Friday Evening Raffle Post – Plus an Apology

Fiona Uncategorized

(Image Credit: Sydney Pet Rescue & Adoption)

As you will have noticed, there was not the usual new post at the beginning of this week.

My sincere apologies to everyone, and most especially Vote1Julia, about this.

I’ve been in a dark place for the past week and a half. Things are starting to get a little better, however, and I will work on your post this evening and tomorrow, V1J.

The Boss is not around at the moment, which is why I’m doing this post.

Let’s make it a convivial Friday evening, Order your numbers, your drinks, and put on your favourite music. Here’s one piece that’s very special:

289 thoughts on “Friday Evening Raffle Post – Plus an Apology”

  3. joe6pack

    Razz and I are so pleased with your results. Now, we just have to help Fiona get back on track with lots of love and care.

  4. Both my docs GP. and Specialist agree that the libs produce the worst health ministers. Not interested in the health of people, more interested in the health of their budgets.

  8. Good Lord! I just don’t know what to say about this ‘advice’.

    Senior female surgeon urges trainees to stay silent on sex abuse in hospitals

    Her career was ruined by this one guy asking for sex on this night. And, realistically, she would have been much better to have given him a blow job on that night,” Dr McMullin said.

    “What I tell my trainees is that, if you are approached for sex, probably the safest thing to do in terms of your career is to comply with the request; the worst thing you can possibly do is to complain to the supervising body because then, as in Caroline’s position, you can be sure that you will never be appointed to a major public hospital

    http://www.theage.com.au/national/senior-female-surgeon-urges-trainees-to-stay-silent-on-sex-abuse-in-hospitals-20150307-13xusq.html

  10. pressuming the bali 2 get shot do the bodies come back here and what will abbott do? will there be state funerals?

  11. State funerals for drug runners – I hope not. But if Abbott thinks weeping over repatriated coffins will help his polling then it will be on with all the bells and whistles.

  12. Fiona, Thanks
    Mrs. 6pack will, I will sip in happy memories.
    Just a sip though tonight, I am on the wagon for a while till this is beat

  14. Joe6pack,

    on the wagon for a while

    I suspected as much. That’s why you’ve only been given the virtual stuff 😛

  15. Joe6 pack – very good news- Fiona – hope you are feeling a bit better

    . Heard an interesting point of view- the whole’ spill’ was a con – it was designed to flush out enemies- give Abbott the reboot opportunity- after the mea culpa- and if all goes down well maybe even a rush to an early election with these new’ kinder’ policies.

  17. I can think of someone I’d like dead, buried and cremated, paid for by the State.

  18. Is Dr. McMullin applying some reverse psychology in her approach to sexual abuse in the rarefied environment of surgery? Is she self-immolating to draw attention to the problem? Discuss.

  19. My son said straight up it was a con to cover for the TPP. The reason may not be right, but I suspect the con part was near the money.

  20. Lord of the Fridge

    When I heard her say it this morning on RN I thought I had misheard what she said so I shrugged it off. I feel sick now.

  21. Went on a fish survey jaunt over the Mighty Murray the other day with a young research fellow named Gareth…from one of the “leafier” suburbs…a young bloke, but already an expert on species pesci and birdy ….nice kid, but I do feel for him having a name like “Gareth”…I mean..it puts you on the defensive straight away, doesn’t it?…You know, you front up to a lovely lady and you introduce yourself…”Hi!..I’m Gareth…” ..well..straight away all one can think of is cheese and cucumber sandwiches!….now if your name was..oh, say ..; “Sam”, or “Ben” or “Joe”..I mean..those are names you can throw around and come up with a ; “safe pair of hands”..”strong but fair”..someone who “does real things”….on the other hand , you have “Barry (Bazza!!)”..”Gary (Gazza!)”..or “Darrin”…and you have boozy yob!…But ; Gareth…I dunno..a tad like “Jamie” …I remember a young chap years ago lamenting that he had once introduced himself to a “potential” with the shortened version of his name..”Al “…”Oh!..well hello Alan” the young lady responded…to which he “like a effing idiot! corrected..: Aloysius”….and she burst out laughing..and every time she looked at him she started again!….I don’t know..he didn’t know either..but it ruined the “moment”..and he wished he was drinking a whisky and dry rather than a Bacardi and coke!

    As I said , he was from a leafy suburb…I asked ..”Are your mum and dad still together?” (he had told me his parents were just retired)..on replying the affirmative, I reflected that most of the working class marriages I know are on their second or third…I tch’d and commented..”Well, I guess the middle-class either has more tolerance, or lower expectations”…

    But ; “Gareth”..I ask you…!…about all you’d attract with a name like THAT would be a “Cheryl”…

  22. Catalyst

    It wouldn’t surprise me, and the msm haven’t wasted any time pumping him up again. I needn’t say it but I will, they didn’t do that for Julia.

  25. Ahh!, Joe…send us your address and I’ll pack a jar of Bedford exhaust fumes straight to you…a few inhales of that stuff and it’ll fix you like snort of double-strength coke!…you must be getting soft in your old age!…Why..I can remember a time when if’n a ploughman came down with the sniffles, he’d hitch up behind the lead draught-horse and wait on it’s morning fart…clear the lungs fresh like new-born heifer on a spring morn’ !

    Go on!…down to the workshop with you and fill your lungs full of that lovely diesel smoke…a couple of clearing coughs and you’ll be right as rain…like a smokers first ciggy!

  26. I think that surgeon is simply stating reality. She is saying that in reality of the sexism of the surgeons’ world, you can choose to be a martyr o the cause of eradicating sexual abuse, or a surgeon, but you cannot be both.

    I do not condemn her for that. If she is prepared to say it, I admire her for using her position to give a clear statement that nails the mongrels in the medical profession that are a blight to young surgeons lives.

    I say, don’t knock the messenger, do something about the problem.

  28. jaycee
    I love the smell of black diesel fumes mixed in with a bit of hydraulic oil while carting on a 48ft drop deck tri axle trailer a bit of stuff for Australia that I am not sure what it is.
    Maybe this is why I am a little shitty

  29. Sorry, but I don’t agree. I don’t think any woman should believe or should be told that she has to give in to any male in her workplace who demands some form of sexual gratification. If the male (I can’t call these pieces of scum ‘men’) wants sex or a blow job or whatever they can damn well visit the nearest brothel and pay for it.

    For a women in a prestigious position to say ‘just give them what they want, girls, if you don’t you can give up your career’ is revolting. I don’t believe this woman intended criticising any doctor making such demands. She seems to be all about keeping them happy. Her words contained no criticism of men who expect their female fellow workers to give in to their demands, it was all about women being subservient so they could keep on working in that sector.

    Women like this make everything so much harder for the rest of us.

  30. ” a bit of stuff for Australia that I am not sure what it is.”…Hey!!..I warned you about glowing in the dark!

    But I tell you what is a damn good smell…back in the days of steam trains and while walking on the platform near the engine you’d get that HISS of steam w/ a faint touch of 20/60 engine oil…ahh!…

  31. I keep going on about voters needing a distinction between Labor and the Coalition. Here’s an example – Labor needs to rethink its enthusiasm for coal mining. Their agreement with thew Coalition is costing votes, on this and many other issues.

    Clearing at Leard Forest Disrupted Again: “Put Coal on the Election Agenda”

    A group of over twenty people have stormed the Maules Creek Mine site today, halting clearing of the Leard State Forest. While a group has gathered at the entrance of the mine, a number of people have locked themselves to machines; stopping work on the controversial Whitehaven owned project.

    For over two and a half years, there has been sustained resistance to the project from local farmers, environmentalists and traditional owners. In July 2013 the Northern Inland Council for the Environment (NICE) filed a legal challenge in the federal court to appeal the approval of the mine. Since then, there have been numerous groups around Australia opposing the project, including Gomeroi Traditional Custodians fighting in the courts for protection of sacred sites that are now being desecrated.

    “The blind persistence of government support for coal mining has forced people to take matters into their own hands, with more than 4000 people coming to Maules Creek to take direct action and over 350 arrests. This campaign has now grown into a movement that has a life of it’s own” said Letitia Kemistee, one of the people locked to a bulldozer.

    With the state election less than a month away, this protest demonstrates the demand for climate change to be a priority. Despite global trends towards sustainable alternative energy, NSW Premier Mike Baird and opposition leader Luke Foley have both committed to more coal projects; not only the controversial Maules Creek mine but also the Shenhua mine at Breeza and the BHP project at Caroona.

    Leard Forest Alliance spokesperson Ros Druce said “the candidates in the upcoming state election need to put coal and climate change on the political agenda, or risk finding themselves forever recorded in the history books as short-sighted mercenaries who put the short term profits of mining ahead of the future of the planet

    http://frontlineaction.org/media-release-clearing-at-leard-forest-disrupted-again-put-coal-on-the-election-agenda/

  32. ” wants sex or a blow job or whatever they can damn well visit the nearest brothel and pay for it.”…geeezus! Leone…did you ever think this sort of references would be your everyday conversation all those years ago!?

  33. jaycee
    You’d be surprised – actually – it was part of my not exactly everyday conversation way back when. Women have always had to deal with unwelcome invitations and have always talked about the issue among themselves.

  34. Jaycee,

    I have worked in many different environments over the past 43 years, and – to my certain knowledge – in three of them the casting couch was the way for the ambitious young woman to get ahead.

    I only received one direct approach – one lunchtime when I was reading Thucydides. I think the individual concerned must have been desperate. (My answer was “no way”, incidentally.)

    In the other two, not even a skerrick of a suggestion. I’ve always put it down to my unattractiveness/ferocity, though it may possibly have had something to do with a very large and clearly combative OH.

    Anyway, I count myself fortunate that I was never put in a position of having to compromise either my ethics or my career(s).

  35. In the public service, I never had much of a problem, but one had to be very careful of whose toes one might tread on.

    it sounds like some hospitals and medical boards need to air out their dirty washing.

  36. If this doesn’t bring a smile to many people’s faces, nothing will. Check this out!

    Kids, as the popular phrase goes, say the darnedest things. But sometimes they’re also just, you know, right.

    Reddit user JonoUK posted a pic of his friend’s 9-year-old son’s school homework – a few delightfully spot-on answers to the question, “Select 3 major problems facing Australia today.”

    His answers? “1. Tony Abbott. 2. War. 3. Cyclones.”

    Even better, to the follow-up question “What are your solutions?”, he replied: “1. Do not vote for Tony Abbott. 2. Say no to war. 3. Do something about climate change.”

    I hope he got a well-deserved early-mark for this.

    http://www.dailylife.com.au/dl-people/dl-entertainment/nineyearold-has-perfect-response-to-school-quiz-asking-about-the-three-major-problems-facing-australia-20150305-13vl2n.html

  37. The ALP seems to have some unions in the mining sector with some pull. It was the same in Tassie with the logging industry. Some of these unions would be better getting their members ready for other jobs, imo.

  38. If in NSW, the poor kids teacher is probably looking for a new job now! 😉

  40. Puffy,

    If I remember correctly, the CPS was a forerunner regarding at least theoretical clamping down on sexual harassment in the workplace.

  41. poor teacher

    I hope you are only referring to the consequences for that teacher of those very clever questions!

  42. Fiona…Of course, in the building trade, women were a rarity…non-existent in fact…except for office work…though a few years ago I met a woman painter on this reno’ job for a friend…at smoko, she told me of this foreman on a job gave her a hard time..not “putting the hard word on” , but why was a “girlie” working on a building site with the “men”…an he’d kick her roller or her ladder when he walked past…Her “pay-back” was the best I had heard!…he was one of those people had his own kettle and would make a pot of tea for lunch…well,on the last day there, she pissed in his tea-pot…then told the apprentice and urged him not to tell the foreman!…knowing full well he would…it seems it went like this : Foreman makes his pot of tea…pours it into his mug with deliberate care, all the while being watched by the other workmen…he takes a “refreshing draught” puts the mug down with a satisfied sigh and the apprentice quietly says..: “She pissed in your teapot, you know!”

    I think we can “draw the curtain of charity” down on the resulting action.

    I had to laugh!

  43. Geez, what a con. Hokey Joe – not public servants – writes a shonky IGR and now we can see why.

    Joe Hockey flags opening up super funds for houses, job training

    Treasurer Joe Hockey has suggested allowing Australians to repeatedly dip into their super over the course of their lives to pay for things such as job retraining or buying their first homes.

    But the radical idea – which represents a significant rethink of the role and nature of the superannuation system – threatens to inflame tensions with the super industry, and has been quickly slammed by Labor and some economists.

    Mr Hockey said on Saturday that Australians ought to start thinking seriously about the way in which their super savings can be used in the future, because we are all going to be living for longer and therefore working for longer

    http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/joe-hockey-flags-opening-up-super-funds-for-houses-job-training-20150307-13xwz1.html

  44. Leone,

    Permit me to press that reset button and ask this all-important question:

    Is the current Federal Treasurer, aka joho, capable of rational thought?

  45. fiona
    Yes the APS was really good. A lot of workplace reforms start out in the public service, before becoming standard in other workplaces. That is why the libs hate the PS.

  47. Jaycee,

    Edge-matching.

    One of my former bosses was an unreconstructed MCP, and recently and acrimoniously divorced.

    I was told by several co-workers, who didn’t like him all that much (wonder why?) that prior to the separation one could always tell when Y had had a big argument with X.

    When it came to the following lunchtime, Y would open up his packet of sandwiches and yell wtte

    F***, not bloody hundreds and thousands again!

    Apparently X’s principle was that if Y behaved like a child, he should be fed like a child.

  49. I think they’re making ridiculous “offers” so that the slightly less ridiculous ones will seem acceptable (which they are not).

  50. We will rape your grandmothers, your mother, your sisters, your daughters, and you.

    Oh, okay, if you agree to [whatever], we’ll only rape [whomever you’d prefer].

    Thus shifting the guilt.

    I dunno, Ducky, what’s not to like?

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