"0tterbot" wrote in message
"FarmI" ask@itshall be given wrote in message

i do, however, think that symbolic actions are important (in terms of
getting us all moving on to where we are going) & there's been a lot of
that. actual sitting time isn't set by govts,

It is actually. I think it's the Gov't Whip who sets it but if not, then
at least someone in the Government.

but is there not a common sitting length over the year?

No. It used to be 21 or 22 weeks of the year (can't remember which) but
under Howard, they reduced it to 18 weeks because they could guillotine
discussion and ram legislation through. Large majorities make it easy for a
Government to get its own way.

& it's not 52 weeks,
we all know that!! they just don't sit that much - they're often just not
there, because (i assume) it's not practical to do so anyway. i don't know
the ins & outs of it, but i'd be frankly concerned if some new govt
decided to sit 40 weeks a year. while they're sitting, they're not
thinking of what they need to do & talking to people about it, they're
debating (& whatnot) stuff which has been decided while they _weren't_
sitting.

The trouble is that when the poor *******s aren't in the House, they're in
their electorates dealing with all sorts of drongos. Sure, they get the
genuine cases that need help, but they also seem to get an enormous amount
of the knuckle draggers just taking up time and resources because they
haven't a clue who to turn to for 'help' (or to whinge to). They spend
thier life being exhausted from what I've seen of them.

It's job that no-one should seek to do IMHO.

that's what i meant.

Fair nuff.

also, i am secretly shallow so keep that in mind when i say: i hate his
ties. he never wears a tie i like. his taste in ties is absolutely foul.
something should be done..!

:-)) and Therese needs a bit of fashion advice too :-))

well she does, but she's not the prime minister so i'm not about to start
criticising her. :-)

And really, if he can do the job (still waiting to see) who cares what his
ties look like?

all i can really say on this subject (like i even CARE!) is that neither
of them (none of them!) could be worse than the incumbent.

Tut tut. I'm sure you do care as I can't imagine that you could possibly
approve of the invasion of Iraq based on falsified information.

i didn't, i don't.

:-)) Thought not.

but i don't give a flying **** who the president of the usa is, & that's
the truth!! :-D whether i care or not i can't do anything about it, so i
therefore don't invest any energy in caring about any of them.

Well there is that. Given how sick I am of the coverage of the Democratic
contest, by the time the real contest comes round to elect the new
President, I don't think I'll give a flyer either.

honestly, all we are seeing is the bush effect - nobody in the world wants
to see anyone like that in power again, EVER.

Hmmm. I'm not so sure that he doesn't still have a lot of supporters. I'd
like to think not but.....

however, since none of us can
do anything about it, it's a mystery to me that anyone need pay attention
until it happens. truly, they WILL let us know once there's been an
election, i'm sure :-) no amount of fussing about it now is going to
change anything, even though such a person will always do their
overweening best to make it the problem of the rest of the world, kwim?
bush is a problem for all 6 billion people on earth, & nobody wants that
to happen again. but since the next one will be another american, s/he is
still going to be our problem (just hopefully a much lesser problem). :-)

Well hopefully whoever it is will have a better grasp on Foreign policy and
Trade than the current Administration appears to have.

As allies and the richest most powerful nation on earth, when dumb
decisions are made there by a very thick President, it impacts way beyond
their borders. Look at all the shit we were fed so we too would happily
(choke) send troops to Iraq too. The one thing I will give Howard is
that although he looked like he was always supporting Bush, he was very
careful about his commitment to Iraq in terms of troop location adn
numbers, not that we could send too many anyway given our other
international commitments.

i think even rabid ideologues like howard were (grudgingly) aware of how
his incessant arse-licking of such an unworthy person reflected badly upon
himself. so he's doomed to be always associated with words like mean,
tricky, and cunning. nobody ever said he was stupid - he's not. but that
doesn't mean he was not the sole instrument of his own downfall - he was.
the creepy little control freak. you get that when you're one-eyed.

LOL. Gotta hand it to you Otter, you do have a way with words!

having said that, any country probably has a majority of nice (in their
way) individuals. it's how they act collectively that matters, in many
ways.

Yes. I still have not forgiven most of our compatriots about the Tampa.
The majority seem to be a bunch of idiots given how often I heard the
line about 'queue jumping'.

oh dear. i think the truth is that most people worldwide are "a bunch of
idiots". truly. the modern world is ridiculously complicated & lots of
people simply can't keep up.

Can't or don't want to. I can cope with those who can't, it's the one's who
don't want to who give me the irrits.

that doesn't make them unlikeable, unkind or
unworthy - it's just something you need to keep in mind. i don't know that
there's any place left for people who just aren't smart or who are
unprepared to think. they're being left behind. tbh i'm not sure what (if
anything) could or should be done about it.

in the olden days, most people were chattel, peasants or serfs. these
days, they have the same rights as the ruling class & expect that things
are equal, but things aren't equal & won't ever be, because people aren't
equal. an un-thought-out opinion is not equal to a well-thought-out
opinion, is it?

Sadly it is. The coverage of the un-thought-out idiocy opinions that aren't
really news, but noise, is all too frequent. These days, it's like the
Enlightenment never, ever happened.

but modern democratic types expect everyone to have a say, based on the
assumption (i suppose) that if a person is required to make a decision,
they'll probably put some thought into it, since it is going to affect
them. thus we try to drag each other up through the primordial slime :-)
it kind of works, doesn't it?

I have doubts about that and the Tampa is a good example of that. Foment it
into a "they're coming to get us" issue and dumb old Joe Public goobles it
up and screams "keep 'em out". Those who actually knew something about
illegal immigration and refugee issues were screaming that these people were
genuine refugees while stupid Joe Public was wittering on about "queue
jumpers".

In the case of the Tampa and much else in the past 11 years it was a case of
sinking backwards into the primordial ooze, not furthering the cause of
rational thinking or high human ideals.


that
seems to be the problem with the farcical olympic torch business - most
chinese people are lovely, but the govt there is appalling.

Yep, but so was ours till the end of last year :-))

to be fair to them, they weren't executing their own populace in droves, &
stuff like that.

No, they didn't execute people, but I'm not convinced that they wouldn't
have tried it if they thought they could get away with it given the tricks
they used right across the board. I should lend you a book called
"Silencing Dissent". The chapter in that about what they did to the Public
Service is tame because only the top of the iceberg gets a mention. I know
they did a lot more. Intimidation, threats, bullying and punishment - you
name it, they did it and not just in one area of influence.

i think obscurity is great. not to mention, necessary.

Yup! Long may we continue to have it (says she with a sore arm - I got
my Chloera and Typhoid shots today for our impending trip :-((()

ow!

but see, i'm a pretty smart person (mostly ;-) yet i find it inconceivable
that things like typhoid still exist!! it's hard for us to move outside
our own brain & own experience, isn't it?

:-)) Take up genealogy/family history and you start to read about illnesses
that are still out there in other parts of the world and in places we think
of as first world countries. TB being just one of those diseases. Just for
info, we chose not to be vaccinated for Japanese encephalitis and won't be
taking the malaria treatment. If I suddenly stop posting, some tropical
nasty got me (either that or my ISP is giving me probs as it has more than
once).