Newest Society Blogs (897)

Japan's fertility rate is on the decline due to a number of factors:-
Less people getting married, and having children outside of wedlock is frowned upon.
The high cost of childcare, and lack of support facilities.
High living costs.
Bleak job prospects. Difficulty with dual working parents due to business cultures.
Limited space
1.30 births per woman in 2021
Population decreased by 600,000 in 2021.

This is about a former first lady. Her name was mentioned in a current blog and why she's still in a marriage with Donald. I can think of a few reasons and from tabloid comments I read, there's a mountain of gossip about the woman. What's true and what's false may be difficult to prove either way.

She was a fashion model, did some risky nudes and few F-F photos. Photos on the internet. Undisputed.
Mentioned in a few places, she was an escort. Mentioned in other places, she was a callgirl. T/F not confirmed.

She met Donald at a party where he was to meet someone else and focused on her. At the time, he was married to Marla Maples. Undisputed.
It's believed she's had plastic surgery. T/F not confirmed.

Several times I read comments her visa was in jeopardy and her marriage to Donald fixed that including her citizenship. I also read he arranged her parents travel to the United States and 'fast-tracked' their citizenship. T/F not confirmed.

So... what's in it for her?
Lavish lifestyle, gave him a handsome son. True.
There's talk about a prenup agreement and recent renegotiation. Ohh.. tough one.
Has that been confirmed?

Either way... what ever happens to their marriage, she walks away standing tall as it's my opinion, she is doing a great job to ride the tide in something she didn't expect to be so connected in.

The first people to populate New Zealand were the Maoris approx 1000 years ago. They made their way from Polynesia by canoe and were a warlike tribe who liked tattoos especially on their faces. Since then, the main skill of New Zealanders has been throwing a ball around, called Rugby, which somehow they learned from the British. Herding sheep is the other main occupation. Wearing masks is also popular.

The condos in my community have open corridors with several points to gain access to the roof top where the air conditioners are mounted. Those doors in the ceiling open to the trusses and a crawl space where above are the hurricane rated steel hatches to the roof.
Management wants everything locked and only one centrally located hatch is to be used for contractors, inspectors and service tradesmen. When I moved in, I noticed that hatch access closest to me was always unlocked... the reason why was the guy with the key (association vice-president) was recovering from surgery and unable to get to the 2nd floor. No one was monitoring who went up on the roof. One day, the insurance inspector noticed damage to the roof, probably when an air conditioning contractor had dragged a unit. So the association president wanted some control to know who was going to the roof. It came up in an association meeting and I was asked if I would volunteer to unlock the hatch. Groan... I'm working from home most of the time and the hatch is ten feet from my front door. I see the ladders and hear them stomping around. There are signs on all the bulletin boards stating 24 hours notice is required to have the hatch unlocked.

I get the call to unlock the hatch prior to the technicians arrival. Not all the residents pay attention and I sometimes get called when the technician is standing under a locked hatch with no prior notification. Only licensed electrical or air conditioning contractors, home inspectors and insurance inspectors are allowed access. Rare occasion is when Cable TV technicians require access. Locked access is standard procedure for all the condos and contractors who know this village, know they need to call or have the homeowner call first.

One resident died last year and his unit quickly sold. The woman who moved in didn't like the procedure and became confrontational telling me she owned property elsewhere and didn't have to go through the process of calling for access. Also that she wanted the hatch nearest her unit to be unlocked. I don't have a key for that but she instructed her guy to pry open the padlocked door anyway. This became an issue with the association president who was to get the maintenance guy to reinforce the door so someone cannot pry it open again.

Last Tuesday, I open the lock for an a/c company but they didn't show up and Wednesday, while I was out on an appointment, the woman who recently moved in had her a/c guy standing waiting for someone to unlock the hatch. I told her it was unlocked from the previous day, but she said it was locked.

When I returned, I see the two of them were on the end where the hatch is always locked. Again, he forced his way into a locked hatch, ignoring the one near me that was unlocked.

Someone from the neighboring building notified the president of my building that the metal roof hatch was left open. The president called me asking what had happened. I explained the woman instructed her guy to pry open the hatch nearest her unit. She asked me to call and notify her what had happened and get her guy to return to close the hatch.
(That wasn't my responsibility and management should have made the call)
I called the woman and explained her a/c contractor left the upper roof hatch open that can be seen from the street. She needed to get her guy to come back an close it. She became annoyed and thought someone else should close it for her. I repeated it was her contractor who was responsible. This started an argument and she was ranting about procedure. I reminded her (from a previous confrontational encounter) that hatch was to be locked at all times and only the central hatch was to be used. The correct access point was unlocked as I said, but her guy pried his way into the locked hatch. She insisted he didn't break in then hung up on me.

The maintenance guy needs to fix the broken hatch and signs changed to explain only the center hatch will be unlocked

How many people know anything about their grandparents grandparents ?? even their name?

We are only here for a very short time and once the memory of us is gone we never existed

I used to watch the TV show (also on YouTube) about people who were life-long hoarders taking it to the extreme. Last week, I attended a swap meet for people in the model aircraft hobby and remember many vendors who brought out the same stuff that didn't sell in last years swap meet.

I stopped going the ham radio festivals as the percent of used junk exceeded the new products. Sure, it's a way for someone to find a good deal on a part or hard-to-find radio tubes and it's probably a big social event to meet up with people you have talked to on the radio, but have no other connection with. Toward the end of the event, you can see them boxing all the things that didn't sell and bringing them back home.
An old friend works for an electronics firm and scours booths selling components he can sell in his business. Some connectors made 20 years ago are higher in quality than the new products.

I had a few computer monitors that were perfect for design drawings as the aspect ratio was equal to a sheet of paper. Using them daily and the capacitors in the power supply would fail. I found a guy who repaired them for a reasonable cost. His shop was filled to the ceiling with stacks of dead PC's. I went back to see him after COVID and the shop was closed. Brown paper covering the windows and a FOR RENT sign on the door.
Maybe he was able to recycle some of those electronic parts. I've seen videos where they process the gold plated contacts removing the gold so it can be reclaimed and sold for a profit. Probably the cases can be sold as scrap metal.

I've got a few small model helicopters I used for learning, some are still in working condition... but I moved on to bigger and better. I'll probably take them to one of the flying fields with a sign FREE in hopes I can unload them and stop hoarding them.

It's not money (loss or gain) but releasing stuff I have been keeping in inventory.

Now that I'm getting back to music, some of the gear I've been holding on to for years will become useful to me and I won't have to buy stuff again.

Let's glorify European peace and neutrality!
European neutrality is especially beautiful in those moments when someone in the neighborhood starts to get killed, and this someone starts to call loudly for help! At this awkward moment, there is nothing more beautiful than moving to a safe distance and answering from there, from a distance: How rude, how unaesthetic, especially this annoying cry for help... And how good it is that what is happening has absolutely nothing to do with us -good old Europe! Especially if you take a few more steps and distract yourself with something pleasant so as not to feel stressed.Like chocolate, classical music... some gas contracts... football ... Earplugs are also good so that the sounds of the massacre do not interfere with the buffet in honor of European integration.
This is what neutrality looks like .
And a little later (when the ones who were killed go from shouting to “answering”), then the time of European peace comes.
Because -... well, how is that possible! We must stop the bloodshed immediately! We are, kind of humanists. The civilian population is suffering. We demand the immediate start of multilateral negotiations with the participation of Hamas, Strelkov-Girkin and the legally elected leaders of the Hutu tribe, who have just, with complete European neutrality, slaughtered a million of Tutsis.
We must quickly transfer the conflict to the diplomatic plane! Otherwise blood will be shed! And we are kind of against bloodshed. We are Europeans... Locke, Montesquieu, Rousseau... it’s cold in winter, we still need gas... So we need to negotiate!
And, in principle, why not negotiate? So Hitler was quite tolerant as long as he limited himself to the Czechs... Ask Chamberlain.
In short: European neutrality and peacefulness! The main thing is not to confuse the order of words...

Closed comments on my blog as an angry self righteous individual started throwing insults at another blogger for voicing their own opinion which I understand is everyone's right ?

Not everyone is cut out for the positions they hold in business. One business owner I worked for often used the term Peter Principal where some people rise to a position where they begin to show incompetence.

One woman I knew was the best draftsperson in the department and received a promotion that put her in a management position. The company did a disservice to her and themselves. Orders began to back up as she trained her replacement and she wasn't knowledgeable with the workings of the company, making a few bad decisions. Happy with the pay increase, uncomfortable with the demands of her new job, she felt she couldn't step down (as there was no longer a place for her) and decided to leave the company.
Lose/lose for her and the company who employed her.

Another boss was nice enough to use the phrase "We're all wired differently" describing how he tried to place people in the best positions they were suited for. We had one cabinet maker who owned his own custom shop. His business failed, not because he was a bad cabinet maker... he was very experienced and produced high-quality work. His weakness was an inability to manage the business end of his company. Working for someone else was the magic formula.

I think everyone has experienced a dyslexic moment now and then and accidentally transposed an address or some part of a phone number. Every week, I get mail in my box intended for a neighbor. In that case, it's laziness or fatigue. Sorting mail and being dyslexic would be a career disaster.

30+ years ago, I worked for a place before they went on computer where the bookkeeper constantly transposed figures. Mistakes were in her typing, hand written notes, especially phone messages, but the worst part was her accounting errors. It frustrated the owner for the time lost going back over ledgers correcting her mistakes. They photo copied all the checks and he had to go back to see there she transposed entries.
The position required multitasking that she wasn't good at, compounded by lots of interruptions of a small office where she would get flustered when things got really busy. It was more than dyslexia as she would often put callers on hold and totally forget them. They would call back angry!

I suppose there is hope for dyslexia.


Dyslexics of the world…..
UNTIE!!!!

I used to think the world was full of chronic complainers, but... the more I looked the more I found, so there must be room for more complainers...