LAST Week:-  I spent the week reading. One of the advantages of retirement.

Outside the weather has been cold, intermittently wet and sometimes a bit breezy.

Hats and Crowns:- Rob gets the hat with his 1/7.

THIS Week. I stunned myself with a 5/7 this week. Just how well will you go with this week’s quiz?

Previous Dunces

10th May, 1/7, Rob

2nd May, 2/7, Ærchie, daisyfae, healingmagichands

26th Apr, 3/7, No Hat Awarded

19th Apr, 3/7, No Hat Awarded

12th Apr, 2/7, Ærchie, Bunk Strutts

5th Apr, No hats awarded

22nd Mar, 2/7, Rob

15th Mar, 1/7, azahar, Rob

8th Mar, 1/7, daisyfae

1st Mar, 1/7, healingmagichands

22nd Feb, 2/7, Buff McMenis

15th Feb, 2/7, daisyfae

8th Feb, 3/7, No Hats awarded

1st Feb, 1/7, Rob

Crown Winners (7/7)

2nd Dec, 2011, dinahmow

13th Jan, 2012, dinahmow

27th Jan, 2012, dinahmow

10th Feb, 2012, dinahmow

30th Mar, 2012, dinahmow

8th Jun, 2012, daisyfae

7th Jul, 2012, healingmagichands

14th Sept, 2012, healingmagichands

28th Sept, 2012, dinahmow

5th Oct, 2012, dinahmow, healingmagichands, Buff

7th Dec, 2012, healingmagichands, Rob

From the Western Mail during the 1930′s

“What few seem to properly understand – even people in government – is that miners and other resources industries aren’t just ATMs for everyone else to draw from. . . “

Please take note that it is, in point of fact, YOU who are treating Australia as an ATM.

Australia and all its people, own those resources you have been given the privilege to mine.

Just a small hint. You are holding a piece of Australia in your hand. Not a piece of Ginaland.

Your right to mine is dependent upon our willingness to let you continue.

Just as I pay rent to a landlord, so do you. And I am your landlord. If I decide to put up your rent, then either pay up or move out.

There will be other renters to take your place.

So how about paying your way in this country which gave you birth and cut out the greed and selfishness which seem to characterise your rather pathetic life. After all, Just like my father and your father, we will both die one day soon* and it will be the good we do which will live on.

Stop treating Australia like an ATM and start contributing to society yourself!

*soon ; In geological time, in the blink of an eye!

Shale mining under Great Barrier Reef

‘likely to be banned’

Only “Likely to be banned”????

Surely that would have to be an absolute given and not even thought about.

Climate research nearly unanimous on human causes, survey finds

Yet we prefer to walk around with our eyes closed.

We will use the medicine, computers and GPS’s that Science has provided us yet we ignore the warnings of Science with respect to the sewer the Earth is becoming.

Vital coastal carbon capture systems under threat

We really don’t deserve this planet!

And it is the only one with chocolate!

Church abuse victim required to repay compo

Now that is a real settlement contract.

With an automatic reverse bribe thown in for good measure.

Saudi religious police boss condemns Twitter users

Oh dear, I’m going to Hell.

This is the classic “despot using religion for power” situation.

Not that Christians have anything to be proud of – - -

Aleppo soap: War threatens an ancient tradition

It is good that we have war.

Getting rid of these old-fashioned things must be a good thing for humanity

Mustn’t it?

KFC smuggled through Gaza tunnels

Is there any need to comment on this one?

As the area became more closely settled a dam was built upstream.

Unnoticed by the dam builders, a vein of valuable gemstones was amongst the material used to create the wall.

It didn’t take some of the locals long to find this source of wealth and a gemstone marketplace was set up in the now-dry riverbed.

It was a challenge to dig the stones out of the dam, but it provided a good living.

A new and  inexperienced gemstone hunter wanted to gather all the stones at once and sell them in one huge batch at the riverbed market.

However wiser heads prevailed after they told him, “You don’t want to dig out all the stones at one time. You’ll flood the market.”

America’s First Climate Refugees

Oh, Messrs Koch, you will be held in contempt by your Grandchildren.

Monsanto Wins Case Of Seed Patents; Planting Your Own Legally Purchased & Grown Seeds Can Be Infringing

The grasping tentacles of this monstrous corporation could do more damage to the human species than any natural disaster.

Looking closely at comment #12

Bulldozers destroy Mayan pyramid in Belize

The historian in me is dismayed and outraged!

Spaceman Hadfield touches down after ISS mission

A good bit of news at last.

Although I wonder if mankind will walk on the moon during my children’s lifetime.

Commander Chris Hadfield can sing a bit as well. Even David Bowie thinks it is a good cover.

New procedure prolongs lives of heart attack victims

This is a really good one. Lifesaving and wonderful.

Tho’ I do wonder what this will do to transplant protocols.

Japanese politician defends use of sex slaves

This one makes me see red. It is so wrong on so many levels!

Oxford Uni honours Thatcher with scholarship

I do hope they are holding her up as a horrible example!

UN urges people to eat insects to fight world hunger

I don’t mind being Green

BUT!!!!!!

Wondering when Sir Hillary Throckmorton-Shillingsworth III and the First Mate would return from their secret mission to Mecca, Captain Quid leafed idly through his backlog of old dispatches:

August, 1588

From:      The Lord High Admiral

To:          The Privy Council

… The next morning, being Sunday 21 July 1588, all the English ships that were then come out of Plymouth had recovered the wind off Idye Stone, and about 9 of the clock in the morning, the Lord Admiral sent his pinnace, named The Disdain, to give the Duke of Medina defiance …(Stephen Underwood, “The Great Enterprise)

Quite a daring gesture of defiance, Quid thought; and no wonder that it is emulated to this day, though abbreviated by time to a simple hand-gesture! He wondered whether the Lord Admiral had named his pinnace especially for the occasion, and whether Mrs. Admiral had christened his pinnace, and how she christened it. And this train of thought begat a second, funeral train of thought regarding his own pinnace — stolen on the North Sea by Cilantro the spy. The sound of musket fire interrupted his reverie; he hurried up to the quarter-deck.

The Boatswain had just ordered nets stretched from the rails up to the lower yards to intercept boarders. And not a moment too soon! A mob in which swords and daggers glittered was pouring out of Jidda’s narrow streets, chasing a tired-looking camel whose two riders urged it wildly on. The beast clattered out onto the pier; the riders leaped for the gangplank! Scrambling through the inter-net, they reached the main deck at last. Only then did Quid realize that the half-naked men were Sir Hillary and the First Mate. They quickly briefed him.

“You know, I’ve always put these on first,” Quid observed. “Are you sure inside-out is the style here?”

“We only barely escaped, sir,” the First Mate exclaimed.

“So I see, “Quid noted. Nervously, he eyed the enraged crowd of Arabs which had gathered on the pier and were making gestures of defiance. “How?” he asked distractedly.

“We’d made our robes into sarongs. We didn’t need the rest of our clothes after that, so …

…”We gave them the slip!”

This is around five years old but I will try to find some more Current stuff.

Burgled from The Australian Women’s Weekly, Saturday 15 May 1943

Burgled from God