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Dr Who Fan ![]() Send message Joined: 8 Jan 01 Posts: 3385 Credit: 715,342 RAC: 4 ![]() |
Who needs a gun to protect your store from shoplifters when a 2X4 will do! 7-Eleven workers wallop California man who tried to steal trash can full of cigarettes: ‘Whoop his a–!’ |
![]() ![]() Send message Joined: 24 Jan 00 Posts: 37307 Credit: 261,360,520 RAC: 489 ![]() ![]() |
What's going on here? A mystery company has bought up $1.2bn worth of land around a US air force base, with officials unable to tell who’s behind it. A mystery group known as the Flannery Associates has bought up $1.2 billion worth of land surrounding the Travis Air Force base in California, with the US government unable to tell who’s behind it. |
![]() ![]() Send message Joined: 24 Jan 00 Posts: 37307 Credit: 261,360,520 RAC: 489 ![]() ![]() |
After the PwC corruption was uncovered it's now time for KPMG International Limited to face the music. Consulting firm KPMG overcharged Defence while raking in billions of dollars, whistleblowers say. Consulting giant KPMG has been accused by two whistleblowers of repeatedly ripping off taxpayers while contracted by the Department of Defence — submitting inflated invoices and billing the federal government for hours never worked. |
Sirius B ![]() ![]() Send message Joined: 26 Dec 00 Posts: 24922 Credit: 3,081,182 RAC: 7 ![]() |
Would you Adam & Eve it. A sensible forward thinking politician |
Sirius B ![]() ![]() Send message Joined: 26 Dec 00 Posts: 24922 Credit: 3,081,182 RAC: 7 ![]() |
Well done Aussie Ladies. Cruel on the French though. 10 penalties each but it is the Aussies who go through to the semis playing either England or Colombia. 7-6. What a shoot out. |
![]() ![]() Send message Joined: 24 Jan 00 Posts: 37307 Credit: 261,360,520 RAC: 489 ![]() ![]() |
After recent (and ongoing) events with the big 4 here it maybe time that everyone looks into their business connections with them. A decline in the big four's auditing quality stokes fears of an Enron-style corporate collapse. ......Alarmingly, while the big four have been dominating auditing, corporate watchdog ASIC has found the quality of auditing is declining. It is something Professor Allan Fels told 7.30 is a sleeper issue that could trigger a corporate collapse. |
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Send message Joined: 25 Dec 00 Posts: 31115 Credit: 53,134,872 RAC: 32 ![]() ![]() |
After recent (and ongoing) events with the big 4 here it maybe time that everyone looks into their business connections with them. Audit letter boilerplate wrote: We have audited the accompanying balance sheets of Subject, Inc., as of Date, and the related statements of income, comprehensive income, stockholders’ equity and cash flows for each of the three years in the period ended Date. These financial statements are the responsibility of the Company’s management. Our responsibility is to express an opinion on these financial statements based on our audits.If Subject are filthy thieves they may well find a way to bury that. |
![]() ![]() Send message Joined: 24 Jan 00 Posts: 37307 Credit: 261,360,520 RAC: 489 ![]() ![]() |
KPMG is in the news again. :-( Australian Signals Directorate caught up in KPMG consulting scandal. It might be time to pull in our last 3 ex prime munsters and get them to explain why they let this get so out of hand. |
![]() ![]() Send message Joined: 24 Jan 00 Posts: 37307 Credit: 261,360,520 RAC: 489 ![]() ![]() |
When a mother's greed gets so bad that she has to rip her kids inheritance off. Gina Rinehart trial shown explosive memo that allegedly tried to cut children's inheritance. ....Mr Withers said the "special project" memo was written by Mrs Rinehart to an executive at services firm Price Waterhouse, so she could then buy back the Hancock Prospecting shares held within the trust. |
Sirius B ![]() ![]() Send message Joined: 26 Dec 00 Posts: 24922 Credit: 3,081,182 RAC: 7 ![]() |
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Richard Haselgrove ![]() Send message Joined: 4 Jul 99 Posts: 14686 Credit: 200,643,578 RAC: 874 ![]() ![]() |
The BBC is reporting (quoting Tass) that Russia's Luna-25 mission to land at the Moon's south pole has ended in failure and a crash landing. I don't think even PooTin can blame Ukraine for that, although the mission was also an attempt to defy Western sanctions on components. It was also an attempt to overtake India's attempt to reach the same destination. A warning to speeding drivers everywhere. Russia's Luna-25 spacecraft crashes into Moon |
![]() ![]() Send message Joined: 24 Jan 00 Posts: 37307 Credit: 261,360,520 RAC: 489 ![]() ![]() |
First there was the "Trump" effect, then the "COVID" effect and now there seems to be another reason behind why American accents are still on the rise here. An American expat has revealed why you couldn’t pay her a million dollars to move back to the US. The best 10 nations for work-life balance, according to Remote studyApparently the U.S. comes in 53rd. |
![]() ![]() Send message Joined: 24 Jan 00 Posts: 37307 Credit: 261,360,520 RAC: 489 ![]() ![]() |
Mystery solved, but what will the military make of a city on its doorstep? Mystery land buyers around California Air Force base revealed. New reports shed light on nearly $1 billion in land purchases by a mysterious company near a California Air Force base that raised national security concerns. |
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Send message Joined: 25 Dec 00 Posts: 31115 Credit: 53,134,872 RAC: 32 ![]() ![]() |
a group of ultra-wealthy Silicon Valley investors acquiring vast parcels of land northeast of San Francisco with the mission to build a new California city “from scratch.”......Ah, commies. |
rob smith ![]() ![]() ![]() Send message Joined: 7 Mar 03 Posts: 22652 Credit: 416,307,556 RAC: 380 ![]() ![]() |
Another fine example of people in power not listening to the people: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-66676269 Although a recent survey by the Maskina institute in Iceland suggested 51% of people opposed whaling, it is thought many MPs are in favour. Bob Smith Member of Seti PIPPS (Pluto is a Planet Protest Society) Somewhere in the (un)known Universe? |
Scrooge McDuck ![]() Send message Joined: 26 Nov 99 Posts: 1332 Credit: 1,674,173 RAC: 54 ![]() ![]() |
Another fine example of people in power not listening to the people:What if a majority of modern, progressive urban citizens are against whaling, but the vast majority of rural populations in coastal villages are pro-whaling? Whaling has fed the coast dwellers of Iceland since the Vikings settled there. In the whaling era, it wasn't Icelanders, Norwegians, and Inuit who almost wiped out the whales, but: Americans, British, Dutch, [long list]. Scandinavians pay attention to the stocks of fish and whales. In Iceland there's only one real city, the capital Reykjavik, and a larger town (Akureyri) in the north where half of the Icelandic population lives. The rest of the country is very sparsely populated. The terms "the people" or "majority" doesn't work well there if you just refer to the number of citizens. In Norway and Sweden you have the same situation with very few cities in the south and a gigantic rural area in the north. In Norway, the land area of the regions is also included in the voting weight of the citizens in order to achieve a fair balance of interests between the large urban population in the south and the countryside in the north. They use a formula: 1.8 * area [square kilometers] + number_of _residents to calculate the voting weight of electoral districts (proportional representation instead of majority voting). These are complicated, difficult questions. A majority of 51% tells me that the vast majority of rural Icelanders want and will carry on their traditions, no matter what concerned Europeans or Americans object. Nor do they shy away from conflict with the Royal Navy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cod_Wars |
![]() Send message Joined: 25 Nov 01 Posts: 21533 Credit: 7,508,002 RAC: 20 ![]() ![]() |
... Whaling has fed the coast dwellers of Iceland since the Vikings settled there... That is long long ago no longer the case. All the whale, porpoise, and dolphin slaughters end with the dead bodies being dumped out at sea. There is some rather gruesome footage documented by Sea Shepherd and others showing the noisome aftermath... The grisly spectacle is a stain and a pox upon all the islanders. There is no logic, let alone any compassion in continuing. Tourism is reduced because of the killing. Is that enough to drag the islands up from old noisome barbarity?... All in our only one world, Martin See new freedom: Mageia Linux Take a look for yourself: Linux Format The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3) |
Scrooge McDuck ![]() Send message Joined: 26 Nov 99 Posts: 1332 Credit: 1,674,173 RAC: 54 ![]() ![]() |
Okay, I should have been more precise. In Sweden, there's still the tradition of preserving herring with far too little salt, so that it still ferments. Salt was an extremely expensive commodity in past centuries, far too little was available there. Today it's only a (strong-smelling) regional specialty: Surströmming. Likewise, whaling went from being a necessity in ancient times to becoming a tradition. Whale meat today ends up as a frozen package in the supermarket and as a regional dish on the plate. Likewise, they occasionally eat air-dried shark there, just as questionable. Icelanders as well as Norwegians, for example on the Lofot Islands in the north, explain that they only catch few porpoises per year, which aren't an endangered species. Their whalers are small cutters, not ocean-going factory ships like Japanese whalers, which the Japanese dress up as "scientific whaling." I've seen them myself in Hennigsvaer on the Lofot Islands, Norway, some years ago. There was one small whaling cutter and many fishing cutters. The Inuit in Greenland and Canada also have this right to whaling, seal hunting, etc. I don't like this tradition and don't want to defend that. Times are changing, all over the world, including in Iceland and northern Norway. It may take a little longer at the polar circle. But what doesn't work is that a progressive, educated urban elite tells the rural people how to change their lives. This won't work anywhere. That's what I wanted to express.... Whaling has fed the coast dwellers of Iceland since the Vikings settled there...That is long long ago no longer the case. Tourism is reduced because of the killing. Is that enough to drag the islands up from old noisome barbarity?...Regarding tourism: Icelanders are currently suffering from over-tourism, at least in the best-known and well-developed tourist spots along the ring road, less so in the remote western fjords, of course. If you're going there by ferry from Denmark, bringing your own car, it's a bad idea to have a Greenpeace sticker on your boot lid. |
rob smith ![]() ![]() ![]() Send message Joined: 7 Mar 03 Posts: 22652 Credit: 416,307,556 RAC: 380 ![]() ![]() |
Having visited Iceland a few times in recent years (work & pleasure) tourism is concentrated on a few tourist hot-spots, with many leaving the Reykjanes Peninsular (the south western peninsular that include Reykjavik) and the western half of the ring road. This area includes the three recent "tourist eruptions". Some of the really small villages along the northern and eastern parts of the ring road only see a handful of foreign tourists, but do see a lot from Reykjavik many of whom are "escaping " the big city, if one can call 140k "big", for their summer holiday. I found it quite interesting that a number of the old whalers now run whale watching trips for the tourists, but often the best views of whales are to be found from the shore. I was talking to one who said he made more money from these trips than was possible from catching whales, because you got your money before you untied the boat, even if you didn't see one whale. Some of the trip boats actually charge a "sighting bonus", but those ones never appeared to be very popular. Bob Smith Member of Seti PIPPS (Pluto is a Planet Protest Society) Somewhere in the (un)known Universe? |
Scrooge McDuck ![]() Send message Joined: 26 Nov 99 Posts: 1332 Credit: 1,674,173 RAC: 54 ![]() ![]() |
Harbor porpoises are caught in Norway and the larger Fin whales in Iceland. The historic population of Fin whales is estimated at 70,000 in the northern and 400,000 in the Southern Hemisphere. More than 725,000 have been catched in the South (1905-1976). Today's population is estimated at 40,000 in the North, 17,000 in the South (few and flawed research data for antarctic waters). Especially in the south it will take more than a century to regain the original population due to slow recovery rates. Finn whales are considered "endangered". In 2022, 148 Fin whales were caught in Iceland. I know, some will condemn improper relativism. The exploitation of the world's oceans, its fish stocks, the lack of rules, the illegal circumvention of existing rules by private companies is many orders of magnitude more serious for nature than the Icelandic government allowing limited whaling in its territorial waters. We still don't understand the impact of million tons of plastic waste and microplastics in the world's oceans, in the digestive tract of most sea creatures. These problems are shrugged off because they are complex, with perpetrators everywhere. Instead, the outrage is directed at individual countries and individual acts, which are then condemned. Doesn't help at all. It's the same with meat-based diets. Educating and convincing people to try a more vegetarian diet to gradually reduce factory farming works. It needs time, a decade, a generation... |
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