Ummm well done Owen. Quite a fall from grace but by feck you were a rock for about a decade and never once showed off or sought an undue spotlight. Stoic, silent and strong is how we like our props and you were bloody good for a long time.
Well done young man, and thanks
@Jaguares4real said in TRC: Pumas v All Blacks:
@Crucial said in TRC: Pumas v All Blacks:
@Bones said in TRC: Pumas v All Blacks:
No Bridge? Dry powder.
It’s only a friendly
Big picture: the game is largely meaningless in a RWC Year
I'm looking for a very good performance
Below graphic is insane
Welcome back fella, but jeez I'm getting tired of your meaningless test monologues
The absolute truth is that all games are meaningless, if one subscribes to your assessment. Sport is what you want it to be. It's a voluntary leisure pursuit. The importance of it is in the minds of every participant differently.
Calling games meaningless or friendlies is just a shit can notion for losers diminishing the achievements of winners. It's a dishonorable critique of national sport, and a deliberate insult to the winners. Let the players decide what is meaningless
You're smart enough to know that and we're smart enough to know vapid trolling.
Enough already
@Rembrandt said in US Politics:
@Crucial said in US Politics:
@Baron-Silas-Greenback said in US Politics:
@gollum said in US Politics:
@Rembrandt said in US Politics:
Bit of a weird law in the first place, kind of a hey look I have resolved this massive non-issue!
https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2016/05/transgender-bathrooms-suicide/483351/
Further to the "its a non-issue!"
What a load of clap trap
Not using the bathroom they want is not causing suicides. These people have serious mental problems to even get to the point that they want to change sex. They need mental health care and supportive structures, not society giving in to their whims over bathrooms and pro nouns. Do people seriously think the suicide rate amongst these people will drop if they get to use the bathroom they want or be called a 'zwe'?
Nope. They are unwell and need proper help to understand and cope with the way they feel.whoa! Are you seriously saying that people with gender identity issues are mentally ill?
In my above examples I would say mail room bloke definitely mental issues. Older female to male guy definitely not and unsure on the newer female to male, only knew them for a short while pre facebook. Anyone else here know any transgender folk to give some anecdotal evidence on the mental illness angle? Being gay was classified in the DSM-IV as late as the 80's. No idea how much different this is and my sample size of 3 doesn't give a whole lot of insight.
Yeah Rembrandt, my standard kiwi assumptions got a shake up after teaching secondary school in Thailand for the first decade of this century, and also working with and interacting with many "lady-boys" (Katoey is the Thai transliteration pronounced "gah toyyy"). I believe these are transgender - men born who want to be women.
The context is vital:
There is no (none) social stigma in thailand for being homosexual. No vehement vicious teasing, no turning your nose up, no real pressure in society, no Victorian "ickiness" that dominates Anglo Saxon attitudes on this subject, but more of "who cares up to them" attitude.
Actually the Thais will apply the same amount of peer pressure and disgust for bizarre concepts (to us) like skin colour or body shape - white and fat means you work inside and have plenty of food therefore are not a dumb poor peasant.
I taught at a prestigious Thai Catholic school, all boys (an Eton equivalent if you like) and my students were from 12-17 years, so right through puberty.
I';m going to call them ladyboys and girls because they would and over there, and to me, it carries no negative connotations.
Each class had about 10% ladyboys. I watched these kids over years go through puberty where our sexuality is hard wired.
These girls developed their preferences and behaviour in an environment where no special significance was placed on their behaviour. No teasing, no trying to change them, no bullying - nothing like the equivalent in our western schools. Other boys moved around them, played around them, were civil to them, in fact the only good natured ribbing they got was from me, their teacher! our behavioural traits are hard to change. Honestly, one straight kid, in good nature, once advised me "do you have to make lame jokes about the girls sir?" - classic!
So in a society where there is no advantage or attention seeking mechanism or other secondary motivation to be gay or transgender these kids just did it (for want of a better phrase)
typically the girls were excellent students, best in English, kind courteous, diligent, hard working and just pleasant human beings. they had all the coloured pens and stickers and flowery girly books and loved my little pony, hello kitty, pink, fashion magazines and make up and all the things you'd expect your 11 daughter to do.
The boys interacted just like they were "normal" - to them they were - they were actually really respectful in the main, well as respectful to peers as any puberty kids are at a school
The girls sexuality was never a distinction whatsoever
No signs of mental illness whatsoever
I was intrigued with all of this. Couldn't work out why you'd choose to live like this. i had difficulty reconciling years of kiwi conditioning until it dawned on me that this wasn't a choice at all.
They were just living their preferences in a society that demonstrated no ill will against them.
I spoke to fathers of the girls and asked if they minded them being girls and the men looked at me quizitively and countered with "he's" smart caring, and a lovely child. How he develops is out of my hands, I love him like all my kids"
I think the neutral unbiased setting of these transitions strengthened my belief that these are the cards they're dealt and because every other facet of their life was normal or even impressive.
The result now i couldn't give a rats arse what sexual preference people have, (it's about as relevant as the difference between a hetero bloke who doesn't like giving oral sex to a woman and one who does - i couldn't give a shit and it's not a determinant to what sort of place someone takes up in society.
Frankly I can't wait till expressing any sort of sexuality is responded to by "meh" - about as relevant as what vegetables you like to eat and what you don't . long may celebrity or attention seeking homosexuality be a thing of the past.
But I digress. Anecdote number 2 is a "woman" i met with my wife and got to know for about 4 years. She died a couple of months ago. I'll call her Nat.
Many posters on here would laugh, cringe and scoff at nat if they saw her. A normal sized tAsian fella with long hair and a pair of cracking tits. Nat definately looked strange and could be a poster boy for the people many think of when contemplating the freak nature of transgenders.
i don't say this lightly but Nat has proven to me to never judge a book by it's cover. I've never met a more caring trusting considerate person in all my nearly 50 years.
This woman would cook for everyone or anyone, would actually drop what she was doing to help (not just say it) and would stay by a bedside for 48 hours at time. She would regularly put her own life activities on hold for others and was loyal and protective to the end - nursed my wife while I was overseas and Nat was on dialysis and dying.
Truly a far better person than me or anyone I know, yet a freak to those who judge with no information and no knowledge.
So @Rembrandt, my experiences don't prove anything but to me they are experiences that validate that judging people on perceptions is folly.
As for the toilet thing, in my experience the transgenders that i knew didn't want to impose their lives on others and would make do going to the toilet and keeping a low profile, they also had/have the wherewithall to know that they were happy in their skin and would cast suspicion of those transgenders that did impose themselves- i.e. is this about us transgenders or actually about yourself as an individual seeking attention or leveraging your sexuality for more nefarious means and not the benefit of our cohort.
as for all transgenders have mental illnesses, well let me counter with an equally spurious all forum posters who name themselves after cartoon characters have mental illnesses....
no validity either way, just a perception borne from ignorance.
sorry Rembrandt, a bit long but bloody genuine
RIP "Nat" a truly great little person
Hey, fuck off with your "I'm too cool to watch the All Blacks" virtue signalling shit.
Fuck off to the horse thread
@Yeetyaah we've been calling them the clan for nigh on 20 years on here, young fella
An awful lot of arrogance and nonsense talk on this thread as far as I can see
Bored with the All Blacks winning? Fuck off
Not entertaining enough for you ? fuck off
Not feeling emotions like you want to? fuck off
You in this thing for the All Blacks and what that organisation achieves and accomplishes or how much entertainment you're entitled too?
Fuck off with your 15 second attention span.
Real rugby supporters will once again welcome the physical and tactical battle with the old foe (and friends), the ABs will be hugely psyched and me behind them supporting all their efforts and appreciating the Boks, regardless of their success.
See that's what the ABs represent - striving for excellence, winning and being humble and respectful in the process
You won't catch them bemoaning the relative ability of the opposition or counting wins before they're earned.
I can't wait for another showdown between us and the Saffas, always a great occasion
and lastly, fuck off
Can I suggest the wallabies just simply shut the fuck up?
We've played and beaten the Welsh Argues and Saffas with nary a bitter word or exchange yet all year (international and super rugby) from Australian rugby folk and coaches have been whinging about refereeing, whinging about foul play whinging about humility, whinging about the media.
Enough already. Take your thrashings (because that's what they've been) like a fair dinkum Aussie bloke and suck it up. That's what they expect of others.
Conversely win more than 3 games a fucking season and we might concede you've not had a particularly good rub of the green.
Christ on a bike it's been tiresome and repetitive all year.
Chinese might have to add a new horoscope- 2016 the year of the pissing and moaning wallaby.
Well played little nerdy looking fella who got pilloried high and low when he took over a poisoned chalice.
He stuck to his guns and contributed to us fans enjoying and being able to be proud of a decent and hard working team.
He's certainly earned some great cricketing jobs that will no doubt come his way in the future.
Well done fella
@steven-harris said in Crusaders vs. Chiefs:
The rules are there for safety purposes but I fear every game I am going to be watching this year is going to have problem in and around high tackles which is going to hugely influence results.
Except Steven that the laws aren't there for safety mate, they're primarily there to appease social and mainstream media, lest they lower rugby's appeal to corporate sponsorship.
These administrators and lawmakers have made a pigs breakfast of the game since the last WC and their sole objective has been to placate social justice fuckwits who'd never travel to a game rather than the people who actually "own" and love the game.
If you're fair dinkum about player welfare, then you start by decreasing the games played, not try to micro manage every fucking collision.
That yellow and penalty try make the game barely recognisable, and random as a legitimate contest.
A pox on them all
It's all nonsense. Best was trying it on because this bloody wendyball behaviour has crept into the game, yes particularly in the north, and none of the world rugby fuckwit administrators have had the sense or inclination to stamp it out.
So busy are they hand wringing and pandering to fucken sponsors and issuing paper thin edicts about contesting in the air and head high tackles that they've ignored a blight on the a unique feature of the game, namely the refs decision stands and is to be respected.
Never once have we had a clampdown on badgering referees. When was the last march of 10 yards that we all grew up with? When did they arm and publicly encourage the refs with the means to tell moaning captains to piss off?
Rugby was known as a game where what the ref said stood. Now every captain, including Read spend disproportionate time trying to influence a ref. It's fucking irritating. When taken to stupid degrees like Best did it's a blight, and it needn't be.
It gets more like the disgrace that is soccer every year, yet no leaders of the game seem to give a fuck - more interested in wasting resources on incidents which most sane people can see are accidents.
Fucken gives me the shits how much time is wasted needlessly on whining to refs when 2 months of marching 10 yards would eradicate it completely....AGAIN!!
Assume some have watched Tiger King on Netflix.
This is a great epilogue
@chimoaus said in Coronavirus - Overall:
I guess the other issue with Corona is whilst the overall death rate is likely to be lower than first thought, it is still fucken deadly to the old who already have health issues.
They released the figures for that nursing home in the US, 130 odd residents, 101 got infected, 34 died. Those who died did have a range of issues with hypertension being the top of the list.
The question has to be, how do we protect the old and should Govt do anything to lower the rates of these existing conditions such as Hypertension and Cardiac disease?
Main causes of Hypertension
Smoking.
Being overweight or obese.
Lack of physical activity.
Too much salt in the diet.
Too much alcohol consumption (more than 1 to 2 drinks per day)
Stress.
Listening to Dr Drew Pinsky he said that under normal conditions it's not advisable, or standard procedure (or done) to put sick 80+ year olds on ventilation equipment as there's little chance of full recovery and the equipment is prioritized elsewhere. Palliative care instead.
Not now though, an interesting insight into ventilator resource management
@MajorRage Greenidge is my jegga breakfast story and he likes a wee cricket comp we run in Thailand.
And the Gambier is a change of pace for nice family reasons. It's all been a surprising cleansing of the soul being in the Aussie countryside for a bit.
@canefan anyone tried telling someone to back off yet?
I did it a couple of times today and the dumb look of disapproval from the transgressors made me more angry than the initial crowding!
"Just fuck off a little bit...please " 
@mariner4life yeah, but not the shittest
Take turns with you at watching for the Asian planes to come back?
So, in the old world, (remember that? 3 weeks ago!) tomorrow I fly to Bangkok to meet up with the wife who's taken a 8 week sabbatical from work in oz, check on our house, family and dogs, spend a week playing cricket with Gordon Greenidge, have a great Thai holiday and return with the wife on April 17 ready for work again in May. Great times!!!
But not now, no friggin way.
So, the bit that grinds my gears is that me and the wife are in different countries. Mid Feb and our plan was sound, now this.
I know many have far bigger issues, ( we've got an income and wife is doing lots of good with her family) but Jesus Christ ferners, this is one calamity that you want to share/experience with your most loved one. Even if it's all shit, the experience of traipsing through this bog without her is well and truly hurty!
And then the "when?" for international flights to resume is demoralizing. Thank God I wasn't in the room when @mariner4life was listening to that twat talking about 12 more months of this!!
So folks, do me a favour and give your loved one across the room from you a kiss or a dead leg, or whatever and pause for a minute while appreciating their presence .
Life apart in this time is a fluffybunny.
Otherwise I'm pretty well off, but what an uncomfortable itch it is to be separated in such uncertain times.
Bless you all 
@barbarian that's my situation too. For these places it's beneficial to keep something ticking over, if only to diminish dread. There's lots of distance in the rural areas
@mariner4life said in Coronavirus - New Zealand:
I can't believe how happy you guys are to be living in 1980s eastern Europe
They would've thrown rocks at me and dear old mum sauntering through the supermarket this morning like we've done every weekend this year. All with the blessing of a grouse prime minister who's bet his entire political life on us not shutting down like others. Good luck to you son.
This little period of time might be the most different our 2 countries have ever been.
@Nepia that's exactly what got me all conspiracal!
