Australian Life Expectancy

Just for the record, here's the Australian life expectancy graph since 1890, from the ABS -

Steady as a ruler, basically, when you stretch out the earlier intervals to their correct size.  Except for a wobble in the sixties, for some reason.

Fine button

Just been outbid on

this:

I have too many other bids out to go long on this one, which explains why I'm a lousy auction bidder: I spread my money too thin.  I'm essentially a bottom-feeder, trying to catch lucky hits when nobody else bids, which means I really shouldn't expect to get any of the name artists like Capp or Kelly.

Bugger.

Thought I had a chance at his one.
"Clifford Berryman Uncle Sam Political Cartoon Original Art (undated). Terrific political illustration by the legendary Clifford Berryman, image area 14" x 13" and in Very Good condition. Also included is another illustration featuring Kaiser William, by an unidentified artist. This piece has an image area of 13.5" x 18.5" and the art is in Fair condition; the paper is very brittle with many tears and some chips out including a large section in the tree."
 

The thing being that the other illustration was a signed Thomas Nast.  If I'd been the only person to notice that, I would have got a $1,500 value for about $150. But I wasn't, and some tattletale even peached to Heritage Auctions, raising the bar for everyone:

"Clifford Berryman Uncle Sam Political Cartoon Original Art (undated). Terrific political illustration by the legendary Clifford Berryman, image area 14" x 13" and in Very Good condition. Also included is another illustration featuring Kaiser William, by Thomas Nast. This piece has an image area of 13.5" x 18.5" and the art is in Fair condition; the paper is very brittle with many tears and some chips out including a large section in the tree."

They've still got it as a picture of Kaiser Wilhelm rather than Bismark - Wilhelm would have been impossible for Nast - but that's not enough to keep the price within my reach.

It's still probably cheaper than I'll ever see a Nast again, but it's no longer a gift.

Again yet

But how can one resist when every Birther case is a novel, or a comic, in itself?

110) Due to 109 above, plaintiff has no choice but to conclude that the entire
Nation must consist either of stupidly or willfully ignorant fools, or of those who
are under the influence of some form of mass delusion, hypnotic trance, or threat
of violence.
6811) As a result of 99 through 110, plaintiff has no choice but to conclude that it is
the Patriotic duty of the first person who discovers the true meaning and definition
of Article II natural born Citizen to file a petition with the Court, so as to break the
spell and illusion, that all may take cognizance of the situation, in order to apply
the Constitution to protect the U.S. citizen from being defined by the government's
actions to be a George Washington!
112) Plaintiff Mr. Paul Guthrie did not ask to be a George Washington and does
not want to be a George Washington.
113) By filing this petition, plaintiff Paul Guthrie is establishing a public record
that he is the first natural born Citizen person in the country to rightfully file a
claim in Court that establishes objectively in Nature, as a self-evident truth of
Nature, what the objective definition and meaning of Article II natural born Citizen
is, which is a matter of objective truth, and not plaintiff's opinion, nor anyone's
opinion, opinion being only subjective truth and hearsay evidence.
114) Mr. Guthrie proves by his filing of this petition that he is the only person in
the country who understands how the government and law is supposed to function,
making Mr. Guthrie the last surviving natural U.S. sovereign political authority of
the country.... It is obviously that no one in the country besides plaintiff Guthrie
knows, given that so many have been trying to determine it for years now and we
still have a King and Monarchy for a government, and not a President and
Constitutional Republic of the People.
115) Due to 99 through 114 above, Mr. Guthrie fears that those who are seeking to
leave King Obama's army and repatriate themselves with the proper Constitutional
government of We the People will turn to Mr. Guthrie to lead them like a George
Washington, since by his public filing he is showing the world that he is the only
person in the country with sufficient legal, scientific, historic knowledge who is
not under the spell of mass hypnosis of the King and his government, who knows
what a natural born Citizen is, and what the Constitution means, and how the
government is supposed to function.

The only survivor, surrounded by hypnotised pod people, forced to grab a gun and defeat the aliens; cue Bruce Willis.

From the files

East is east and west is west
and, upending Kipling’s moral,

Alex and Murad are bound by love 

and never the twain will quarrel.

Happy belated wedding wishes

from Annie, Rose and Chris

Several weddings ago, so a very poor prediction.  Also refers to Alexandra as 'Alex', which she hates......   

Still, it was a lovely wedding, and I've always been sorry we didn't go over to India for it.

A tip of the Borthwick hat to

a Birther case site that is so bottomlessly deranged that the Birther arguments are the least crazy thing about it.
   
It may be referred to as

Susan Herbert, Susan Clemons, Ray M., Richard Pait, Pryce P., Al Franken,Kurt Kallenbach, Tim Thomas, Linda Thomas, Charles Rangel, Rick Webbe, Henry Adams, Tommy Pritchard, A. Snitker, Ron and Cameron Gardiner,Hugh Everett, Ethan and Christopher Quinones, Wen Ho Lee, The Iroquois, Sioux, Hopi, Thomas Jefferson & the other American Founders etc. etc. et al 

Versus 

Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi, William Suter, Danny Bickle, Timothy Gaithner, Donald B Verrilli, Jr., Eric Holder, Bill Ayers and the US, Canada, China, North Korea, Mexico, Norway, France, Great Britain and the rest  of  Earth etc. etc. et al.

 A chunk taken more or less at random:

MN is next door to Canada who we truly believe holds the vault copies of Obama’s records as he entered North America via Canada and then the US as an infant or so we allege, MN is next door to IL that is the state Obama claimed to represent as a Senator and is the last known address we have for Bill Ayers, and MN lies above the 49th parallel making it the northernmost  state  in  the  48  contiguous  states  which  is  relevant  to the  science  in  this  case.

  No other state besides Alaska lies above the 49th parallel. This has to do with Jefferson having correctly weighed the Earth and discerned a universal mean not Lord Calvert as Jefferson was closest to magnetic north; it also has to do with cartographers and why they “rotated” their maps so that North appears on the bottom as the map or compass matching the 1362 MN land claim is rotated as polar north is not the same thing as magnetic north.