Originally posted by Gerald Davis:
the best thing we can do is not to waste money on reducing green house gases but to build more efficient environmental machine, hydro-electric ,solar , and wind-farms.

Wind farms? - I think there have been a few experiments with wind farms and environmentalists have tended to HATE them!. Ignoring the engineering issues of whether or not they can produce cost effective energy, they without question cause apalling damage to the enironment. Have you seen a hillside covered with windmills? Wind farms work best when put in barren open spaces (for obvious reasons) - and the visual destruction that occurs by errecting a whole stack of windmills is terrible!

Hydro electric power is not without its ecological problems either - the process of damning rivers to build HE damns means flooding valleys and drastically altering the flow of water down the rivers existing course. In Australia the "Snowy Mountains Hydro Electric project" took decades to build and was considered a success at first. However, the reduction in water flowing down the rivers has led to all sorts of problems lower down on the valleys where farmers no longer have enough water in the river to irrigate their land.

Solar energy - At least this can be seen as truly a clean source of power, however, it is somewhat dependant on location! Here in Queensland we have more than enough sun and I could easily generate enough power for my needs by putting a couple of solar panels on my roof and contributing to the national grid when I have excess so that I can draw from the grid when I have need. The only thing that stops me from doing this is economics! Currently such a setup would cost me about $20,000 (after receiving considerable governmment grants that exist to try and encourage this) and would give me a net gain of around $100 a month. Thats a very long 200 month (17 yr) return on investment, longer possibly than I am likely to remain in my house - so I cant justify doing it. If we assume that the technology goes on improving and getting cheaper then eventually this should be the way to go - I should think that once the ROI time gets closer to 5yrs it'd become staggeringly popular..
You might have a few more problems trying to implement this kind of technology in grey sky'd Europe though!!

Originally posted by Frank Silbermann:
You're not one of those "Creationists", are you?

errr.. no - Tree-hugging, hippy communist perhaps - but not a creationist!

I accept that some of your points are valid -
1) Career criminals tend to end up less well off than average
2) Ultimately perhaps the only reason we do anything is to attract a mate
3) Penal system is more effective at deterring wealthy from criminal activity and relatively ineffective at deterring the poor from offending (Hey this could be the launchpad for yet another discussion of how ineffective for society it is to lock people up? - We could argue that one until we're both blue in the face as well! )
4) Lack of understanding of "Deferred Gratification" is likely to increase the chances of both poverty and theft behaviour.

but..

re: crime and Victorian England - You are suggesting that crime in inequitable victorian england was not a huge problem compared with more equitable USA of same period. This seems to me to be a questionable assumption - but for a bit of fun I'll run with it...

Stage coach and Train crime was higher in USA... perhaps because gun ownership was so much higher (hee hee hee - now I'm looking for a fight again! ) Perhaps stage coach and train robberies were rarer in England because its quite difficult to pull off such crimes without firearms and its the American obsession with the right to posses weapons that caused its overly high stats in the particular area? Maybe the criminal elements of victorian Britain were more interested in petty theft to feed themselves - A much easier set of crimes to commit without requiring equipment like horses and guns. My knowledge of victorian England is pretty poor - but if the works of Dickens are anything to go by (and ignoring the story lines theres no reason to assume the historical contexts are not 'reasonable') then poverty stricken Londoners were indeed involved with massive amounts of theft from the powerful rich. Just looking at the history of Australia shows that theft of food for survival was common (most common crime for which people were deported to Australian penal camps was petty theft)


Ultimately I stand by the assertion that social inequality and poverty increases the likelyhood of criminal activity. Of course it cant be proven - the number of variables is too big. But I accept that its not the only factor by a long way and teh factors you mention are probably significant too.

Can we call this debate closed now? Shake hands, have a beer and agree to disagree?

oh - btw: I'm sure the guy who took my jacket in Peru was not directly after the ladies (although I accept that by surviving and being better fed he would stand a better chance of attracting a mate). It was taken from my pack on the roof of a minibus in the remote Andes where the guys riding the bus on the roof were all dirt poor. He probably wanted some warm clothing for a couple of days, the US$ from my pocket to buy a good meal and a few beers. When you're scratching around for a living like these guys a warm jacket and decent feed is more important than impressing the local chicks. After a couple of days the jacket would have looked too conspicuous on him so I would expect he would have sold it or exchanged for woven clothing and more food & drink.

Originally posted by Frank Silbermann:
It's not clear that poverty causes crime; .... Most crime is caused by young men who want to gain an advantage over their peers in the competition for women.

Whoaaa there..

I think Frank, Steven et.all and I have pretty much covered enough of "high taxation good or bad?" question and are unlikely to come to any kind of agreement - but I have to follow this one up:

Where do you get this "sexual competition" crime idea? I'm no criminologist, but I would have thought that massive social inequality and percieved injustice were pretty big drivers for criminal activity?

Take the guy who stole my jacket in Peru - Did he do it so that he could impress his girlfriend? or did he do it because I was a "rich" tourist who could afford to be ripped off so that he could eat a couple of decent meals for a change? - I'm sure its more likely to be the latter!

I woudl have thought the most abundant criminal activity would be theft (although I'm willing to be correctd if someone can dig up stats!)- the motivation for theft surely being overwhelmingly economic gain??

In fact if social inequity or poverty are not huge drivers in crime why do you suggest that crime rates tend to be higher in areas of low socio-economic population?

Is it your hypothesis that males in this environment are somehow more sexually driven than their more privelidged peers in the smart neighbourhoods?
[ January 04, 2005: Message edited by: Adrian Wallace ]

Originally posted by Jason Menard:


In no way is it a purpose of the government to provide employment. A government must employ a certain number of people in order for the government to function, but no more than the minimum number of people required to get the job done. A purpose of the government is to promote the general welfare, but this does not mean that the general welfare is served through providing jobs. I don't know what the deal in Australia is, but in the US, people do not have the right to employment, and it is certainly not a benefit that society has a duty to bestow on an individual.

Ok - granted - purpose was probably the wrong word. But its a GREAT secondary function isnt it?

..and to be honest I'd rather employ slightly more people than is absolutely necssary to do a job (and have the additional costs passed on to society through taxation) than pay people to sit around on the dole doing nothing and getting depressed/unhealthy and delinquent because there are no jobs.


..but you are correct - Citizens do not have the right to employment.

That said Australian governments (States and Federal) are without a doubt the biggest employers in this country and Austalia is very much a economy of high taxation, high level of services, reasonable high and even standard of living across society. This is compared with USA where [and I apologise for the following which is born of my fairly ignorant uneducated impressions only] taxation is very low, services are low and standard of living varies enormously dependending on which social strata you occupy with large number of society under the poverty line and in contrast some seriously scary over-rich....
[ January 03, 2005: Message edited by: Adrian Wallace ]

Originally posted by Warren Dew:

Consider the opposite situation: a stable economy where these services are provided more efficiently. What happens when you switch those services to the government?

More people don't get employed, because we're talking about an economy that's already stable - there aren't more people to employ. Instead, because of the government inefficiency you mention, the services are provided less well by the same number of people. No one is better off, but many are worse off.

The only areas of the economy where it might make sense for the government to be involved are natural monopolies - areas where it doesn't make sense to have competition. That includes roads, since it wouldn't be so great to have several road systems and only be able to visit that fraction of people who happen to use the same road system as oneself, but not health care, where competition between doctors for customers can be expected to improve efficiency and service.[/QB]

I accept than in the case of a society with 100% employment that part of my argument is invalid - but there is no such place!! Here in Brisbane Australia I'd guestimate that 10-20% of the population works for Government - Many in quite bureacratic inefficient ways. If we were to reduce the size of Queenslands government to a US style minimalist one - the impact (I can only imagine) on the city would be horrendous..

In terms of suggesting that private business will always imin the short term. prove service I have to object. Having seen public transport go from public ownership to private ownership in the UK, seen utilities deregulated (in the name of increased competition) in Australia and seeing the massive growth in recent years of private medicine in Australia I would suggest that private interests are quite good at efficiently serving the most profitable parts of a market - but consumers in less profitable areas are much better served by governments. The decay of rural bus and train services in the UK and the spiraling costs of telecoms for outback Australians serve as good indicators of this. Furthermore - look at UK TV, Commercial channels may be more efficient and get bigger audiences, but the government funded BBC provides a whole range of high quality services that just would not exist if everything were measured in terms of economic return alone.

I wish I could think of an example of a private industry going public so I could try and see more your point, but I'm too young!! In my life all that seems to have happens is government run services being sold off and run down and cheapened for short term financial gains by private enterprise - Can you offer me an example of the reverse? (A cheap service being government purchased and then subsequent price hikes and service drop outs?)

I would suggest that to leave as much as possible in the hands of a free market economy is to leave society to become a tyranny of the majority... Live in the city, listen to mainstream music, watch mainstream reality TV, catch commuter trains in morning, afternoon and get sick with cheap to cure common ailments - and you will me be served well by comercial interests... but speak a different language, live in an slightly remote area and have tastes for non-pop culture and god forbid suffer an expensive illness - all of a sudden theres no access for anyone other than the hyper-rich....

Originally posted by Steven Bell:


Could it be said that people who advocate for larger government are selfish and uncompasionate, as the private sector does nearly everything better and cheaper than the government is capable of. So a larger government takes more from it's people and gives little back creating a drain on the society as a whole.

From what perspective to private company perform "better"?
I might be prepared to accept that consumers are likely to get improved customer services in some cases where competition is introduced on previous government monopolies (although evidence based on deregulation of telcos and public transport in UK might suggest otherwise), and I might also concede that private corporations are quite likely to be more fiscally efficient in the running of their business. BUT...

Government run operations do not have to generate profits for shareholders and so can concentrate on their core business goals (i.e. providing healthcare, providing education, building raods etc etc) rather than the grubby business of generating money.

Also - consider another primary purpose of government - providing employment! A large, inefficent, government machine keeps thousands gainfully employed. Switching these services to private enterprise automatically causes job losses in the name of productivity. Private enterprise doesnt care about job losses or the effect of its policies on wider community - it is concerned only with making things efficent and less costly. Large scale job losses woudl effect not only those who have lost their jobs but the whole of society since an increased drain on social security funds drains government funds and forces tax increases. (..and I wont even get into the costs of increasing poverty causing increased crime, increased policing costs etc etc etc...)

Marketing - we live in a world where sales and marketing plague us all... In the days of government run monopolies in the telecoms industry (at least in UK and Australia) There was no great need for enormous amounts of customers money to be spent trying to brainwash people to spend money with XYZCom or ABCCom... Is it possible that all the savings introduced by cutting jobs in the now privatised telecoms industry have just served to pay for all the TV ads and cold-calling vermin that now polute my leisure time?

Would we not rather have our inefficient benevolent government run agency keeping more people employed and serving the people rather than the shareholders?

Most important things I learnt at school:

About Society
=================
1) Most people in the world seem stupid.
2) Most people in the world *are* stupid.
3) Some people are very smart (even some of those who seem stupid).
4) I'm not entirely sure which of the above groups I belong to.
5) None of the above matters - AT ALL.

About Self-preservation
==================
1) Talking your way out of it is always easier than fighting
2) When a potential assailant is bigger, stronger and less able to respond to reason than you - RUN AWAY!!!

About Motivation
==================
1) Dont try so hard - its never turns out to be as crucial as it seems.
2) NEVER do too much work - There are better things to spend time on!
6) Dont worry - things always work out o.k. ....

Academically
==================
1)hmmm.... no sorry I'm all out of ideas!!

Resolution this year will be same as last years:

I promise not to make any new years resolutions (other than this one).

I have managed this resolution for several consecutive years and never fail to keep it going for the entire year!!

Originally posted by John Smith:
AW: probability of getting one of the good cards on the first draw is 15/47.
probability of getting one on the second draw (after a bad first draw is 15/46.
Therefore probability of getting a straight or better in the sum of the 2:
(15/47) + (15/46) = 0.645


Not quite. Here is the reality check: suppose we go by your methodology, but we can draw the card three times, not two times. Then the probability would be (15/47) + (15/46) + (15/45), which is insanely close to 1. Draw the card one more time, and you will exceed 1. So think again.

ah yes perhaps the for the second draw to be succesfull we need the first draw to be a failure....

(15/47) + (32/47 * 15/46) = 0.54???

If betting on sports is illegal in USA - then how come the US has horse racing? Even I've heard of the "Kentucky Derby"

..Surely there cant be horse racing without betting? Whats the point?

OK - now I'm happy..

Given it a little mroe thought.. and here we go...

We already have 4 cards of the 5 we need - so we just need to know the porbability of getting any of the "good" cards in either of the next 2 to be shown

Given that we have 7S, 8S, 9S, 10S:

We can make a straight with ANY 6 or J
we have 4 spades so we can make a flush with any other spade.
4OK and FH are impossible... so thats all we need to consider:
"good" cards are therefore:
6S, 6H, 6C, 6D, JS, JH, JC, JD, 2S, 3S, 4S, 5S, QS, KS, AS

15 cards.. out of 47..
probability of getting one of the good cards on the first draw is 15/47.
probability of getting one on the second draw (after a bad first draw is 15/46.

Therefore probability of getting a straight or better in the sum of the 2:

(15/47) + (15/46) = 0.645

any comments?
[ December 22, 2004: Message edited by: Adrian Wallace ]

Originally posted by John Smith:
You are playing Texas Hold'em Poker and are looking at 10 spades - 9 spades. The flop is 8 spades - 7 spades - 2 clubs. What's the probability that you will make a straight or better by the river?

What is a "flop"?
How many cards are in my hand?
How many cards do I need to make up my straight?
How many cards from other people can I see? (What are they?)
How many more cards can I/will I get?
Whats "The River"?

Originally posted by Warren Dew:
Angela Poynton:

WHY? WHY? WHY? Do people want Turbo Engines on their normal cars?
A standard engine will get you to the speed limit, why do you need more?

My wife really appreciates the turbo on her car. It allows her to merge with expressway traffic more briskly, making the process safer ...

Unless your [merge lanes/on ramps/acceleration lanes]* are WAAAAY too short then this is a really unconvincing argument. Even in the most sluggish of modern vehicles you can reach a "safe" highway speed in almost no time. Sure you may have to glue your right foot to the floor and listen to your engine screech as you try and squeeze performance out of the 1.3lt 4cyl engine - but I've never yet driven a car that wouldnt move fast enough for busy highway merges.

I'm with Angela on this one - I dont see any great need for stupid amounts of acceleration in vehicles, they're deadly enough as it is!
(That said I do have a turbo on my car - but its a TD5 deisel landrover so I think I'm excused)



*(Use term which makes most sense in your location)

I remember back in the days when I worked in desktop support we would get quite a few calls from people with spillages on their keyboards.

There was one simple question that determined wether the keyboard was left to dry overnight or tossed in the bin:

"Do you take sugar?"....

It seems that anyone who had sugar in their tea or coffee (or drank hot chocolate) caused appaling damage to their keyboard, whereas those with sugar free drinks would survive!!

... So - in case being discussed in this thread - Orange juice you're probably stuffed!!

Cairo is a fascinating place...

I was there in 1998 just a couple of weeks after a big shooting of tourists down south in Luxor. The result was the number of tourists in Cairo was greatly reduced which had a good and bad side.

If you're not used to it the harrassment from street vendors can start to irritate - but this isnt as bad in downtown Cairo as it is around the Giza plateaux or further south in Luxor.

Despite being a city with huge poverty problems (like any large developing world city), Cairo felt extremely safe.
If you can manage to cross the road without being mowed down by crazy beeping taxi drivers then you stand a good change of getting through the experience unscathed.

A travel companion of mine was feeling adventurous one night and went out for a stroll around downtown Cairo at about 3am one night looking for intrigue and adventure.. He wasnt sure what he woudl find - but verntured out with very little of value and just thought he'd try and find some seedy and interesting nightlife. He wandered aimlessly around for a while and found himself down a poorly lit dead-end alleyway. He turned around to head back towards the main streets and found 2 suspicious looking characters following him. At this point he prepared himself for conflict (and presumabley the intrigue and adventure he was looking for) assuming that anyone following a tourist down a dark alley at 3am must be up to no good. The strangers walked up to him and asked if he was ok - and what he was looking for. When my friend replied that he was looking for a club or bar the guys apologised for their lack of knownledge of such things and offered my friend an apple to keep him from getting hungry! They then went on their way and no harm came to anyone!

In general we found Cairo to be a very friendly city - there were army guards on almost every street corner with machine guns who were very friendly to any tourists and everyone seemed genuinely keen to help us get around and find out what we needed. When 7 of us took a bus trip to Giza (after working out which bus to catch, which was an ordeal with bus numbers all being in arabic) for the obligatory trip to the pyramids we got chatting to a local guy (who was keen to practice his english) and we ended up being invited round to his house for tea and a snack (and a fascinating look at genuine local culture).

"The Cairo Museum" - is without a doubt the worlds largest collection of Egyptian antiquities - however, the organisation and explanation of all the stuff leaves a great deal to be desired. The effect is that theres a whole building with piles and piles of very old stuff.... great if you really want to spend time looking at it - but theres very little to be learnt from expanatory notices in the way that you might expect of one of the worlds leading museums.

Of course all this experience is just based on a few days on a backpacker style holiday... and I'm sure there are plenty of other sides to Cairo.

I'm sure visiting for a conference would be a different experience altogether. We did pop-in to the Cairo Hilton for a drink and noticed a very definate hint of pompous colonial sophistication of the type you get in places like this, Singapore Raffles Hotel, The Victoria Falls Hotel etc etc etc... but the prices were so extortionate we couldnt even afford to sit down and have a drink!

I'd say - if you're going to Cairo on business, take the time to get out of the hotel and taxis and WALK around for a bit. Nothing beats an aimless wandering around a few streets of a city for a hour or two for getting a feel for the place.

all in all - just enjoy the experience!

Originally posted by Warren Dew:

The conclusion from my position is that where a particular government's owning weaponry harms people, that particular government should be discouraged from owning weaponry, and where a particular government's owning weaponry helps people, that particular government should be encourage to own the weaponry. Further, the interests of all people must be considered in making this decision, not just the people under that particular government.

Of course, the difficulty here is in establishing exactly how to define and measure "harm" or "help" .....

Warren - OK, I remain unconvinced, but appreciate a few of the ideas...

Your basic premise seems to be that:
It is possible that a government, in defending itself, **may** be harmful to the people represented by that government. Because of this, that government should not have the right to defend themselves... on the grounds that things that hurt "the people" are bad.

I can see a kind of logic there...

Can we then extend this to say that since any government **may** harms its people in its self-defensive actions that it would be right and proper to discourage all governments from owning ANY weaponry?

Let me try to explain again.. in more delicate terms and with no references to any persons or nationalities that might offend - This is intended purely as an intellectual excercise and I would actually really like to hear some responses from some of the smart people out here in MDland who clearly think very differently to me - so PLEASE dont erase me again (I'll be good I promise!)

There is a body of people who would argue that possesing a weapon is useful for defence purposes and that we should all be able to carry one as a matter of safety and fairness. These people tend to argue strongly against anyone who suggests that this is a bad thing and that weapons should be restricted. The argument (as we have seen in some above posts) is that just owning a weapon does not mean that the individual necessarily means to use it in a harmful manner.

On the flip-side - the point I try to highlight - Is that there is a tendency for the same body of people to argue that on a national level this logic should not apply and that nations should not be free to arm themselves and cannot use the "we might need these to defend ourselves" argument to justify the development of weapons.

I find this dual position amusingly hypocritical. - Does nobody else out there see the contradiction in these positions?

[For the record I am NOT suggesting that a global proliferation of weapons is necessarily a good and safe thing - merely that it is a natural extension of the "right to bear arms" philosophy.]

I'm trying to format a bunch of data into a PDF with FOP so that I can print it out on some labels... and I'm having real troubles getting my layouts correct...

I've defined a page:


and in my page layout I have a table:


but whenever the tries to build the table the measurements are all wong and I get this error:
Sum of fixed column widths 181415 greater than maximum specified IPD 180917

Now I could be wrong but I though that a page width of 210mm - 12mm of margins should give me space of 198mm for my table..
64mm+3mm+64mm+3mm+64mm = 198mm... Shouldnt it all line up beautifully?

Does anyone know what the "180917" number refers to? what are the units? can I convert them to mm to see what its talking about?

Any ideas people?

[ December 19, 2004: Message edited by: Adrian Wallace ]
[Message edited to fit properly - Balaji]
[ December 20, 2004: Message edited by: Balaji Loganathan ]

Originally posted by Frank Silbermann:
That is the essence of gun control. Prosecute someone for carrying a gun for protection against muggers because he _might_ use it to commit a mugging.

hee hee - sorry about this Frank.. (I'm sure this'll get wiped before you read it anyway!)

[you Win! Jim, tell'em what he's won-MH]
[ December 18, 2004: Message edited by: Max Habibi ]

I just recently saw something omewhere that was talking about how bizare the English language is. The point was made that the working out how an Englsih word sounds is nigh on impossible for novices due to the variety of ways of spelling various sounds.

By using rules that could be formulated by looking at other words the word "fish" could easily be spelt "ghoti"... (How?):

"gh" from "enough"
"o" from "women"
"ti" from "action"

How cool is that!!

I'm pretty sure that driving whilst holding a phone is illegal pretty much everywhere... Theres even been a [limited and unsuccessful] campaign to ban use of handsfree mobile phones. The main argument being that since the person on the other end of the line has no clues as to what the driver is up to, they will be be unable to pause the conversation the way you would naturally if you were a passenger holding a conversation with the driver. The resultant effect being that the driver is distracted more by having a phone conversation than they would by a direct conversation....

The thing that would be annoying about phones on planes would be the cocophany of annoying ring tones all throught a flight as people from a while variety of timezones around the world try to stay in contact. Do we really need to make in any harder to get to sleep on planes?

Air travel already consists of being made physically very uncomfortable for long periods of time as we get squeezed into place for hours of elbow fighting with our neighbours and knee bruising seat reclining incidents. PLEASE lets not have our ears assaulted by polyphonic polution at the same time!

Originally posted by Gerald Davis:
Most modern big bookshops in the westend have a cafe area like starbucks. You can read books in the cafe area then, then put it back on shelf after.

I don't want a lecture on the history of tea, I want to know what kind of tea regular tea is called, you know! the tetly and typho's teas that are served in all greasy spoons.

"English Breakfast" Tea...
or perhaps
"Ceylon" Tea....

That should be the term you want for general run-of-the-mill ordinary tea (I think)

I bought a Marantz amp back in '92 back in the days when you only had 2 speakers! When I first got it I would lie there for hours listening to music and really enjoying the sonic detail that I'd never heard before!

It was by far the best value for money amplifier available at the time. It had no bells or whistles - just a selector switch and a volume knob. The sound was (and still is) very crisp and performs well across the range when put through a decent pair of speakers.

Since then I bought a Sony DVD player, believing that such a premium brand would surely offer a decent quality product - A mistake I will never make again, the quality is awful and needed to be repaired 3 times in its first 12 months of operation. Sony stuff seems to come at premium prices (more expensive than equivalient quality Marantz thats for sure) - but I've heard lots of people have problems with Sony gear...

These days my whole philosphy about hi-fi equipment seems ot be changing - I'm inclined to be less fussy about sound quality and would actually love to have little convenience features like a remote control (which the Marantz amp I have doesnt have)!!! I also need to get something capable of handling surround sound - cos the seperate pro-logic processor I have just doesnt cut it at all...
I cant decide whether to buy seperates and keep the sound quality high - or whether to try and appease the wife and consider a solution based on its asthetic & ergonomic appeal - I'll probably cave in to pressure and end up buying something small and neat looking but that sounds cheap and nasty despite its high price tag!
[ December 14, 2004: Message edited by: Adrian Wallace ]

Originally posted by Frank Silbermann:
... That must be new. Even during the time of Labor's "White Australia" policy Australia was begging for immigrants. ...

Yes it is - 5 years ago I was able to migrate to Austalia from the UK with ease. Now friends of mine (from UK, educated, professional, with money etc etc) are unable to settle in Australia becasue the rules for migration have been tightened so much.

Even potential "white-Australians" are being turned away (and to be honest if the rules were different for white or non-white I would be HORRIFIED and appalled!)

...and for the record Australia argues that there is a "flood" of refugee seekers attacking their borders. I remember reading somewhere that last year (or was it year before?) the number of refugees let into the country was under 3000!!! You cannot tell me that such a tiny number of people is going to produce a massive cultural shift in a country with population of > 20Million

Our little one was a screaming bundle of hell for 3 months... just as you describe - wont sleep for more than a couple of hours at a time..

but one day... all of a sudden.... she clicked... screaming stopped sleeping started...
Since 3 moths old she sleeps 12 hours solid every nigh (now 8 months old)..

At 1 month old I was going insane, my wife was going insane and we were nearly tearing each other apart.. Fortunately it started to get better by about 2 months and we allstarted getting less distressed..

HANG ON IN THERE - It gets easier!!!

Originally posted by Nick George:
My initial reaction is that you are doing a 'wrong' or... perhaps... 'bad,' thing when you base how many kids you and your wife want to have on what the government of Australia wants you to have. If you and your wife want another kid, you should have one. If you and your wife want 30 more kids, you should have 30 more kids. The world will be alright.

Of course I'm not going to allow them to dictate my family size... but I'm sure if we had 30 more kids the world (at least MY world) would be FAR from alright!!

Originally posted by John Smith:
I am with Nick. As an American who cherishes his selfishness and holds it as a virtue, I would say, to paraphrase one of our presidents, "Ask not what you can do for Australia, ask what you can do for your own happiness".

hmmm... I've never been a beliver in the "Selfish" philosphy thing - growing up in Thatcherite Britain was enough to give me a social conscience and leaves a really nasty taste in the mouth when I see the "Me Me Me!!!" people.

Originally posted by Warren Dew:
Australia is a democracy, right? That should mean you have some influence on your government's immigration policy. Is it worth the time to invest in writing a letter?

Australia is a democracy - However, I am disenfranchised , so any letter I write to a politician is likely to have even less effect than if a legitamate voter were to voice concerns...

Originally posted by herb slocomb:


Many Western European countries seem to be having an issue with their lax immigration policies recently... At some point, immigration, without real integration (cultural and otherwise), will destroy the traditional national character of a nation. This is simple common sense. The tipping point may have already been reached in some countries. Today in France there are more more mosques than churches. The birth rate of immigrants is also higher. There is also a lack of integration of certain groups in France and other host countries in Europe. Project the trend forward in time say 70-100 years and countries such as France will no longer be "French" in almost any conceivable definition of that term...

Perhaps Australia is wise to try to avoid such a fate...

..and this is a bad thing.. why??? Differing brith rates are a magical thing!!

< MARXIST LEANINGS >
The lower rungs of society do most of the breeding and the educated, wealthy classes dont. This is ESSENTIAL for society so that we can keep the dream of "upward social mobility" alive. If all the wealth educated people were to breed effectively woudlnt that mean that the status quo would be perpetuated and the lower classes become aware of their inescapable exploited position in society more prone to revolutionary revolt?

By giving some of the lower classes a chance to achieve wealth and status through mobility, hope can be maintained and disenchantment reduced.
</MARXIST LEANING >

Anyway - If France (or Australia, or UK etc etc) should have more Mosques than churches isnt that just a reflection of the changing face of an increasingly global multi-cultural society?

There is confusion...

The Australian government has repeatedly over the decades told its people that the socially responsible thing to do is raise a big family. Australia, (we are told) suffers from a population which is too small and would greatly benefit from population growth... The over-simplified message is "Populate or perish". To encourage an increase in the birth rate, there are now all sorts of cash incentives to any new parents.... (However the birth rate in Australia continues to drop)....

On the flip-side, globally there is clearly no under-population problem and it seems that by any analysis ever done the planet is due to be struggling under the demands of an excess of humanity and its all consuming ways.. Perhaps the Chinese should be commended for their "1 child" policy as a measure that may help reduce the dramatic speed of population explosion!!

For various politcal reasons (that shoudlnt be discussed any further or the thread will vanish) - The Australian people seem unable to see that a simple increase in immigration could address any population concerns they have - This xenophobia astounds me.. but I'd better shut up..

Anyway... I have 1 child and my wife and I plan 1 more.. Are we being selfish in not helping to increase Australias population? Or are we being selfish in not helping to curb global population growth?
[ December 13, 2004: Message edited by: Adrian Wallace ]

slavery

I moved out of the SE corner of England back in '98 and sold a tiny 1 bedroom apartment in Newbury (about 2 hrs West of London). I moved to Brisbane(Qld, Australia) and for the same money, purchased a 4 bedroom house with pool, ducted air-con, 10km from City centre in a leafy suburb next to protected state forest bushland.

Since then the value of the house has risen massively - but still not enough that I could consider (or could afford) moving back to the UK. I now have lots of friends who are leaving UK for Canada, US, Australia, mainland Europe etc etc -...

Of the 8 people I shared a house with in my final uni year, only 2 still live in the UK!!! Property prices may not be the only factor influencing peoples decisions to leave the UK, but I'm sure its a big factor in making sure they cant come back once they leave!

Why does anyone live in London?

awww.... CORRECT...


you're just tooo fast! Strange how many people get confused - shows how deeply ingrained gender stereotypes are...

There was no adoption.... no step-dad .....

A man is driving his son to school when an horrendous car crash occurs. The man is killed in the impact and the boy is horribly injured. An ambulance rushes the boy to hospital where, upon arrival he is wheeled straight into the operating theatre.

The surgeon scrubs clean and takes a look at the boy before breaking down in tears saying - "I cant perform this operation... This is my son!"

Explain?....

..and dont forget that in Welsh the "Ll" is a strange sound somewhere in between the sound someone makes when trying to cough up a big lump of phlem whilst simulateously swallowing their own tongue!!!

(Unfortunately I cannot think of a single example of the same sound in any other language!)

Originally posted by Frank Silbermann:
No wonder socialism is so popular in the UK! People of the lower classes don't feel they have a chance, ...

Actually Frank, In general in most of the western world the "left" of politics usualy gains more support from the educated so-called "achievers" in society and the "lower classes" tend these days to be more likely to vote for the political "right".

This was quite clearly demonstrated by looking at the polarised results of the US election where the areas associated with wealth and money (i.e. west coast and NE states) tended to vote more democrat and the rest of the more "rural" states voting more republican.

I think similar patterns would be observed in UK and Australia, but are harder to identify due to more homogenous demographics.

Strange how this this breaks the idea of people voting for reasons of self-interest - you'd expect the wealthy to vote for the "right" side of politics since they benefit the most from it and the less wealthy to vote for the "left" since they have the most to gain - turns out the patterns are the reverse of what you'd expect!!

(I wont even try to explain why I think this is the case since the post would certainly, [and perhaps justifiably] be deleted almost before I could finish typing it )

In the UK the term "Public School" referes to the top 200 or so independant schools in the country. These are the old traditional exclusive establishments who groom their students with the assumption they will attain positions of high office whereever they choose to work. These establishments are the absolute embodiment of the English class system and encourage an air of superioriority amongst their students.

I guess that the "Public" refers to the fact that anyone can send their children to these schools. All you need to do is have fantastically large sums of money and possibly references from appropriately respected members of the community (i.e. former students).. Presumably when these schools first stararted to exist, the choice for the discerning parent was to send their children to one of these establishments or to arrange education themselves through the services of a private educator.

It was only much later that schools were created that were funded by public money and education became a universaly available commodity.. and only then that the confusion over the use of the term "Public School" arrises. Nowadays in the UK these publicly funded school (i.e. the vast majority of school) - are refered to as "State schools"

I would have thought it fair to say that morals differ from one group of people to another.

For example, some predominantly religious groups find the idea of "sex before marriage" as morally questionable since it shows disrespect for the sanctity of sexual union, whilst other groups of a more secular nature find the reverse idea "marriage before sex" morally questionable since it could lead to marriages in relationships that have not yet stabilised, thus increasing chances of marital failure...

So - Morals differ from group to group...

Society is comprised of many different groups of people and therefore many different sets of morals. The way this is resolved is with law. The Law represents what society as a whole deems moral. Laws are an amalgamation of societies various sets of morals.

Any individual is likely to find some areas of law that they disagree with (for example the recent emotive post about cigarette bans, or the permitting of same sex marriages). But the law is the set of moral codes that represent the views of the majority (in the case of democracy), so we obey the law if we dont necessarily agree with the moral reasoning behind it. We obey laws we dont agree with because we believe in the system and if we all followed our individual moral codes then the resultant society would be chaotic.

...of course this is just the theory... There are a whole bunch of areas we could discuss where this theory breaks down - but then we start getting into debate censorship territory so I wont go there!

Similar joke - (Sorry its a bit of the track of the thread!)

A man walks into a doctors office in Harley St London and insists that he requires whatever it takes to become Irish. The doctor umms and arrrs for a while and finaly says: "We can do the operation - but its very serious - we'd need to remove 90% of your brain. Are you sure you want to proceed? Its permanent and irreversible."

The patient doesnt flinch and is keen to proceed, so the rest of the surgical team are called in and the operation goes ahead.

The next day as the patient comes back to consciousness following his operation, the doctor is there to meet him. Before the patient can speak the doctor with a worried look on his face, steps forward to explain:

"I'm terribly sorry there was a bit of a mix up in theatre and instead of removing 90% of your brain we took a little too much - we removed 98%. If theres anything we can do to compensate you we'll be happy to discuss ways to help you.."

the patient looks up and grins:
"No worries mate - she'll be right!"....

Originally posted by John Smith:
Well, I have some mixed feelings about that pheasant identified in Angela's post. How many legs does it have?

Whats wrong with eating Pheasant? (2 legs.. 2 wings - what did you expect?)

Originally posted by Gerald Davis:
Binge Drinking,How come in New York they don't do it so much, but here in Blity waah hahhy! ,vindaloo vindaloo na na. What is with this cultural phenomenon.

This cultural phenonemon was introduced by Lloyd George (British PM at time of 1st World War). He argued that long hours spent down the pub were impacting on national productivity and hampering the war effort as people werent sleeping enough and were too hungover to work effectively in the munitions factories! The solution was two-fold:
1) limit the hours that pubs could be open - he introduced the 11pm closing time that the UK still has.
2) Limit the strength of beer that could be produced fo rthe duration of the war.

Apparently the measures despite being terribly unpopular were effective and alcohol consumption in the UK dropped by 50% and productivity did rise!

What he failed to see was that in years to come people would see the 11pm deadline as a reason to have to drink REALLY quickly (in order to get pleasantly drunk before the pub shuts).. Compare this with the rest of europe where such restrictions havent existed and you can see massive differences in drinking behaviour - in Belgium wfor example, (where Beer is the main drink of choice) and bars stay open seemingly all the time, drunkeness is not common at all.. people go out.. they drink ... they never feel rushed... they drink some more.. and when they have enough they come home. In England you go to the pub... have a drink ... realise that the pubs gonna shut soon so "get a few in to keep you going"... Hence a culture of accelerated binge drinking!
[ December 01, 2004: Message edited by: Adrian Wallace ]