cleo comments

She should be eligible to ascend to Empress

I wonder if she would want to.

Zero percent tax on foodstuffs and other essentials such as children's shoes, clothes, etc.

Make up the difference by raising the top tiers of income tax.

Scrap tax exemptions on religious organisations and the like.

I said, while playing. You don't play tug-o-war with your dog?

You reach him the rules before you start playing.

if you can't leave a dog alone with another person in a room because it will immediately attack them, then sorry, but that's a bad dog

We're talking about toddlers. If you can't leave your toddler alone with a dog in a room because it will, if not immediately, at some point, think it might be fun to pull the dog's tail, or twist his ears, or try to ride him like a hobby horse, is that a 'bad toddler'? No, it's just a toddler doing things he thinks are fun. Not fun for the dog.

I repeat, toddlers and dogs should never be left alone together. Not the sweetest little toddler, not the most laid-back, non-aggressive dog ever. Not because either of them are 'bad', but because it's an incident waiting to happen.

Which makes them bad owners

Clueless, more likely.

how do you train a dog out of previously unseen behaviours? You need to know what needs correcting in order to correct it.

You don't wait until something needs correcting, you train proactively for every situation the dog is likely to encounter, and shield him from the encounters you judge he won't be able to handle.

if it's not an aggressive dog, why would you pay extra attention to train non-aggression?

To make sure it doesn't turn into an aggressive dog.

Ever tried, while playing, to take a stick away from a dog that doesn't want to let it go? It's pretty hard, no matter how quickly you grab hold of it yourself.

By brute strength, yes, difficult if not impossible. The trick is to train the dog to give you the stick, before he learns that you can't wrestle it from him. Trying to snatch the stick from under his nose is just asking for a bite, even if it's sheer reflex wth no aggression intended. Offer him a treat in exchange for the stick, and after he's enjoyed the treat, give him back the stick so that he learns you're not going to confiscate his stuff.

Two years is plenty of time for a dog to get used to a child

It's also plenty of time for a previously mollycoddled, centre-of-attention dog to build up resentment at being ousted by the newcomer(s). If the parents had left the dogs alone with a two-year-old 'many times' then yes, the parents were lucky until the time they tragically weren't. Every dog has a history of not biting - until it bites. And it's up to the adults to make sure that the dog has neither reason nor chance to make history.

Now either the good, responsible owners became bad, clueless owners overnight, or the dogs simply reverted to their baser instincts and went into attack mode.

Or the owners had previously been lucky in that a trigger they had not accounted for, had not been pressed in the preceding years.

Your first link states that 'The dog was "severely injured and beyond help" in the attempts to rescue the 4-year-old', which suggests that no adult was close enough to the child and dog to intervene immediately and that drastic action was taken when the attack was already under way. Never, ever leave a toddler and dog alone, no matter how well behaved the dog. If you leave two human toddlers to their own devices, at some point they're going to have an 'incident'; it's not so much reverting to baser instincts, as what toddlers do. And dogs are basically just four-legged toddlers. The adults need to be in charge.

Your second link reads to me - though not enough detail is given, of course - of two dogs of long standing having their place in the adults' affections 'usurped' by the two more recent additions. Again, toddlers and dogs...they need very, very careful supervision.

Both of these incidents are of course tragic, all the more so since they could probably have been avoided.

If you're thinking of starting a family, choose a dog breed that is kid-friendly. And watch the kids and the dogs like a hawk.

Dogs artificially breed over decades to kill should be banned

specifically bred to be aggressive and fight.

Bred by humans.

I agree the irresponsible and sometimes malicious breeding of animals should be banned, made a criminal offence.

But it isn't the dogs' fault. They didn't ask to be bred the way they were, they didn't ask to be trained into offensive weapons.

The penalty for specifically breeding or training animals to be aggressive, apart from jail time, hefty fines and a daily good hard thwack up the back of the head, should include the cost of appropriately homing, feeding and caring for the animals for the rest of the natural lives.

Bears are killed after they attack humans because of the mistaken belief that they 'acquire a taste for human flesh.' Why not dogs?

As you note, killing the bear is a mistake. It's just being a bear.

A dog is a reflection of its owner. Show me a bad dog and I'll show you a clueless owner who couldn't be bothered or didn't know how to care for and train the dog properly; or an irresponsible moron who deliberately trained his dog to be a problem.

There are no bad dogs, only bad owners.

The intrepid hunter, training his dogs to attack wildlife. Then act surprised when they attack a corgi. How are the dogs supposed to know the difference?

Punish the intrepid hunter, ban him from ever owning animals again, take his hunting license off him (assuming he even has one) and make sure he pays all medical and vet fees to the lady and her corgi. Plus a hefty compensation.

Take the dogs off him and see they get adequate training from a real professional before they are rehomed.

You'd think people working with potentially dangerous animals would be obliged to work in teams of two or more, to prevent just this kind of situation.

Poor man.

Poor lion.

What side he was on?

The wrong side.

Are you seriously trying to make up excuses?

No. No excuses. I stated clearly that the Speaker of the House of Commons should have checked his facts before embarrassing himself. And the other members of the House should have been able to trust his judgement.

This man, his SS group were trying to kill Zelensky's grandfather who was fighting in the Soviet Army!

And Anthony Rota should have got his facts straight, should not have drawn attention to Hunka, should not have called him a hero.

I repeat, there was no hate crime here, just stupidity and gullibility.

look up the atrocities that the Galicia SS did to polish civilians 

No argument at all with you on that.

Remember that until 1941 half of Poland was under USSR control, complete with show elections, annexation, deportations, political murders and summary executions.

Saying that one side was bad doesn't mean that the other side were angels.

Do you think modern humans would be less capable of survival?

Probably as capable of survival as the dinosaurs were last time? Most of them died out, but the direct descendants of a few dinosaurs remain.

For example, chickens. Birds are descended from theropods, a group of two-legged dinosaurs whose members included the tyrannosaurus rex and the smaller velociraptors. From king of the ancient world (tyrannosaurus) to the Colonel's main ingredient. Some legacy.

So modern humans, if any did survive, might follow a similar evolutionary path; becoming smaller and weaker, and prey to whatever species won the evolution lottery next time round.

The USSR started off being on the side of the nazis and then switched sides. Easy to be confused as to whether and/or when they were goodies or baddies.

Ukraine in the 1930s had plenty of experience of just how bad it was to be under the USSR yoke; not surprising if some of them reasoned that, if they had to take sides, the nazis couldn't be any worse.

If in today's atmosphere a supposedly responsible lawmaker introduces a person as 'a war hero who fought for Ukraine', then most people in the moment would probably clap. But as they say, the devil is in the details.

There was no 'hate crime' here. Just a bunch of people being too trusting of one of their own, who should have known better. The Speaker of the House of Commons should have checked his facts before embarrassing himself and his fellows.

Did Yaroslav Hunka make it clear to the Speaker which side he was on in WW2?

Every single clapping seal in the Canadian Parliament who stood up on cue once they heard "this Ukrainian man fought against Russia" should face hate crimes charges as well.

For being misled?

*The radioactive waste needs to be stored in safe containers. Not dumped. Probably several hundred meters underground. Island needs to *safe from earthquakes and tsunami

So, nowhere in Japan, then?

I cannot get my head around the fact that some folk think it's in any way a good idea to build nuclear power plants anywhere in the Ring of Fire.

Sheer lunacy.

I seem to recall there having been global mass-extinction level events in Earth's past. Yet, here we are.

Good point. We already survived a big one.

We'll figure this one out;

The last global mass extinction event happened 66 million years ago and killed off the dinosaurs. We as in the human race, didn't survive anything since we weren't around at the time; our earliest vaguely humanoid ancestors didn't even appear, in the form of homo habilis, until somewhere around 2.4 million years ago. Their earliest ancestors, the group of apes known as hominids, split from the chimps and bonobos some 7 million years ago.

So no, if we engineer ourselves a mass extinction event as we seem set on doing, there will be nothing to 'figure out'; we'll be gone, as dead as the dinosaurs. And Mother Earth will take her time, millions of years, evolving hopefully something a bit more intelligent than sapiens.

some might say western Ukraine invaded eastern Ukraine following the coup of 2014

And some might say the Moon is made of green cheese and wears a straw hat.

And they'd be just as wrong.

Western Ukraine did not invade eastern Ukraine.

There was no coup in 2014.

The russian puppet Yanukovych tried to renege on his election promise to sign an agreement between Ukraine and the EU in favour of closer ties to russia, and in the face of public outrage fled to russia.

Following that, little green men in fatigues with no insignia crossed the border from russia into eastern Ukraine and stirred up a bunch of malcontents, giving them weapons and supporting them in a takeover of government buildings.

Not my point to argue ... that it is "crucial to the food supply", which of course it isn't.

...which was precisely my point....

I counter your anecdotal observation

Don't like anecdotal? Fair enough. How about government statistics?

Whale meat consumption in Japan totalled just 1,000 tonnes in 2021, compared with 2.6 million tonnes for chicken and 1.27 million for beef, government data showed.

At its peak in 1962, annual whale meat consumption was 233,000 tonnes.

1,000 tonnes works out at around 7 grams per person per year. Crucial to the food supply???

https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/japan-whaling-firm-pins-hopes-vending-machines-revive-sales-2023-01-24/

And note they're trying out these vending machines  in hopes of reviving sales of a food long in decline and shunned by many supermarkets.

Most Japanese people have never eaten whale meat and have no interest in eating whale meat, even if it is available in some Kansai supermarkets.

To cover what they can't persuade people to eat out of vending machines, the whalers are resorting to marketing their product as pet food:

demand for whale meat is so low in Japan that the country’s only remaining factory ship whaling company, Kyodo Senpaku, is in serious financial trouble, and stockpiles of unwanted whale meat are being repurposed for pet food.

A new independent analysis of the whale meat market in Japan by a Japanese researcher shows that, even with significantly lower catches, the amount of meat stockpiled for lack of buyers has been growing since mid-2020. Despite deeply discounted sales to schools and medical facilities—and promotional gimmicks such as whale blubber ice cream—whale meat inventory remains high.

...

more than 50 Japanese whale products are marketed for dogs (including raw meat, processed meat in pouches, dried jerky, sprinkles, biscuits, and freeze-dried cubes). Ten additional products are marketed for cats or both dogs and cats, including an omega-3 supplement made from whale blubber.

https://awionline.org/press-releases/japans-whale-meat-stockpiles-turned-pet-food

If you're an animal-lover, best to check the list of ingredients on the packet before giving Fido and Tiddles their dinner.

Whaling is crucial to Japans food supply.

Rubbish. I've lived in Japan longer probably than most JY posters have been on this earth, and I could count on one hand the number of times I've seen whalemeat on sale in the local supermarket or even fishmongers. And have enough fingers left over to hold a cup of coffee without spilling any.

A few specialist restaurants catering to old men with a nostalgia for the immediate post-war era do not make dead whales crucial to the food supply.

Remove all whalemeat from Japanese sales outlets and probably 98% of the population wouldn't even notice - till the maudlin old men started pouting.

Mixed chopped veggies (potato, sweet pepper, onion, mushroom, corn, broccoli, asparagus, whatever takes your fancy or whatever's in the fridge) fried in olive oil till almost done, pour in the egg, let the base just set. Sprinkle on cheese and finish in the oven like a pizza.

Yum.

Some kitchen gadgets that at first sight seem totally unnecessary are actually very useful.

This isn't one of those.

So parents cannot discipline their children spanking?

There is no need ever to spank a child.

Corporal punishment does not teach a child not to misbehave: it teaches him/her that physical abuse of someone unable to retaliate is a useful means of getting your own way. A child raised on slaps and spankings learns that it’s OK to ‘punish’ people smaller and weaker than themselves, regardless of whether those weaker people are in the wrong.

Ukraine would not even be in this mess if they 1) rebuked America's invitation to NATO, which only keeps Russia as an enemy for manufacturing consent, and also let Donbas and Crimea separate as their people clearly wanted.

There was never any ‘invitation to NATO’ from the US: quite the opposite. Ukraine asked again and again to be allowed to join, and the OK never came. If it had there would have been no invasion.

As for the Donbas and Crimea, at the breakup of the USSR both regions voted in favor of independence from Russia: Crimea by 54.19%, Donetsk by 83.9%, Luhansk by 83.83%.

Watch the video.

I did. Seems to be a few newly-recruited ‘recruiters’ with a flawed understanding of what their job entailed. Investigated by the authorities.

Besides, if "everything was cool" there would be no need to clamp the men down and prevent them leaving would there?

Who said ‘everything was cool’? The country is being attacked by superior numbers of officially recruited conscripts (themselves dragged off the streets, subways and prisons), homes, schools, hospitals and markets being bombed, children being abducted, infrastructure being destroyed and huge swathes of land being seeded with mines. It’s about as far from cool as it’s possible to be.

We are talking 2 million people or more! They can't just move! Obviously. Russia can't just take in 2 million people! Obviously.

It’s estimated that between early 2014 and early 2022, some 3 million people fled the Donbas. More have left since.

The population of the Donbas in 2014 was around 6.5 million. You think around 2 million of those claiming to identify as ‘Russian’ means the other 4.5 million should just fall in line? Or do you want them to move/be moved to other parts of Ukraine?

Explain again about the ‘right of self-determination’. It applies to some but not to the majority?

if you haven't heard of USB-C Apple has done effective marketing on you

I’m genuinely confused. Apple has kept USB-C a secret from Apple users? Really?

When Mr Cleo upgraded his iPhone a couple of months ago the new device - obviously not the 15 - came with a ‘USB-C-Lightning cable’, so obviously the attempt to keep Apple users away from USB-C is decidedly not a thing.

And when I got a new Watch 8 two weeks ago, the charger that came with it is also USB-C. (Yeah, if I’d waited just a bit I could have had a 9. Couldn’t wait.)

Women didn't work their entire lives. Just spent it hanging up washing and talking trivia with their neighbours.

Total hogwash and poppycock.

Raising kids, keeping house , running a family, IS work. And it never ends. There is no retirement, no day after which everything is done for you. And it’s keeping active, having stuff to do, that keeps women healthy well into old age.

Far too many men see retirement as the cue to do nothing, to be waited on hand and foot - they’ve done their bit. The change in lifestyle is abrupt; suddenly there is no need to do anything, no purpose in life. They stagnate.

I see this with a lot of my neighbours; for the husband every day is Sunday, while the wife continues washing the clothes, cooking the meals, running the house as well as enjoying chat time with friends, continuing hobbies, etc. Not every retired couple is like this of course, but far too many are.

Add in Laguna’s very salient point, that grannies looking after grandkids and otherwise making themselves useful, have in evolutionary terms been of greater value to society than grandads no longer able to bring the bacon home and cluttering up the cave, and it’s only natural that females tend to live longer.

The same phenomenon can be observed in killer whales. Female whales live longer, and a pod with a matriarch thrives better than one without.

Men, if you want to live long and meaningful lives, help out with the grandkids, wash the dishes and put them away, get a hobby that gets you out into the community. Don’t take retirement as the cue to stagnate.

Another example of American exceptionalism.

Measures that clearly work in every other developed country in the world cannot even be tried in the US because…… just because.

Whether it’s race relations, universal health care, gun laws, sensible politics…..making things better is just Too Difficult, can’t possibly work.

Because.

Patients need doctors who know their stuff, listen to them and provide optimum, appropriate care.

In my time I’ve been treated by doctors of all hues. Some were good, some maybe not so good, but I never felt the quality of care I received was dependent on the doctor’s skin colour or mine.

America needs to get its act together and treat all its citizens as people, not as members of this or that group.

Ukraine will pay a price for their stupid wars

Ukraine hasn't started any stupid wars. The whole stupid thing was started by stupid Putin.

The West is very angry. 

They expected a breakthrough by Ukraine 

expected? I don't think so.

Though I know I certainly hoped for the invaders to be squelched quickly and decisively.

We should have express-delivered the arms Ukraine needed; the delays gave the invaders time to build defences that they should never have been allowed to build.

There are no winners in any war, but this is one that Putin had lost by April of last year.

Only one of my local supermarkets has a self-checkout. It's not the closest to my house so I don't shop there that often, but when I do, I use the DIY. There's a (very small) discount, and every little helps.