You gotta be joking

[Doodoo]

Kool Aid amazing stuff

https://www.thedailymeal.com/drink/kool-aid-facts/

[Laan Yaa Mo]

Nature notes

The “crecking” call of the corncrake once formed the soundtrack to summer nights in much of Britain. Most meadows and cornfields had a corncrake, and warm nights reverberated with the species’ harsh but melodious song. Known as “an individual of the quails”, corncrakes were even heard regularly at Tooting, and on Streatham Common into the 1890s. Then came the decline. Unable to cope with intensive agriculture, corncrake numbers gradually dwindled. These days only small populations remain on a few coastal areas and islands in Scotland and Ireland. But some good news has just been released by RSPB Scotland. The Scottish population is slowly rising. Last summer, 870 calling males were recorded.

Jonathan Tulloch

[tamada]

Only 20 months?

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-11-15/ ... /103107320

[Laan Yaa Mo]

High enrolment should ensure that this course will be a monumental victory:

China opens school in Tanzania to train leaders ‘how to be despots’

China has opened its first school of government in Africa, training the continent’s next generation of authoritarians as it begins to export its model of government.

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) sends teachers to give lessons to rising party officials from six African countries in subjects such as “Xi Jinping thought”, propaganda and enforcing discipline in line with party ideology. They show future leaders how to fuse their parties with their respective states, through apparatchiks directing courts and other state institutions.

The Mwalimu Julius Nyerere Leadership School on the outskirts of Tanzania’s largest city, Dar es Salaam, opened last year and was funded by a £32 million donation from the CCP’s central school for top party officials. The school is named after “Mwalimu” Julius Nyerere, who was president of Tanzania until 1985.

It is run as a partnership between the CCP and the ruling parties of South Africa, Zimbabwe, Tanzania, Mozambique, Namibia and Angola, all of which have stayed in power for decades, often via fraudulent elections, electoral violence and grand corruption. About 120 officials took part in the first major training conference last year, and 170 in another in June this year.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/chin ... -095scl6ln

[Doodoo]

“$251.96 for 4 packs of smokes here in Melbourne!!!” Tommy Lee wrote in an Instagram post with a few emojis featuring a devil flipping two middle fingers and snapping a copy of his receipt. “7/11 wonderfully cheesier!” Tommy Lee

https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/tom ... 46844.html

[pipoz4444]

“$251.96 for 4 packs of smokes here in Melbourne!!!” Tommy Lee wrote in an Instagram post with a few emojis featuring a devil flipping two middle fingers and snapping a copy of his receipt. “7/11 wonderfully cheesier!” Tommy Lee

https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/tom ... 46844.html

01 Sept 2023

[Doodoo]

Cigarette prices Australia
https://costniche.com/prices-of-cigaret ... _article=1

2010 $12.95 AUD
2011 $16.45 AUD
2012 $17.15 AUD
2013 $18.75 AUD
2014 $21.40 AUD
2015 $23.65 AUD
2016 $26.25 AUD
2017 $29.60 AUD
2018 $33.65 AUD
2019 $37.00 AUD
2020 $38.60 AUD
2021 $39.00 AUD
2022 $40.00 AUD

[Doodoo]

The youngest to enlist in the Armed Forces during WW2
Following the attack on Pearl Harbor, he enlisted in the United States Navy from Houston, Texas on August 15, 1942, at the age of 12
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calvin_Graham

[jackspratt]

The youngest to enlist in the Armed Forces during WW2
Following the attack on Pearl Harbor, he enlisted in the United States Navy from Houston, Texas on August 15, 1942, at the age of 12
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calvin_Graham

Things were different in them days.

Although he had tried to return to his ship, he was discharged from the Navy on April 1, 1943,.....

He then worked in a Houston shipyard as a welder after dropping out of school. At age 14 he married and became a father the following year. At age 17 he was divorced when he enlisted in the Marine Corps.

Above taken from Dd's wiki link.

[glalt]

Cigarette prices Australia
https://costniche.com/prices-of-cigaret ... _article=1

2010 $12.95 AUD
2011 $16.45 AUD
2012 $17.15 AUD
2013 $18.75 AUD
2014 $21.40 AUD
2015 $23.65 AUD
2016 $26.25 AUD
2017 $29.60 AUD
2018 $33.65 AUD
2019 $37.00 AUD
2020 $38.60 AUD
2021 $39.00 AUD
2022 $40.00 AUD

Smuggling in cigarettes could be quite profitable.

[Whistler]

No need to smuggle. Illegal tobacco is being grown and distributed for years. Locally it is known as 'chop chop'.

The good thing is percentage of people smoking has plummeted, nicotine patches are subsidised by the government. Policy on tobacco is working. Real benefits come from cost savings in public health.

[Sport]

glalt not quite right with those prices. Unless you want to scare away tourist smokers to Oz with those prices.

I left Oz recently and Coles, Woolies, IGA are major stores have prices for a pack of 20 for between A$31-32 pack. Tobacco shops sell underground smokes for a pack of 20 A20-21 and have smoked them for the past 6-8 months and quite acceptable. Smokes generally are around A$1.50-60 each from the major stores.

[jackspratt]

No need to smuggle.

But if you do, don't get caught.

The penalties for smuggling tobacco are severe and can include up to 10 years' imprisonment and/or a fine of up to five times the amount of duty evaded.

https://www.abf.gov.au/newsroom-subsite ... bacco.aspx

[Doodoo]

Colored Potatoes

https://thecoconutmama.com/are-red-potatoes-dyed/

[Whistler]

No need to smuggle.

But if you do, don't get caught.

The penalties for smuggling tobacco are severe and can include up to 10 years' imprisonment and/or a fine of up to five times the amount of duty evaded.

https://www.abf.gov.au/newsroom-subsite ... bacco.aspx

10 years for tobacco smuggling? Ridiculous. I know kf a Thai guy who only got 4 years for smuggling flour! 55$

[Khun Paul]

I used to smoke a lot over 20 a day BUT when the cost per month was getting about the same as my mortgage then something had to go . Hard to stop gbut now worthwhile.
Those who feel the need to smuggle I feel sorry for as their habit wsill eventually destroy their lives , not a health warning but a wealth warning , being caught `here is not the same as in nEurope, `you are locked up and ignored , then deported after sentence .

Cannot for the life of me ( a rational reasonably sane man ) understand those that smuggle anything .

[Doodoo]

The Twin Towers

According to the most recent health survey the registry conducted in 2016:

At least 352 people have been diagnosed with asbestosis.

In addition, at least 444 people were diagnosed with pulmonary fibrosis. Exposure to asbestos and other fibers in 9/11 dust may have contributed to these cases.

Nearly 16% have been diagnosed with cancer. For comparison, about 8% had been diagnosed with cancer in 2007.

Approximately 35% report seeking medical care for shortness of breath.

Nearly 70% of recovery personnel have suffered from lung problems, including World Trade Center cough syndrome.

[jackspratt]

The Twin Towers

How is that a joke, Dd?

Are you on the wrong thread?

[tamada]

Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton.

[Doodoo]

687,000 Christmas lights

NY Home Sets World Record for Most Christmas Lights on a Residential Property
https://www.nbcnewyork.com/entertainmen ... y/3443969/