mike carey

It is sweeping on one level, but it's not a simple assertion and it's not implying binaries of either rich/not or hire/don't. It's more a question of when they do hire, why? They hire for similar reasons to all of us: they can afford to, it cuts out the need to woo a sex partner, they can get a particular type that they can't by other means, it can remove emotion from an interaction and it limits the engagement to a specific amount of time. And offering specific recompense is 'hiring' whether it's through a website that lesser mortals might use or a direct approach either personal of via a fixer, it's still 'hiring'.

I agree with the general tenor of the replies so far, but I think to some extent it can be context dependent. If it's a new provider, certainly 'you tell me', but if you have an established relationship and the situation is out of the ordinary and unexpected, then you might take it as a reasonable question and make a reasonable suggestion but it might turn out to have been an unintended test if your answer is risible, or the provider had a preconceived idea that your offer didn't meet. Perhaps making something of a joke of a response such as @nycman's suggestion could be the best approach.

I've been a paid up magnum subscriber for a few years, but like @Rod Hagen recently listened to it less. I first came across him some years ago when he was a speaker at the Sydney Writers Festival, and also appeared on a number of discussion panels on TV. I still enjoy his podcasts when I do listen, and also his commentary on LGBT issues.

Today marks the tenth anniversary of the shooting down of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 as it flew over Eastern Ukraine en route from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur in 2014. A total of 298 people were killed, most from the Netherlands but 38 were Australian citizens or residents. About 100 of the passengers were delegates to an international AIDS conference in Melbourne. A solemn commemorative service was held this morning in the Great Hall of Parliament House in Canberra. Those in attendance included the Governor-General, senior members of the government, members of the diplomatic corps from countries whose citizens had been on the flight, the then Prime Minister and Foreign Minister, the Commissioner of the Australian Federal Police, the Chief of the Defence Force and members of Parliament. Most importantly, family members of the Australians killed. There were tributes offered by the Governor-General, the Foreign Minister, the then Foreign Minister who was Australia's lead in our joint campaign with the Netherlands to have the United Nations Security Council adopt a unanimous resolution condemning the shooting-down, and the Commissioner of the Australian Federal Police which provided 500 personnel to security and forensic operations at the crash site and in later investigations. Following the service, a wreath was to be laid at a new memorial in the Parliament House rose garden. Later today, another commemorative service will be held in The Hague. The Attorney General, Mark Dreyfus KC MP will represent Australia at that service.

In- and out-calls are priced differently for whatever reason the provider decides, and where an out-call is more expensive it may be for one of the two reasons you cite. Or maybe not. He may just want to incentivise in-calls.

It's two years from the most recent comment, so this thread would have timed out around 10am AEDT on 3 March 2025.

From the Ku-ring-gai Stealers Baseball and Softball Club. And yes, it is 'Stealers'.

I drew no conclusions whatsoever in what you quoted, I was citing what had been said in an interview of someone who appeared to have relevant knowledge and expertise, but don't let that stop you. And remind me where I said I was in the law in Australia.

There's even a word for it in economics: disintermediation. So it's not just in this business.

This is a perfect opportunity to describe conversions between metric and imperial measurements. There are two ways to convert. One is to take a given measurement in one system and apply the precise conversion factor. This results, for the topic at hand (ahem), in converting 8" to 20.32cm, or 20cm to 7.87". People with tape measures would report the dick they were measuring as 8" or 20cm, not to two decimal places (or even one, although they may use half inches). The other method is to apply the conversion factor and then round the answer up or down to a figure that would sound rational to someone who was measuring in the other system in the first place. There is a place for measuring tenths or hundredths of inches, such as rainfall or some construction tolerances, but dick length is likely not one of them. (There is a reason for the distinction to be important, in science for example. Having numbers after the decimal point indicates that it has been measured to that level of accuracy, so 0.3 means an implied accuracy of between 0.25 and 0.35 not more or less.) So why is this the perfect time to say this? Well, rounding the measurement up or down is called a soft conversion and using the more precise figure a hard conversion. So if you wish, go on making hard conversions of dick sizes!

It does, if they change their handle by renaming the ad profile (you will see this if any of your buddy-listed gentlemen change theirs) but if they start their new identity with a separate ad, RM can't do that in most cases.

I wondered if that might arc someone up.

It's a fairly major technicality. Clearly the victim has been denied justice but prosecutorial malpractice is also a serious issue. The judge had discretion but I heard a former federal prosecutor this morning say that despite what he called the appalling result for the victim's family the decision was a perfectly reasonable one, such was the likely effect of the withheld evidence on the safety of any conviction. Either way the judgment is open to appeal. That the evidence withheld, that there was a possible alternative source of the live ammunition used, other than boxes of ammunition the armourer provided, also draws into question the safety of the her earlier conviction.

Excellent question. Others would be 'Who?' and 'Who cares?'.

I see what you did there!

Reminds me of a covid joke, 'I used to cough to hide a fart, now I ...', well, you know the rest!

This conversation has become confusing. objective+vs+subjective - Google Search WWW.GOOGLE.COM

I heard it said today that it was outrageous that Rishi Sunak had scheduled another event to detract from the commemoration of this important anniversary.

Merged into pre-existing thread in the Deli.

Sounds like an excellent reason to give him a pass!

There’s no warning when you do something wonderful for the last time, so here’s what I do Julia Baird There is a line in Elizabeth’s Strout’s Lucy by the Sea that twanged my heartstrings like a banjo when I read it. Set in a time of COVID lockdown, Lucy Barton, who escapes to a beach house in Maine with her ex-husband, finds herself pondering the passing of time: “And thinking of this now made me think ... that there had been a last time – when they were little – that I had picked up the girls. This had often broken my heart, to realise that you never know the last time you pick up a child. Maybe you say ‘Oh, honey, you’re getting too big to be picked up’ or something like that. But then you never pick them up again.” It’s the most bittersweet wrench – remembering both the joy of those moments, and the fact that you probably don’t remember, or clock, the moments when they passed, when your child last fell asleep in your arms, their forehead burning with fever, or crawled into your bed after a nightmare, or gave you a necklace they made out of pasta shells. You’d think a bugle should sound or something, doves be released or a cloud of cockatoos squawk in unison to mark such a moment. A military 22-gun salute would be appropriate when you change your last nappy, for example. I was reminded of this when reading the responses to Charles Blow’s column about the beauty of embracing ageing in The New York Times. Letter writer Kathleen Burns from Wisconsin said she had just spent the day making bugs out of Play-Doh with one of her young grandsons, something she had once done with her now grown daughters. As she sat down that night to take off her sandals, she saw Play-Doh stuck in the tread, and thought of how she’d hated, as a young mother, seeing that gunk stuck in hair, carpet and clothing. But instead, her eyes welled up: “How many times will I play like this with my grandson? How much longer will he want to play with me? At my age, it is a gift to play.” Swiftly flow the days, swiftly fly the years. There must be a word for this emotion, for the sensation of a heart being clenched then released. It incorporates so much: nostalgia, recognition of past delights, an understanding that as time creeps by, we can easily forget the other worlds, arms, houses and lives we have inhabited. Or that what we once considered mundane – or annoying – kids demanding to be picked up! Kids – insisting on yet another bedtime story when you’re almost falling asleep yourself – were in fact marvellous. When I told Jeremy Fernandez about the Play-Doh story on the podcast we host together, we were inundated with emails about last moments like this. Maura, a mother of three kids, two girls and one boy, was infuriated by long strands of hair around the house when her daughters were teenagers: “I’d daily implore them, ‘Girls, clean your hair up!’ I’d bellow loudly from the shower, sink, benches, out into the house on deaf ears. It was a persistent rant of mine to ‘pick up after themselves’, this included their hair.” She continued: “Roll on a few years and my eldest daughter Hannah is 20 and diagnosed with malignant melanoma stage 4. Hannah died within 12 months of diagnosis. Something that has never left me is to this day now 15 years since Hannah left earth, is when I see a random hair, I stop and pay attention. I think of Hannah and what I’d give to have her here, to leave an earthly hair trail for me again. I never imagined as a Mum there’d be a last time for random hairs. What I then cursed is now a portal to a love that never dies. I’m eternally grateful to random hairs and not knowing when our last one will fall.” Random hairs as a portal to an unending love. The beauty of that. Susan told us about the day she was distracted, putting away groceries when her 24-year-old daughter rang. Susan told her she would call her the next day. But the following night, Scarlett had a massive pulmonary embolism; four days later she was declared brain-dead. “That was March 2021. I will be forever heartbroken. I now savour every single conversation with my son and I’m never too busy to talk to him.” So much love, longing, heartache, wrapped up in last moments. One shrewd thing my mother said to me when I was a kid was: “Just in case, if anything ever happens to me – or your dad – after we’ve had an argument, or you’ve said something you regret, I want you to know that I forgive you, and I love you.” (I think a relative had just died after saying something mean to a sibling.) It was such a kind thing to say, and I knew even then, as a young teen, that she was recognising that last moments don’t always go the way you would hope. If we knew it was the last moment that we were seeing someone, talking to someone, making love to someone, dancing or crying with laughter with someone, surely, we would say something expansive and beautiful and meaningful instead of being our usual flippant or grumpy or ordinary selves. But there was grace in this comment because it also freed me from any possible regret. It meant that if anything had suddenly happened to my mother, we’d be able to focus on big love, not small words. I’ve said the same thing to my own kids. This week, while grieving beloved former Herald editor and ABC executive Judith Whelan, a woman I loved and admired as a friend and mentor, it became clear, again, that all days, in some way, have last moments. When we texted just a few days ago, making a date to meet again, she said: “SO keen to see you. I’m not going anywhere in a hurry, day or night”. But she was; she did go. Even before I became a mother, listening to the stunning Sunrise Sunset in Fiddler on the Roof would pluck that banjo in my chest. In the musical, these words are sung by parents at a wedding: Is this the little girl I carried?/ Is this the little boy at play?/ I don’t remember growing older/ When did they? When did she get to be a beauty?/ When did he grow to be so tall?/ Wasn’t it yesterday/ When they were small? Sunrise, sunset Sunrise, sunset Swiftly flow the days Seedlings turn overnight to sunflowers Blossoming even as we gaze … Swiftly fly the years. This week, I told my 15-year-old son about these “last time” conversations and we laughed. He was a hug-mad toddler, and I used to carry him all around the house, while doing chores, as he clung on like a koala, wrapping his arms around my neck. Now, he is just – just – a fraction of an inch taller than me. Now, he is strong enough to pick me up and throw me over his shoulder. Now, his sister is in the final months of school, blossoming even as I gaze. Julia Baird is a regular columnist. She is co-host with Jeremy Fernandez of the ABC’s Not Stupid podcast. Copyright © 2024 The article is paywalled but not all are subscriber only, sometimes they are part of a global 'free' quota or are available to people who simply register. There’s no warning when you do something wonderful for the last time, so here’s what I do WWW.SMH.COM.AU If we knew it was the last moment we were talking to someone, or dancing or crying with laughter with someone... INTRODUCING — Not Stupid - ABC listen WWW.ABC.NET.AU Julia Baird and Jeremy Fernandez chat about the stories you're obsessed with, the stuff you've missed and the...

In a challenging operation, a patient was evacuated today from the US McMurdo Station in Antarctica. An RNZAF C-130 flew the eight hour trip from Christchurch and refuelled with its engines running before its return flight. McMurdo Station is at 77 degrees south, and a week after the winter solstice it's well inside the period of 24 hour darkness. BZ. RNZAF carries out rare Antarctica mid-winter medical evacuation flight WWW.NZDF.MIL.NZ A Royal New Zealand Air Force (RNZAF) C-130H Hercules crew has today carried out a rare medical evacuation of a...

It's easy to do. Threads now merged!

In general that's true, but it relies on our concept of antiquity and of historical time. Many cultures have a similar concept of things from their history as we do. Some indigenous, and oral, cultures don't have that distinction, memory that is personal and that is passed down orally, whether one generation or a thousand, is seen as the same thing.

If I'm not mistaken, Venmo is a US-only app.