One time in Sunday School, the teacher was talking about the difference between humans and animals, and mentioned that Animals had Tails and humans didn't. I let her know this was not true, because my Dad had a tail, just in the front, instead of the back. The teacher was silent for several seconds, and tried to correct me in a church appropriate way, but I doubled down, and insisted that my little brothers also had front tails too. This got so heated that the teacher had to go get my parents to take me out of Sunday School.
@RickiTarr when I was in Primary School, maybe 3rd or 4th class, one of the teachers gave a speech to the whole school during assembly about the importance of manners. I was not a disruptive kid, and in no way planned it, but at the precise moment the teacher finished their talk, I did the loudest burp I had ever done. It's possible I've only ever managed to match it during the intervening decades. That led to my first ever (and one of maybe only 2 or 3 in my entire school years) detention.
"Look, I can tell you, this claim by the CSIRO that you can run a whole country on solar and wind is simply a lie," [Dick] Smith said
Did he not get the memo about not denigrating and undermining our nations scientific bodies and hard working scientists? #auspol#science#csiro#renewableenergy
@Jakra It's also just a plain stupid thing to say. Because it hasn't been done, it can never be done? That's complete brainworm shit going on there. #auspol
@dcbuchan@melissabeartrix it's difficult to say really. You know, it's like one of those, it was the best of times, it was the worst of times, kind of thing
@weyoun6@selzero I'm reading Unruly by David Mitchell at the moment. An interesting look at the history of British royal history.
One thing I learnt was that, after the Romans left, the elite that were left had no means to defend themselves to make sure the Picts left them alone. So, they hired goons from the European mainland. The goons saw the Picts off, then they decided that there was nothing to stop them replacing the guys that hired them.
So, that scenario is definitely not without precedent, apparently.
Only 23 years ago, the world population was about 6 billion, I remember reading about it in some biology books. Today though there are closer to 8 billion people on the earth. To be sure, I haven't studied the impact of people on the earth enough to write about, and this morning I'm just blathering with minimal information, but that seems like an alarming figure, doesn't it? It seems like there will be a point when the population's consumption of natural resources strips the earth bare. Be fruitful and multiply indeed.
"It's coming home to roost over the next 50 years or so. It's not just climate change; it's sheer space, places to grow food for this enormous horde. Either we limit our population growth, or the natural world will do it for us, and the natural world is doing it for us right now." -
David Attenborough
@Swede1952 I've read a few things about that, and there are certainly different views about the impact of human population on the earth. I think, though, that there are more experts that agree that we could still have more people on the planet, without much of a problem. But we would need to change the way we use the earth's resources.
The issue is, that the way we use land and resources now is terribly inefficient.
After giving a climate talk to a community group the other day, one guy came up to me to "give feedback" (i.e. complain that I didn't focus enough on telling people how to cut their personal #CarbonFootprint - to use the phrase that #BP really wants us to focus on).
This led into a discussion about why individual consumer choices always have the system stacked against them. As part of that point, I mentioned the enormous scale of #DirtyEnergySubsidies (>$7t globally each year, though I focused on $11b annually in Australia, which is a widely cited figure based on a narrower definition of subsidy; he seemed like the kind of guy who wouldn't care as much if I wasn't talking about his country.)
Upon hearing of these subsidies (which were apparently news to him), he said "yeah, but how much tax do they contribute?"
@golgaloth Decisions. Sometimes a decision lays before you and there are so many possibilities, so many ways that it could go good or bad, that it actually makes it easy to choose. Simply take the first reasonable option that pops into your brain, and hope for the best. And if it's the wrong option, well, it won't be too bad. You can probably just choose again.
Sometimes a decision lays before you and there are only two options. Yes or no. Go or stop. Live or die. These are the decisions that can twist your brain into a pretzel. The wrong decision is the wrong decision, and there is no turning back.
I'd heard about the Chicken before. Rude and unreasonable was the consensus, and I just wasn't in the mood. A few people had told me the Juice was a bit strange, but what can you expect from Juice? I'm not even sure if it has a brain, so sure, it will be strange. I had to choose a companion, someone to watch my back, and the pickings were slim. I chose the Strange Juice
@kaffeeringe Schöne lange Liste.
Plus In Baby - Muse
No One Knows - QOTSA
Let Me In - Beatsteaks
Cuckoo - I Am Kloot
The Funeral - Band of Horses
Sing - Travis
Das sind meine lieblings Lieder aber es gibt noch andere gute Songs!
When I was in Wellington, New Zealand, I was entranced by their unusual crosswalk icons. I asked my new friends there about them. I was told a story about a drag performer and activist by the name of Carmen Rupe. She was a trans woman who was also Māori (native people of NZ).