ChookMother 🇦🇺🦘

Retired teacher and bookseller. Born 1952. She/her. Living solo if you don't count 3 cats and 3 hens.

Interests: climate survival, climate politics, my electric car, pandemic response, cats, Australian politics, human rights, turning Australia into a republic, the Uluru Statement from the Heart, early offshore whaling in Australia and New Zealand, genealogy, colonial history, dressmaking and design, recycling and repurposing, Buy Nothing Group, gardening, chooks (chickens)... etc

Public Key

npub15qecrwgrsmpunfkh8ady3gn9unfsrexa5dv0j6saxyesv96cl7fq85pjnk

NIP-05 Address

anne_twain_at_theblower.au@momostr.pink

Profile Code

nprofile1qqs2qvuphypcds7f5mtn7kjg5fj7f5cpunw6xk8edgwnzvcxzav0lyspz3mhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuerpd46hxtnfduqs6amnwvaz7tmwdaejumr0ds0xwj0p

Publishing to

relay.damus.io

nos.lol

Author Public Key

npub15qecrwgrsmpunfkh8ady3gn9unfsrexa5dv0j6saxyesv96cl7fq85pjnk

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Last Notes

2026-09-11 04:25:07 UTC

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For what it's worth, I thought it was a great story. Chilling.

2026-08-17 01:17:44 UTC

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Some faces would be fun.

2026-08-10 08:28:54 UTC

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Dear Mr Doctorow, would you please have a word with the Premier of South Australia, Peter Malinauskas, who recently thought it was something to brag about that he signed a "memorandum of understanding" with the execs of Open AI. He's the one on the right in the photo, looking like an eager toddler meeting Santa Claus. #SouthAustralia #Australia #GodHelpUs #enshittification
https://cdn.theblower.au/media_attachments/files/117/070/255/131/994/575/original/d211aca76b48353a.jpg

2026-07-31 02:55:24 UTC

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Judging by the SA government, they'd much rather do something more visible, in the "bread and circuses" line. Viz proposed international golf tournament (fell through) and MotoGP motorbike race, both requiring outlay of $$$ millions by the taxpayer. #auspol #sauspol

2026-07-22 01:25:05 UTC

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Sadly, the so called Tasmanian tiger was not a member of the cat family and would bite your hand off if you tried to scritch it.

2026-07-20 02:14:07 UTC

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It's a good painting. Not so sure about the "mixed media".

2026-07-06 09:15:39 UTC

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Gorgeous! Is it perfumed? It's mid-winter here in Sth Australia and bizzarely, I've got four nice buds coming on a climbing 'Just Joey'. Wouldn't normally expect any rose blooms until October, so I don't know what's going on there.
Photo is the same rose in a previous year, if you're not familiar.
#roses
https://cdn.theblower.au/media_attachments/files/116/872/261/744/364/556/original/897e1c72d7f39812.jpg

2026-07-06 04:53:49 UTC

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Toot of the day. 🏆😄

2026-07-02 03:27:40 UTC

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A lot of us had early schooling that taught us that there was a rule book somewhere with rules carved in stone. The dictionary was the ultimate authority. Our test answers were marked "correct" or "incorrect". Only in later life did I realise that a dictionary or a grammar only record past usage. They don't tell you about present usage.
Some people still believe the rules are set in stone. An American said to me on social media "We speak the same language and we use the same dictionary!" When I referred him to the Macquarie Dictionary (of Australian English), he blocked me. 😅

2026-06-19 23:33:21 UTC

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Someone would have to decide what's "in" and what's "out" in this "monoculture." And then enforce it. Sounds a lot like totalitarianism to me.

2026-06-07 02:44:06 UTC

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Birds are always interesting, no matter the quality of the shot.

2026-06-03 02:08:15 UTC

@npub1san…jgxu Indigenous Australians are not a uniform group when it comes to what terminology they find acceptable. It's a mistake to assume that what applies to the people you've met applies to all. "Indigenous Australian" is the official, widely accepted title. "N***ve" is widely offensive. Please don't use the term " N***ve Australians".
#IndigenousAustralians #IndigenousPeoples #FirstNations

2026-05-29 13:59:44 UTC

This is how she stares at me.
She's doing it right now.
#cats #CatsOfMastodon #Caturday
https://cdn.theblower.au/media_attachments/files/116/658/206/161/394/462/original/28f9a60833b47ffd.jpg

2026-05-29 01:31:08 UTC

I've had a quick look at the Pope's encyclical on artificial intelligence, and just in the first few pages it's clear that he knows exactly what's happening. And he demolishes Christo-fascism. Trumpists and Big Tech are going to really, really, really hate this. #encyclical

2026-05-16 10:07:27 UTC

Never seen one of these symbols before, but we're told it's a severe storm cell with heavy rain and possible large hail, flash flooding etc and I'm right in the middle. Greeeeaaaat! 😬 #Adelaide
https://cdn.theblower.au/media_attachments/files/116/583/681/836/592/137/original/5f820e8d7820b45f.jpg

2026-05-05 12:54:39 UTC

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I grow these from seedlings. They seem to be very slow growing and don't flower until the second year. I'm keeping this year's seedlings in pots until they're robust enough to go in the ground. First time I planted them, I lost 9 out of 12 seedlings. I had some gorgeous flowers from the 3 surviving plants last Spring.
https://cdn.theblower.au/media_attachments/files/116/522/058/206/995/331/original/a8773263499b7010.jpg

2026-05-04 02:05:19 UTC

Today I'm boosting posts by Australian Mastadonians, so we can get to know each other. I'm a living algorithm.
#Australia

2026-05-04 01:53:41 UTC

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They're lovely! Well worth your effort.

2026-04-29 01:11:13 UTC

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It's fundamentally dishonest to claim that everyone else can be that wealthy, too, yet the rich trot out that lie over and over again in the form of "If you just do what I do, you could be just as wealthy." Not so. More rich people means more poor people.

2026-04-28 04:21:07 UTC

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There are some possible reasons for the D string breaking. One is rough spots on the points where it touches, causing abrasion. Another is tuning the guitar too high, so the string is very tight. This can happen if you don't have a reference such as a tuning fork or electronic tuner to tune correctly with.

2026-04-13 15:36:09 UTC

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They do? You mean those humpbacks I've seen off the coast of Australia weren't plastic blow- ups?

2026-04-13 05:29:48 UTC

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In some cases, supply ran out eg whales were over- fished. Whale oil was mainly used for lamps.

2026-04-12 13:40:14 UTC

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Don't they have Big Batteries to soak up the excess?

2026-04-12 04:28:50 UTC

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If you expect instant compliance because you're the white guy from the big country, 21 hours is too long.

2026-04-11 01:43:06 UTC

#BakeryTVShowsAndPlays #HashtagGames
Midsomer Mudcakes

2026-04-11 00:26:38 UTC

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How's his Council of Peace going? Haven't heard from them lately.
#uspol

2026-04-10 09:50:00 UTC

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No! The widow's best chance was to marry again, but with all the men gone ...

2026-04-10 09:18:27 UTC

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1854 would have been a difficult time to turn up in SA because a huge number of men had departed for the Victorian goldfields, causing a real economic slump. The colony's main income was from wheat, and with farms abandoned there wouldn't have been much work around.

2026-04-01 03:20:28 UTC

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Number of claims has risen due to climate disasters. Some insurance companies may be recovering the costs by raising premiums for everyone rather than only for those in high risk locations. (You never know where the next shower of giant hail or mini-tornado is going to be.)

2026-03-29 03:39:12 UTC

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When I was a kid in the 50s they were called "sample bags" and contained small sized samples of a manufacturer's products. Fascinating for kids. The Fauldings bag had tiny bottles of antiseptic, a gauze bandage and tiny tin of plasters. Kept me in supplies for playing dolls hospitals for months! Another bag had miniature tomato sauce, tinned baked beans, spaghetti etc. Sad that today's kids miss out on this.

2026-03-28 03:53:01 UTC

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What's a non- partisan election???

2026-03-17 04:14:07 UTC

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This from " The Driven" is relevant. https://thedriven.io/2026/03/15/ruin-your-weekend-how-scott-morrisons-silly-ev-scare-campaign-backfired-on-australia/

2026-03-16 23:49:06 UTC

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The challenge is to get the excess electricity generated during the daytime into the cars. No problem if you're at home during the day, but if your car is parked outside your workplace ...?
Most EV drivers charge their car at home most of the time, from their own solar panels. Public chargers are only necessary for longer trips.

2026-03-13 04:30:02 UTC

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I've also got a hiatus hernia. Can be so painful! I have to take small sips of water with food, or it gets stuck. Holding my arms above my head and bumping my heels up and down helps, strangely enough.

2026-03-10 05:31:03 UTC

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Apparently. Maybe someone offered him a job.

2026-03-04 00:11:29 UTC

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The US has certainly been bathing in the cult of heroism: look at its output of film and television that pits "good guys" against "bad guys" where the guy with the greater machismo wins. A diet of this for 100 years is bound to affect the world-view of its citizens.
America's current plight could be described as : citizens waiting for a "hero" to rescue them from Trump, and Trump thinking he "is" the rescuing hero.
#uspol

2026-03-01 22:16:25 UTC

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"Top gay"? Srsly? A homophobic slur?

2026-03-01 12:50:09 UTC

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Same in Australia. If you listen to the Labor rusted-ons you'd think the Greens were the Devil incarnate.

2026-02-14 02:36:56 UTC

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Gosh. I must be with a different company. The audiologist made sure everything worked together before I left with my new hearing aids.

2026-02-12 00:28:19 UTC

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In a happy coincidence, this image appeared in my feed directly below your post.
https://cdn.theblower.au/media_attachments/files/116/054/812/431/783/003/original/73b875a051903aa7.jpg

2026-02-10 05:18:15 UTC

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Not enough police violence, perhaps? Compared to Sydney?

2026-02-09 22:19:42 UTC

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There's an article in ABC's online news. In fact it's top headline.

2026-02-09 12:44:47 UTC

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Well, you would have heard the advice, "Whenever you see 'the economy' mentioned, substitute 'rich people's yachts'."
Even more true than we thought.
#EpsteinClass #EpsteinFiles

2026-01-25 05:03:53 UTC

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Good girl, Summer.
Will you be affected by this freezing storm that's on its way? Sounds horrendous.

2026-01-22 01:20:12 UTC

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I had a cat who, if it was raining outside the front door of the house, would go and check the back door, because you never know, it might not be raining there. 😂

2026-01-22 00:55:04 UTC

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People like Doctorow, who write fiction (Doctorow writes SF), are often really good observers of human nature and society. So are comedians. They have to be, otherwise we wouldn't recognise ourselves in their writing. I'd trust what a writer of fiction or comedy wrote long before any utterance by a politician.
( A survey showed that Australians trust politicians only slightly more than used car salesmen.)

2026-01-16 00:57:27 UTC

Article in Australia's national news about "enshittification" but without using that word. @npub1fdr…lvhs
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-01-16/office-computer-updates-slowing-down-productivity/106236080?utm_source=abc_news_app&utm_medium=content_shared&utm_campaign=abc_news_app&utm_content=other
#enshittification #Australia

2026-01-14 04:01:32 UTC

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You got me with #bloomscrolling. You landed right in my feed. Here's some osteospermum at my place in South Australia.
Suggested follow: @npub15w9…2huq posts about her dog ( labrador?) Summer and Summer's important role in the family. Lots of flowers, too, and home baked goodies!
https://cdn.theblower.au/media_attachments/files/115/891/438/928/066/947/original/81f0ebbe0c995954.jpg

2026-01-11 23:52:18 UTC

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The Writers Festival management didn't make the decision. It was forced on them by the Festival of Arts board.

2026-01-11 02:14:25 UTC

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That's what "raising revenue" means. Tax.

2026-01-11 01:51:49 UTC

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It's about the power to tax people!

2026-01-08 05:41:12 UTC

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I really thought the Adelaide Writers Festival was way more courageous than that. Al Fattah is an Australian who's been well known as a writer for about 20 years, has appeared on TV, her credentials are well known, this is an insult to her.
If anyone doesn't want to hear her, don't go to that session.

2026-01-01 13:19:09 UTC

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Another one that works well is "I stand by what I said."

2026-01-01 07:35:52 UTC

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Yeah, I think your mistake was being "nice and respectful" to someone who was being verbally aggressive. You don't have to quote your sources in a social conversation. As I say to similar people on social media - it was a comment, not a thesis.
I would have moved off to find someone else to talk to

2026-01-01 07:09:57 UTC

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Oh yes, I remember. And we used to press button B to see if any coins fell down.

2026-01-01 02:42:47 UTC

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The baby boom meant there were always kids your own age around to play with.

2026-01-01 01:52:32 UTC

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????? I don't know about those.

2026-01-01 01:51:01 UTC

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The convenience comes at a cost, though. We had heaps of time in those days. Somehow having all those labour saving devices have resulted in folks having less time. I don't have kids but I gather they go to far more organised activities than we did. We played in the street - riding bikes and billy carts, marbles, hopscotch, skipping rope, tossing or kicking balls around, climbing trees, building cubby houses out of wooden fruit boxes and hessian potato sacks. My sisters and I were famous for getting a ladder and climbing onto the roof of our house.
So our parents didn't spend the weekends ferrying us around to team games, little athletics, music classes or whatever (we didn't have cars anyway.)

2026-01-01 01:38:22 UTC

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Don't tell them about public phones then - lining four pennies up and when the other end answers, slide the pennies into the slot and press button A. 😆
Save that one until they're older.

2026-01-01 01:34:46 UTC

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Haha! The few times I've tried to correct young people's misconceptions, using examples from my own life experience, I've been told flatly that I was wrong!
One of my favourites was a comment on a video from the 70s - just people walking about in a street: "Look how skinny they all are! Must be because they smoked." 😂

2026-01-01 01:28:20 UTC

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I should add that my mum died in 1961.

2026-01-01 01:06:27 UTC

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I had a cheque account later, but my mum never had one.

2026-01-01 00:34:24 UTC

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What do you think it's like for someone born in the 1950s? 😄 I learned to write with a pen dipped in an inkwell. I kid you not! The postman came twice a day, there were so many letters! You had to carry around a purse bulging with notes and coins; cash for everything. Paying bills meant a bus trip to the city.

2025-12-23 01:35:44 UTC

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I'm so glad you got this fixed.

2025-12-20 03:36:34 UTC

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Even this Australian can see that's the Golden Gate Bridge.

2025-12-19 01:22:55 UTC

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I suspect that video is fake. The White house may well have produced it, but AI was involved. I've looked carefully at the position of his mouth as he speaks and it doesn't always match the word, eg you dont say "fast" with your tongue between your teeth.
His range of facial expressions and vocal tone are very limited, giving the impression of intensity that people are noticing.
#TrumpDeepfake

2025-12-15 05:34:42 UTC

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There's still time.

2025-12-15 01:50:40 UTC

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Same. And I didn't even smoke dope or bare my breasts in public at the time 😀

2025-12-14 02:04:23 UTC

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As a foreigner, I'm guessing that's pumpkin pie.

2025-12-03 05:42:48 UTC

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The federal government is so dumb when it comes to IT. Look at the great clangers of the past - the Census app that crashed the first day. The silly covid app. And now they've allegedly spent over $90 million re-hashing the BOM website. How on earth do you spend 90 mill on a website?

2025-11-25 03:39:55 UTC

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What's Poorlean done now?

2025-11-24 02:58:24 UTC

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One can be philosophical, but that doesn't relieve the pain of being ostracized.

2025-11-06 00:47:45 UTC

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Bonfire night was such fun when I was a kid in Australia - making the Guy, collecting wood, those mysterious fireworks wrapped in coloured paper, then the smoke, the noise, the sparks, the glow of the bonfires in your neighbours' back yards, and the rockets they launched whizzing skyward.
That was before someone decided starting bushfires and blowing people's hands off was probably not a good idea.
#GuyFawkesNight

2025-11-05 03:09:39 UTC

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I'm having a terrible time getting someone to brace a fence that's tipping over. Perhaps I should try your cookie method. 😀

2025-11-05 03:03:03 UTC

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This is a fanciful and romanticised account of her life. She was a scientist who went to a forest to do research on roe deer. For an unromanticised account, see Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simona_Kossak
I've seen articles by this fb account before and they're always written in this gushing style. I suspect they're AI generated - note that the story has her giving two animals the same name, a typical genAI error.

2025-10-29 02:12:32 UTC

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It wasn't until I heard some original blues from the first half of the 20th century that I realized the Rolling Stones were just ripping off Black American Blues.

2025-10-26 03:21:49 UTC

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Women of our age were taught we should make everyone else feel comfortable all the time. This is what's making you feel bad. You haven't done anything wrong. You simply told the truth.

2025-10-25 07:28:06 UTC

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The bottom line seems to be that you don't want feedback. That's fine. I'll just go on my way.

2025-10-25 00:37:25 UTC

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Nice, but I've visited lighthouses of that era and the lamp emits a beam of light thats concentrated by a lens in one direction, but revolves, so it's seen as a flashing light. Sorry if this seems critical, but the first thing I noticed about your artwork was the diffuse light.

2025-10-24 00:39:32 UTC

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You might also like ...
https://cdn.theblower.au/media_attachments/files/115/426/328/771/039/060/original/b6cbf56a51648e2f.jpg

2025-10-19 02:00:17 UTC

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Also, have they ever seen a sheep that's gone unshorn, weighed down by the weight of the wool, so it can hardly move, or gets stuck in the mud at the edge of a damn where it dies of thirst and starvation?

2025-10-13 02:11:27 UTC

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Does Summer get to wear an inflatable costume?

2025-10-04 00:35:36 UTC

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I'm resurrecting the word "atrocious". That is atrocious.

2025-09-25 02:34:43 UTC

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It's also an issue of being helpless in the face of mega corporations. Fines don't really hurt them, they're just a cost of doing business. No-one gets put in jail, so they just carry on as before, maximising profit by providing the minimum amount of service they can get away with.
Again, taking back state ownership is the answer.

2025-09-21 01:34:12 UTC

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This is one of the reasons for Universal Basic Income. All the expense of determining eleigibility for welfare and chasing people who might be cheating and subsequent legal action would be avoided.

2025-09-19 22:44:31 UTC

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Dear American friends. Don't keep wailing about not having a real Opposition Party. BE ONE!

2025-09-19 09:12:35 UTC

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I would like the world to understand that people can love their rooster just as much as their dog or cat. Okay roosters crow a few times a day. Well, some dogs bark or whine all day and well into the night, yet we don't dob them in to the council because people love them and it would break their hearts to be separated from them.
WELL IT BROKE MY HEART TO HAVE TO GIVE UP MY ROOSTER who I'd hand raised from a chick and who thought I was his mother and would come and ask me to pick him up and give him a cuddle and whistle a tune for him. His favourites were Elizabethan Serenade and Cherubino's song from The Marriage of Figaro.
I miss him terribly and worry that no-one is whistling classical music for him now. 😢
https://cdn.theblower.au/media_attachments/files/115/230/177/185/041/518/original/f604dc5a9dd50870.jpg

2025-09-16 14:01:47 UTC

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Thank you. It's always going to depend on who you ask, though, isn't it? Or who chose the people on the panel? Or who decided who should choose the people on the panel? A very flexible concept.

2025-09-16 12:30:56 UTC

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Who decides what's an " acceptable standard of living?" Acceptable to whom?

2025-09-15 02:04:27 UTC

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I've been trying to remember the name of some drops manufactured by Faulding that were absolute magic for period pain. My mother in law put me onto them in the 70s. They were later withdrawn when someone noticed the main ingredient was opium. 😂 Fauldings said they'd been making them to the same recipe for such a long time, they just hadn't thought about it.

2025-08-31 03:17:40 UTC

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Good lord! I'm so sorry you've had to endure this, both of you. Can you band together with others and hire a good lawyer? No-one should have to live in that "damned if you do and damned if you don't" situation.

2025-08-25 09:35:49 UTC

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800,000 like minded people is a party. They don't need anyone's permission.

2025-08-02 02:07:10 UTC

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Angry at being accused of taking a step towards war, Trump takes ... a step towards war. 🤔

2025-08-01 08:50:59 UTC

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Actually, CDs weren't such a bad idea.

2025-07-30 05:23:04 UTC

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When I had a shop I put a notice where customers at the counter couldn't miss it: "This store has a zero tolerance policy on bullying. Offenders must leave the store." It worked a treat.

2025-07-30 01:48:34 UTC

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Someone (or was it the entire software industry?) forgot the old adage "If it ain't broke, don't fix it".

2025-07-16 09:05:26 UTC

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But will they all fit in? I hear there are a lot of people in China.

2025-07-07 05:21:23 UTC

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You didn't think so? I guess, not being the jury, you and I didn't see and hear all the evidence. I did think the defence summing up was pretty weak, and even dropped her in it a couple of times.

2025-07-07 03:45:33 UTC

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A good pair of uggies is "above rubies".
( It's a misquote of Joh Bjelke-Peterson quoting the Bible.)

2025-07-02 02:41:40 UTC

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3. When the algal bloom did enter Gulf St Vincent, it appeared on the western coast, opposite the coast where Pt Stanvac is located, and has only just moved to the eastern coast, where I live, a few km from Pt Stanvac, in the last couple of weeks. It seems to be less concentrated than when it appeared at Waitpinga, but still causing deaths of large and small marine creatures.
I'm not in any way defending the desal plant, I have no interest in it, I just don't want to see a false narrative built up around this. Facts always serve us better.