darkelf9
Pie Man
- Joined
- Dec 27, 2004
- Posts
- 4,302
Afternoon all,
So another week and more crying Republicans, this time about losing their end of year / Christmas bonus because of the new tariffs on imported goods coming next year. Lots of private companies in the US are now stocking up before Rump takes office to get ahead of the new price increases they will have to pay for imported materials from China. So to do that these private companies are telling their employees in order to pay for these stock increases they won't get their Christmas bonus this year. Which the Republican employees are now freaking out about. They are also being told due to the new proposed changes to overtime, they also will not get overtime payments since Rump is killing off laws to do with overtime payments. Another example of dumb voters which is what the new Republican party relies on. Still more crying of Republicans who were not invited for Thanksgiving nor Christmas. They were boasting about their win to everyone but now saying the other side isn't playing fair by cutting them off family gatherings and friendships. Women are cutting off sex to their Republican partners and filing for divorce which is the latest action being taken. The backlash has only started from Dems, so the next 12 months is going to get interesting. Better than any reality show in that this one is not staged like all reality shows are staged. Americans who are actually intelligent might now want to wake up and take back their country from these idiots rather than just play by the rules which are very fluid at the best of times and can be easily subverted as Rump has shown. Even if you aren't into politics, this stuff is entertaining and fucking hilarious.
Yet another American thing we now have here in Australia with Black Friday sales. Our big sales day is Boxing Day so again not sure why we need this blatant grab for consumer dollars by retailers given it doesn't have any meaning for us economically. We only started having this sales day in recent times. Still I suppose at least it's good to see white people embracing something that is black. Black Friday for us is related to the bush fires not retail sales. We don't need Black Friday sales and it's more influence from the US we don't need. Saw that people are boycotting Walmart because of their support for Rump. And it's not restricted to just blue states, this is happening even in red states where black people have boycotted Walmart for the Black Friday sales. Lots of images on line of empty Walmart stores. People are shopping in Target instead. This is the latest backlash of people voting Rump back in and he hasn't even gotten into office yet. Democrats are out for revenge because they have been passive for a long time. That is all changing in the US now. They are giving Republicans a taste of their own medicine. The Thanksgiving dinner thing turned into family feud and Christmas is set to be the same in the US. Again it will fun to watch Republicans getting a reality check of what they voted for.
In the mean time our domestic politics turned in to a game of chicken and the LNP and the Greens blinked with the govt getting 31 bills thru in a couple of days because the LNP nor the Greens want to go to the election next year showing they are blocking these bills to improve things for the citizens of this country. Labor stood their ground and in the end won the day. So for the entire year the LNP and Greens were just playing games thinking Labor was going to back down. So if the parliament can get 31 bills passed in just two days, imagine how much they could of got done in this entire year if they stopped playing politics and worked for what is best for the country. This is why Australia will never be a progressive country. There is far too much bullshit happening in Canberra with political parties worrying only about themselves and gaining power rather than doing the jobs they were elected to do. Australians have also become too selfish wanting only what they can benefit from personally. We used to have four basic tiers in society, the poor, the working class, the middle class and the rich. The ultra rich are just richer rich people. But they can come down from being ultra rich because of greed. But still rich. Now we have 5 tiers to our society. We now have the working poor who can be homeless and have a job but can't afford enough to even rent a place. So because they have a job they don't qualify for any govt welfare but are essentially poor. These are now the people who are the battlers, not working class people who previously had the tag of battlers. The middle class wants govt handouts. The rich don't want to pay tax and to get rid of rules and any morals in society and the working poor continually get shafted by both the blue collar and white collar workers. Blue collar workers earn more today than their traditional roles did in the past. If you work in the mining industry as just a driver you are making over $100k. Miners in the mines are earning close to $250k, these are not traditional blue collar jobs any more. Which is why Australians have become more selfish in their decision making. And just as the safety demo says..."attach your mask first then help others"...only problem is they forget the second part and once the oxygen mask is attached their face, they shun helping anyone else. The "I'm right jack, fuck you" mentality. It's just that nobody wants to see what is clearly in the mirror. If only they would film themselves and watch it back without editing, they will see how the rest of the world sees them and it ain't pretty.
After the big dump of rain mid week last week the humidity stayed around for a couple of day and come the weekend it rained again. So we are well and truly into Summer now, even if it came a week early. Was another warm start to the week and since it was dry decided to get out in the front yard and cut back the tree in the front rock garden that gives lots of shade during the Summer and helps to keep the front of the house cool on those very warm days. This time however while I was cutting back the higher branches I discovered a ring tail possum up there. Never happened before. May be it didn't get back to it's hidey hole in time. Very unusual to see a possum out in the middle of the day like that. Anyway decided to just keep the trimming to a minimum due to the possum. The ring tails are very docile and timid. The brush tails on the other hand are very aggressive. I have both roaming the area and can hear them on my roof at night. Spent a couple of hours in the heat on Monday cutting back other stuff in the front. Slowly cutting down the hedge on the side of the driveway as well. The rose bushes in that area liked it as well with the extra sunlight and kept blooming. Still some left.
So managed to get rid of another specialist last week. No need to keep seeing him as things have improved a lot. Not sure what I did to get the improved results but just happy I don't need to do more testing. The costs of that kept going up every six months and sure I get a Medicare rebate but it is still an upfront cost. Still have the main specialist so that one is going to be a keeper for life. At least when I move it will be one less thing I have to organize when getting a new GP. Off to the see the main specialist tomorrow to see the results of the other tests I did last week. All this physical work might be improving my medical stuff. Might have put on some muscle or lost some more body fat. The belts I purchased this time last year are feeling a bit looser than normal.
Sent off all the Christmas cards this week but couldn't send the one to my friend in Canada due the ongoing postal strike over there. Canada is not accepting any OS postage not even letters and cards. So will have to get creative to send the card electronically. Already wrote the card so might as well send it. In all the decades I've been sending Christmas cards and parcels to my friend in Canada I've haven't had this happen where you can't send any mail. If you try they just send it back apparently and refund the cost. They have had postal strikes before but never had the case where there is ban on OS mail entering Canada.
I normally send off all the Christmas cards by the end of the first week in Dec and since we are now officially into Dec, it's that time again. Not really feeling festive yet. Once I get my normal Christmas stuff like OS beers and some traditional sweets it will feel more festive. I haven't put up the Christmas tree for many years now, mainly because I was always out for Christmas doing lots of travelling to visit family and doing the big family Christmas lunch. Which for me was a work day doing lots of driving which meant not much eating nor drinking to stay awake on the long drive. Not sure many people would do a 400km round trip just to go for Christmas lunch, but I did that for a long long time. These days I'm quite happy to stay home for Christmas lunch and just have a good lunch, some beer or scotch and relax. I still visit family, I just do it before Christmas day and the big family lunch is a thing of the past for me now. It's up to the next generation to do all that stuff. My generation of the family is on it's way out and have done their bit for a number of decades. Time for the younger generations to step up.
Hope the rest of the week is good for you.
So another week and more crying Republicans, this time about losing their end of year / Christmas bonus because of the new tariffs on imported goods coming next year. Lots of private companies in the US are now stocking up before Rump takes office to get ahead of the new price increases they will have to pay for imported materials from China. So to do that these private companies are telling their employees in order to pay for these stock increases they won't get their Christmas bonus this year. Which the Republican employees are now freaking out about. They are also being told due to the new proposed changes to overtime, they also will not get overtime payments since Rump is killing off laws to do with overtime payments. Another example of dumb voters which is what the new Republican party relies on. Still more crying of Republicans who were not invited for Thanksgiving nor Christmas. They were boasting about their win to everyone but now saying the other side isn't playing fair by cutting them off family gatherings and friendships. Women are cutting off sex to their Republican partners and filing for divorce which is the latest action being taken. The backlash has only started from Dems, so the next 12 months is going to get interesting. Better than any reality show in that this one is not staged like all reality shows are staged. Americans who are actually intelligent might now want to wake up and take back their country from these idiots rather than just play by the rules which are very fluid at the best of times and can be easily subverted as Rump has shown. Even if you aren't into politics, this stuff is entertaining and fucking hilarious.
Yet another American thing we now have here in Australia with Black Friday sales. Our big sales day is Boxing Day so again not sure why we need this blatant grab for consumer dollars by retailers given it doesn't have any meaning for us economically. We only started having this sales day in recent times. Still I suppose at least it's good to see white people embracing something that is black. Black Friday for us is related to the bush fires not retail sales. We don't need Black Friday sales and it's more influence from the US we don't need. Saw that people are boycotting Walmart because of their support for Rump. And it's not restricted to just blue states, this is happening even in red states where black people have boycotted Walmart for the Black Friday sales. Lots of images on line of empty Walmart stores. People are shopping in Target instead. This is the latest backlash of people voting Rump back in and he hasn't even gotten into office yet. Democrats are out for revenge because they have been passive for a long time. That is all changing in the US now. They are giving Republicans a taste of their own medicine. The Thanksgiving dinner thing turned into family feud and Christmas is set to be the same in the US. Again it will fun to watch Republicans getting a reality check of what they voted for.
In the mean time our domestic politics turned in to a game of chicken and the LNP and the Greens blinked with the govt getting 31 bills thru in a couple of days because the LNP nor the Greens want to go to the election next year showing they are blocking these bills to improve things for the citizens of this country. Labor stood their ground and in the end won the day. So for the entire year the LNP and Greens were just playing games thinking Labor was going to back down. So if the parliament can get 31 bills passed in just two days, imagine how much they could of got done in this entire year if they stopped playing politics and worked for what is best for the country. This is why Australia will never be a progressive country. There is far too much bullshit happening in Canberra with political parties worrying only about themselves and gaining power rather than doing the jobs they were elected to do. Australians have also become too selfish wanting only what they can benefit from personally. We used to have four basic tiers in society, the poor, the working class, the middle class and the rich. The ultra rich are just richer rich people. But they can come down from being ultra rich because of greed. But still rich. Now we have 5 tiers to our society. We now have the working poor who can be homeless and have a job but can't afford enough to even rent a place. So because they have a job they don't qualify for any govt welfare but are essentially poor. These are now the people who are the battlers, not working class people who previously had the tag of battlers. The middle class wants govt handouts. The rich don't want to pay tax and to get rid of rules and any morals in society and the working poor continually get shafted by both the blue collar and white collar workers. Blue collar workers earn more today than their traditional roles did in the past. If you work in the mining industry as just a driver you are making over $100k. Miners in the mines are earning close to $250k, these are not traditional blue collar jobs any more. Which is why Australians have become more selfish in their decision making. And just as the safety demo says..."attach your mask first then help others"...only problem is they forget the second part and once the oxygen mask is attached their face, they shun helping anyone else. The "I'm right jack, fuck you" mentality. It's just that nobody wants to see what is clearly in the mirror. If only they would film themselves and watch it back without editing, they will see how the rest of the world sees them and it ain't pretty.
After the big dump of rain mid week last week the humidity stayed around for a couple of day and come the weekend it rained again. So we are well and truly into Summer now, even if it came a week early. Was another warm start to the week and since it was dry decided to get out in the front yard and cut back the tree in the front rock garden that gives lots of shade during the Summer and helps to keep the front of the house cool on those very warm days. This time however while I was cutting back the higher branches I discovered a ring tail possum up there. Never happened before. May be it didn't get back to it's hidey hole in time. Very unusual to see a possum out in the middle of the day like that. Anyway decided to just keep the trimming to a minimum due to the possum. The ring tails are very docile and timid. The brush tails on the other hand are very aggressive. I have both roaming the area and can hear them on my roof at night. Spent a couple of hours in the heat on Monday cutting back other stuff in the front. Slowly cutting down the hedge on the side of the driveway as well. The rose bushes in that area liked it as well with the extra sunlight and kept blooming. Still some left.
So managed to get rid of another specialist last week. No need to keep seeing him as things have improved a lot. Not sure what I did to get the improved results but just happy I don't need to do more testing. The costs of that kept going up every six months and sure I get a Medicare rebate but it is still an upfront cost. Still have the main specialist so that one is going to be a keeper for life. At least when I move it will be one less thing I have to organize when getting a new GP. Off to the see the main specialist tomorrow to see the results of the other tests I did last week. All this physical work might be improving my medical stuff. Might have put on some muscle or lost some more body fat. The belts I purchased this time last year are feeling a bit looser than normal.
Sent off all the Christmas cards this week but couldn't send the one to my friend in Canada due the ongoing postal strike over there. Canada is not accepting any OS postage not even letters and cards. So will have to get creative to send the card electronically. Already wrote the card so might as well send it. In all the decades I've been sending Christmas cards and parcels to my friend in Canada I've haven't had this happen where you can't send any mail. If you try they just send it back apparently and refund the cost. They have had postal strikes before but never had the case where there is ban on OS mail entering Canada.
I normally send off all the Christmas cards by the end of the first week in Dec and since we are now officially into Dec, it's that time again. Not really feeling festive yet. Once I get my normal Christmas stuff like OS beers and some traditional sweets it will feel more festive. I haven't put up the Christmas tree for many years now, mainly because I was always out for Christmas doing lots of travelling to visit family and doing the big family Christmas lunch. Which for me was a work day doing lots of driving which meant not much eating nor drinking to stay awake on the long drive. Not sure many people would do a 400km round trip just to go for Christmas lunch, but I did that for a long long time. These days I'm quite happy to stay home for Christmas lunch and just have a good lunch, some beer or scotch and relax. I still visit family, I just do it before Christmas day and the big family lunch is a thing of the past for me now. It's up to the next generation to do all that stuff. My generation of the family is on it's way out and have done their bit for a number of decades. Time for the younger generations to step up.
Hope the rest of the week is good for you.
