warming since an arbitrary date is due to manmade CO2, and assume that warming has caused certain harms, the rest is easy.
You don’t understand. Nobody wants those products. They are forced to buy them because those greedy companies have offered not alternatives.
Energy producers and industrial companies only exist to spew pollutants and poison poor people. It’s just a fact.
Nobody wants energy. People are forced to use it.
It is known.
Especially the third world, which is why we need to do our best not to let them have any.
Let us pray along with Mother Theresa.
This system is modeled on the established techniques scientists have been using for more than a decade to attribute extreme weather events, such as the 2021 Pacific Northwest heat wave, to climate change.
It’s like a research merry-go-round. WHEEEEE!
Wait, there was a heat wave here? In 2021?
News to me.
It was called summer.
Base price… $102k. JFC.
2025 Lincoln Navigator Evolves Big Luxury
Naturally screens. Fucking ridiculous sized screens.
Changing the angle of the vents is only done by touchscreen, instead of just angling them by hand? And mirrors are operated by touchscreen? That’s stupid. I hate touchscreens.
I have that on my Tesla. I actually don’t hate it. I leave the whole HVAC on auto and it works fine including the vent adjustments.
But I get that many people like to have control of the whole HVAC system and find this UIX infuriating. It seems to be very bimodal. As such the OEMs should pony up the dollars for both the adjustable vents and dedicated HVAC controls.
The steering wheel should be a tablet.
There should be a big screen TV where the windshield is. That way you can watch sports or porn while driving.
I’m not a “there should be a law” kind of guy, but there should be a fucking law against having touchscreens in cars. I don’t mind a screen to display information, but I need knobs and buttons.
No one ever wants to hear about ergodynamics, but it’s a big fucking deal in military aviation. I can’t stand the screens in Teslas.
The Russians always made great aircraft, probably better engines on the whole, great technology (radars and missiles and shit), but they gave FUCK-ALL thought to how it would make it easiest for a pilot to manage all of that shit while flying the aircraft. (Maybe that won’t matter when it’s all drones). By comparison, the F-16 might have been the pinnacle of cockpit integration with human factors for ease of management. Having two seat aircraft also makes a lot of sense to split up some duties.
Anyway, they seem to be setting cars up to (eventually) do away entirely with steering columns or people having any input at all, because you don’t want to “control” a vehicle from a screen. My feeling is that the screen is with an eye toward an inevitable result where the human is removed completely. More space for passengers where the steering column,which won’t be necessary if it’s being done by computer anyway. You don’t need all of that, just inputs – signals – to the servos and that can be disbursed.
(And, FWIW, I have done the Waymo thing a fair number of times in the Valley – the tech is pretty damn good.)
Ozy. A good bit of it was originally “cool factor” and minimalism. But they quickly realized it was significantly cheaper.
It sucks. You get used to it, but I will never say it is better. The lack of tactile feedback is the main issue. You have to look away from the road far too long.
Touchscreens are a major fucking safety hazard.
And then you poke them too hard and its a $4500 repair (which takes four weeks to get done because the parts have to be special ordered) because they have to disassemble the entire dash plus take out the engine and front wheel drive system to get at the screen . . .
The approximately 6000-pound beast gathers speed with plenty of confidence, accented by a strong pull with each gear change. It doesn’t sound half-bad doing it either. Jamming on the brakes at the end of the straightaway, you’ll definitely feel all of that mass shift forward as the bejeweled nose dips toward the pavement, but the Navigator feels appropriately composed and controllable, with barely a wiggle from the lightened rear end.
Because flatfooting it from stoplight to stoplight is how you drive a monstrosity like that.
To be fair, there are times (like when getting on the interstate — with or without my GT4 in tow) that you need to give it the beans.
You would definitely wanna be down under these girls on THICC Thursday.
https://archive.is/xK3zB
This is the funniest show Oi’ve evah seeeen. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0272397