Oh the irony…

Recovering from surgery nicely – almost back to writing again – really miss you guys Oz

Well sure I can see how they got this wrong  -  I mean they look so much alike – and they both have European names – and they both have TV shows ON FOX – oh wait…

He’s just a baby.

Please take a really good look at the FBI photo below and if you have any information at all, go to this site and fill in the short form.

(click image to enlarge – full image is over 900 pixels wide)

The world is changing for the better a little bit every day

…

Rush Limbaugh deemed BAD FOR BUSINESS!

One Year On and Rush Limbaugh Still Toxic for Advertisers

One year ago:

“The average American needs to work one month to make what one CEO makes in one hour… do we really think that CEO works 380 times harder?”

Geez.

[Click here for full story]

Meanwhile, back in the USA, DrinkSavvy.com has teamed up with a Chemistry Professor at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, MA has come up with glassware that also changes it’s appearance to alert the consumer of potentially harmful substances in their drinks.

[Click here for full story]

The video at the above link is very informative -

1. When nothing goes right… go left!

2. I love it when I wake up in the morning and Barack Obama is president!

And their latest post made me laugh

In my youth this was one of my favourite cocktails. But I never dreamed it would one day lay at the heart of a U.S. political drama steamed with one part censorship to two parts women’s rights.

For giggles, I went surfing among images of male and female bodies to compose this little test. Because really, if the female aureola is so offensive, shouldn’t the men have to pastie up as well?

Try to guess before checking the answer below. I’m pretty sure you’re in for a surprise!

When you’re ready, check your answers here:

How ridiculous is this newly proposed North Carolina law? And is it my imagination or are the Republicans just looking more and more stupid every day?

One if the hazards of floodwaters in Queensland is the odd crocodile who makes his way into town. My favourite sighting was several years back when a man stepped off his back porch into knee-deep floodwater (because his dog was barking) only to come face to face with a very large and hungry-looking croc.

This years Mud Army needs also to take care as the crocs are restless and can be swimming in the waters where the crews are attempting clean up efforts. I hope they all have sturdy boots!

Click here for full aap story.

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Begin original post:

Queensland is one of six states and two territories which comprise Australia, occupying the northeast corner (roughly similar to the U.S. from Georgia to New York).

The Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) has a website full of information regarding Queensland weather, including analysis of recent weather patterns and future forecasts. Take a good look at the satellite overlay of rain patterns in this link – the entire outline represents the state of Queensland. The recent flooding occurred in Southeast Qld – where I live.

With that picture in mind, here is a weather map of SE Qld showing the city names and areas – along with current weather patterns.

And finally, a link to a Brisbane Times article with Brisbane flood maps and a video of the amazing rescue of a toddler and his mum stranded in the back of a ute (utility truck – or as we Yanks call it – a pick-up) in the midst of flood waters.

We had another big storm blow through last night – not enough to wake spouse, but enough to flood the laundry room for a second time!

Australia’s monsoon season normally begins in December and lasts through March – but it has been a much tamer event in the past. Changing weather is going to affect everyone, everywhere and those who continue to bury their heads in the sand and deny global warming are in for a rather rude awakening.

I’ve been visiting the Mud Army’s Facebook page and find it pretty interesting how they pull events together and have incorporated donations for food to help feed all the volunteers. The address again is: The Qld Mud Army

Mrs. Gunka – hope this was enough of an answer – Oz

The Mud Army now has a Facebook page so locations in need can be sorted faster and details conveniently posted for all volunteers. Comments and photos are encouraged. It’s a really great page and an even greater idea! Welcome to an old community attitude presented in the new social media! I love it!

Original Post begins here:

28 January 2013

It’s almost Deja’vu. But then you look around at the debris lining the streets, the trees lying sideways on top of fences with their roots torn from the ground and you realize it’s not deja’vu at all but history repeating itself in a most unfriendly way.

The same towns and properties upended with flooding two years ago in Southeast Queensland Australia are again being saturated with four days of non-stop rain and destructive winds. The thing that makes this time different is the efforts made by the Australian Federal Government to assure people in affected areas are given timely updates with information about evacuations, shelters, road conditions and the like. The main power company, Energex, even sent out automated evac alerts via telephones. (We have two landlines and both received the alerts.)

Ironically, Prime Minister Julia Gillard was already in Southern Australia lending support to the families devastated by recent fires when she was called to the airwaves to show support for Queensland flood victims. She mentions one of her deputies having already spotted The Mud Army in action and smiles – knowing how comforting it is for all of us to know that army is on the move.

The Mud Army consists of military, off-duty police and firies, businessmen from small to millionaire status, farmers, ranchers, mums and dads, grandparents and teenagers all digging in and working side by side to clear debris, sludge, mud, dirt and water from roadways and properties so evacuees can get out and help can get in. It’s the community version of all hands on deck and no one questions who is or isn’t standing beside them. All will work tirelessly until the storms have passed and the job is done.

In this broadcast, Ms. Gillard demonstrates the purpose of a federal government (to help its people especially in times of stress) the efficiency of her federal government (help is shipped even before it’s fully needed) and never once does any other official step forward to criticize, condemn or question the apportionment of federal funds. There is a crisis. People have lost their homes and businesses. Insurance companies will be held accountable for making timely payouts to claims and no politician will dare lay claim the government shouldn’t be spending tax-payer monies to help the communities in trouble. (Some may grumble afterwards but certainly not while a crisis is underway.)

We are in for a roller coaster ride in the form of severe weather in this millennium – we need to get it right now to avoid total catastrophe in the future.

For Australian Queenslanders, this time the future was only two years away.  How long will it be for the good people of New Jersey? And how long will they be told to wait next time?

Don’t take your eyes off the foam:
(Now without the censor)

Exactly.

The science that unmasked the inherent dangers of gun violence in the United States has been successfully suppressed by National Rifle Association lobbyists since the 1980′s. Just like the big Tobacco companies before them, the NRA paid elected officials to quash current and make illegal any future research on the issue of gun violence.

If you’d known about the science, would you still hold so tightly to your 2nd Amendment rights that you would oppose any form of gun control – slash – regulations research or legislation concerning public availability of military-style weapons or super ammo?

It seems to me this issue is a chance for us to evolve as a society or prove we are no better educated than our slave-holding, tobacco-growing forefathers.

[Click to enlarge]

…

I think I’m over proponents of no gun-control laws throwing the Second Amendment in my face. It might have been a good idea at the time but like all things, times change and we either embrace the changes or drown in our own stubborn ignorance.

The above commenter lives in Michigan and like so many other gun-toting Americans believes that if everyone owned a gun the Adam Lanzas of this world would be stopped dead in their tracks and all the victims would be saved.

Excuse me – but I think someone’s watched too many westerns and confused John Wayne with the average school teacher.

By the time a heroic school admin (or any other private citizen) identified a shooting was taking place, found, dusted off and loaded their Smith & Wesson, the guy with the semi-automatic would have already fired off at least 30 shots and would now be staring at the admin with a Paul Hogan-ish That’s not a gun – THIS is a gun look in his eye. And then the hero would be dead, too.

As a nation we are not trained to react to terrorist danger, use sophisticated firearms or think like an experienced Navy Seal. It would take our brains way too long to process all the information coming at us with lightning speed. We’re lucky to have the time and wherewithal  to hide our kids in closets and cabinets.

Private ownership of guns has passed its use-by date and it’s really time to rethink the whole concept.

I have a cousin with epilepsy. He’s not allowed to drive a car. He can, however, go to any gun show and buy a semi-automatic weapon and unlimited ammo. Go America.

Well, except of course the omission of the fact that it is NRA lobbyists and big corporate bucks that keep America from making any rational, sane gun-control laws.

I wondered then and I wonder now – just how much information does the general public deserve before this knowledge made public works against the very people it is meant to protect?

Police departments, in setting up sting operations, do not  go on Sunday talk shows and lay out their plans for the viewer to review. Murder investigations routinely withhold certain information so as not to tip off their suspects. Interpol does not hold press conferences to inform the public on their progress in chasing down international felons.

So why is the White House Administration and their security teams and our military heads held to a different criteria? Why are we insisting to be let in on each exact detail as it unfolds in an investigation that holds both national and international consequences?

Why can’t we back off and let the people we elected – do their jobs – and wait for a report at the end of the day when all the results are in?

I’m pretty sure we get lied to because we keep insisting on getting answers to things (a) before anyone in a position of having the correct answers is prepared to divulge them and (b) because sometimes the information we demand is really none of our business in the first place.

Four Americans were killed in a brutal attack in Benghazi. It’s incredibly tragic but – nothing Ambassador Rice said in the days that followed contributed to their deaths and no information given now will serve to bring any of them back.

And if – in order to prevent this tragedy from happening again – we genuinely need to assign blame – let’s put it where it belongs and that is squarely on the heads of the Republicans in congress who voted down the funds requested by the White House to increase embassy security, just a few months before the Benghazi attack.

A lot of people died on 11 September 2012 including 26 people who’d been crushed in an earthquake in Myanmar and dozens of protestors from Egypt to Syria who vehemently objected to the anti-muslim video posted on youtube and literally hundreds of people across the globe caught in fatal car accidents.

IMHO as a public, as a whole, we have a very skewed perspective of what we’re entitled to know and the demand this places on our congress distracts everyone from being productive anywhere else.

To Dallas…

This gentle giant of a man will be missed…

PRESIDENT OBAMA ON MT. RUSHMORE -  (click for image)

Best quote from the story:

As this is literally a breaking story, there is little Republican reaction to assess. When the subject was breached in 2011 on his radio show, Rush Limbaugh said:

“If this becomes a reality I will personally strap a load of C5 to my stomach and lower myself down onto the Obama sculpture’s nose.”

The cost to the taxpayers of modifying the original monument, created by the Danish-born Gutzon Borglum, is expected to be largely offset by corporate donors, currently under contract to supply, among other things, the scaffolding required for the three year undertaking:

According to Huffington Post this story has a shelf-life but no credible foundation.

(Link in comments – thanks Mel!)

Lyrics:

Set fire to your hair
Poke a stick at a grizzly bear
Eat medicines that’s out of date
Use your private parts as piranha bait

Dumb ways to die, so many dumb ways to die

Get your toast out with a fork
Do your own electrical work
Teach yourself how to fly
Eat a two week old unrefrigerated pie

Dumb ways to die, so many dumb ways to die

Invite a psycho-killer inside
Scratch your drug dealer’s brand new ride
Take your helmet off in outer space
Use your clothes dryer as a hiding place

Dumb ways to die, so many dumb ways to die

Keep a rattlesnake as pet
Sell both the kidneys on the internet
Eat a tube of superglue
“I wonder what’s this red button do?”

Dumb ways to die, so many dumb ways to die

Dress up like a moose during hunting season
Disturb a nest of wasps for no good reason
Stand on the edge of a train station platform
Drive around the boom gates at a level crossing
Run across the tracks between the platforms
They may not rhyme but they’re quite possibly

Dumb ways to die, so many dumb ways to die

I love the piranha!

Oh and is that an Alaskan Moose costume? *smirk*

The message has gone viral story here

Free download can be found here   … and too also here

And on another note -

I can’t wait to call these…

… Bimbos!

(Forbes has the skinny here.)

But let’s say for the sake of argument that these nut-jobs get their way. What will this tantrum actually get them?

In the case of Texas it could get them this:
*Instant closure of all federal buildings and programs.
*Stopping of all SSI, unemployment and Medicare benefits.
*Federally backed business loans called in.
*Utilities (gas, electricity and water) connected to any federally-owned station shut down.
*Federally-owned lands such as National Parks closed until after sale/disbursement of property.
*All military bases closed and non-residents recalled.
*All federal prisons closed – non-resident prisoners moved elsewhere. Jailed Texans released.
*Hospitals, schools, Universities, research centers receiving federal grants closed.
*All Post Offices shut down.
*Trucking Industry to negotiate separate trade agreements with US before commerce can resume.
*Passports needed to enter neighbouring states.
*Federally subsidized cell towers.telephone lines shut down.
*Federal/military tolls/roadblocks set up at each major road leading in and out of Texas.
*All federally backed emergency services (fire, search and rescue, highway patrol) shut down.
*End of all farm subsidies.
*End of safe FDA regulation of dairy and cattle.
*All Texas-born military personnel relieved of duty and sent home (to join the now continually growing unemployment line).

Neither Red Cross nor FEMA would  be among the first responders in the event of any future emergency (hurricane, tornado, inland fire, oil spill, etc.).

The federal government would no longer regulate commerce, banking, insurance, OSHA policies to see the people get a fair deal.

Be careful what you wish for Texas. The rest of us just might give it to you and take our funds back. We can always use some extra cash.

Feel free to add to the list -

… laffing so hard it’s hard to type hahahaha!

Almost there… hahahahaha… just have to pull myself together!

One can’t sit on a $3,000 sofa overlooking a private, Olympic-sized swimming pool in a Hollywood mansion filled with modern conveniences, paid gardeners and bidets, sobbing into a $900 throw cushion, whining about how life is such a struggle and expect anyone at all to believe it. I’m not an idiot. I know all these supposed reality shows are scripted. But don’t most reality show producers at least try to emulate reality on some level? The only thing Lifetime got right about Bristol Palin’s reality is that she is – in fact – a single mom. But that’s it. That’s where the line between her reality show and reality part company.

Most single moms trying to make ends meet would have been happy just to have the money Bristol spent driving her gas-guzzling Ford F-150 from Alaska to California and back again. For many I’m sure that alone would have represented several months of day-care and grocery money. Are we really meant to believe she earned her car, her gas money, her clothes, a food allowance for three (herself, Tripp and Willow) from a short stint in a dentist’s office? How much are they paying dental assistants in Alaska these days? Maybe we should all move there…

Most single moms I know have had to move back in with mom and dad just to get their footing and when they do move out on their own the budget is tight. So, not everyone can afford $10 an hour for a babysitter to go shopping with a friend or clubbing. In fact, I’ve had more than one young mom tell me it doesn’t pay to go to work full time these days because after you put gas in the car, buy lunches and appropriate clothing and register for day-care, you stand to lose money each week. And I’m pretty sure that’s accurate because I remember once working for a company that paid me $50 less per month than what I needed to pay my bills – and when I quit it was because I couldn’t afford to keep it up.

Not everyone can afford a car. In the real world most single moms have to make careful decisions on which vehicles to purchase because it’s often the case one can afford either the car or the insurance but not both – so when it’s possible, a lesser, older make and model is settled on (usually risking getting stuck on the road when something breaks down, however). In cities where buses and local trains are accessible, a lot of single moms forego the expense of a car altogether and just rely on public transport.

Single moms also lose time from work to nurse sick bubs, rush to school to pick up a child who has been injured in a soccer game, or – and this is considered an extravagance by many – to see your child receive an award at a school assembly. Sometimes one can make up the lost pay by working overtime or taking an extra shift – but mostly it’s just sacrificed income that is never recovered.

And this is just a sampling of what actual single moms in the real world go through to raise their children and stand tall in society.

So while Bristol tries to promote an image of being an average, struggling single mother making ends meet by working a menial job in a dentist’s office, we know the truth:  She made a small fortune being a paid lecturer (don’t even get me started on this one) and giving a few speeches and then placing third (or this one either, for that matter) on DWTS and doesn’t even remotely resemble a struggling single mom in America. And she has a millionaire mother who will never let her daughter or grandson be out in the cold. (Even if Sarah wanted to turn her back on Bristol, she has an image to protect and knows the public is always watching.)

So, Bristol, until you’ve:

*spent a frantic hour at your desk talking in whispers so as not to be overheard by your boss while trying desperately to find someone to pick up your sick child from school so you don’t jeopardize your job and/or lose a couple of hours pay -

*had to stand in a checkout line deliberating which food items to put back on the shelf because the docket was more than you had the cash to pay -

*had to go to work sick yourself because you couldn’t afford to miss any more days off -

*had to beg the power company to give you another extension on your bill because your son had a bad cough and you had to pay for a doctor visit and medicine up front -

*had to work co-operatively with your neighbours to arrange shared babysitting so each of you could have the freedom to go shopping or on a date and then have to take care of six kids when it was your turn -

*stood in line waiting to see if you’d qualify for food stamps -

*needed to go through the sheriff’s department to collect child support because you couldn’t afford an attorney -

*worried if the new babysitter was treating your son well or if you’d made the wrong decision and wondered who else you might call to verify this person’s credentials -

*had to pass on a family trip, special occasion or not accept an invitation in the first place to go – well, anywhere – because there just wasn’t enough money this week…

…then sit down and shut the Hell up you snivelling, spoiled little brat.

And the next time you want to claim you’ve experienced a ghetto – get out of the damned car and hoof it.

Well there – I feel better. Back to work on Princess part 3

Once a time upon…

Oh we did that already? Of course, of course. Now. Where was I? Oh yes. The name of Mr. & Mrs. Toad Charming’s fifth child. Well quite honestly, in order to tell you his name, you’ll first need to understand just how this little miracle baby came to be…

After the birth of Jello, Princess Lara became restless. Having babies and naming them is one thing. People pretty much pamper you for several months and all you have to endure is a couple of hours of pain, then you get pampered again for about another year. But once the newness wears off and you’re stuck at home, the routine of changing diapers (no no she’s not born yet – the other diapers) all day long and wiping snot off doorknobs and TV screens while your handsome Prince is off managing a few hookers stable kingdom gets old fast. Really fast.

And besides, you don’t want to stay a princess forever, no! You want to be queen one day! So you might as well nose around the kingdom and pick a position that will eventually help you realise your dream. You know, not a job that requires rocket science college degree smarts – just running some little hick town where the people aren’t bright enough to know you’re only pretending to work when you’re actually home in bed eating a Super Moose Crunch Wrap and watching afternoon soaps.

And so it was that Princess Lara finagled her way into the hearts of the good (albeit a little slow) citizens of LaWissa, a small town just a stone’s throw from the castle. Princess Lara would pack up Traffic and Thorn and Jello and take them to school and day care, respectively, then meet friends at the local coffee house for breakfast. After a leisurely walk to the office she would spend an hour chatting up other town big-wigs and making lunch dates with visiting dignitaries. She would stay in the office just long enough to give the impression she knew what she was doing, toss a few important-sounding chores to her minions and then announce it was time for lunch.

After a leisurely lunch at a posh restaurant (with or without a dignitary) Lara would again drop by the office to see that the man she hired (with the town’s money, of course) to actually do her job was actually – you know – doing it.  She would then announce it was time to pick up her children and take them home. This meant she was home every day by 3pm. (Who knew that jam-fingered anklebiters would turn out to provide such brilliant excuses for showing up late and leaving early from work!)

And so it was that after a hard day of managing to do hardly anything at all, our little Princess Lara would tuck herself neatly into her warm bed while the children and Daddy Toad were left to their alone time. So they could bond. No really, that was it. So they could bond.

But even this sweet arrangement became tedious after a time and Lara found herself longing for the days when people fell over themselves for the privilege of pampering her.

Thus was born the child she called Diaper.

Unfortunately, this time the pregnancy didn’t go to plan. There’s no maxim that says the older a woman gets the easier a pregnancy becomes and Princess Lara, now in her late thirties didn’t derive the same pleasures with her fourth pregnancy that she’d enjoyed during the first three. On the contrary, this time her ankles swelled, her back hurt, she had Braxton-Hicks pains for two full months and the baby kicked at her bladder non-stop in the third trimester. This was pretty much a sign of game over for Princess Lara the Baby Maker. She arranged to have her tubes tied once the baby was born.

If you’re keeping Traffic track, this is an important bit of information. Princess Lara had a tubal ligation after the birth of her fourth child.

And people knew.

(Sorry… Someone’s at the door. We’ll need to resume tomorrow!)