mike carey

Many!!

I doubt it's forever. Wikipedia changes, and that will be edited in time. How long it stays there is the interesting question.

They are cuts for the people who 'matter'.

Exactly so. I've driven enough on both sides of the road now that I'm reasonably relaxed about it. For a while I would make one 'side of road' error each time I changed either way, but I seem to be over that now. An interesting quirk that says something about my cognitive processes is that when giving driving directions in the US I would generally say left when I meant right and vice versa. It was as if my concept of left and right was linked to where I was sitting in a car rather than to the actual directions. The first time I ever attempted to travel on the right (I hired a bicycle in Denmark) I was completely discombobulated (that's twice this week I've used that word) and had all sorts of difficulties, despite having ridden a bike for years.

No, right handed, but my entire driving life I've changed gears with my left hand.

I learnt on, and have mostly owned manual cars, and prefer them. Had an automatic when I lived in the US, but did drive a manual there on occasion. I found changing gears with my right hand a little awkward, but I'm sure I would have adjusted to it in time.

I like this display. [ATTACH=full]14643[/ATTACH]

Maybe so, my impression was that it was IT tech stuff. Clearly I'm not the authority on this matter!

That is something that is being considered here by religious bodies although not by the state. Ministers of religion are automatically entitled to conduct marriages under civil law, and they are already permitted to refuse to marry couples who don't meet their religious requirements. Most churches are happy with this. Some, though, are so discombobulated by same sex marriage that they are talking of withdrawing from the jurisdiction of the Marriage Act. If they do this, marriages that they perform will not be recognised under civil law and the couples will have to have a separate civil marriage. I can't see couples being happy with a church wedding that left them 'not legally married'.

This is not tech talk, it's a Lounge discussion.

I think it would be out of line. Call him what he says you can call him and keep whatever you have found out to yourself. If he becomes a regular, that may change. If you really find out by accident, say social media linking you to his profile, you may want to alert him to that. But don't use what you find out, either by accident or snooping, to try to make or build a connection to him.

In his Senate speech on the Bill last week, conservative Christian senator Dean Smith noted that his faith was not a platform, it was a refuge. It's a pity more Christians didn't take that view when they make their interventions in the public sphere.

Tim Wilson's speech is notable in that it condemns the people on his [conservative] side of politics who spent years trying to prevent equal marriage, and dismisses the specious claims that legalising equal marriage somehow detracts from other people's religious freedom.

The Equal Marriage bill was introduced into the lower house of Parliament today. One gay government MP in his speech to the house proposed to his partner, who was sitting in the public gallery. News cameras in the house focused on him and you could see him mouth the word 'Yes'. The speaker said, 'Let the Hansard record that the answer was Yes'. (Otherwise it would only have recorded the question.) The theatre of the whole process continues to be absorbing.

I couldn't possibly comment on that.

Quite so, it is for socialising. People chat, people hire, people just enjoy themselves. It ain't no orgy.

I didn't come to terms with my sexuality for a long time and being in the military I didn't try to explore it. When being gay in the defence force became legal in 1992 I wasn't in a hurry to accept or pursue who I was. Moving forward, I started exploring and engaged with some gay guys in the defence force, but then I retired. I don't have a workplace to be out (or not) in. I have come out to family members (my parents have died, and my sister is also gay) and I have joined gay social groups. I don't have an Inca flag in my front yard, literally or figuratively, and I don't advertise my sexuality. That said, I don't hide it, it just isn't a subject of conversation for the most part. Should I be more 'out there'? Probably yes, but I don't see the urgency of it (and I'm not active in the community as a 'not out' man). Typical closet case, you may well say.

Noting @GregM's suggestion that we pass Christmas before talking more about this, but also bearing in mind that people need to book now to make sure of flights and hotel reservations! There will be a number of working guys there for the weekend, but many, like Kurtis won't be going. Most who plan to go will post somewhere that they will be there. Some of those who go will be there with a client who pays for their travel and the whole time, others will be there on the strength of some pre-bookings and some will go there to make themselves known. In all cases, if a guy will be there, ask him. The worst that can happen is that they will say no. Even if they are booked out, you will be able to talk to them at the functions and work out whether you want to arrange to meet them somewhere else. I made one hire that I had arranged more than a month out, but I chatted with him at the functions and at the Canyon Club during the rest of the time, and also chatted with others (and I'm sure I could have arranged time with some of them). It's flexible and informal, the working guys know they are marketing to a greater or lesser extent. It all works well. But of course you can contact them and arrange meetings beforehand. Just ask.

I don't much care who represents whom, but if people come here and state the reasons for their presence I tend to take it on face value until I see persuasive reasons to believe otherwise. 'Rentboy.pro' as a domain name potentially describes characteristics of the site or of the subject matter of the site. The name does not either state or imply which of those possibilities is correct. Text copied from Irish69's profile here, 'Recruiting, Marketing & Promotions For Rentmen'. ['I’m glad you @guyfawkes' means 'I'm glad you mentioned Guy Fawkes.']

Generally it the symbol for the Brazilian real. Why an Argentinian in the US would quote his rates in reais is beyond me.

All of them in the Pacific Gyre perhaps?

I'm not all that surprised, and I don't think they go into these careers thinking of that. I think it is purely a matter of entitlement and what they thought they could get away with. When #metoo became a thing, a prominent Australian journalist tweeted asking for women who had personal experiences to come forward, expecting maybe 10. She received over 500, naming over 50 different men [mainly] in the entertainment industry. One prominent television personality was named by over 6o women. One newspaper chain with the national broadcaster did an investigation and went public about a week ago. Executives at the TV station he was on said they always thought he was a sleazebag, but 'there were no complaints'. After the piece aired on the ABC and was published in the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, more women came forward. Apparently the next in line will be publicised in the coming weeks. This whole thing has a long way to go, and almost inevitably there will be some untested and unfair allegations that come forward. The contested motives in the Franken case are a case in point.

This was on the wireless here yesterday (Thu) afternoon. As the article noted, glitter is essentially microplastic, which is increasingly recognised as an environmental hazard. The item here noted that there is a eucalyptus based material coated with aluminium that can be used to make glitter, and is not an environmental issue.

*Takes notes* 'Likes beer ...'

Ocean currents are the same the world over. West coasts have cold currents (north to south in your part of the world) and warm on east coasts. There are local variations in relatively closed areas in bays and gulfs. As already noted, the Gulf Stream super charges that effect in the North Atlantic mainly to the benefit of NW Europe. West coast mid-latitude areas like southern California and southern western Australia (and Spain and Portugal) have what is generally known as a Mediterranean climate, hot dry summers and cooler wetter winters, whereas similar latitude areas on east coasts (Sydney/Brisbane, Durban, SE US) are more sub-tropical with humid wetter summers. Vladivostok, where the port freezes in winter, is further south than Marseille, on the Riviera.