A week ago today, I attended the memorial for Bill Leak at the Sydney Town Hall.
As I scanned the crowd, an eclectic group of people who had known Bill one way or another, I had to ask where were the Labor people? Where was Shorten, Plibersek or Dreyfus?
In the wake of the 2004 election, with the Howard government enjoying a majority in both houses, there was no opposition in the parliament. For at least two years, the worst part of Coalition MPs’ days was opening up The Australian and flipping to Bill Leak’s cartoon, to see another hilarious lampooning of their leader.
I would have thought some of the Labor people might have made an appearance simply out of gratitude for those dark days. It bothers me they stayed away and it speaks of a faddish clannishness the old Labor people would regard with contempt.
Bill Leak embraced everyone he met. Ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, it didn’t matter. He genuinely enjoyed the company of people but it was more than that. If he spied someone feeling awkward or a bit uncomfortable, Bill would bound up and make a fuss of them. He not only had the ability to make people feel special but he brought a sense of fairness and equity to any table.
It is a politician’s gift but Bill was not on the ballot. He wasn’t trying to sell anything. He simply loved people.
Full column here.
To Trabvitch – happy Geologists Day
Well the brother-in-law and sister-in-law are both geologists a gold mine up near Port Headland, they left home because the nephews have neglected to do so.
Really pleased with my dearly beloved, the other half, the light of my life…….spent the whole weeekend working on the infernal Ph.D………eight years…….so far……
PhD! He should move on, even i’m onto compact discs and dvd’s, though blueray is beyond my ken.
:v
It’ll be worth it in the end? How are the fourier transforms going?
Going well TV, going well
Same to Pebbles TV? 😐
Da, da
Thanks Trivalve, and also to you and all the other geos out there. Actually I didn’t realise that there was such a day until you enlightened me – us Sydney based rockdoctors have our annual St Barbara’s Day lunch in December.
Good timing however – my first full weekend off in a few months….
Also, I noted Saturday was April Fools Day, but didn’t note any of the newspaper pranks that we used to have.
A few historical April Fools’ jokes (about 100 actually), mostly from newspapers, at the Museum of Hoaxes, http://hoaxes.org/aprilfool/
I only found out on Friday. A bit of a Russian thing apparently…
Had a good one in the Manly Daily (suburban rag) TV, they even announced it was planted and invited readers to go find it. Wasn’t hard.
We on the insular Peninsula celebrated when Mike Baird announced a long awaited tunnel to get people in and out of the place, right under Sydney Harbour. Naturally the usual suspects are spitting chips.
So the story was about a Swedish engineer who has designed an under water walkway, no cars allowed. It will be a tunnel from Manly right through to Circular Quay. I’m waiting for the letters to the editor praising the concept. A special attraction would be observing the 400 or so fish species in their natural environment. I don’t know how they’d get the fumes out though.
Bugger, missed that.
As it’s a walkway I can only presume that any fume problem would be caused by the odd fart during perambulation through said tunnel
One point – Bugger!
North were a bit stiff but they will take plenty of positives from that game. The Blues showed a bit again but the Dees were too good.
I’ve been attempting to follow the opiod debate on here, but I have to say that anyone who delights in inhaling regular doses of methylethyintrosamine, n-nitrosonornicotine combined with 30 or so similarly identified chemicals in both gas and particulate phases, for leisure, is surely non compos mentis.
I think Carl honey you have inhaled quite enough for the day sweetie. Off to beddy bye for you sugar, get mummy to tuck you in.
That might explain some of the posts.
HEN BEE HEN UPDATE…..well folks I was connected lat Friday to Malcolms cheaper faster NBN. Before I was getting 4.8 to 5mg download.Now I am only getting 4mg download.My contract says 25mg speed. I will be investigating Monday. SAD CAFE.
The NBN imho, BASSMAN, one of the silliest and most $$$$ wasteful things the Rudd/Gillard/Rudd government ever did. Of course once it was put in to the hands of “Errol” Turnbull it was from that point on royally screwed. 25mg sounds amazingly slow to me BASSMAN, have you purchased “NBN Lite” or the like?
The NBN will pay for itself many times over. Well it would have if that dopey bloody minded Trumble hadn’t applied his personal touch.
Fibre right to the office wall here. Blistering fast. Business people tell me they couldn’t imagine managing without it.
If the blockheaded obstructionist conservatives had thought of and implemented the idea and Labor had sabotaged it they would have been run out of town on a rail and forever damned for vandalism on a treasonous scale.
Do you have any idea what that would have cost JB.
No – I thought not!
A lot less than it will to rectify this idiocy.
When the NBN is put on the stock market I will be amongst the FIRST to buy shares mate!
I have this gold mine Bassy – it is about to float but if you get in first you will make a monza.
When can we get together?
Unfortunately the NBN will be a monopoly and guess what – the first thing the Government of the day will do is to appoint a Regulator who will dictate the price,
They will make Telstra look good.
Your contract says “up to” that can include zero or any point inbetween😈
I’m not savvy with this stuff, Bassman so how do you check how many mg’s download you are getting?? I’ve had nbn in 2 places now and I wouldn’t say that it’s overly fast. I’m with optus if that makes any difference?
http://www.speedtest.net
Go here Bald for a check…..
http://speedof.me/
Tracy is correct about contracts saying ‘up to’ but Fair Trading/ACCC is taking a dim view of this and has thousands of NBN customers monitoring their speed and action may be taken against ISP’s for false advertising re download/upload speeds.
Thanks for those tests guys and gals.
On speed of.me:
8.19 Mbps download
2.96 Mbps upload
On speedtest by ookla:
12.45 Mbps download
4.82 Mbps upload
I don’t know if that is fast or not as far as the numbers go, but it doesn’t feel fast. The difference between the 2 tests seems largish. Also Bassman, I don’t know how mbps relates to your mg’s??
Ookla was recommended by the Telstra guy who installed my NBN. I find it accurate.
Upload of 4.82 is fine, but download 12.45 is slow. Mine is consistently btw 23-25mbs.
However I have the real fibre to the home NBN – not sure about the fibre to the node installations?
Try Ookla
Hey, how many milligrams in a byte?
Good point…most people do not know the difference between kilobytes and kilobits. There is a BIG difference and ISPS love quoting the larger number. because it gives U the impression your speed is faster than it really is
I get at least 22 download and 5 upload. That’s the slow option. Call the tech!!
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-39468045. Looks like the Supreme Court in Venezuela has reversed its decision to become the de facto legislature in what looked like, for all intents and purposes, a power grab by all the Maduro loyalists on the Court to nullify the near 2/3rds majority that the Opposition has in the Parliament.
Looks like some Chavistas might have either come to their senses and decided it was a step too far.
Still a lot of jiggery-pokery about trying to deny the Opposition their working supermajority, though.
They’re still up Shit Creek in a barbed wire canoe without a paddle and about to go over Angel Falls economically, though, thanks to Maduro and Chavez’ economics and politics.
Down in Paraguay, they’ve set the Parliament on fire over plans to remove term limits on Presidents running again after it was brought in to prevent a repeat of the 35-year trauma of Alfredo Stroessner – http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-39470315.
Massive fatal landslide in Colombia, too.
Remember all the leading lights of Australian politics who sent a fawning invite to Chavez in 2007 to share his economic wisdom?
https://www.bigfooty.com/forum/threads/australian-lefties-invite-chávez-to-australia.297715/
I suspect one or two might have changed their minds since, Dwight. Noticed Warren Mundine on the list and I know for a fact warren would now view signing that letter with regret.
That one kind of suprised me too. Seems like too sensible a bloke.
Warren is a good man. Perhaps some got caught up in some of the nonsense surrounding Chavez at the time.
Big footy?
A lot of links to the original letter have gone dead, not surprisingly.
Here is an interesting comment.
http://www.telesurtv.net/english/analysis/3-Tactics-Mainstream-Media-Uses-to-Attack-Hugo-Chavezs-Legacy-20170304-0022.html
It is coming. There are other companies not far away.
http://www.afr.com/news/sa-storage-hydrogen-fuel-cell-firm-ant-says-its-time-has-come-20170331-gvaqus
SBS TV tonight at 5.35pm, Mr Insider, and its Nazi Megastructures and tonight a fascinating look at Hitler’s pride and joy, the Berghof, his Mountain hideaway that he transformed into a Palace fit for a King. I quote: “Eagle’s Nest, Once Hitler seizes power in 1933, he transforms his Alpine retreat in the sleepy district of Obersalzberg in Bavaria into a vast mansion called the Berghof. The area becomes a magnet for the most powerful Nazis and Hitler’s Berghof a show piece for the Reich.”
And it only took PETA a month to top their Hunters and Collectors inanity: https://mobile.twitter.com/peta/status/847832116322639872
Milk’s white Dwight. Obvious innit? I plan to start a campaign against sea foam
I’ll sign up!
If that don’t prove PETA sucks, then I don’t know what will. How’s the comment from one contributor, “Let’s talk about all the cats and dogs you’ve killed”. Credibility vacuum.
or snow
The Russians have a great sense of humour, Mr Insider, as this April Fools Day phone message joke message from them prove.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gFUuvOD2G7c
He’s done it once again, Mr Insider, and of course I refer to the genius, Elon Musk, as we read: “Tesla billionaire founder Elon Musk’s private space company Space Exploration Technologies flew and landed the same orbital rocket a second time in less than a year, a significant milestone in Musk’s mission to make space travel cheaper”. Goodness me I am in deep admiration of this chap and so too should be SA Premier Jay Weatherill who only has to call Elon to have all his Power problems solved. With the closing of Hazelwood, Victoria’s Premier Daniel Andrews may soon face similar problems to SA! But I digress, back to Elon and all eyes are on him as he continues to amaze the World with his thinking and actions to match. Advance Elon!
http://tinyurl.com/kschrgn
Pah! It’s nothing. NASA was landing manned rocket powered vehicles on the moon nearly fifty years ago Enery. And taking off again and flying back to Earth many times without so much as a cut finger or grazed knuckle. Without a single test run!
What gives with this Musk girly man and all this cissy practice stuff just going to low Earth orbit?
Lovely to see you now believe in the Moon Landings of Armstrong and co Mr Baptiste I knew you were a smart chappie. Hard for anyone to beat this Elon Musk cove today isn’t it. Of course he’s a billionaire and well deserved too imho. Cheers fellow space cadet.
Hmmmn. I’m beginning to understand how you can believe utter nonsense like manned moon landings Enery. Whats your thoughts on Captain America and Superman. Are they real too?
Captain America? Superman? All those guys are lame, and bogus. The only genuine super heroes are Buckaroo Banzai, and of course, the pig of steel, Captain Goodvibes.
Go gently on Enery please Kato.