mike carey

Great thoughts here, @Tygerscent and good to see you in here again.

Yep, Amazon was cheaper than Uber.

That's a reasonable basis for deciding and one that it is easy to take when the policy concerned does not affect you directly. If you're not at threat of being enslaved while visiting, slavery there does not affect you, and travellers can't vote anyway. If you were a hypothetical African with the means to travel, you may have thought twice before visiting the antebellum South before 1860. There are two reasons people may avoid countries that punish homosexuality with prison or death. One is that you don't want to give them any of your money, there are plenty of places to visit, so why would you go there? The other is that you face personal danger from the policy, and that danger varies with your personal circumstances and the vigour with which the policies are implemented. You may feel safer if you travel solo and don't plan on seeking sex, than if you are travelling with a same sex partner. If a country scoured the internet looking for evidence of homosexuality, you would have cause to be less comfortable than in one that is only concerned about conspicuous public displays of your orientation, or LGBTI activism. So, it comes down to principle or personal danger. Me? Most of the places where this is an issue I'm not inclined to visit anyway. I would hesitate to travel to Saudi Arabia, but as much for its generally repressive policies. There are some spectacular places to visit there. In Malaysia and Singapore the laws are on the books but rarely enforced so I'm fine with going there, or flying on their airlines. I'd go to Indonesia too, although draw the line at Aceh. Garuda? Not so much, although that's more a judgment on the airline than on religion. I had a 'principle' phase when all Qantas flights to Europe went via Dubai, with many of them on Emirates metal, but I've moved on and so have Qantas, and the point was moot as I didn't travel during that period. I'm now more all else being equal I'll favour another airline over the Middle East three, but 'avoid shit airlines' is more the way I approach it now and those three are not shit airlines. (One that won't serve alcohol is.) I don't think there are any wrong answers here. Every decision we make is informed by our principles (even if they are flexible) and the risks we face, Where we choose to travel is no exception.

The TGA approved the use of Pfizer as a booster in Australia and ATAGI the national vaccine advisory group, recommended rolling the third dose out to everyone in the country six months second doses, from 8 Nov. Not everyone has had their initial course of vaccinations, but the government says they have enough supply to run both programs together. Vaccinations will continue to be offered at pharmacies, GPs' offices and state vaccination centres.

It's hard to believe he is the only gay male A-League player (the national women's football league was recently rebadged as A-League as well), but to me it's not surprising that he's the only one who is out. As the Sun article notes, there are no out current professional footballers in any national league. As far as I know there are no out male players in any professional football code in Australia.

Inflated FF balances are a thing these days with all the credit card points mounting up and no flying for 18 months, and I'm no different on that count. They're mainly on Qantas and it has been hit and miss looking for rewards for trips I'm considering, although promising on US domestic sectors. Flights SYD-LAX are available in Y for 42K each way, but premium cabins, and with connections to SYD and from LAX less so. It often seems that point to point domestic flights here are the most cost-effective use of points. I also have Amex membership rewards points that I could transfer, but not to a US carrier from my Australian Amex account. I'm looking at signing up to SQ's Kris Flyer (which I can transfer them to) as an account to use for Star Alliance flights. Some of the best J-class paid fares from here to the US are on Asiana, and the SQ flight to JFK via Frankfurt is often competitive. Also, I've added the SIN-EWR non-stop to my bucket list Qantas had its biggest points redemption day on record last week when it announced it was ramping up international flights from Sydney and Melbourne, half a billion or a billion points, I think they said.

The song is indeed iconic, and celebrating as it does, a sheep thief who throws himself into a waterhole and drowns rather than surrender to the troopers who were enforcing the rights of the squatter (the wealthy pastoralist), it represents our self-image of rural anti-authoritanarianism. In recent years, a Seekers song has increasingly competed with it as an unofficial national anthem. This was the song that activists chose to sing from the gallery in the House of Representatives when the equal marriage bill was passed. The verses of the song chart the successive waves of people that have come to these lands now called Australia, although most often the refrain is used on its own. In the early days of Covid,, the ABC aired a zoom version of it, which has become a series including this one in Auslan.

Well, I'm averaging 4.81 posts per day, so I only have another 18,388 days to go at that rate! Can't wait!! (That's only about 50 years.)

For the image to strike a chord it's enough to know that 'moving the Overton window' is a thing, not necessarily to know what it means although that helps. Not everyone does. 'The Overton window is the range of policies politically acceptable to the mainstream population at a given time. It is also known as the window of discourse.' 'Moving the Overton window' refers to something done in political [or cultural] discourse that changes the range of acceptable subjects. An example could be the change of the mainstream attitude towards same sex marriage over the last 20 years.

Haha! Yes, I lifted the photo from Ian Dunt's twitter!

I'm guessing this window is going to move shortly.

More baby steps today. The new NSW premier (who was always a more 'open it up' guy than his predecessor) has announced that NSW will not require hotel or home quarantine for fully vaccinated travellers arriving from overseas from 1 November, and that there will be no cap on such arrivals. They will have to return a negative PCR test before travelling. There will be a cap applied to unvaccinated travellers, including those vaccinated with a vaccine not recognised by the TGA (such as Sputnik). While he said it would apply to arrivals irrespective of citizenship he acknowledged that the federal government still decides who is eligible to travel here. The PM subsequently said that they would not yet open the country to essential workers, students or tourists (and the plan remains to phase in those arrivals). The only relaxation of arrival rules will be to extend the 'immediate family of Australian citizens and permanent residents' to include their parents as well as partners and children.

We are already in the throes of 'a ... pandemic with the same virus originating from a different location' and have been through others, so it hasn't been the Wuhan virus for some time. The Delta variant, previously known as the Indian variant, is still SARS-CoV-2.

They are not common, although some people do make them, but not in relation to any holiday or time of the year. Pumpkins are overwhelmingly used as a vegetable (roasted, boiled, or boiled and mashed) or made into soup. They are a summer crop so were historically most readily available in autumn, although many varieties store well, so autumn home garden bounty can last into the following year. Also, like many summer crops, they are grown in winter in the north. Melbourne Cup day is the first Tuesday in November, so most years on US election day. (Not that any Melbourne Cup revellers are thinking about those elections. Anyone who is interested in them would wait until about lunch time on Wednesday when the results are coming in and the hangovers have cleared up.)

What do you get if you divide the circumference of a pumpkin by its diameter? Pumpkin pi.

I applaud this initiative. I'm not entirely convinced that two years is the right gap but that's a detail. Most topics that are general or not linked to a specific event or time will probably generate more comments within the time limit. For the most part, I don't find revivals too much of a problem but more often than not there is no continuity in the discussion between the old and new parts, so nothing is lost by starting a new thread. What irks me is those comments that revive a ten or more year old thread as if the previous comment was made the day before. If the history in an old thread is important to the new comment someone wants to post they can always start their new thread with a link to the old one. I started a thread on Australian elections about five years ago and there is usually something that happens that will prompt me to return to it every year or so (I try to limit my new comments to things that are likely to be of interest to others here, or which point to a difference in political systems and attitudes between Australia and the US). As virtually no one comments on it except shortly after I have posted, I'll just make sure I keep it alive until it ceases to serve a purpose. As there's a federal election between now and next May it probably has two and a half years of life left in it.

Thank you for noticing that. My mind did the reading trick of looking at the first and last letter and seeing the word I thought would be there not the one that was.

I was doing my best impression of 'deadpan while making smartarse comment' as I typed it!

Yugoslav dinars.

Or perhaps sometimes Her answer is 'No'.

I WUV Australian consumer law! Here, the price on the menu has to be the amount on the bill (and the total has to be the sum of those items, not with some 'surcharge' added). And like all retail outlets, GST has to be included in the list price, not added on, as sales tax is in the US. The law even applies to Sunday or holiday surcharges. They can't put a note at the bottom of the menu saying they have such a surcharge, they have to have separate menus with the higher prices. Being accustomed to Australian tip levels, I'm nervous about getting it right in the US, but not obsessively so because most likely I'll never be back to the same restaurant. I'm a hard 'No' on tipping for takeaway purchases, although when cash was king I would sometimes throw the coins into a tip jar if they had one.

Haven't done that flight although I think it's still on the (dormant) timetable as a daylight flight. I've flown AKL-SCL on LAN (as it was) but it was overnight for the relevant part of the flights both ways. My only SYD-JNB flight was with SAA/SAL with stops in Perth and Mauritius so no icebergs! Ed: Qantas CEO Alan Joyce is talking about adding SYD-CPT as one of its ultra-long haul flights. That would go further south mid-flight (ETOPS diversions permitting). (Counter-intuitively, CPT is actually a 21 miles shorter flight from Sydney than JNB.)

And here is today's Qantas release about the flight. It includes a link to a photo gallery. https://www.qantasnewsroom.com.au/media-releases/qantas-repatriation-flight-lands-in-history-books/

I think the Australian meaning of the word 'root' would be applicable in this case.

OMAAT article about it. https://onemileatatime.com/news/qantas-flight-over-antarctica/