mike carey

(Duplicate post, also in the Snow thread.)

I'll check when I'm back home in a week or so - I don't pay attention to the different grades available - but the last time I bought fuel, diesel was $1.209/l (US83.8c/l or $US3.17/US Gallon)

And the more fun when a pun only works at a second level in writing.

Mesa not like this one! Actually I do...

Actually no, eldest of three. Go figure!

I wouldn't put it down to malice aforethought or to telling an uncomfortable truth. I would see it more as evidence that what constitutes 'great kissing' isn't an objective fact but a subjective assessment based on intensely personal opinion.

Yup, probable b/n typo, adjacent keys on the keyboard.

A bit of whimsy. Earlier this afternoon the TV coverage of a T20 cricket game in Melbourne homed in on a kid eating a wwatermelon. As in he had apparently eaten through the peel at the top and was gradually eating his way through the rest of the melon. https://pbs.twimg.com/tweet_video/CXs40pWUwAEA-Ao.mp4 #watermelonboy is trending no 3 on Twitter in Australia!

I'd saved the quote to reply before reading on but I'll second the examples already cited. Not having had a significant other while I was in the workforce it wasn't an issue for me but being casual and open about one's sexual orientation can be as simple as using the appropriate personal pronoun rather than dancing around the issue and using 'they'. In my case, the closest it came was having to handle questions as to why I wasn't married, and I typically avoided the issue.

I had missed her too. I wonder if she would have been in the target demographic of the [i suspect mainly straight] rowers. Still, I fanticise over them, why shouldn't you?!

With that Santa I'd own up to everything naughty I'd done and hope I was still on his list!

One way of checking where the signs are from is whether they use simplified characters or the standard ones. It's not conclusive: simplified generally means it's in the PRC, standard could be in Macau, Hong Kong, Taiwan or Japan. My Chinese is too rusty to pass judgment on the signs cited here.

That was my initial response too, but what Austin did prompted me to read postings about him more critically. One of the things I saw commented on was that he [as a big guy] was protective of his clients in public. I'm not saying that cancels out the 'outing' but it is evidence that it's more complicated than simply condemning him for that infraction. His fee is a little out of my league, but that's a limit I impose, not a criticism of him.

A prominent Australian disabled rights activist, and stand-op comic [well, actually sit down comic, since she was wheel-chair bound], Stella Young, who sadly has since passed away, once commented that she became an atheist when she realised there was only a stairway to heaven.

That's capitalism, work your guts out for 20 years to get what you already have! http://smilingspot.com/the-american-businessman-came-to-a-small-mexican-village-he-never-expected-this-to-happen/

Or, 'The bastard told me he was wearing a condom'?

Yup, a reason for countries like India, South Africa and Brazil (I pick them because they have the technical capabilities to produce the drugs as generics) to decline to particpate in the Western patent merry-go-round for pharmaceuticals.

If so Greg, it shows what a complete tool Shkreli was to gloat about increasing the price of a drug that was out of patent. He destroyed the ability that the company clearly had to sell it for $13.50. If he had said nothing (and done nothing) noone else would have likely bothered to set up production and eat his lunch.

And there was I thinking that, after so many years of the war on drugs, the RNC was now advocating a free market. Yup and single payer pharmaceutical providers have bargaining power to get good prices from drug companies, to patients' benefit. Here all prescription drugs that are covered by the scheme cost the patient $37.70 ($6.10 concession holders), but drugs aren't automatically covered, rather drugs are evaluated for their benefit before being included. If they're not on the scheme, no subsidy so unless there is no alternative treatment no one will prescribe them.

That's the headline figure, and apparently funded by the state government (which has just announced a projected $3b budget surplus this FY (Jul 15 to Jun 16)). The government will fund some of the cost with a levy of $1 per trip on all point-to-point transport providers, There will be fixed compensation of $20,000 per plate (max of 2 per owner) and case by case compensation above that for recent purchasers of plates (who would have paid heaps for them).

The state government in NSW has just legalised Uber effective midnight tonight (17 Dec at 1300UTC). As with the ACT six weeks ago it's subject to criminal and safety checks, and taxis retain exclusive rights to be hailed in the street, or pick up at taxi ranks or at Sydney Airport. There will also be a $AU250m industry readjustment fund to compensate taxi and hire car owners for the loss of value of their plates.

You can't be too careful about the sun being sucked up be some solar panels or windmills stopping the wind from blowing!

I haven't been to the station in Liège (Luik) for over 30 years. I remember falling as I tried to take my bicycle up an escalator!

Main railway stations built between 1850 and 1900 are some of the most beautiful buildings around. That said, the newer stations in places like Berlin are awesome as well.