monkeysarefun

And here there was an awful case where a police officer responded to a call to a nursing home where a 95 year old woman was reported to be holding two knives as she walked within the facility using her walking frame. Staff alleged she refused to drop the knives when staff intervened so they called police after being unable to contact her next of kin. Senior Constable White, another officer and ambulance staff found Ms Nowland in a room holding one of the knives that had been taken from the kitchen area, according to court documents. The second officer allegedly attempted to grab the knife off her, but she raised her hand and "retreated". Senior Constable White allegedly took out and activated his taser as Ms Nowland "slowly" moved towards the group. He allegedly told Ms Nowland: "Clare, stop now, see this, this is a taser, drop it now, drop it, this is your first warning." After further discussion and "little to no reaction" from Ms Nowland, court documents state she raised the knife towards Senior Constable White's colleague. Senior Constable White then allegedly said, "Stop just … Nah, bu99er it", before using the taser. Ms Nowland fell and fractured her skull before she was rushed to hospital in a critical condition where she later died She was survived by eight children, 24 grandchildren and 31 great-grandchildren. Her family have also filed a civil case against the state of New South Wales over the incident. Senior Constable White remains suspended from duty with pay and has since been charged with manslaughter.

I'd lump the 1980's-vintage NSW Transit cops in that category! Insufficiently adequate to get into the actual cops, they patrolled the trains and stations of the NSW rail network, armed and ready to prove it at any justification. My experience of them was when 3 mates and I were going into the city one Friday night to see a band - one of my mates showed his University of Wollongong* travel card but it was denied by the ticket selling guy. . My mate said something or other under his breath and we boarded the train but unbeknown to us, the ticket guy must have had a secret button or something because 5 minutes into our trip, 2 of the NSW transit police forces finest came into the carriage and confronted us. The older one told my mate to leave the train as we pulled into Warwick Farm station and reached for his gun to make the point more obvious. The rest of us weren't sure if we were meant to follow or stay aboard, until the younger pretend cop said "Yous can go too if yous want" so we did. Warwick Farm station is a minor stop where only one in 10 trains pull into so we had quite a wait, but we still got to the venue well before the band bothered to show up. If it had come to a shoot out I reckon my mate sitting behind the two cops could have taken at least one of them out via a kidney punch or a whack behind the knees and I could have gone for the younger ones gun and held him hostage until they honoured the Wollongong travel concession card and refunded my other mate the cash discount he'd been denied. * no, not Woolloomooloo, just to fend off any M. Python fans...

To change the mood a little I've been posing down the pub walking past a locked up yard in a nearby industrial estate on the weekend and discovered the earthly remains of Herbie the Love bug. Wondering what the Kingoonya Pub mentioned on the sticker there was all about I googled it. Turns out its in outback South Australia and going by the photos on the google maps page it'd be the perfect place for many ER's to move to. It features Night skies for @PupCam Train spotting for @jamie92208 Michelin gourmet cooking for @iL Dottore An Old Landrovers support group for @TheQ Some non-psycho paddock ornaments for @Grizz A fixer-upper with appropriate gate signage for @polybear A massive shed for @Winslow Boy A non-raining bike riding experience for @New Haven Neil Umpiring opportunities for @Barry O And a look-a-like competition for @grandadbob

Oh, so you only booked the five minute argument, not the full half hour! 🙂

So POLICE safety isn't an issue there? Police here used to carry 6 shot Smith and Wessons. Following a siege where two officers were shot and killed, the shortcomings of that revolver were highlighted and the police were re-equipped with Glocks. That was in response to a government acknowledgement that the police weren't adequately equipped to do their jobs and their lives were in peril because of it. As a member of the public, I'm happy that those who risk their lives daily for us get the best equipment they can have in order to ensure THEIR safety.

Exactly. Check out videos of the police in Londons tourist spots. At least we don't have any police walking around routinely armed with machine guns. The old "England swings like a pendulum do, bobbies on bicycles two by two " needs a rewrite to mention machine pistols.

Has anyone asked your police what they'd rather be armed with?

I'm perfectly comfortable that the hero police woman who happened to be on the scene during the Bondi Junction Plaza knife attack a couple of weeks ago was armed and therefore had the confidence to run towards danger and then was able to efficiently drop the bloke before he could stab anyone else. The British way would have required a long wait for some armed response team or whatever to organise themselves, get briefed and then get to the place. What would the casualty tally have been by then? 1,400 UK police applied to join Australian police forces last year alone after a recruitment drive by various state police forces (mainly Sth and Western Australia) specifically targeting British police. Apart from the lure of much more pay and sunshine, one of the reasons many gave for the move was that they got to carry a gun and so could therefore defend themselves if required rather than be a target for any idiot with a weapon and therefore were much more likely to make it safely back home to their family and friends. (hmmmm, unless it was just the gun nuts who applied!)

Wooooh, Radial T/A tyres! I hope they've got a better compound/tread pattern than they had out here back in the day, they were great in the dry but even the slightest dampness and you'd be aquaplaning all over the shop. If they are unchanged then that car would be a heap of fun in the UK's dodgy weather! My first car had them - I discovered on rainy days that the steering wheel was pointless, turning it made no difference as you'd just glide gracefully towards the scenery. Even merely changing lanes became a hair-raising event in heavy downpours. I have quite a long list of the unexpected places I ended up in until I changed them for some other tyre brand!

Yeah no the point I was trying to make is that the perceived wisdom that the gun buyback scheme removed guns from the community which lead to the elimination of mass shootings is not borne out by the fact that there are now MORE guns than post-buyback so in theory we should have returned to a state of regular massacres. It is the OTHER components of the 1997 gun law legislation ( registration of all gun owners, strict background checks, a valid reason to own a gun - primary producer, working in the security industry or a member of a shooting club are basically the only allowances - and secure gun storage laws , plus a limit on gun types (an important one, removed AR15 style rifles and high capacity magazines from the community) - have been the main drivers.

Same here, 28 and sunny again. That will all change tomorrow apparently though with rain stretching as far as the forecast can see, up to 50mm on some days. Perfectly organised to avoid the just-gone long weekend though.

Easy for you to say, but you'd be the first to complain if you lost your right to Bear arms. Oh wait, you wouldnt be able to do it by letter though because you'd have no arms! LOL.

Not weird, rabbits are ferals that have no place here and cause devastation to crops and farming lands due to overgrazinge native and sown pastures, leading to loss of plant biodiversity and reduced crop yields. They also compete with the much cuter native furry folk for food and shelter, increasing grazing pressure and lowering the land's carrying capacity. (yes yes, man is the greatest feral here etc etc etc........yawn.) Native animals, even the venomous ones on the other hand are part of the natural ecosystem and thats why its illegal to kill any of them.

It turns out we had our first incident here last year, though no one was injured and the 15 year old stopped after firing three shots using a .22, then phoned the police to report himself. https://www.watoday.com.au/national/western-australia/perth-school-shooter-awaits-sentencing-for-australian-first-crime-20240223-p5f7bh.html

Oh thanks, that was the one I was thinking of when I mentioned Kent State - I obviously got my US university shootings mixed up!

Fair call, however despite whatever FCC requirements exist, American popular culture of which Disney is a major component has certainly been allowed to play its part in normalising and even glamourising gun violence, whether its some 1950's cowboy and Indian TV show through to a typical Gangsta Rap ode to popping a cap in someone. One example does spring to mind - I recall seeing "Kindergarten Cop" on release back in the day (1990-ish?) which was sold as a lighthearted screwball comedy about a police detective who goes undercover in a primary school in order to catch a drug baron, from memory. The climactic scene graphically shows the drug baron being shot dead in the school boys toilet , which I remember at the time thinking "How the $$*%# is that a scene thought suitable to put into a comedy movie?" even if it was classified appropriately. Now if I was to go on Mastermind, my special subject would not be "US School Shootings" so correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm not aware of many school shootings in the US up to that point other than Kent State University, so having a comedy with a scene depicting someone being shot dead in a school several years before Columbine (the first shooting that got mass coverage here) seems a bit disturbing to say the least. In 1990 I'm pretty sure I could still go into our local Kmart and buy a rifle off the shelf (albeit a low calibre low velocity rifle suitable for rabbit shooting) - I definitely remember them being racked up in the sporting goods section in the mid-1980's - but I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that despite that no comedy or any other genre movie made here in those lax gun laws times incorporated a scene showing someone being shot dead in a school. There definitely wasn't such a depiction in any of the Mad Max's, for instance, let alone "Picnic At Hanging Rock" even though like "Kindergarten Cop", that was set in a school. There must be a PHD waiting on why Australia and the US, although both sharing many historic similarities - both large frontier countries populated by an Indigenous people who were mercilessly subjugated, both with settlements springing up far from existing civilisation due to gold discoveries or opening up of new lands to farmers and graziers, and both with a "macho" outdoorsy self-reliant self-image among a large part of the population do not share the same gun violence path. Australia did have outlaws, mainly the bushrangers (essentially Highwaymen for any UK readers!) who would rob stages, government mail coaches and remote farms at the point of a gun, however despite our convict settlement beginnings we did not have the same gun culture as depicted in early US frontier accounts. Other than the Eureka Stockade, where gold miners rose up in protest against the imposition of mining license and opened fire on government forces sent to quell the uprising, I can't think of any other use of firearms here on the scale apparent in the US "wild west". (Hideous massacres of the local indigenous folk - often on the order of the British Government aside...) Perhaps its due to the judicial system in both countries? In Australia policing was by government police and troopers, centrally controlled by the government, with a system of government assigned magistrates in major centres who would try all criminal cases from both the local and more far-flung areas. Capital sentences were carried out in the major country centre like Bathurst, rather than locally where the crime was committed, and sentences could be appealed. In contrast if my studies of US frontier justice, based on watching many a Saturday morning western when young are correct, US frontier law enforcement seems to be based on locally elected "sheriffs" and judges, many untrained who would often organise an armed possie of locals or bounty hunters to capture alleged suspects. Justice was localised and swift and there was no central authority to oversee the sentence or to be appealed to.( Maybe I'm wrong? ). Its understandable that this would lead to a culture of gun violence as those with no faith in the justice system, as well as those seeking to exploit its shortcomings used guns to sort it out. Following the gun buyback in 1997 there were 3.2 million guns in Australia. As of 2019 there were 3.5 million guns, so despite many a MAGA enthusiast claiming the Australians gave up their guns, there are actually MORE guns in the community now than when the Port Arthur buyback scheme was implemented. Despite that we have not had a single mass shooting (apart from one tragic murder-suicide). The fact that as well as the buyback, the 1997 reforms implemented strict background checks, the requirement to have a valid reason for owning a gun (which does not include self-defence), the registration of all gun-owners, who are subject to annual police inspections of their gun storage facilities (must be kept unloaded in a locked metal cabinet, ammunition stored separately elsewhere) , as well as a ban on certain gun-types including semi-automatics, large capacity magazines etc, shows that many of the reforms called for by the sane part of the US population do work, and the gun enthusiasts don't need to disarm.

One shows dad Heeler standing on scales in the bathroom and saying s "Oh man, I need to do some exercise". THis was criticised for being "Fat Shaming" in the US and was cut out. Another one shows Bluey and her friend admiring a pony. The pony drops a pile of poo and they run screaming and laughing . THat was cut by Disney censors. Another one shows Dad Heeler pretending to give birth to his youngest daughter. Childbirth scenes were considered to not meet Disney standards of acceptability and the episod was not shown. One has one of the characters using the term "Ooga Booga". THis was considered to be potentially racially derogative to somebody and it was overdubbed. All banned in a country that sees it perfectly not abnormal in any way to put kids through Active Shooter drills in schools.

Luckily, unlike various reptiles, insects, animals, plants and fish, birds haven't yet figured out how to be venomous, which is lucky because there are shedloads of varieties of them hanging around. Those that knock on the window or stare in at me waiting to be fed: Sulphur-Crested Cockatoos, King Parrots, Rainbow Lorikeets, Australian Magpies, Pied Butcherbirds, Wonga Pigeons, Satin Bowerbirds, Indian Mynah birds. Those that hang around the back yard or feed on the native flowers: Galahs, Eastern Rosellas, Black Cockatoos, Honeyeaters, Red and Yellow Wattlebirds, Superb Blue Wrens. In the evenings swallows will chase the insects around at high speed, once darkness falls the microbats take over. When fruit are in season in the stone-fruit orchards to the west, wave after wave of fruit bats will pass overhead, looking like bombers off to bomb Germany or something.

A scene in "The Flying Doctors" was cut from the US broadcast because a young boy who had some injury like a broken arm or something had the line "It hurts like bu99ery!". The US apparently don't realize the casual usage of the phrase, took it literally and cut it out.

I had a quiet ANZAC day, and the weather today is as good as it was yesterday so like most of the place I'm taking today off too. Not a cloud in the sky and 22 forecast, although last nights 8 degrees was chilly. In footage to bring a tear of appreciation to the eye of @Gwiwer, Collingwoods Jamie Elliot took the Mark Of The Year So Far in yesterdays ANZAC Day match. When you catch the ball from a kick its a Mark, when its a spectacular mark it becomes a "Skeccy". This is one of the best Speccies for a long time!

I can wholly recommend the Southern Hemisphere, we haven't started a single world war and looking at tripadvisor reviews, places south of the equator generally get more stars. And if you ignore much of Sth America and Africa, there are less dictators per capita.

I can envision the starting sequence for the new Swiss TV series "Cooking With @iL Dottore": The music starts : 'Lets cook"!,.... lets cook!,..... lets cook!,........ Cooking with @iL Dottore!: scene cut to @iL Dottoreslamming the door of his kitchen room. Roll end credits.

YEs THAT kind of stuff. In comparison this clip of Pte Hettie Adams back in 2022 is showing what she did tonight, at that years ANZAC-eve game. New Zealand don't play AFL but they are part of the ANZAC commemorations and the capacity crowd and the players at the MCG were as respectful in this clip as they were tonight.

I have several "What the ($*@ is that?" videos from home security cameras taken at night time.........

Re plan two, despite having a lift, which is a big plus as I said before - I've been investigating further and have come up with a massive snag (which is another word for sausage here, but in this case means a problem) Soooo - the kitchen (which I'm assuming is the room callled "Kitche" - unless thats Swedish or European or whatever for "Bathroom" - this European language is tricky from down here) - is all closed off. That is very un_Australian - knock down the walls and make the kitchen part of the open plan bit, then you can be boiling all that stuff in your Souz boiling thingy AND organising your dippity melted cheese fondoo AND still talk to your guests. Unless your guest was @polybearin which case you'd have all the lights turned off and be pretending you were out.