mike carey

Forest fires / wildfires / bush fires don't respect boundaries. In most countries fighting them is coordinated by the government jurisdiction in which they start as it's simply inefficient to have multiple agencies responsible for fighting them in an area. In Australia, each state has a fire and rescue service, largely responsible for urban fires, and a separate service for fires in the countryside, although there is some overlap between them and slightly different arrangements in different states. In my state of NSW the Rural Fire Service has local, largely volunteer brigades (some with a cadre of employed career staff), and regional coordination centres, and a state command centre that has the authority to move brigade elements around the state. It also coordinates public information and warnings, and runs an app to disseminate information directly to the public. The RFS also contracts and operates fixed- and rotary-wing firefighting aircraft (many of which also operate in North America in the northern summer). The NSW RFS has its own B737 tanker, that is available for, and is frequently deployed to fight fires in other states. In fire emergencies the respective state bush fire agencies (RFS in Queensland and the ACT as well as NSW, and the Country Fire Service/Authority in South Australia and Victoria) coordinate resources across the country, with brigades regularly being deployed to fight fires in other states. (When I lived just outside Sydney, during one fire emergency, I saw a CFS fire truck, from a town over 1000km away in South Australia across the street from my home.) Some agencies like the national park services in each state also have firefighting capabilities that are deployed initially inside park boundaries but they quicky fall under management control of the state fire coordination centres when events escalate. The federal government provides some funding when necessary to the states and IIRC assisted in funding the B737. Other than that they are a back stop, and provide some resources (like the Defence Force personnel, equipment and logistics) and funding. There has been talk of them funding more tankers, either as a federally run fleet of aircraft or more likely to be run by one or more of the larger states. Most of the aerial appliances here are commercial, either wet leased (that is, crewed and operated by their owners) or leased but flown by Australian crews. (One Canadian C-130 tanker crashed in our Black Summer fires with the loss of its three US crew members, and a B737 recently crashed in Western Australia, with the crew amazingly surviving.) There is no reason why the US couldn't also do that. I would add that resources and personnel from the fire services in Australia and New Zealand deploy almost every year to North America, and the assistance is often returned in kind (fire fighters form Ontario or BC arriving at Sydney airport make the news). In the long run, who owns and funds fire-fighting tanker aircraft matters less than having good coordination of all firefighting assets and having air tankers deployed and coordinated to effectively support the whole effort. You need fire controllers who understand the capabilities, and ideally a liaison officer from the aviators to provide advice to them.

It may well be interesting. One of the features of jury trials is that they don't give any reasons how they came to a decision or why, and the result isn't appealable unless there have been procedural errors in the trial or the judge gave inappropriate advice or directions to the jury. By contrast, in judge only trials (that are available in some jurisdictions) the judge has to set out the reasons in their judgment. A recent high profile murder trial in NSW, a notorious case that involved the disappearance of a woman in 1982, in which her husband was brought to trial this year and convicted, was judge only. Some may remember the murder trial of Oscar Pistorius in South Africa was also judge only.

Hey, @Coolwave35, I replaced quoted version with a link.

Who are you calling a strumpet?

Sweet gesture, my friend. Hope you have a great Christmas and that 2025 brings you plenty of joy and happiness.

Longer term engaged readers of the Forum will appreciate the resonance of this recipe from the Kitchen Goddess, Devilled Eggs | Nigella's Recipes | Nigella Lawson WWW.NIGELLA.COM I cannot begin to tell you how good these are. There’s not much that can get me squeezing a fancy-nozzled icing bag...

I follow Nigella Lawson on Blue Sky and have a recipe of the day appear in my feed. Todays, Devilled Eggs | Nigella's Recipes | Nigella Lawson WWW.NIGELLA.COM I cannot begin to tell you how good these are. There’s not much that can get me squeezing a fancy-nozzled icing bag... RIP our dear friend.

Regular posters here are adept at recognising whom to take seriously when given advice about their choices of escorts, and assessments of their character. Minor variations on a single theme delivered with condescension, are a sure-fire winner.

Currently advertising in San Francisco. https://rent.men/FERcdmx

Ahh, but does 'too short' apply to 170cm or 20cm?

This time of year, farting Jingle Bells would probably be more appropriate.

I think @samhexum is suggesting that I'm an old fart.

However worship is defined. Some Samoan speakers are worthy of admiration of many sorts.

Cool.

Might help if you posted a link to their RM ad, or at least make sure that the title you post includes his name and not just https://rent.m so someone else can post a link.

Well, there is the old folklore that blue and green should not be seen without a colour in between. What more could one need? I have to say that if someone is that far into the Apple cult, we're probably not a match. //sarcasm//

I'm not 70!!! Perish the thought!* He was going to be in Sydney last year and contacted me several months out to see if I was interested. (Of course I was.) Maybe I was the only person he knew here. Six months after we met, he contacted me to apologise. He had assumed that Canberra was a Sydney exurb (not the three hours' drive away that it is) and travel wouldn't come into it. *That's not until next year!

@harlow, the term 'pop up jail' was new to me, but google was my friend (and confirmed my guess). Huge caveat, I have Amex cards in Australia and here the rules seem to be no sign-up bonuses if you've ever had an Amex card (the laws on what card companies can charge merchants, and therefore have available to distribute as rewards points, are far more restrictive here than in the US), and their card range here is different to yours, and the Platinum card benefits are different. I was 'pre-approved' for one about five years ago and wasn't then alert to the concept of sign-up bonuses. I weighed what I got for the eye-watering fee and decided to go ahead. What you do depends on your initial motivation for applying. Is it the regular features or the bonus. If it's more the bonus you could apply for a card that you're not in jail for (my reading is that it's assessed separately for each card or card type in the US) and wait for your Platinum jail to time out (assuming it does). If you like what the card delivers, and you can use the benefits, go for it, but don't count things you wouldn't use, or already have from another card as a 'benefit' (or ruthlessly ditch the other card). You can only use one hotel or rental car status upgrade for the same company, but you can use as many travel credits or free hotel night that cards throw at you. (It can change, I was never going to sign up to Amazon Prime, but ICC cricket tournaments are now only shown on their streaming service and I had two years of Amex statement credits for Prime, so I'm watching free, at least until the end of next year.) So, I would say if you like what you see, say 'screw it' and sign up. Read up on the comparison sites (including the frequent flyer blogs) to see which cards offer what, by all means. All I've read says that the US Amex Platinum is a worthwhile card if it meets your requirements and the benefits match the cost. Its travel-related benefits in the US seem from afar to be pretty positive. I saw this article, among others, when I searched jail. AmEx ‘Once in a Lifetime’ Rule: How It Works - NerdWallet WWW.NERDWALLET.COM American Express restricts each card welcome bonus to one per person, per lifetime, but there are a few workarounds to...

Seen on Twatter, and as a gentleman of a certain age, I have some sympathy for this sentiment. Of course it doesn't apply to moi! One minute you’re young and fun, then next you’re excited because you bought yourself a new kettle and toaster…..matching…..in black…… And a reply, Damn! You’re out of control girl!! Surely you’d space such joy out over a couple of weeks? That’s new kitchen appliance overload!

Hat tip to @EastCoastBtm for your pointedly angry title for your now merged thread, duly plagiarised. Sorry @BuffaloKyle for supplanting your original title!

No comfort for most here, but it seems to vary by territory, and certainly applies in the US. I renewed my membership ($AU89.95 for six months) manually with my Visa card they had on file.

The England group of touring fans, the Barmy Army (they're still around, I bought one of their shirts on their 1996 Australian tour) posted this handy guide to the fielding positions in cricket. Cricket is a simple game, they say in the caption. There are 11 players on a team so after the bowler and wicket keeper, the captain has the job of deciding where to place the other nine players. You'll hear shots that batters play described using the field positions shown here, regardless of whether there was a fielder in the position. This chart is for a right-handed batter. When the batter is left handed, field positions are a mirror reverse of this.

You're a good egg, Ben.

What's your question?