If you're not in the U.S., what's up in your part of the world? Showing 1,801-1,850 of 3,266

[J.]

Papaphilly wrote: "Did you really have to put THAT picture in my head????"

We can put a face on that picture.
https://youtu.be/qPpOeHLOmYw

[J.]

Australia has a federal election coming up this month.
https://youtu.be/Gz4IkzM217U

[Ian]

Should be interesting. ScoMo is the first PM in Australia for quite some time to serve out a term. Can he win a second term?

[J.]

Meet Drew Pavlou.
https://www.drewpavlou.com/

Aussie man who held up a sign with an X-rated insult about Chinese 'dictator' Xi Jinping is told HE will be charged - despite claims he was the one assaulted by an angry mob
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...

[Papaphilly]

J. wrote: "Papaphilly wrote: "Did you really have to put THAT picture in my head????"

We can put a face on that picture.
https://youtu.be/qPpOeHLOmYw"

C'MON MAN!!!!

[Ian]

One big issue that has come to the fore here is sea level rising. When I first came to Wellington, I got a flat at Days Bay, on the eastern side of Wellington harbour. The whole eastern side is very narrow regarding flat land, so it is a sort of exclusive area, and when I got married I could not afford to stay there. Anyway, to get anywhere I had to follow the road around the harbour, and at one place, Lowry Bay, in a storm there was the problem of getting splashed with sea-water. Now it is worse.

Apparently, the sea is rising now at 1.8 mm a year, which may not sound much, but it is amplified by the land sinking about the same rate, so everything gets worse by a little under 4 mm/year. That may not sound much, but give it a hundred years and it is 0.4 m, and the road is going to be under water much of the time, and if ice sheet melting accelerates, it is even worse. Now, if it were only Lowry Bay you may say, so what, but it is the whole eastern side of the country. Oops. So what to do about that? The short answer is government officials are busy writing reports, and soon there will be a room filled with reports. I suppose that is a form of carbon capture :-(

[Nik]

I guess they should be busy building dams, artificial elevations and levees, as in Amsterdam and elsewhere:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flood_c...

[Ian]

That's what some are calling for, but when you have a long and very thin stretch of flat land, it gets very expensive for what you are trying to save.

[[deleted user]]

Not my part of the world but can't find an eco thread and no time to set one up...

African Governments to Western Eco-Imperialists Who Tell Them Not to Drill Their Own Oil and Gas – Get Lost

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022...

Uganda President Yoweri Museveni lauded the discovery of oil in Lake Albert, but noted it was a battleground for the green NGOs and activists who claim that Armageddon is nigh at every opportunity.

‘We are accustomed to these lectures, but we are tired of hearing them,’ he said.

Ha ha! Respect.

[[deleted user]]

Ian’s part of the world:

Prince Harry Launches New Eco-Project Telling People Who Fly to New Zealand on Holiday to Save the Planet by Re-using Their Towel

https://dailysceptic.org/2022/05/09/p...

:)

[Ian]

Reminds me of Linus in Peanuts, or Ford Prefect. Sort of absurd.

[[deleted user]]

BBC Finds its Own Climate Editor Spread Misinformation in Global Warming Documentary

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...

Climate will be the new covid. Expect climate lockdowns within the next few years.

[Ian]

Beau, your favourite lady PM (Ardern) has announced a "carbon limit" for between now and 2024. Not sure what happens if it gets exceeded because there is no program that is doing anything to curb it, apart, maybe, from writing a huge number of reports, which will fill rooms with dead trees preserved for some time.

[J.]

Ian wrote: "Beau, your favourite lady PM (Ardern) has announced a "carbon limit" for between now and 2024. Not sure what happens if it gets exceeded because there is no program that is doing anything to curb i..."

A politician setting goals about which she has no intention of doing anything?

[[deleted user]]

I drive a small, quite eco-friendly car and would never buy an SUV. I don’t like them and, in the UK, unless you live in the middle of nowhere, they’re completely pointless. However, this is reprehensible:

Climate activists who deflate car tyres reveal plan to target thousands more SUV drivers - and won't stop even if they cause accidents

https://news.sky.com/story/climate-ac...

The activists, who call themselves the Tyre Extinguishers, tell Sky News they want to ‘strike fear’ into owners of ‘gas guzzling’ SUVs. The group claims to have deflated tyres on about 3,000 vehicles since March - and their campaign is ‘escalating fast’.

[Ian]

J. wrote: "Ian wrote: "Beau, your favourite lady PM (Ardern) has announced a "carbon limit" for between now and 2024. Not sure what happens if it gets exceeded because there is no program that is doing anythi..."

The period runs to the end of 2024, I think, and there is an election in 2023. I can't help wondering if she expects to lose, and is leaving a poison pill for the next government. However, the next election is starting to look complicated because the conservative party, to take advantage of MMP rules, has cultivated another party, giving them a free run in one electorate to take advantage of the MMP rules to get more MPs, and now their "friend" has come out with a ridiculous promised budget that cuts taxes hugely and fires a number of allegedly useless government departments, slashes benefits, etc. Meanwhile, the Greens, who Labour depends on, are starting to get stroppy, and thanks to Ardern's ineptitude the one party that could have solved this mess ws eliminated in the last election because of the 5% rule, and Ardern's (and you will love this) off the cuff legislation to ban a raft of guns after the Christchurch mosque shooting. Most of that party's support came from rural areas. You will also be amused to note that following that ban, gun violence has actually increased.

[Scout]

Well, laws banning guns doesn't solve the problem, since criminals don't care about laws.

[Ian]

Part of our problem is that Australia has deported all its felonious criminals that qualify as NZ citizens through having a NZ parent back here, even if the person has no idea what NZ is like and has leads all their life in Oz, apart maybe for the first year or so. These guys have been hardened in Australian jail then sent here. Thanks, Canberra. What they have tended to do is immediately join gangs and there is gang warfare going on in places.

[J.]

Ian wrote: "Part of our problem is that Australia has deported all its felonious criminals that qualify as NZ citizens through having a NZ parent back here, even if the person has no idea what NZ is like and h..."

It's almost as if the problem isn't guns, but rather economics and sociology.

[Ian]

That is a fair comment. When a person aged in their twenties who has been in trouble most of his life, has no skill, and is dropped off in another country where he knows nobody and has no money, it is a little hard to see a good outcome.

[J.]

Parents sue their son and daughter-in-law, demanding a grandchild or $675,000
https://www.npr.org/2022/05/14/109895...

[J.]

A statue of Margaret Thatcher was put up in her home town. It took them less than two hours to egg it.

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-l...

[Papaphilly]

J. wrote: "Parents sue their son and daughter-in-law, demanding a grandchild or $675,000
https://www.npr.org/2022/05/14/109895..."

I originally thought this was an Onion article....

[J.]

Papaphilly wrote: "J. wrote: "Parents sue their son and daughter-in-law, demanding a grandchild or $675,000
https://www.npr.org/2022/05/14/109895..."

I originally thought this was an O..."

Old school Indian society expects children and grandchildren to support their elders. No grandchildren means a less secure old age.

[[deleted user]]

They're woke and they wanted to overturn Brexit but I'm still starting to get drawn to them more and more:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-poli...

The only political party completely opposed to covid vax passports and now championing farmers. Up the Lib Dems!

[J.]

Beau wrote: "They're woke and they wanted to overturn Brexit but I'm still starting to get drawn to them more and more:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-poli...

The only political party completely o..."

Their website was illuminating.🔺
https://www.libdems.org.uk/plan

I love that Brexit is bad, and EU (not UK) citizens who have been in the country five years should vote in UK elections.

[Ian]

I lived in Australia for two years then left. Voting is compulsory in Australia, and during that time I had to vote in one election, and when the next one came around I eventually received a letter informing me of a fine for not voting (and accruing interest for not paying said fine.) When I wrote back and pointed out I was not an Australian citizen, and I no longer resided in Australia I heard no more about it, burt in Australia, at least then, if you were there other than as a tourist you had to vote.

[J.]

Ian wrote: "I lived in Australia for two years then left. Voting is compulsory in Australia, and during that time I had to vote in one election, and when the next one came around I eventually received a letter..."

Australia's COVID response is starting to make more sense.

[[deleted user]]

J. wrote: "Beau wrote: "They're woke and they wanted to overturn Brexit but I'm still starting to get drawn to them more and more:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-poli...

The only political party..."

Thanks for ruining it for me, J. I enjoyed a few hours of no longer being disillusioned with UK politics...until you reminded me to look at their manifesto :)

[J.]

Beau wrote: "Thanks for ruining it for me, J. I enjoyed a few hours of no longer being disillusioned with UK politics...until you reminded me to look at their manifesto :) "

You're welcome. I know how terrifying the thought of being happy can be to an Englishman. Stiff upper lip. 🇬🇧

[[deleted user]]

I understand the WEF's conference is currently taking place in Davos. Bill Gates, George Soros et al have now arrived there courtesy of their private jets, all ready to plan the next instalment of their zero covid, zero carbon, New World Order, Build Back Better masterplan.

If Carlsberg did small-scale, pinpoint nuclear attacks...

[[deleted user]]

On the chance I might be coming across as a grumpy old get, I’m sending you some uplifting pictures of England:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england...

[Ian]

Great pictures, Beau. My memory of Cornwall was a little bleaker than one of the pics, but then again I went there in February

[[deleted user]]

The South West is beautiful but it gets a lot of rain - I know, I've lived there. I can imagine what is was like in February, Ian :)

Interesting that a couple of people sent in pics of the North East. Many foreigners (and Londoners) presume it's bleak but it's absolutely stunning in parts.

Interesting to see someone send a pic of Dungeness in too. The in-laws love Dungeness and I am making it my mission to see more of Kent (and Sussex) over the next year or two because they are 2 areas that I don't know very well.

On Kent, people have always said that it's the 'Garden of England' but I knew someone who lived there who claimed that Worcestershire is prettier. As I now live in Worcestershire, I can see where they were coming from.

[Ian]

Australia has had a change of government. Where the polls said it was too close to call, the voters seem to have delivered Scomo a fairly decisive message that he is no longer wanted.

[[deleted user]]

Yes, Ian, Scott...er...Morgan has been replaced by Arthur...err...Adams?

Australia moves from woke cultism to even woker cultism. Just get it over with and give it to China. Disgrace to the Commonwealth.

[Ian]

Do I detect some residual imperialism here, Beau? :-)

[[deleted user]]

No, Ian, I want to see all of the Commonwealth countries treated as equal partners, with the exception of the Aussies, whom I'd rather see just leave.

[[deleted user]]

Black man denied dream of becoming a Church of England priest because he disagrees with white bishop’s views that Britain is institutionally racist:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...

Calvin’s a really good guy and a very clever man. He’ll bounce back from this while the CoE will continue to decline.

[[deleted user]]

HSBC suspends senior banker over dismissing climate change warnings as 'nut jobs'

https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/...

Apparently, speaking to climate activists, he said, ‘Who cares if Miami is underwater in 100 years?’

In answer to his question, I wouldn’t want that to happen but if it had to happen to one US city, I would prefer it to be San Francisco.

[Ian]

My initial response is the citizens of Miami might care.

[J.]

'They were shooting directly at the journalists': New evidence suggests Shireen Abu Akleh was killed in targeted attack by Israeli forces
https://www.cnn.com/2022/05/24/middle...

[Ian]

That is what the al Jazeera people said, and you tend to know from which direction bullets come from when you are being shot at.

The excuse that an Israeli sniper may have accidentally killed her while aiming someone else is fatuous. A sniper is someone with excellent aim, and a sniper generally fires single shots occasionally, not a flow of shots.

Not holding breath to see any Israeli punished, though.

[Papaphilly]

Ian wrote: "That is what the al Jazeera people said, and you tend to know from which direction bullets come from when you are being shot at.

The excuse that an Israeli sniper may have accidentally killed her ..."

Neither am I. However, as I always say, let it run its course.

[J.]

Ian wrote: "..you tend to know from which direction bullets come from when you are being shot at.

I'll let Mr. Vuksic comment on the particulars of identifying where fire is coming from during combat.

What I can say with confidence is that figuring out from where a report came can be a tough one. Sound acts weird when it is bouncing around different surfaces.

Once the sound of my own rifle's report echoing off of the range office made me think that there was another shooter at the club.

Experiences while wing shooting have taught me to only trust my eyes when identifying other hunters. Blaze orange, hand waves, flashlights, and muzzle flashes are far more reliable than reports echoing off of trees and/or water. One cold, still morning we thought that another group of hunters was firing on the same flock of ducks as us. We had paid for a solo pond, so we walked the shore looking for them. It was just the echoes of our own shotguns.

[Ian]

In the jungle it can be much more difficult, but this was a built-up area. The bullets could not go through concrete so there is a limit to the number of directions and you know where the person was standing and you know which side of the person the bullet entered. For the rest of the bullets, you get a fair idea from which side they hit concrete.

[Nik]

Punished for what, CNN judgement?

[Ian]

Nope. The conclusion from a proper study of the evidence, whatever it shows.

[Nik]

Let’s see the evidence shared, especially the bullet

[Jade]

I'm in Canada, Regina Saskatchewan