GIT ORF MY LAWN
My grumpy old heart is strangely warmed by this...
In these dark times, at least we still have the no-nonsense attitude of Australians to lift the mood – though the country's prime minister found himself at the pointy end of it this morning. Scott Morrison was in the town of Googong, New South Wales, touting the government's AU$25,000 (£13,077.50) HomeBuilder grant, which aims …
My grumpy old heart was just warmed by something else. I am regretting in advance posting this, because I'm a single, childless man and this will inevitably seem creepy.
I clicked on a BBC website article, Lockdown has helped endangered seahorses return to UK waters
It turned out to be a Newsround, ie kids TV, article, which I've never visited before but I read the comments and they are darling. So nice to each other. We should be more like that here. Albeit without the emojis, I only know the sad face and happy face ones.
Wait, I'm going to try to cut and paste a hedgehog - nope, "The post contains some characters we can’t support".
Fine, El Reg, if you can't support a hedgehog emoji then I understand.
Panda emoji. Rainbow emoji. I think it's an avocado emoji. Hedgehog emoji.
Adapt or die.
Yeah. I was up late and happened to switch to CNN here in the UK and saw this all go down live. Once the police etc went nose to nose with the protesters it was obvious they were deliberately intimidating them and trying to get them to react. When they didn't, an d the Police etc then started moving I was horrified at the what was happening. To then see this was all in aid of a photo op for Trump where he stood there with a bible in front of a church, I thought he might at least make some sort of earth shattering, inspirational speech. but no, he couldn't find a single word to say. They say a picture speaks a 1000 words. Well, if he'd managed to get just that one image released, it may have said a 1000 words he wanted to spin in the right direction. What we actually saw was a whole sequence of picture telling a very different story to what he wanted to show because we got the context leading up to the photo op. And it showed a tiny minded President trampling over a constitutional right to peaceful assembly just so he get a snapshot photo of himself.
I don't even live in the USA, have no intention of going, but on behalf of US citizens who bother to think things through instead of just emotional; knee-jerking, you have my deepest sympathy.
"This is an awful man, waving a book he hasn’t read, in front of a church he doesn’t attend, invoking laws he doesn’t understand, against fellow Americans he sees as enemies, wielding a military he dodged serving, to protect power he gained via accepting foreign interference, exploiting fear and anger he loves to stoke, after failing to address a pandemic he was warned about, and building it all on a bed of constant lies and childish inanity. This is not partisan. It is simply about recognizing the moral vacuum that is now pretending to lead."
https://twitter.com/FrRHendrickson/status/1267619991869779968
Fr Robert Hendrickson
Oddly, DuckDuckgo has no hits, but of course Google has plenty (well, 33) including one that has
koala trebuchet simulation software
in the word-salad which is apparently just there to game ranking.
_One_ Google result actually includes the (one word) TrebuchetKoala, in the search results, but
visiting that page turns up no such thing on offer. It does have
Hallmark Plush Hug 'n' Sing Tootin' Koala Sings, Dances And Passes Wind Sound (not my memory of Hallmark items of old).
Anyway, I can just imagine someone with _way_ too much time on their hands actually making, koala trebuchet simulation software by re-skinning an Angry Birds clone.
For nerd-completeness: Bing also has no results (natch). eBay and Wikipedia likewise (although it would be easier to make a Wikipedia page then to re-skin Angry Birds). Amazon, as usual returns four results, all of them "Close, but no cigar"
(No koalas were skinned in the making of this comment)
Koalas can be nearly as dangerous as drop bears. I have seen a video showing a Koala leaping for the crotch of a cyclist who had foolishly stopped to look at it. I have searched for that video but I suspect YouTube has censored it in favour of the fake news of Koalas pretending to placidly accept drinks from cyclists instead.
When I saw this as highly viewed on the BBC I kind of didn't see the point.
The guy from the house was perfectly fine in my view and everyone got off his lawn?
Where is the lobbing of cans of Fosters at the press, pointing out they aren't socialy distances properly and swearing (Sorry I watch to many Russian Crash Videos)?
About the only thing Fosters is good for is for throwing at journos and pols. That stuff is actually worse than Budwieser, though better than Miller. (Even Coors is better than Miller, though it’s close) Fosters: Australian for swill best exported really fast lest Ozians storm the brewery and put something other than shrimp on the barbie.
This is probably true. When Mrs. Clinton visited my city several years ago the whole of the central city was closed off around her hotel, and she wasn't even the president.
Our Prime Minister by contrast does her own shopping based on the number of times I have said gidday to her at a local Mall.
It makes you wonder why they're so frightened of us doesn't it?
Same here: in a tram or train you might just as well bump into the countries president as into any other person. Then again, there is, afaik no history of assassinations and certainly far less exposure.
To your question, my best guess is because the people should be frightened of them? Considering what POTUS have been doing, rightly so (in differing degrees depending on who or where you are).
There was an Australian PM, Harold Holt, who drowned whilst swimming in the sea - I can't imagine that could happen to a POTUS with secret service agents clustered around. The Australians didn't build their late PM any statues, but they did dedicate a memorial swimming pool in Melbourne to him.
I met Frank Dobson (RIP) three times. The first time was when he'd just been installed as SoS Health, so was my Minister, and he came on a walkabout of Quarry House in Leeds.
However, the second time was when he was sat next to me in the Bobby Moore Upper at Upton Park (West Ham's old ground, for non-football fans) - couldn't carry a tune in a bucket, swore like a trooper, no doubting his fervour for the club :o). I think he was running for the Labour nomination for the first London Mayoral election.
Third time, on the Tube on the way to another West Ham game, by which time he was the Labour candidate for Mayor, and had a couple of Met Police minders as a result. It was a mid-week game, so a bit rowdy, but he took all the questions with really good grace, wit, and swears.
Not all politicians in Blighty are unapproachable arses.
RIP Frank, one for you, this one's Yorkshire ale ---->
I'd been led to believe that his reputation, shredded by his reaction to the fires, had been revived a little due to Australia suffering roughly 100 times fewer Covid cases per head of population compared to the USA. Of course the geographical factors helped Australia largely dodge the Covid bullet, but Morrison is at least seen as not actively fucking it up - or so I'm told.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/05/05/scott-morrison-is-now-very-popular-australia-he-hasnt-earned-that/
Yeah, nah
He’s still considered a goose by most everybody, it’s just that there really isn’t any remotely good choices to had. I’m all for our trans Tasman cousins (NZ not Tas.) to rise up an overthrow our watery fowl overlords and install Jacinda, and their good sense and compassion.. that would be choice, bro :)
I’m even happy to say Jersey and call it a batch...
Health is a State, not Commonwealth, matter in Australia.
Western Australia's Premier Mark McGowan has an 89% approval rating for his management of the coronavirus pandemic
The Dream Team would be:
- Jacinda as PM for her communication skills and empathy
- Mark as Deputy for his clear communication and refusal to listen to fools like ScoMo
Foster's became famous in the UK due to a film called The Adventures of Barry McKenzie, in which an honest beer-chugging Aussie fella comes to the UK at the behest of his aunt to be patronised by the English, including Peter Cook. Foster's wanted to remove their product from the film - the first ever to portray full frontal vomiting - until Barry Humphreys threatened to switch to a rival brand. I don't think that the film could have helped Foster's reputation in its home country!
It was based on Barry Humphreys's cartoon in Private Eye at a time when Aussies such as Humphreys, Rupert Murdoch, Clive James, Germaine Greer etc felt that Australia was too much of a cultural backwater. The film features Humphreys as Dame Edna, though by a different name.