mike carey

Bon anniversaire!!

Welcome to the forum, @luccaalpha. It can be fun and there is a huge range of people and interests here. It can also be a place to build a good reputation for your business, and you seem to be off to a good start.

Being Carmelites, I'm not surprised they were having none of it for so long.

I recently saw an article in the NY Post, quoting another in the WSJ. It reported an increase over five years in the price of female sanitary products. Both articles referred to increases of 36 and 41 percent, but the Post's article referred to the prices as 'nearly doubling'. Why am I not surprised that their sub-editors are innumerate? Not to dismiss the significance of the price increase in sanitary products, or any of the other prices that have increased over the past five years, but a doubling of prices, or even the almost 50% increase in these products over five years says exactly nothing about price rises this month or over the last year. Since the topic of this thread is Inflation continues to fall, it's well to remember that it does continue to trend down despite an occasional monthly increase. Whether that will continue is anyone's guess. Regardless, saying that inflation is going down (disinflation) is different to prices going down (deflation). Once most prices go up with inflation they don't go down. Manufacturers can control their rate of production, suppliers can withhold inventory to prevent that. There are exceptions, like perishable items such as fresh food, goods where a producer reduces their costs and wants to increase market share, or fire sales, but mostly a period of inflation ends with new price baselines, and price relativities may have changed.

Save it so you have some solace when they lose your bags and don't send an e-mail.

I hadn't watched it until now. It's amazing. (And so is he!)

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?'.

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!