mike carey

Not quite. This didn't ring true as Angola was a Portuguese colony in 1925. As it turns out, Ahmet Zogu became President on Albania then.

An aside on this that you become familiar with when you've lived through a transition from one measuring system to another. 'Hard' and 'soft' conversions are different and you adapt over time. A 12oz can doesn't become a 340.19g can, it becomes 340g or perhaps 350g. Under consumer law, the mass doesn't need to be precise but it can't be less than what it says on the can. As they re-jig manufacturing, canners will adjust the size to a 'logical' i.e. rounded number, likely ending in 0 or 5g. Consumer laws obviously aren't relevant but in the case of tennis speed radars 134km/h doesn't mean 134,000 m/h, it means 134km +/- 499m. 'About 83 mph' is about as precise a measurement as can be offered, but it's still interesting to see the precise conversion. The same thing applies in reverse at tournaments where the on-court speeds are in mph. The conversion to km/h is imprecise, and even less precise than conversions the other way because whole number mph speeds are less precise than whole number km/h ones. (And yes, technically I should have said 'velocity' not speed.) Not saying you shouldn't convert to n decimal places, you live after all in a miles kind of place.

I had a great day, doing not very much. 'The Day' was over even before the thread was started, but you get that being 16 time zones ahead of NYC and EST. That doesn't diminish in the slightest my appreciation of so many people's good wishes! Thanks PK, and thank you all!

A wonderful story, I'm so glad you shared it. Thank you!

How sweet! It's beautiful.

Yeah, they're just chips.

The trope is pervasive, unfortunately. Perhaps women are more considerate and careful on the roads, less aggressive and less likely to take risks. Perhaps their bad reputation is a false narrative and incorrect stereotype carefully constructed by men to denigrate women, or to distract from who were actually the worse drivers. Just a thought. Of course young men aren't known for general recklessness and worse driving records. Not all young men, of course.

What appears to be a DM exchange between twitter user @RevDaniel and a random (non) admirer:

I had assumed not, and from a quick check it was not. The Australian Constitution was an Act of the Imperial Parliament and in the terms of the Act came into force on 1 January 1901. No further action was required by the Australian Parliament, the Constitution was there and in full effect. Unlike the Canadian Constitution the means of amending it are incorporated into the Australian Constitution (and there were no residual requirements for any laws for Australia to be passed by the Imperial Parliament) so Patriation was not an issue here. The Australian Stature of Westminster Act in 1942 removed the Imperial Parliament's capacity to pass laws for Australia,,

The date marks the arrival of the First Fleet at Sydney Cove in 1788. So if anything it is NSW Foundation Day. To say that it is 'celebrated' is contested, and many indigenous people refer to it as Invasion Day. Although Parliament first sat in Melbourne in April 1901 (and is not celebrated), the Commonwealth was established on 1 Jan that year. The day has only been marked officially on the 26th since 1994 although it had been marked on the following Monday for a number of years. 'Australia Day' had been on a variety of days in the middle months of the year earlier in the 20th Century.

That libertarians hold a certain view does not make adopting anything that furthers that view a libertarian measure. They don't 'own' any policy positions. A libertarian measure would have been if Vancouver had decided they just needed to decriminalise drugs. They did not. They decided on the basis of evidence they had that the previous approach of strictly enforcing drug law was counter-productive and that they needed to modify it, and chose to decriminalise certain levels of drug possession that could be deemed to be for personal use. No libertarian would see any need to offer any justification nor would they have limited the measures as these were. The Vancouver measure was not libertarian in either its intention or its effect. And while there is a logical fallacy in what you wrote, no one was saying anything of the sort.

1. 2. HR says I’m no longer allowed to answer the phone with “for fuck sake, what now” In the thread: I just say, 'How can I help you?' 'How can you be helped', works better for me.

It's not a libertarian measure, it's based on harm minimisation and from the link below (which does not reference the new policy) it almost certainly won't be a free-for-all. It'll most likely save the city and the province a bunch of money, for example in police and court time. From all accounts decriminalisation of possession of small amounts of drugs in Portugal resulted in reduced drug addiction and use, and lower enforcement costs. As public policy it will remove fear of arrest for possession for drug users presenting to rehabilitation services and for those using the existing supervised injection facility. (In other jurisdictions the latter have effectively eliminated street injection in the surrounding areas, and significantly reduced deaths and overdoses.) Canberra has just extended a public free drug testing service trial, which is able to advise users of what is in the drugs they have bought. There have been cases where highly toxic chemicals have been detected (some drugs, other times caustic substances and poisons) and cases where they were inert fillers. They can also tell users the level of purity of the drugs, and at times that it was a completely different drug. One of the important roles of the service is to have medical professionals who can provide clear and accurate information about the drugs, something that I suspect a dealer does not offer. On receiving the results of the test, and the counselling, close to half the clients chose to dispose of the rest of their stash. Some who found they had Drug B rather than the Drug A they thought they had kept it anyway. (Clearly this is a harm minimisation measure, mainly for casual users, and not aimed at addiction reduction.) Vancouver has a fairly comprehensive drug strategy of which this can be seen to be a logical extension. https://vancouver.ca/people-programs/four-pillars-drug-strategy.aspx

That's beside the point. Valuing an escort's kindness is reasonable and could be a criterion for choosing one. Whether it's an innate trait or something they have mastered to further their business, and you can never be sure which it is, there are some, several of whom have been named here, who from my experience are more likely than not to be genuinely kind.

As I dozed off to sleep last night I had my radio on the BBC World Service. There was a program about the role of play in our development as we grow up. They noted that play typically involves simulating things that are important to us for survival. It noted, completely deadpan, that it primarily involved the four Fs, fighting, fleeing, feeding and mating.

Rafa has won the first set so hopefully on track. But in breaking news, at 1600 AEDT Nick Kyrgios has withdrawn from the tounament citing a knee injury. So no Nick and no Special Ks.

Things be quiet in Co. Northumberland.

They only put them out. No fire can survive when it's raining cats and dogs.

There's been a curious bromance going on between two prominent men's players. Talk of teaming up for doubles, other random stuff. Neither is shy of chasing clicks. An exhibition match has been scheduled for tonight at the Rod Laver Arena in advance of the start of the AO on Monday. The match between Nick Kyrgios and Novak Đoković was announced earlier this week and tickets, for $20, sold out in 58 minutes.

I admire your determination to live for so long!

It seems to me that you have answered a different question to the one you posed in the title. You made is quite clear earlier in your post that you were bisexual, full stop, end of story. It seemed you were saying that your bisexual orientation was 'assigned'. The 'lifestyle' you have chosen is a separate thing, and a choice you are free to make but that is different to claiming that one has chosen their sexual orientation. But as you made clear, you chose that lifestyle, and it is not the same as the innate orientation you had said that you have.

*Mary Queen of Scots* (A rather obscure reference.)

Frankston is the last station on the Bayside suburban line south-east from Melbourne.

Umm, no, born in Königsberg in East Prussia, in Germany.