mike carey

I would be delighted if he had that smile while using that endowment on me! Gosh, did I say that?

Widely reported on here and widely praised. I have seen nothing negative about Andrew. Nor do I think I ever will.

Whereas, if it's a cute boy ... Actually, probably the same answer, but you can always dream!

A naive question on my part, and I have done a perfunctory search online. Is HSV1 infectious all the time or only when there are lesions? If the latter, then the obligation for disclosure is rather more specific.

Oh, my!

"If only bananas had natural, bio-degradable packaging of their own. Some sort of peelable skin, perhaps.." (Source)

It is indeed. And Nate's presence only enhances its value.

Andy, notwithstanding your experience (which I don't doubt for a moment), I suspect there are clients here who have been blown away by the sort of men you question. I've hired a couple of muscle guys who were sublime. Of course, my experience doesn't negate yours.

@BigRic, your characterisation of your interventions here is the same one as I had drawn from what you say. I struggle to see some of the adverse implications that have been drawn.

The British use of 'fag' for a cigarette is unrelated to its American use for a homosexual man. (In fact, the British usage is older than the American one.) So calling a cigarette a fag doesn't carry any allusion to homosexuality, it is in no way homophobic. On the broader question of the use of the word faggot, I see nothing wrong with the gay community appropriating it. I can understand some gay men being uncomfortable with its use because of its history as a term of abuse, but I'm not one of them.

http://mpegmedia.abc.net.au/innovation/waronwaste/SizeDoesntMatter.mp4 Not what you expect from the title, or from the opening scenes, this is an ad from (or maybe a trailer for) an ABCTV series about waste. 40% of bananas on Australian farms are typically shredded and dumped because they don't meet the supermarkets' standards. http://www.abc.net.au/ourfocus/waronwaste/

Hi Logan, welcome to the forum. I hope you find it useful, many do. If you have an ad, you may find it useful to include a link in your signature here. Don't take things here too seriously!

Lol, Oliver, I doubt it too. Is there a 'He's just too big, I would die' size that might make someone play down their size?

Turns out that the gentleman concerned opposes Qantas' strong public support for marriage equality, and wanted to demonstrate to its CEO (Alan Joyce) that there are 'consequences' from the 'mainstream community' for this support. Now that the motive has become clear, Joyce will be pressing charges.

In the great Franco-Belgian tradition of entartement the CEO of Qantas had a lemon meringue pie shoved in his face at a business breakfast in Perth a couple of days ago. In this case the reason for it remains unclear, but this may be an appropriate response to some of his US counterparts, for example United Airlines CEO 'dragging a screaming customer off a flight is a good idea' Muñoz. http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-05-09/qantas-chief-alan-joyce-cops-cream-pie-in-face-in-perth/8510156

That to me is a 'could happen to anyone' moment. Careless on the part of United, shouldn't have happened, but it did, and to my mind once the mistake had been realised the airline did the right thing. As to not notifying her, illustration if ever it were needed that you should check the departure board at the airport, especially if you checked in on line hours earlier. Announcements? In my recent recollection, foreign airlines in Australia and the US make announcements in English and their own language (Cathay in Cantonese not Mandarin - screw you Beijing) but local ones do so only in English. Most likely untrue, but funny, I recall a story of an Air New Zealand flight to Los Angeles being announced as having 'continued service to Auckland'. One passenger allegedly heard this as 'to Oakland' and stayed on board. Then, two hours into the flight ....

Also sounds like it is an automated response and if so, ill-advised but not desperate.

This used to be a nice area, before they let the trumpets in. https://twitter.com/virtuallydead/status/850853459171704833

I very much doubt it, such a straight laced hetero town!

There is a distinction that is being lost here. Nothing that has been said seeks to excuse Hernandez' actions, either murder or suicide. What it does, is seek to explain what he did. LGBTI people are more likely than the rest of the community to take their own lives. The only way that society at large, or our community can reduce its prevalence is to understand what drives people to seek a permanent solution to a temporary problem and try to ameliorate those drivers.

So I've been told, funguy!

No problems, I suspected that might have been what happened. I was talking about profits in the context of government services that are tendered out to private companies or the entities providing them are privatised.

@bigjoey my comment that you quoted was about things like medicare, health care and public transport. If governments are providing or managing these as essential services, they have a responsibility to ensure that an appropriate level of service is provided, whether by regulation or subsidy, and to prevent providers from trimming service levels. I had made a distinction between them and purely commercial services like airlines. I have no argument with you that airlines trim services (and inclusions) to boost profits. In the US, paying extra for baggage, meals etc has become the new normal, with some of them now creating new cabins to enable you to rent a seat with enough room for your legs. Thankfully, they use the yield management algorithms on those seats as well, so you can sometimes find them at a lower price than you would pay for a late notice cattle class seat.

You highlight an important issue, for what things is the outcome that society expects 'making profits' rather than 'delivering the service'? Arguably for air transport, profit may be an acceptable outcome in which society may set limits about what is acceptable in delivering the service that generates the profits. Think safety regulations, customer rights (not just those illustrated in this instance, but also something like the Australian law that mandates 'total price' advertising - they aren't allowed to say 'plus taxes and fees' or the like). For some other things, like Medicare, health care, and I would argue public transit, the outcome should be a reasonable service at an affordable cost (to the user or to society/government). Companies should not have the social licence, much less the legal authority, to use their algorithms to avoid providing services that affect their profits. Obviously they need to cover costs, but I don't see 'for profit' as the optimum basis for delivering the services. Nothing wrong with for-profits running them, but they need to be subject to tight regulation. Trimming the level of service to increase profit should not be an option.