I was brought up around boats. My late Dad was a sailor with the Royal Navy and later with the Royal New Zealand Navy. Nothing weird about that except he couldn't swim. Still, that was what he did as a young man during the latter years of the Second World War when he decided that he wanted to sail off, see the world, and hopefully be home in time for dinner.
He never returned home. In fact, when he sailed off into the unknown that was the Second World War, he had a one-way ticket that led him to a new life downunder. A place he lived, married and had children and the place he died. He never returned home.
Read more: Messing about with boats
Reposted from original last year.
On the 250th anniversary of Captain Cook's discovery of the east coast of Australia its worth asking ... what was Cook doing here? He certainly wasn't looking for Australia (or New Holland as it was then known) as Europeans had known it existed since the 1500's. Like many other Europeans before him, Cook was searching for the fabled land of Terra Australis.
Another 26th of January is on our doorstep. Only one more sleep before we gather our daggy thongs, search out the shorts with the flag plastered all over them and order in a few slabs, a keg or 3 and assemble around the barbie at the appointed hour ( normally around 11 am ) to tell a few mate jokes and get pissed.
We'll dust off the cricket bat and ball while the ball and chain makes the salads and the kids are reminded that beer always lives in the bathtub on Australia Day." Oi! Get your Dad a beer! " will resonate around this great dusty island and we will slag each other off and tell crappy jokes about who had a convict in their ancestry.
Old mate from down the road called Luigi or some other woggie name will take a good hearted hammering and Jimmy Jimmy from up north will bring out his collection of Kevin Bloody Wilson cassettes and no one will own a cassette player.
Read more: A Eulogy to Australia - you beautiful bastard - we will miss you
When the Senate kicked out American troops and moved them to a cold parking garage, it impacted on 5000 soldiers. With 1 power outlet. They had one bathroom with two cubicles.
This is how Joe Biden’s America treats soldiers. One Guardsman said. “Yesterday dozens of senators and congressmen walked down our lines taking photos, shaking our hands and thanking us for our service. Within 24 hours, they had no further use for us and banished us to the corner of a parking garage ...”
It may explain why they turned their backs on his motorcade - or were they punished FOR turning their backs?
No matter what, America now has arguably the craziest leader of any country in the world.
Read more: Kim Jong Un is no longer the craziest leader in the world
As children, many of us read the story of the Emperor with new clothes. It was a tale about a man who walked around stark naked and the courtiers and greasers all said amazing things about his fantastic new clothes.
Written by Hans Christen Andersen, a couple of swindlers pretending to be weavers make a special outfit for the emperor. They tell the emperor and all of his minions and followers that the clothes are invisible to people who are stupid or too dumb to see. No one can see the clothing, but no one wants to say it because they don't want to sound like dickheads.
So everyone proclaimed that they were the finest weave, the most wonderful colours and were so incredible that only an Emperor or Leader was fit to wear them.
In October, the ‘End of Life Choice Act’ became law through a binding referendum where 65.2% of voters supported the Act. However, according to group Euthanasia-Free NZ “Polling during the advance voting period showed that 80% of New Zealand adults were misunderstanding what the End of Life Choice Act would legalise”.
“Only 20% of respondents knew that this Act would not make it legal to turn off machines that are keeping people alive”. [emphasis original]
Executive Officer of Euthanasia-Free NZ, Renée Joubert, said: “It seems that most New Zealanders voted for an end-of-life choice that is in fact already legal”.
As in the UK, in New Zealand, it is lawful to turn off a machine that is keeping someone alive artificially when in consultation with a doctor and where it is deemed medically appropriate. Polling suggests however that this was not widely known and 80% believed that the ‘End of Life Choice Act’ was making an end of life decision legal that was in fact already legal.
The majority of voters didn’t know what they were voting for
Furthermore, only 35% of people knew that this Act would make euthanasia available to terminally ill people even if they were not suffering any physical pain.
Only 29% of those surveyed were aware that terminally people who met all the eligibility criteria for an assisted suicide but also had depression or some other mental illness, would be permitted to end their life under this Act.
Unlike assisted suicide and euthanasia laws in Australia, Canada and the U.S. New Zealand’s new law does not require that there be an independent witness when a person signs their euthanasia request. However, only 13% of people surveyed were aware of this fact.
“The New Zealand Parliament voted down 111 out of 114 amendments that could have made this law safer,” says Ms Joubert. “Many amendments were rejected without even being debated. Two of the passed amendments were solely about the referendum”.
As it sinks in that the age of Trump has passed and the new day of Biden and Harris has arrived, I feel such a deep sense of loss. I tried to fathom how this happened and all I could think of was what happened to Sir Joh Bjelke Petersen all those years ago.
I remember his loss back in 1987. I was at home and the news of his defeat came through on the radio, I cried. I could not help but think that the Queensland I loved would never be the same. And it was a fear that has been sadly well-founded.
No matter what your political affiliation or personal view of Sir Joh was, he could never be accused of being naive when it came to seeing the MSM for what it was. He regarded his media interviews as " feeding the chooks " and he sprinkled enough popcorn to keep them happily pecking for days as they spouted outrage at his unorthodox behaviour and his treatment of them was viewed as contemptuous. Sir Joh never really disputed that accusation because, to him, they were contemptuous and sought only to bring him down and install a leftist regime.
Read more: Where to now? The chooks are now in control of the Whitehouse
As the sun sets over America, the world is watching and hoping and praying for a miracle. Will the land of the free, founded on the blood of valiant heroes who laid down their lives to have a Nation for free men, liberty and justice for all, fall to the almighty power of the machine? Or will it rise in triumph because of the belief in the ALMIGHTY?
Either way, America, as it has been known for centuries, is dead. And there is no coming back from this death by a thousand cuts.
Read more: And the countdown begins - the death by a thousand cuts is inevitable
While the West wages war on coal, hydro-carbons power China’s industrial and military might.
China uses massive amounts of coal to generate electricity, smelt metals and manufacture cement - they generate almost twice as much electricity as the USA, and two thirds of that is coal-powered.
Read more: COAL POWERS CHINA while the West waits for Winds to blow
The Story of the Judgement of King Solomon is well known. Two women, each claiming to be the mother of an infant, appeal to the King for his Judgement. He rules that the baby should by cut in half and one half given to each woman. One woman cries out and says “ No! “ Give the child to her, only do not cut the child in half! “ King Solomon announced that she was indeed the Mother because the true mother would prefer to lose her child to someone else rather than see it murdered.
This morning I went to the supermarket. It is a sleepy little area, on the coast and always easy to find parking. I pulled in alongside a scruffy looking campervan – the sort of thing that the local surfers live in while they search out the next wave.
The man who owned the vehicle was standing outside, leaning in through the open sliding door on the passenger side of the truck. Perched on top of the surfboard, the blankets, the jerry cans and empty pizza boxes and the like, were 3 little kids. Quiet as lambs. They had their little knees hard up against their chest and chins. They were sobbing.
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