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Just for fun: the random, useless announcements thread!
@Shoshin1 said:
I guess some of you Northern Hemisphere guys and gals will be coming out of hibernation around now....
Every year as you start relaxing on a sunny beach, Northern dudes are pulling out their winter apparel. As your last tourist has finally left you with a quieter island, our tourists are disembarking from passing cruise liners.
Your pictures of your day to day walks are a calendar reminder for us northerners of that constant cycle of change.
I see these huge dogs out with their human companian most mornings. There are two of them most probably siblings, enjoying the beach walk and the ocean...
And on the way home from work this afternoon, the clouds caught my eye
Announcement. Not random tho. I miss all of you. Feels like the twilight zone around here. 😵💫
I’m assuming we all left the living room and went to our respective spaces due to a necessary fumigation. Hope to see you all soon…. 🤟🏻
The last day of Autumn's sunrise...
It's been surprisingly warm today... high of 18 *C ...
A high of 19 *C is forecast for tomorrow the 1st of June... the official start of Southern Hemisphere Winter.
I went to another rally this afternoon to show my support, most of today has been warm and sunny...On the way over on the ferry I checked the weather forecast ...Severe thunderstorm warning and areas about and near the Hauraki Gulf (I'm on one of the islands in the Hauraki Gulf) are most likely to experience the downpours which will bring heavy rain 25-40mm per hour. It's expected to start around 9pm this evening and continue on to 2am..
Well for many locals who are low on water, this can be a good thing (most of the island's dwellings are on tank water)....
The winds have started to pick up...here we go again...
In the local Island newspaper today, there was a letter in the 'letters to the editor' section about a Palestinian plastic surgeon who lives here in Aotearoa and works at the national burns unit in a hospital in South Auckland, she was on the island last Saturday with her family, visiting our local Saturday market.
She stopped by the Palestinian solidarity stall, which is there every Saturday and is run by a couple of local islanders...(it was one of the locals running the stall who wrote the letter). Anyhow, the doctor had just recently return from doing volunteer work at the al-Shifa hospital in Gaza, (she volunteers for the charity Medical Aid for Palestinians MAP ) along with the letter there was also a photo of her working along side Dr al-Maqadmeh who sadly was shot and killed by the IOF along with his mother earlier this year. following the occupation of the complex by the IOF...
She is going to speak at the solidarity rally this coming Sunday...
I managed to speak with the plastic surgeon (who visited the island last Saturday), after she spoke at the rally today, it turns out she is British born to Palestinian parents. Her speech was quite an emotional one, she had to stop for a while when she was talking about her work with a team of international doctor/surgeons in Gaza who were training up six local Palestinian doctors, four of the local doctors her team trained have now been killed...
She fly back to the UK soon and in September she plans to go back to Gaza, she did say that it is very difficult to get into Gaza...
Had a nice day off island today....Had to catch two ferries to West Harbour to pick up a couple of Keffiyehs I ordered online... A percentage of the money from the sale goes to feeding Palestinian children in Gaza...
I haven't been out to West Harbour in over 20 odd years...The ferry from downtown to West Harbour was quite a small ferry compared to the one's I normal catch into the city from the island...And I hadn't been under the harbour bridge in many years...I think the last time I was on a boat going under the bridge was for a work do cruise around the harbour, it must be over 25 years ago...Anyhow it was a pleasant day all round,,,
Tonight marks the welcoming of Matariki celebrations (Maori new year)...It's also a public holiday tomorrow...
Early tomorrow morning (around 5.15am) some island locals are going down to the beach to welcome Matariki (to star gaze)... If I'm awake I may pop down, before I go for a jolk...It's meant to be clear skies so we should get a clear view of Matariki star cluster..
Who else is going to be watching the Trump/ Biden debate tonight?
Will anyone's lack of sanity on stage be the thing that moves the ambivalent toward voting where they otherwise wouldn't?
I guess I'm mostly curious (again) for what Mr "T" offers over Mr. "B" that could swing the undecided to vote his way. I find it so strange that so many can see one thing where it plainly appears so different to me.
Are we watching History in the re-making where "T" channels Nero in Rome's burning fall, while the millions of a country's heedless non-voters serenade it in a self-centered obliviousness?
or
can Biden awaken enough of its citizens to the spreading fire awaiting all of them?
2
JeroenLuminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlandsVeteran
edited June 27
Honestly I don’t think Trump is entirely sane. He has a streak of low cunning and political street smarts but he is categorically insane.
Thanks for the heads-up @how. It's at 3 in the morning for me so I'll watch a recording tomorrow. I'm definitely team B and share your (grave) concerns.
I just feel sorry for the sane Americans who's only choice is between dumb and dumber...
What a political circus with two clown puppets and in the UK they have a similar situation ...Send in the clowns ...
Don't bother, they're here...
I sat down to watch, knowing that debating skills are not really a necessary skill set that a president needs to do his job.
But...
I was shocked at Biden's tottering on his way to the podium and it just went downhill from there. When he started speaking I hoped someone had recently checked him for a UTI.
He was easily flustered, endlessly repeating the same phrases, losing the endings of his own sentences, and had me angry that he was the **one **who arranged a televised debate that was going to cost him an election that he might have otherwise won.
I like and respect Biden but like a lot of other Democrats in positions of power, somewhere he severely overestimated his own age-related decline to the detriment of his party. A man who cared more for his policies than his own place within them would have groomed a younger replacement and stepped aside long before it got to this point.
With an unchecked mind (a mind filled with ignorance), we are all capable of committing great evil when in a position of power, and both men have acted in ways that prove this to be true.
Power Corrupts! And Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely!
JeroenLuminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlandsVeteran
@Shoshin1 said:
With an unchecked mind (a mind filled with ignorance), we are all capable of committing great evil when in a position of power, and both men have acted in ways that prove this to be true.
“It seems that the higher powers of consciousness are helpless against the lower and ugly powers of politicians. The higher is always fragile, like a roseflower; you can destroy it with a stone. That does not mean that the stone becomes higher than the roseflower; it simply means the stone is unconscious of what it is doing.
The crowds are unconscious of what they are doing, and the politicians belong to the crowd. They are their representatives. And when blind people are leading other blind people, it is almost impossible to wake them up; because the question is not only that they are asleep -- they are blind too.”
Thus have I heard "It is not the will of the people; but the will of the politicians prompted by groups of professional lobbyists, interest groups and activists that reign in a democracy" ~ Frank Karsten & Karel Beckman Beyond Democracy~
Call me cynical, but this debacle debate might serve as a convenient escape for 'Genocide Joe,' (get out of jail free card), citing reasons of cognitive decline aka senility...
When the truth about the American government's complicity in the genocide and ethnic cleansing in Gaza comes to light, and 'Genocide Joe' has already been forced to step down, they will claim he wasn't in his right mind when he issued orders to supply more weapons of mass destruction to Israel and veto all attempts for a long-term ceasefire. And the government officials, as loyal and patriotic employees, will conveniently say they were 'just following orders of their commander-in- chief...
The biggest loser in this debate is the American people...
0
JeroenLuminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlandsVeteran
There have to be better candidates than an ancient and senile Biden in the whole Democratic Party, they just have to step forward. It could still be a win.
Talk about snail mail... I just received a postcard this morning from Jordan, from one of my son's and his wife ...No big deal....However they were in Jordan back in February 2020, four and half years ago.....
Aotearoa went into lockdown late February 2020, so it may have been lost somewhere in the NZ postal system...Better late than never
At first I thought it was a Hobbit's holiday home, then I found out that it was a mobile Sauna for hire ...Groups of people hire it, when they take a dip in the cold ocean water over winter. It can be found at different beaches around the island..
Another beautiful misty morning...
The island is clouded in mystery mistery...
Jolking through the thick mist kinda reminds me of this
"Great Faith and Great Doubt are two ends of a spiritual walking stick. We grip one end with the grasp given to us by our Great Determination. We poke into the underbrush in the dark on our spiritual journey. This act is real spiritual practice -- gripping the Faith end and poking ahead with the Doubt end of the stick. If we have no Faith, we have no Doubt. If we have no Determination, we never pick up the stick in the first place."
~Sensei Sevan Ross~
I have three elders in my family (mother, aunt, father) for whom I function as a kind of tech-support. I've been trying to get them to use Uber for a while now, since it's much cheaper than the local old-school taxi. I've also been trying to normalize using a taxi when in need, since two of them have very bad knees and one of them is old, and since none of us has a car. My mother just told me that all three of them are in an Uber together and are very pleased with the service and cost. My mother seems to be the "early adopter" I need to aim to convince first. Great success!
Attended another solidarity rally this afternoon and on the ferry on the way back , the ferry captain slowed the ferry down as a pod of Orca (I only saw the one but the captain said a pod )passed across the bow...
Today, been rescuing my Lenova laptop.
It came with Windows! No thank you!
Installed Linux OS Manjaro but today was pleased to get EasyOS Linux on it.
Despite the name EasyOS is not that easy for those new to Linux. However, it is largely based on Puppy Linux, which I am very familiar with https://easyos.org/
I am a geeky penguin.
Namu Amitabha
2
JeroenLuminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlandsVeteran
Did you know that in Flanders installing a rainwater catching and reuse system is mandatory with all new houses? That is a tank with filters and a pump, and the water gets used for toilets, washing machines, outside water in the gardens and so on. They save nearly 40% on drinking water that way, which leads to lower water bills. Nearly 1 million homes now have the system installed.
@Shoshin1 said:
Attended another solidarity rally this afternoon and on the ferry on the way back , the ferry captain slowed the ferry down as a pod of Orca (I only saw the one but the captain said a pod )passed across the bow...
@Jeroen said:
Did you know that in Flanders installing a rainwater catching and reuse system is mandatory with all new houses? That is a tank with filters and a pump, and the water gets used for toilets, washing machines, outside water in the gardens and so on. They save nearly 40% on drinking water that way, which leads to lower water bills. Nearly 1 million homes now have the system installed.
This is a good practice of respect for the water we use
but
so long as humans continue to thoughtlessly increase our numbers beyond what a fixed eco system can sustain, this is only a cosmetic covering to a lemmings migration story.
Last March, yielding to needs of family, I acquired a new Mitsubishi Outlander.
Come June, a third party took it out. <1k miles, totalled.
Positive: The driver was well protected (5 airbags, proactive seat belt)
The car gave it's all to protect my dtr.
Auto insurance no longer needed
Auto payments vanished
Negative: Expected tours cancelled
Dtr, though nothing broken, still had to get care for ongoing recovery.
A car feels no pain and can be replaced.
A person can not be replaced
Life is sacred
Comments
Anger leads to seriousness. Seriousness leads to ruthlessness. Ruthlessness leads to suffering. Suffering leads to hate. To paraphrase Yoda.
Every year as you start relaxing on a sunny beach, Northern dudes are pulling out their winter apparel. As your last tourist has finally left you with a quieter island, our tourists are disembarking from passing cruise liners.
Your pictures of your day to day walks are a calendar reminder for us northerners of that constant cycle of change.
I see these huge dogs out with their human companian most mornings. There are two of them most probably siblings, enjoying the beach walk and the ocean...
And on the way home from work this afternoon, the clouds caught my eye
Winter has started to infiltrate Autumn
Its take over will be complete by the end of next week.(1st June)
Turning into a solarpunx
Announcement. Not random tho. I miss all of you. Feels like the twilight zone around here. 😵💫
I’m assuming we all left the living room and went to our respective spaces due to a necessary fumigation. Hope to see you all soon…. 🤟🏻
Microexpressions
It's hard to read somebody who has had botox...no surprises there
The last day of Autumn's sunrise...
It's been surprisingly warm today... high of 18 *C ...
A high of 19 *C is forecast for tomorrow the 1st of June... the official start of Southern Hemisphere Winter.
What's in store for Aotearoa over the next few days ...weather-wise...
It could be worse...
Ha Ha Ha Suckers
Sub-tropical winds from New Caledonia coming down the northern parts of the North Island..
Yep that's about right...it was quite warm this morning...
I went to another rally this afternoon to show my support, most of today has been warm and sunny...On the way over on the ferry I checked the weather forecast ...Severe thunderstorm warning and areas about and near the Hauraki Gulf (I'm on one of the islands in the Hauraki Gulf) are most likely to experience the downpours which will bring heavy rain 25-40mm per hour. It's expected to start around 9pm this evening and continue on to 2am..
Well for many locals who are low on water, this can be a good thing (most of the island's dwellings are on tank water)....
The winds have started to pick up...here we go again...
Well there's been a drop I temperature this morning, but some bra souls are still swimming...
I enjoyed observing the sun's rays through the cloud...
As you can tell it was quite windy and the ocean choppy but still a beautiful morning...
In the local Island newspaper today, there was a letter in the 'letters to the editor' section about a Palestinian plastic surgeon who lives here in Aotearoa and works at the national burns unit in a hospital in South Auckland, she was on the island last Saturday with her family, visiting our local Saturday market.
She stopped by the Palestinian solidarity stall, which is there every Saturday and is run by a couple of local islanders...(it was one of the locals running the stall who wrote the letter). Anyhow, the doctor had just recently return from doing volunteer work at the al-Shifa hospital in Gaza, (she volunteers for the charity Medical Aid for Palestinians MAP ) along with the letter there was also a photo of her working along side Dr al-Maqadmeh who sadly was shot and killed by the IOF along with his mother earlier this year. following the occupation of the complex by the IOF...
She is going to speak at the solidarity rally this coming Sunday...
I managed to speak with the plastic surgeon (who visited the island last Saturday), after she spoke at the rally today, it turns out she is British born to Palestinian parents. Her speech was quite an emotional one, she had to stop for a while when she was talking about her work with a team of international doctor/surgeons in Gaza who were training up six local Palestinian doctors, four of the local doctors her team trained have now been killed...
She fly back to the UK soon and in September she plans to go back to Gaza, she did say that it is very difficult to get into Gaza...
This morning the weather DJ played misty for me
This morning's sun breaking through the clouds
Some locals are still swimming everyday...
Had a nice day off island today....Had to catch two ferries to West Harbour to pick up a couple of Keffiyehs I ordered online... A percentage of the money from the sale goes to feeding Palestinian children in Gaza...
I haven't been out to West Harbour in over 20 odd years...The ferry from downtown to West Harbour was quite a small ferry compared to the one's I normal catch into the city from the island...And I hadn't been under the harbour bridge in many years...I think the last time I was on a boat going under the bridge was for a work do cruise around the harbour, it must be over 25 years ago...Anyhow it was a pleasant day all round,,,
Tonight marks the welcoming of Matariki celebrations (Maori new year)...It's also a public holiday tomorrow...
Early tomorrow morning (around 5.15am) some island locals are going down to the beach to welcome Matariki (to star gaze)... If I'm awake I may pop down, before I go for a jolk...It's meant to be clear skies so we should get a clear view of Matariki star cluster..
The story of Matariki
Who else is going to be watching the Trump/ Biden debate tonight?
Will anyone's lack of sanity on stage be the thing that moves the ambivalent toward voting where they otherwise wouldn't?
I guess I'm mostly curious (again) for what Mr "T" offers over Mr. "B" that could swing the undecided to vote his way. I find it so strange that so many can see one thing where it plainly appears so different to me.
Are we watching History in the re-making where "T" channels Nero in Rome's burning fall, while the millions of a country's heedless non-voters serenade it in a self-centered obliviousness?
or
can Biden awaken enough of its citizens to the spreading fire awaiting all of them?
Honestly I don’t think Trump is entirely sane. He has a streak of low cunning and political street smarts but he is categorically insane.
Thanks for the heads-up @how. It's at 3 in the morning for me so I'll watch a recording tomorrow. I'm definitely team B and share your (grave) concerns.
I just feel sorry for the sane Americans who's only choice is between dumb and dumber...
What a political circus with two clown puppets and in the UK they have a similar situation ...Send in the clowns ...
Don't bother, they're here...
I sat down to watch, knowing that debating skills are not really a necessary skill set that a president needs to do his job.
But...
I was shocked at Biden's tottering on his way to the podium and it just went downhill from there. When he started speaking I hoped someone had recently checked him for a UTI.
He was easily flustered, endlessly repeating the same phrases, losing the endings of his own sentences, and had me angry that he was the **one **who arranged a televised debate that was going to cost him an election that he might have otherwise won.
I like and respect Biden but like a lot of other Democrats in positions of power, somewhere he severely overestimated his own age-related decline to the detriment of his party. A man who cared more for his policies than his own place within them would have groomed a younger replacement and stepped aside long before it got to this point.
What can I say.......Where's Spitting Image when you need them..
I would still prefer him over Trump.
Better the devil you know???
With an unchecked mind (a mind filled with ignorance), we are all capable of committing great evil when in a position of power, and both men have acted in ways that prove this to be true.
Power Corrupts! And Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely!
...And when it comes to UK politricks
It looks like nothing's changed...
Well, this sucks.
“It seems that the higher powers of consciousness are helpless against the lower and ugly powers of politicians. The higher is always fragile, like a roseflower; you can destroy it with a stone. That does not mean that the stone becomes higher than the roseflower; it simply means the stone is unconscious of what it is doing.
The crowds are unconscious of what they are doing, and the politicians belong to the crowd. They are their representatives. And when blind people are leading other blind people, it is almost impossible to wake them up; because the question is not only that they are asleep -- they are blind too.”
Thus have I heard
"It is not the will of the people; but the will of the politicians prompted by groups of professional lobbyists, interest groups and activists that reign in a democracy"
~ Frank Karsten & Karel Beckman Beyond Democracy~
Meanwhile, those of us 🏴☠️ flying a difference flag
Are happy to look for alternatives to the devils/mara irrelevance.
Am supporting what will make a difference:
In other words. Have not watched the farcical. Did get the whole shower of would be ruler pamphlets delivered yesterday. Had a brief laff.
Now back to changing the inner world… 😌🫶🦞
Call me cynical, but this debacle debate might serve as a convenient escape for 'Genocide Joe,' (get out of jail free card), citing reasons of cognitive decline aka senility...
When the truth about the American government's complicity in the genocide and ethnic cleansing in Gaza comes to light, and 'Genocide Joe' has already been forced to step down, they will claim he wasn't in his right mind when he issued orders to supply more weapons of mass destruction to Israel and veto all attempts for a long-term ceasefire. And the government officials, as loyal and patriotic employees, will conveniently say they were 'just following orders of their commander-in- chief...
The biggest loser in this debate is the American people...
There have to be better candidates than an ancient and senile Biden in the whole Democratic Party, they just have to step forward. It could still be a win.
Got treated to a display of dolphins in the bay this morning
Talk about snail mail... I just received a postcard this morning from Jordan, from one of my son's and his wife ...No big deal....However they were in Jordan back in February 2020, four and half years ago.....
Aotearoa went into lockdown late February 2020, so it may have been lost somewhere in the NZ postal system...Better late than never
Ah ha! That is what I call enlightened service. Much better than whatsapp and other instances
At first I thought it was a Hobbit's holiday home, then I found out that it was a mobile Sauna for hire ...Groups of people hire it, when they take a dip in the cold ocean water over winter. It can be found at different beaches around the island..
Another beautiful misty morning...
The island is clouded in mystery mistery...
Jolking through the thick mist kinda reminds me of this
"Great Faith and Great Doubt are two ends of a spiritual walking stick. We grip one end with the grasp given to us by our Great Determination. We poke into the underbrush in the dark on our spiritual journey. This act is real spiritual practice -- gripping the Faith end and poking ahead with the Doubt end of the stick. If we have no Faith, we have no Doubt. If we have no Determination, we never pick up the stick in the first place."
~Sensei Sevan Ross~
The mist didn't lift until mid-afternoon...
I remember growing up in London when the smog was so thick you could only see around a metre or two in front of you...
A close up on the mobile sauna ..
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/hKEd65g6YIE
It's quite tiny...like a Hobbit's home...
I have three elders in my family (mother, aunt, father) for whom I function as a kind of tech-support. I've been trying to get them to use Uber for a while now, since it's much cheaper than the local old-school taxi. I've also been trying to normalize using a taxi when in need, since two of them have very bad knees and one of them is old, and since none of us has a car. My mother just told me that all three of them are in an Uber together and are very pleased with the service and cost. My mother seems to be the "early adopter" I need to aim to convince first. Great success!
As well as Buddha people, Bodhi terrapins etc we were glad to see juvenile Robin Bodhisattva. What a poser! On our London Common.
Thus had I heard and now also find true...
Attended another solidarity rally this afternoon and on the ferry on the way back , the ferry captain slowed the ferry down as a pod of Orca (I only saw the one but the captain said a pod )passed across the bow...
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/itPb9LW-YAs
Today, been rescuing my Lenova laptop.
It came with Windows! No thank you!
Installed Linux OS Manjaro but today was pleased to get EasyOS Linux on it.
Despite the name EasyOS is not that easy for those new to Linux. However, it is largely based on Puppy Linux, which I am very familiar with
https://easyos.org/
I am a geeky penguin.
Namu Amitabha
Did you know that in Flanders installing a rainwater catching and reuse system is mandatory with all new houses? That is a tank with filters and a pump, and the water gets used for toilets, washing machines, outside water in the gardens and so on. They save nearly 40% on drinking water that way, which leads to lower water bills. Nearly 1 million homes now have the system installed.
Wow, now that's cool!
This is a good practice of respect for the water we use
but
so long as humans continue to thoughtlessly increase our numbers beyond what a fixed eco system can sustain, this is only a cosmetic covering to a lemmings migration story.
Last March, yielding to needs of family, I acquired a new Mitsubishi Outlander.
Come June, a third party took it out. <1k miles, totalled.
Positive: The driver was well protected (5 airbags, proactive seat belt)
The car gave it's all to protect my dtr.
Auto insurance no longer needed
Auto payments vanished
Negative: Expected tours cancelled
Dtr, though nothing broken, still had to get care for ongoing recovery.
A car feels no pain and can be replaced.
A person can not be replaced
Life is sacred
Peace to all