Aussie105
Aussie105's JournalOf Drop Bears and Gully bulls . . .
Two legendary Australian wild animals that will kill you!
The Drop Bear - looks like a Koala bear, but will sit in a tree and pounce on any person walking by, and commence to kill them in a most dreadful manner.
The Gully Bull - a wild bull that have escaped the herd, and lives predominantly in gullies to stay out of sight. Will attack anyone who comes near.
Frightening, right?
The simple truth is, that neither exist.
Koala bears eat gum leaves, and digesting them has them permanently stoned and renders them slow and harmless.
Gully Bull - a play on words, 'gullible' - get it?
Now anyone who has that explained to them smiles, and will never again believe in any tall tales that they come across.
Now to my main point:
Trump is a sad old man, limited in both mental faculties and communication skills.
And he has every right to be, given his background, his poor diet, his too-helpful doctors willing to fake reports of his fitness, mental state, as well as supply 'needed' drugs.
In any other country, he would be in sheltered care, 24/7 supervised care, out of harm's way, no danger to others or himself.
So how come people won't believe that he really shouldn't be where he is currently?
So how come he has so many people around him, people who are unpleasant, nasty, out to destroy the country, incompetent at the jobs their titles imply?
Why does the message that Trump is a danger to the country, not an usher-in of a New Golden Age in America, not the Messiah, not have a solid foothold?
(Australia voted - the party that tried some Trumpy style hyperbole found that they shot themselves in the foot.)
You know when you are in a cult when . . .
Your leader tells you 'outsiders' can't be trusted, and need to be 'punished'.
(Trump imposing tariffs, heading for isolationism.)
You send out envoys to other countries explaining only you have the 'good stuff' to protect against unspecified evil influences in the world.
(Talking to Greenland, Canada.)
Things are bad now, but that is only because you are correcting 'mistakes' from the past, and things will get so much better soon, believe me!
(Trump on the stock markets crashing.)
Mineons accept the leadership words mindlessly. And follow the 'program'.
(Trump's inner circle, R voters.)
Leadership talks on not-real abstract things that contradict what you see happening around you.
(Eggs cheap yet?)
People speaking out against the cult will be ridiculed, silenced, restricted any way possible, and this doesn't exclude sanctioned violence from cult members.
The cult hinges on a single individual, without whom the whole cult disintegrates.
People outside the cult do a WTF gesture many times every day.
Now a simple question - how is the cult of Trump any different to the cults of Jim Jones, David Koresh, or Charles Manson of 'helter-skelter' fame?
Unfortunately, if you don't recognise the current cultism for what it is, you are probably part of it.
I'm wondring if the Constitution needs an update.
"The Preamble
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."
So . . . what if 'we the people' discover the elected government isn't up to the task?
I mean . . .
'a more perfect Union' . . . nope, divisiveness is the order of the day.
'Justice' . . . ignoring judges is not helping!
'domestic Tranquility' . . . kind of not happening. Even Trump voters are getting worried.
'promote the general Welfare' . . . feeling secure in your 401K, your government benefits if any, your job?
'secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity' . . . blessed be! Except migrants of course, or POC.
There needs to be a mechanism for an effective no confidence vote in the current government, and a do-over for the election.
Dems could then outline all the things that have gone wrong under Trump and Musk, and Repugs could try to defend their positions.
But the Founding Fathers never envisaged we'd get here, where we are today.
In a normal administration, DOGE wouldn't exist.
Musk is inexperienced in how different government departments run.
He can't tell what is waste and what is effective use of money and manpower, but he does have the task of slashing costs, so he does the slash and burn thing.
In a sane world, heads of all government departments would be asked:
1. What is the function of your department?
2, What tasks are your workers normally engaged in?
3. What numbers of employees are there on each task, and materials costs. Please supply wages and materials totals, and any contracts you have with outside suppliers.
4. Please make suggestions where savings could be made in the running of your department.
But Elon does the slash and burn, sends out bulk insulting emails, and is doing major damage. And Trump doesn't care.
ET and Dodgy Brothers, why are you so annoying?
(ET = the evil twins, Trump and Musk.
Dodgy Brothers = DOGE.)
In uncertain times, people curtail their spending to a minimum, so affecting the economy.
Shareholders reassess their risky shares and flee to what they see as safe havens. Gold, Crypto.
Consequently, the share market starts a downward slide.
Why does this matter to me, half a world away?
Believe it or not, share markets around the world are in lock-step.
If one big one goes down, the others follow.
Why should I care?
I'm retired, a large part of my income is from a retirement fund.
That fund, like most, is heavily invested in local and overseas stock markets, as well as infrastructure projects around the world.
As a compulsive watcher of both the local Australian share market and my retirement fund, there is a slide happening.
My fund is down AU $3K so far, and with the fund reporting lagging 3 to 5 days behind the local stock market, another similar amount will disappear.
So the question to ET and dodgy brothers, why are you doing this? Stop it!
Anyone else tracking their retirement fund?
On top of that, went Supermarket shopping.
Prices still creeping up, and the egg cabinet shuttered . . . Sorry, no eggs available!
Was looking to enjoy mashed hardboiled eggs with mayo on toast.
Color me in a deeply, bigly Bad Mood!
Thank you for being my friend!
Subtitle: Vet said NO! I said YES!
Daughter wanted to move and dumped a cat on us, a timid middle aged ginger.
We took him in, named him Rufus, fed him and all that stuff, but he never connected with us or our dogs.
Ended up living outside, often in the back seat of the wife's car, window down, backseat down so he could get to the boot 'cave' where his food was.
Didn't show up, went looking for him, neighbour said he is now living in his garage and he was happy to let him.
Anyway, I still left food out on the porch for him.
One night, I found him eating - went out to see how he was, ignored me while munching.
Took a closer look, a different ginger!
Picked him up, put him on my shoulder, expecting cat panic and me getting my back clawed.
But no, he just oozed in, all relaxed.
Much younger, no white patch on his chest.
Took him in, careful introduction to the dogs, cat showed no fear - pleasure instead - much head rubbing on the dogs, to their delight.
You smell different. But friend!
Took him to the vet.
Vet did tests, he has feline AIDS, shall we put him down?
Instant NO!!! from me.
Got desexed, ear tattoo, microchip. Named him Moggins. Now officially adopted!
Had a problem with his eyes, vet said ingrown eye lashes, inverted eyelids.
Got fixed by the vet.
Fast forward 6 years, he is still here.
In the meantime, the original ginger Rufus has died, so has the elderly neighbour who looked after him, and one of the dogs.
Likes to jump up on my computer table and sit on the keyboard to get my attention. His way of saying 'feed me please!'
And when he did that today, I said, for no particular reason "Thank you for being my friend!"
(No photos because we all know what ginger cats look like, right?)
I did a thing today!
And I don't know if I should be proud of myself, or feel sad, so I'm cycling between the two.
Back story:
Second marriage for both me, 75, and the wife, 80. Married in 1988.
The scourge of advancing age is upon us, well, one of us anyway.
Wife's mother ended up in cloud cuckoo land and spent the last 10 years or so of her life in sheltered care.
(Alcohol use was blamed for the brain rot.)
Wife's first husband is now wheelchair bound, in sheltered care, also off with the pixies.
But it gets worse - wife's oldest son, now has dementia and is in sheltered care, 2,000 km away.
And worse - wife has slowly developed all the signs of dementia too.
I'm guessing there is a big genetic component at work there, but there is nothing in my side, so I'm in the clear. Just strung out looking after an 80 year old lady who is unpredictable and can throw temper tantrums like a 5 year old.
Anyway, the 'thing' I did today:
Collected a lot of childhood photos and more recent ones of the past life the son had, scanned and printed copies, put them into a photo album with captions, and sent it off today.
The aim is to try to refresh some of his memories, if that is possible.
He likes photos, his son - who lives locally to his dad - tells me.
So yeah, I did a thing, hopefully for the good.
The whole dementia thing though, surprisingly common in Australia, and very much a taboo subject from the vibes I'm getting from some family members who should care, but act like they don't.
Oh, for all this is holy! Stop calling it the Republican Party, or GOP!
The Republican Party of yesteryear no longer exists.
It died a long time ago, from moral turpitude, self serving freeloader members, and a general lack of working for the best for all.
It died, and no one noticed, but the empty space left behind attracted some unsavoury characters.
Call it the PoT, instead, the Party of Trump.
A party with only one figurehead and a host of mindless followers, and no consistent or detailed platform, with a desire to limit and control people, isn't a political party at all.
It's a cult, by any definition.
One of these is not like the others . . .
No picture unfortunately.
I go out in the morning to feed the backyard birds.
(Front yard birds are magpies and ibis, they get left over cat food later in the day. They don't mix with the backyard riff-raff.)
Backyard birds are different species of doves, pigeons, sparrows and visiting ducks.
Did a headcount of the ducks . . . yep, the usual 4 - but wait - one of them isn't.
Cormorant!
First one I've ever seen in the wild. Cohabiting with the ducks in the local wetlands and parkland lakes?
Usually coastal around here. We are nowhere near the coast.
Not happy. 8-(
Male dog, 13 years old, is dying.
Been off his food, losing bladder and bowel control, staggering around.
Twice today he got himself jammed in unusual spots, once in the back yard and once in the room he is in now, got stuck and very confused, and howled somewhat demented.
Currently he is lying down and breathing shallow, slow breaths.
I check him every couple of minutes just in case.
Been coming on for a while, haven't taken him to the vet because our vet is predictable as far as putting down animals go.
Better to save him the stress of being put down, as opposed to dying peacefully in his sleep at home.
Sad time, but what can you do really.
To be honest, I'm typing this to make myself feel better.
It's not working.
Rudyard Kipling wrote a poem about this. 'Power of the dog'.
If you ever lost a pet, prepare to cry when you read it.
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Member since: Wed Jan 16, 2019, 07:45 PMNumber of posts: 7,079