Ukraine and Human Reason

Remember Human Reason?
I think the best response to Russia invading Ukraine would have been not to supply Ukraine with weapons but to suggest to the Ukraine that they pay their gas bill to Russia. 20 years of extremely cheap, by any standards, OIL and GAS is a hell of a lot NOT to pay for.
Would have saved a lot of misery for everyone.
Just being reasonable.

Melbourne Botanical Gardens

The Melbourne Botanical Gardens are astoundingly beautiful.

They were designed by some German Count quite awhile ago, & yes, that's 'Count'...(Thank you).

And he did a damn good job with the layout and the pathways and all the remarkable plants. It's huge. It's a paradise. It's like God like.

I used to think that the world's great jungles should be organised like very good golf courses, with beautiful access and easy walking, and maybe a club and a ball, and along the perimeters would be wonderland nature. But I think I'd prefer Wild Nature to be more like a well organised German Botanical Garden.

I wished to take some cutting shears and a Coles bag with me, but respect and personal integrity got in the way and stymied my predatory carnal-like plant acquisition ambitions.

We walked around for a few hours and had something to eat. Then sat in the traffic for a couple of hours on the way home, talking about how well the Chinese MG (Morris Garages) car brand has done here in recent years.

MG, & 'Haval' (Great Wall Motors: 'Havana') have actually done well and are now selling like KIAs and Hyundais used to. Good quality. Not expensive. They found their shining path. they found the right... recipe.

After a bright coolish Summertime day afoot in Melbourne, it was obviously cold and bleak and raining when we got home, and I rushed out to compare the Melbourne Botanical Gardens with our backyard.

True, the Botanical Gardens are still somewhat bigger...and involve no bright red concrete, but I think the Botanical Gardens could still learn a bit from our succinct Zen-Roman Wang-Fitzpatrick Design paradigms and synchronous yet non-repeating rhythmicities... or, um ...what do you call those things? Mum used to call them 'recipes'...Facebook and Amazon and GPS and Robodebt etc are totally dependent on them...ah, I forgot what they're called. Very important things, anyway.

Ah! That's it! Algorithm! Mum's algorithm for Baked Lamb with roast potatoes, peas, even beans sometimes...or a sponge cake...etc. A recipe! Well done, ageing brain, and Well Done, Mum!!

Anyway, back to work for the next 3 days so a bit of a flirtation with reality ahead, I guess... or just a different recipe for the days.

Not a good thing to happen

I bought some security light/video device from an Australian owned company in Townsville way back in November last year. It cost $100.

Didn't arrive. I enquired in December...well, there's been some delay...oh, well, yeah, okay.

I've tried to contact them since but there's been no reply at all.

As its now the end of January and someone nicked my bicycle from a spot under which the security light was supposed to be...I bought another very similar device from another company. Maybe not Australian owned, but who cares, when the Oz doesn't deliver or even acknowledge the issue?

The Name of the Townsville Based Company that can't supply or reply is:

Review: Telstra Internet Fiber Direct to the Home Set Up/ 5 G with instant 4 G Back Up. We've now had it in the new home for about 6 weeks, and I must admit, its kind of woeful compared with the more primitive set up we had at Craigieburn. Its slower and, mind you, somehow it costs us more. One computer, one smart TV kind of okay, but no hope of adding on a tablet etc as it can't/won't connect for a long long long time. Dare I try to contact Telstra? An interesting World Communications Super Company in that they are so advanced that there's no one there when you phone them. They should really replace the shonky music and ads, as you are waiting interminably, with the sound of crickets in a field at night.

Update The Ukraine

More 'news' from the Ukrainian Military Advertising Folk noting huge land gains by their brave forces.

I do tend to doubt that completely.

I think Russia has made the gains it wished to make, has incorporated those Eastern provinces into formal Russian Law, & so has achieved its goal: a strong buffer zone to prevent further Western threat and intimidation. The Russian job now is just to enforce the new borders between itself and what remains of Ukraine. 300,000 Russian army conscripts can do that.

Russia will loosen its tenacious grip on the Southern Ports, (whilst keeping The Crimea for good until Ukraine pays its 20 billion euro gas bill- well in arrears now), as a negotiation tool in a month or two.

Germany will seek diplomatic ends, as the peace maker about to go broke, and the rest of Europe will comply.

The USA will be sidelined, but will put on their usual lying/winning face, in regards to the matter before winter grips Europe, and Russian gas flows again, just in time, especially for Germany.

Most of the stockpile of US and European weapons in the Ukraine will continue be sold off at great profit for the Ukrainian elite to unstable African regimes, as they are doing now.

Peace will come about this way for Europe.

There will be strife in Africa to come, for sure, though...but who in the West cares about Africa? Only China cares about Africa in the present age.

In the meantime, the Western Journalists will stay in their comfortable hotels in Ukrainian cities, and just be taken out on day trips by the Ukrainian Advertising executives, to be told the news and to photograph stuff, and report with serious demeanours how Ukraine is actually winning, far away from anywhere or anyone dangerous, before it gets too cold there, and it will get cold.

China and Poverty

I haven't ever been jealous of other people's possessions, houses, cars etc. I am fortunate that I have always had a little money, which, to me, is essential and is much like oxygen. One does not need a lot, but enough to live with.
I think in any world recession/depression the problem is that a great majority of folk will not have enough, whilst those who have plenty will still demand plenty, and even more.
This is when it will get nasty, and, for good reason.
When you look back a little time, at what was called the Arab Spring, where many countries demonstrated and rebelled against their governments, it was not because of a high calling to American democracy or even representation, it was simply that as money got tight, the ruling class still had to have their growing share...and took it, and the rest of the people had, really, no food.
When you look back further at, say, the Tiananmen rebellion in China, in the capital, Beijing, it wasn't about a rising need for democracy at all, no matter how the West paints that time. It was simply that the price of cooking oil became too high for people to afford, and the huge money went into the pockets of corrupt folk in both government and emerging private industry.
I think the Chinese have learned well that people must be considered in any social equation. The Chinese people remain capable of the biggest bloodiest most horrific revolution ever, anytime, and one that has no endpoint and no resolution, one that would pretty well doom the world back to the stone age, unless the needs of people are considered. I'm sure the government of China is well aware of this. Because of this at-home awareness of consequences, I expect China and the people of China, will do okay in these darkening times.

Wyndham Plumbing, here in Melton, did a great job...Fast, quality, economical.