After the Russian invasion of Ukraine, sanctions have been imposed on Russia and numerous Russian oligarchs as well as other individuals and organisations. The United States, European Union, United Kingdom and Canada banned certain Russian banks from SWIFT, the high-security network that facilitates payments among 11,000 financial institutions in 200 countries. Germany also halted certification of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline following Moscow’s actions1.
After the complete silence at the end of the previous instalment of this saga1, my partner rang the NBN people while I was still asleep (I had the day before come back from some field work and was knackered). They indicated that a technician would come on Monday 21st of March to fix the problem with our connection.
As I related almost two weeks ago our internet connection has been various shades of cactus since last August and, as we were told by our provider, has been completely cactus since February 26th. A technician came to our property two days later and discovered what he thought was the problem, but couldn’t fix it because it needed a cherry picker to do so. He said that this would be organised soon1.
Although many people know what political advertising is like, with the government laying out what they have accomplished (snigger!), what they will do if re-elected, and attacking the opposition’s plans. Similarly, the opposition attacks the government’s record and the government’s plans, while they list what they will do if elected. This type of advertising has ramped up since last August because the election needs to be held by late May or before1.
There is a short video doing the rounds currently, which states that there are some coincidences which cannot be explained, with the implication being that something ‘woowoo’ was responsible1. One of the things stated in this video is that Halley’s comet first appeared the year Mark Twain was born (1835), and the second time it showed up was in the year Mark Twain died (1910)2 .
Our fun with our internet connection began in 2016 when we were baby-sitting our son’s dog, while he was in the process of changing jobs and cities. Our internet (and landline phone) connection comes in under our eaves then travels in a metal pipe which takes the wires down the side of the house to near a grating through which they go under the house. Between the pipe and the grating, the wires are exposed for a few centimetres.
Why did Putin invade Ukraine? He claimed his goal was to protect people subjected to bullying and genocide in the Donbas and to demilitarise and de-nazify Ukraine There has been no genocide anywhere in Ukraine; it is a democracy and its president, Volodomyr Zelensky, is Jewish. Putin has often accused Ukraine of being taken over by extremists ever since its pro-Russian president Viktor Yanukovych was kicked out after months of protests against his rule in 2014.
In the last few days I had to drive along the eastern shore of Lake George in southeastern New South Wales. It is called Weereewa in the Indigenous language of the area. The lake is roughly subtriangular and at 25 kilometres long and 10 kilometres wide is quite a decent size. Given its size, it is quite shallow, with its maximum depth only being about 7.5 metres and its average depth only about 1 metre1.