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Post by Matthew Of Canberra on Nov 30, 2012 11:42:37 GMT 10
I'm declaring summer to be happening.
It were warm last night. It's ok, I had fans and a couple of coolers ... but it was still warm.
I let the cats out for a while in the morning to frolic in the sparkly sunshine - it wasn't hot at 8:30, but it was sunny. The bugs were chittering, the birds were flittering. They happily explored the garden, climbed trees, jumped on bugs, tried to escape the yard - the usual thing, basically.
Then I let them out again at 4, and I could see it in their little whiskery faces: "What the HELL happened?!?!" It was all they could do to stagger to a shady spot and fall over, poor things. But they did recover, and went back to trying to escape again - so all was well.
So. Summer's here. Goodbye Spring Thread - you served us well.
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Post by angra on Nov 30, 2012 16:03:05 GMT 10
"Adopt a Tiger" is the message on TV ads. It's only $15 a month. Which is quite a lot when you add it up.
This could easily feed a family of humans in PNG or Indonesia - our cousins.
So what is more important - animals or humans?
Just asking the question.
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Post by Matthew Of Canberra on Nov 30, 2012 22:24:59 GMT 10
"So what is more important - animals or humans?"
Does it have to be one or the other?
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Post by Matthew Of Canberra on Dec 1, 2012 9:00:07 GMT 10
jerusalem post and haaretz are both describing this move as "in response to" the UN vote giving the palestinians non-member observer status. Israel authorises settler homes after UN voteSo at least israelis themselves can call a spade a spade - whereas the ABC would get a kicking if it dared (hence the "after" instead of "in response to") Right now, I can't see this story anywhere on the front page of the oz' web site. It's nowhere on the news.com.au front page, despite still mentioning the palestine vote and the settlement story being on the "breaking news" page since 3:30 AM. NEWS appears to have little or no interest in the story, just now. So ... how does this fit the narrative of the plucky little underdog doing all it can merely to defend itself? Now there'll be some riots in the streets, and israel can say "see? look? they've got their vote and STILL they hate us for who we are".
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Post by angra on Dec 1, 2012 9:25:18 GMT 10
What's the big deal with granting Palestine observer state status at the UN anyway?
I thought even Israel supports an eventual 2 state solution.
Why has this been labelled as somehow anti-semitic by the usual suspects?
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Post by Matthew Of Canberra on Dec 1, 2012 9:57:05 GMT 10
"Why has this been labelled as somehow anti-semitic by the usual suspects?"
The thing that astonishes me the most is that supposedly-freedom-loving american wingnuts are the quickest to add an asterisk the moment that palestinians are mentioned.
Far be it from me to say anything that somebody could leap on and use to call me an ANTISEMITE!!1!, but my impression is that the wingnuts would like to see a situation that remains as appalling as possible for the arabs so that, just maybe, one day, they might all just Piss Off Back To Where They Came From and leave israel to its rightful owners. That obviously isn't going to happen, so the fall-back position is to keep the whole show in a holding pattern while israel very slowly, very gradually, pushes out the borders and fills in the gaps until all the really good bits can at least be in the right hands. One day the arabs will wake up and realise that their old farms and houses are now high-rise conurbations and their part of the deal is bugger-all of squat.
Yes, the freaks in gaza are a problem. But the wingnuts don't really give a crap about gaza. Just build a wall around it and whack them when they cause trouble. The real action - the stuff worth grabbing - is in the east. Recognizing the people who actually own it (or used to own it before somebody stuck a wall in the way) is a bit of a pain in the neck for those who'd like them to just go away and stop existing.
How americans can reconcile this with their whole "freedom or die", "don't treat on me" slogan-world is beyond me. It's almost like ... they don't actually believe any of it.
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Post by angra on Dec 1, 2012 10:49:29 GMT 10
MoC - what's truly frightening is the evangelical Christians in the US (and elsewhere) who want to see Israel returned to its biblical border and the temple rebuilt. Only then will the Jews turn to Christ and make way for the second coming! And they are eagerly awaiting the birth of an unblemished red heifer (another Sign).
If you don't believe me, just Google it.
Funny thing is, the 'original inhabitants' are the Philistines and Hittites whom the Jews slaughtered hip and thigh in one of the biggest exercises of ethnic cleansing of all time - if you believe in the Old Testament. But that was ordered by God, so it's cool.
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Post by Matthew Of Canberra on Dec 1, 2012 11:17:02 GMT 10
"If you don't believe me, just Google it"
Oh, I believe it alright - although I think it's a "fundie" thing more than an evangelical thing. How many people actually, truly, believe that we can't really know. But it's in anything like the number of people who believe in young-earth creationism, then it's a bit of a worry.
Must make for uneasy meetings when the high-level nuts visit israel. Politicians are nice to them because they're staunch supporters of israel, but they try not to get too close in case the crazy rubs off.
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Post by angra on Dec 1, 2012 12:08:45 GMT 10
My Dad was a pastor - quite knowledgeable too. He got really angry when people called him an evangelical or a fundamentalist. He said "I am neither. Check your history". He was a 'liberal protestant in an evangelical church' if you need a label. This caused him some trouble.
Fundamentalists believe that every word of the Bible is rock-solid truth, Evangelicals are a bit more flexible about this but tend to believe in the imminent second coming, and the necessity of spreading 'the truth' to all men so that that can happen (as has been foretold). They are not quite the same, but closely related.
Either way, their influence on US politics is scary. But it seems to have declined a bit since Bush departed.
On Coulter, I merely quote this (but can't possibly make a judgement)
"I have listened to all five discs of Ann Coulter's The Church of Liberalism read by the author. I hadn't had the pleasure of reading any of Ms. Coulter's fine work prior to this. I can only say that my initial response to her is that she is the embodiment of the Ultra-Conservative, Vituperative Right-Wing, Bitch Slut From Hell. After some consideration, though, and in all fairness, that might be a bit over the top. I don't believe in hell. I do believe spending around five hours driving about central Indiana listening to her nauseatingly nasal drone is as close to hell as I ever want to get. After each disc ran its course, I just wanted to jump into a vat of Purel and soak for a while. The only fragment of a silver lining behind the dark cloud of her vitriolic prose is that the book on CD is an abridged version of the original. (Hallelujah!)"
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Post by angra on Dec 1, 2012 12:43:06 GMT 10
MoC - what really cracked me up was when Coulter said she wanted the whole world to look like the Republican Convention in New York and "Everyone would root for America".
God; and I am just concentrating on rooting for NSW!
(or maybe rooting for my wife)
Them Americans - or the US sub-species. You gotta laugh.
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Post by Matthew Of Canberra on Dec 1, 2012 14:00:06 GMT 10
"the whole world to look like the Republican Convention in New York and "Everyone would root for America"
Yeah, well, they're not all rooting for america right now, are they? Whole bunches of them are whining about who america isn't america any more and signing petitions about seceding.
Maybe the dems should take them up on that offer. Take the northern coastal blue states and merge with canada.
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Post by Matthew Of Canberra on Dec 1, 2012 14:03:46 GMT 10
" He got really angry when people called him an evangelical or a fundamentalist"
Both traditions mean something quite specific. Fundamentalists grew out of a very specific movement in north america early in the 20th century. Evangelicals seem to hold to a particular branch of calvinist, reformed theology, with an emphasis on the text of the bible over tradition, the five solas, TULIP and so on. I had a brief interest in these things a few years ago, and listened to a lot of evangelical podcasts, read some of this and that. If I got struck by lightning and found myself absolutely convinced that I needed to be a christian, I think I'd probably have to be an evangelical, just because of the gutsiness and uncompromising theology.
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Post by Matthew Of Canberra on Dec 1, 2012 16:25:09 GMT 10
Oh dear. The walkleys do seem to have had a bit of a "leftist" bias this year. www.walkleys.com/news/8461/The lions share of the hard news has gone to fairfax and the ABC, with a few good wins for The West Australian. I guess that's what happens when you don't write/broadcast crap.
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Post by angra on Dec 2, 2012 9:04:32 GMT 10
In moving house, one of my hifi speakers domes got pushed in.
Any suggestions for fixing this? Strangely it doesn't seem to have affected the sound.
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Post by jack on Dec 2, 2012 9:26:37 GMT 10
angra, those things are usually just a cover to keep dust or whatever out of the voice coil mechanism. As long as it hasn't been ruptured it should be okay and shouldn't perceptibly affect the sound. Could do more damage trying to fix it.
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