mike carey

Indeed. Or a demonstration.

I'm trying and failing to conjure a mental picture of this scene. I need a better imagination.

*Puts up hand* Well, usually anyway. If I cut them indoors I try to gather them up and take them out to the compost heap.

He is amazing, But then I've heard nothing but good things about you, Ryan. Well, I'm feeling left out, When will he call me? (Spoiler: Whenever he wants, we talk when we talk.) Great to see you here, Ace.

Has been for a while.

@tassojunior I think moderation is the way ahead. All the social distancing measures we have used are still relevant, and that includes masks. Can you be more flexible in their application? Yes. Can you ignore them? No! One of the things that has happened in the last year is that all respiratory diseases are down. There have been comments in here. There has been less flu. Many haven't had a winter cold, me included. These measures have stopped or reduced these diseases. Vaccination may well reduce your susceptibility to Covid but we don't know by how much so why would we stop taking other precautions? Don't feel oppressed by it just accept that we need to be careful.

On Australia Day it was a pleasant 33° here in Canberra, the two previous days it had been 38° (100°F). Now, at 9.30pm on Friday night it's just over 18° (c 65°F) and that's the 'warmest' it's been all day as it's rained gently. It must be summer in Canberra. Still, I can't complain, this time last year almost every day was in the high 30s and the air was thick with smoke. Most of our state border closures ended today and there were crowds watching exhibition tennis matches at Memorial Drive in Adelaide as most of the Australian Open players came out of quarantine. I'm having a quiet glass of red as I reflect on my (and our) relative good fortune.

Shhh! Don't tell everyone! Of course I agree, but I'm not blind to it's faults. Unfortunately we're closed at the moment. With any luck we'll be open again some time this year.

I wouldn't say less stupid, we can certainly do stupid. I think it's a combination of rules being set, people following them and enforcement of the rules. When we have been told to stay at home, or wear a mask, we have done so, and there has been enforcement for those who didn't. But to your point, I think Australians are more inclined to accept rules that are applied.

I would say it's really not that important, the idea is to be consistent so either before or after that first piss. That way you can make a valid comparison from one day to the next.

Quite understandable, for most of us here it's not exactly a priority.

I think it's British, we typically have outside mail boxes rather than a slot in the front door. I suspect it is something more intimate than that, but I am unschooled in such things.

The contrast with our situation could not be more stark. First, this morning at her news conference the NSW premier said that since it's now 28 days since the last case of community transmission on the Sydney northern beaches, restrictions can now be eased further. She then said that as it was only 14 days since a case in another group of suburbs, that it would be two more weeks before, amongst other things, the limit of one person per four square metres could be eased to one per two square metres. Even with no cases for extended periods there are still restrictions. They are applied differentially by local government area, but local restrictions are decided by the state government not the local authoities.

I'm sure those who know you would not be worried by any imperfections you imagine about yourself!

I'm sure that's what she meant!

I seem to be having a run at posting in here. Oh well. A disclaimer, I have no idea what this could possibly mean, but from the comments I deduce that it must be funny.

Yes, you're right. Mike is one of the good guys here and worth paying attention to.

Not an unreasonable observation.

This young guy is ABCTV's Covid stats dude. He is always very serious. Except when he's not. Though he may of course have started to follow QAnon, as this would fit right in there. I love the way most of the comments follow similar flights of whimsy to the way he started the thread.

I can't say if it's a spoiler or not as I haven't seen the fillum, but Rialto is a suburb of Dublin. That cold be the link, it may be where it's set. Rialo is on the Irish Grand Canal, and there is a Rialto bridge that crosses the canal.

The reason some people are considering high priced merchandise is that their tolerance for paying $n is related to how much money they have as well as their understanding of what is a 'market' rate. I'm more guided by that market rate but I'm not everyone. If my income were $10m pa I wouldn't blink at $1k per hour if I liked the look of the guy. I earn somewhat less than that (several orders of magnitude as it happens), so I think hard before hiring at rather lower rates, but that's me. And not necessarily in a bad way, many reflect the view that his price is simply outside their range. The 'who does he think he is' crowd, and the 'I wouldn't pay that much for him' ones not so much. Turning your unwillingness or inability to pay someone's rate into a comment on the provider does exactly what you suggest, Benjamin.

Sometimes things miss you by 'that much'. https://twitter.com/signalborder/status/1352769488119324673?s=20

And then there's: "And how did you find your steak sir?" "Oh quite by accident. I lifted up the potato and there it was."

Spoken by another man who happily sets his own rules of engagement in the business.

This subject came up in the weekly Sunday morning sports discussion program on the ABC, and although they were talking about vaccination for Australian Olympic athletes, it could reasonably be applied more broadly. The Australian Olympic Committee went public this week saying that the team would not be jumping the queue for vaccination. The panelists noted that the number of people in the whole team is vanishingly small in proportion to the Australian population and vaccinating them would have a negligible (but not zero) effect on the availability of vaccine for higher priority recipients so most Australians would not begrudge them being vaccinated for the games. Although the US is less sport obsessed than Australia, the same might largely be true there. On the issue of equity, is should not be too much to ask for the wealthy IOC to fund vaccination for athletes from poor countries, or for the rich countries to do so, with the aim both of helping to ensure the safe running of the games and of preventing athletes from potentially bringing the virus home.