thaibeachlovers

Who said that on here? Other than by reducing Ukraine and EU to charred rubble, this conflict will have to be resolved by negotiation.

For a crowd that use MAGA as an insult to the right, they can hardly complain when they are accused of being woke. While there may not be a defined meaning, it's pretty obvious it's used in the same way as MAGA. Much in the way "gay" got hijacked by homosexuals to mean something it actually had no relevance to.

It's baiting. He used to do that to me till I put him on ignore. He might still be doing so, but it's great not seeing it.

He's likely talking about the US veto in the UN. If that ever goes israel will suffer like white South Africa suffered for apartheid, likely by being sanctioned for stealing Palestinian land in the west bank and illegally using collective punishment and denying Palestinians human rights. The USA aid is worth about 2 days of income for Israel. so lets stop it then. I have no idea why israel needs US taxpayer money anyway.

I'm doing my best to do that.

Only thing I'm waiting for is death.

Most visually interesting trip I did was the MHS loop, stopping at MHS and Cave Lodge to see the swifts.

It's not about an interesting or not life. It's about if it matters once you are gone. My life was very interesting, but it doesn't matter. No one asks me for my life story.

On the subject of past family, My maternal aunt had albums full of old photos from the Victorian era of past family members. They were obviously at least upper middle class, but as my aunt hadn't written under the photos to say who they were I have no way of knowing anything about them, even their names. My father never told me anything about his family and we didn't live in the same country to ask anyone else. I don't even have photos of them as the photos got thrown away. My mother told me a bit, but not much. Barely remember the grandparents. The only family member that did anything memorable was a great uncle that won a medal in WW1. I tried to find out more about him, but a lot of the military records were lost when the place they were stored at was bombed in WW2, including his. I sometimes regret that I have no family history, but not often. I guess it doesn't matter much.

I did a good job wherever and whatever I did, but none of it mattered soon as I left a job. Never had a past employer sending me a Christmas card saying thanks for my hard work. Come to that, I never even see anyone I worked with as all over the world. No family to remember me. Never did anything to change people's lives. I just grew up, worked, retired and eventually I'll be no more than smoke up the chimney. They won't write books about me or make movies about my life. Do I care? Not at all, because it doesn't matter.

I've long been saying that private vehicles should be banned in metro areas, provided decent public transport is available. I never had a car or m'bike while living in London, but they do have a decent public transport system. That would apply to EVs as well as private cars are a plague in a built up area, not a benefit. The generation before mine grew up without cars till the post vWW2 era when they became mass produced and affordable, but times have changed.

Why? Does anything matter? Do we matter? The number of humans that do anything to change our civilization is infinitesimal, and the rest of us just exist for a while and then depart. Once the people that think about us die, nothing is left except perhaps a name on a gravestone. Eventually, IMO the human race will also depart, and at most be an historical item for the next species to have intelligence.

That would be a fail for humanity then. We don't keep and we definitely ain't restoring the natural balance of ecosystems and biosphere. All we do as a species is destroy.

Most of it is BS anyway. Took me a long time to work that out, but now I assume everything is BS till proven otherwise. After I pass over I'll be forgotten in less than a year. No family, no kids. It'll be like I never existed. So, no, I don't matter.

Many solve the paperwork problem by employing an agency. That makes all the problems go away.

Must be nice to be rich.

I've been thinking that a lot recently. That would explain a lot of things. Perhaps the Matrix is for real.

It doesn't. We only think it does because we think about ourselves as mattering. 100 years from now most of us will be entirely forgotten. After enough time even the universe will be dead.

Irrelevant, Once they impose road user charges on EV cars they will be no more economical than ICE cars. It's only a matter of time before they do impose road user charges, given they cause just as much damage to roads as ICE cars.

IMO they are no more a problem than ICE cars and they are no more a solution than ICE cars. So long as electricity has to be generated by fossil fuel ( even in NZ ) they are not going to make any difference to MMCC IMO.

I've never bought a car less than 10 years old, so IMO that will make zero difference to most people buying second hand.

Even if they reduced the cost of changing batteries to $100, by the time they develop them and they become common enough to make second hand cars acceptable, it's going to be so long that an entirely new technology will likely make them obsolete.

I must have missed that bit, thanks.

That would likely become grounds for an appeal.

According to Al Jazeera, only one of them was armed and firing at israeli troops. The other was not armed and was not attacking anyone. I guess you accuse anyone of trying to repel the israelis of being a terrorist, while some would consider them to be freedom fighters. Were all the Palestinians wounded by israeli forces firing live ammunition at protestors on the Gaza border terrorists? https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/9/22/israeli-military-attacks-gaza-strip-amid-protests-at-border