I have wondered if the long voyage home on ships when people were demobilized after WWII didn’t help them adjust, as there was an opportunity to talk it out with people who understood the situation. These days you might only be 24 hours out of the front lines when you show up in the civilian world, and are surrounded by people who have no idea what you are talking about and will never understand the experience.

In Special Ops and Intel it is even worse because of the extremely limited number of people you are able to talk to, and the number of topics you have to talk around instead of directly addressing. Good luck on the sessions.

There should be a ‘decompression farm’ somewhere, so people could go an take the edge off before having to deal with the mass of humanity again. Of course, it would take a while for most guys to understand that they need it.

I happy that I can be of some help, but then this place keeps me from doing something that would ‘inconvenience’ a lot of people.

There are still a few people around who understand what’s really going on, and Krugman is one of them. The people protesting waited patiently for Obama to do something, and then realized he didn’t really intend to change the system that had worked for him.

Yes, you are correct about Internet here. The problem with the house my moronic housemate decided to move to is that it’s over 5km (line length) from the exchange, so ADSL2 is not an option, and most ISP’s no longer have an ADSL1 service. The alternatives are Sat and wireless, neither of them is a real alternative. Both have low monthly allocation (a max of around 12-20 GB/mth) and cost a bundle (abour $120/mth for 15GB). They are rolling out the NBN, but it will be years before it’s available around here, if it’s not canceled by he next Gov. *shrug*

So, I’m looking for a saner place to live, preferably about 1km from the exchange! I have my priorities! 😆

I had my first session with the Counselor. Went for 2.5 hours! She said there is a LOT to do (Oh?Ya think??!) She is going to get my psych eval’s from my old masters, and good luck with that! Even the PM can’t get those! 😉 😆 Still, she deals with a lot of Vet’s, so has experience. And her Surname is ‘Eastwood’ which bodes well. 😉 😀 I also mentioned you and this blog as an avenue that’s helping to keep me sane. You understand some of my background at least, and we think alike often. So, thank you for helping to keep me sane. 🙂

Regarding the poisonous specimens you speak of, we have some very hardy plants here that would shrug of any diseased parasite. So they could still be used. 😉

Well… back to house hunting! *sigh*

BTW, I read Krugmans commentary on the Wall St. protests, and your post about them… I think he’s right also. I like Krugman. He’s rational and sane… a rarity apparently. 😉

While looking for something else I discovered the problem with ‘Net connectivity in Australia – you are in exactly the same shape as the US. I understand exactly what your problems are, because like the US, if you aren’t in or around a major population center, you have few if any choices for connectivity, and what there is is over priced.

OTOH, the Australian government seems interested in doing something about it, which is not happening in the US, so you will move forward while we get further and further behind.

Should be back online within a week, but I’m really busy with appointments and stuff, so I probably won’t be around much for a time.

Your big advantage is that you haven’t become as totally dependent on ‘the modern conveniences’ as the US. There are still a lot of people in Australia who know how to site and build a latrine, but most of the skills that were commonplace on American farms, are no longer being learned. You still have sufficient people with rural survival skills, that you won’t collapse as totally as we are going to, if things don’t change.

I agree that exports are a major problem because everyone else, your markets, are totally screwed up and not getting better. Multinational corporations couldn’t care less about countries, they view themselves as above all that. Anyone who thinks that corporations are concerned with anything more than short-term profits is deluding themselves.

No one is in great shape right now. If the recent reporting is correct on the UK, they are already in a recession with two quarters of no growth. The US is certainly close, although for all practical purposes there was no recovery from the original shock, merely a leveling off. The politicians are making all of the wrong moves in the G-8 countries, which will spread the contagion.

As long as the people who know what is happening and how to fix it are marginalized, nothing is going to improve. Until a lot of ‘financial wizards’ are thrown in jail for the frauds they committed the global economy won’t improve.

So… Whilst it seems that Aussies do realize that things are far better here then in the USA, Europe and much of Asia, almost nobody has any confidence that our wondrous Gov, or the position if given the chance, will not find some way to f*ck it all up Royally! Because that is their track record. *shrug* We have lot’s of confidence in the people of Aus… we have pretty much zero in our morons-in-charge! And that goes for the State morons as well as the Fed’s! In a way, that pisses us of even more than you are at your situation. We have always held the corp’s and gov accountable, for the most part, US citizens havn’t. We currently have a huge class action against the ANZ bank for trying to screw customers with greedy fees for years. We are pretty sure the bank will lose and face massive fines and payouts (the figures being quoted are in the hundreds of millions, for us, a big number (all things are relative after all). The other banks are wetting themselves because if this case is won by ‘der wittle peoples’, they know they are all next! And that is only one example currently, there are several others.

Most Aussies are also smart enough to realize that all our wealth is now almost wholly dependent on exports. And we can see, in spite of all the usual lying assurances by Gov mouthpieces to the contrary, that exports are slowing quickly. We can have all the resources in the World, but if nobody is buying, we are screwed. We have sold off almost all our development and manufacturing overseas, and privatized and outsourced almost every thing else! We have recently discovered that most of our agriculture has been sold off to much of Asia and even the USA, and they are exporting everything they can *back home* and leaving little for us, and what they is we have to pay higher prices for than the exports! Some people here think it’s really great because we can, right now, buy Wagu & Angus beef for the price of what we were paying for dogmeat! But that is very short term because the farmers couldn’t find buyers internationally, and there were ware houses full that had to be got rid off. They have now begun culling their herds and using birth control because it costs too much to look after cattle whose product can’t be sold for the exorbitant prices they demand. And it’s the same for all the other produce also. Once the current orgy of cheep excess has abated, we are screwed again. *shrug* Most of our supposedly *Aussie* companies are in fact owned by US, EU or Asian’s. And when the crap hit’s the fan, they will look after themselves and their own before us.

Successive Gov’s here, especially the Howard Decade have screwed us royally! And thanks to the USA for providing the blueprint the bastards followed. Hmmph!

So yeah, short term, everything is just peachy. After that… *shrug*

To paraphrase Marvin: “It won’t last. It never does. Life?! Don’t talk to me about life!” 😉

Still, I do accept that we are probably in a better position to pick ourselves up after the complete collapse that is coming. Who knows?

Meanwhile, people are fighting to give the US Treasury money, literally, as the US bonds for 5 years or less have negative interest rates, and the 10-year bonds are going for less than minimal inflation. Small investors who have any money left are opting for CDs and savings accounts. It really is pathetic.

With austerity all the rage, and the lack of available credit, I don’t see any way of avoiding another meltdown. If Australia hangs tight, you will be able to buy the world with your assets.

As bad as things seem to you, believe me when I say they are worse everywhere else.

You’re right about Ventura & Pagemaker. 🙂 I still have the last Pagemaker (10 I think, or maybe 11) before Adobe killed it off, and also have FrameMaker (I’m waiting for Adobe to kill that off also). *shrug*

And yeah, I realize things are worse in the USA, but in my current situation here, it doesn’t seem so. I’m on so many *waiting lists* for things, I’ve lost count. I’m sure I’ll be dead before I see many, if any, of them become active. *shrug*. Might not be a bad thing necessarily, as far as I am concerned (hence the psych councilor). 😉 😛

We do have the Welsh git-in-charge, so we are not far behind you! The share market certainly thinks so. 😉

Ah well… and so, the World continues to turn… in spite of Humanity! 😆

Corrente is back to its old template, as the problem was the ‘web fonts’ that the new template used. It apparently had a problem generating a consistent font size. Some of the True Type fonts, and even a few Postscript fonts had similar problems earlier when the size required was too large or, more frequently, too small.

Publisher was a great product for large projects, like books, but Pagemaker was better below 10 pages when they first came out, which is essentially what their names promised.

Sorry to hear about the problems, but hold the thought that you have already survived the worst that the world has to offer, so you will make it. Look on the bright side – you don’t have to deal with the US political or health care systems.

I decided to have a look at Corrente Bryan. I still don’t have Internet, I’m using a PC at the local community services center. These are old HP/Compaq PC’s with XP. It has an HP 1702 LCD display set to 1280×1024. I’m using Opera 11.51 build 1087 and Firefox 6.02. Both are stock standard with no extras installed (not even flash). I don’t see the font issue you describe with the different character sizing. There are some sleight differences in rendering between the two. I switched from what was apparently the default “Mac Theme” to the “PC theme” and did see a difference in rendering (some text, such as headings were smaller when using the “Mac Theme”. BTW, in both browsers, the theme dropdown and “switch” button (at the top of the main page) were positioned incorrectly, they were under the ‘login’ area but covered half of the menu bar over the ‘Moderation’ item link. Also, in both browsers, it shows “Mac Theme” even though I changed to PC, if I hadn’t seen some minor changes, I would have thought nothing had happened. *shrug* In both the text was rendered in a standard serif font.

I still have a copy of Ventura Publisher Bryan. 😉 I used to be a distributor (as I’ve mentioned before) and for Adobe back in the day. 🙂

Sorry I’ve not been around. I have several problems to deal with, health and otherwise. I’m scheduled for an MRI in a couple weeks. Looking for a new place to live before I am forced to finally deal with my current *housemate*! Some people are so incredibly stupid and have less sense of self-preservation than a lemming that it truly boggles the mind. I’ve actually just started to see a counselor, but I have no idea if it will do any good. We’ll see. *shrug*

Hope everyone is doing better than I am. 🙂 Take care and be well.