Who lives here?
A lot more animals (including Hobbits!), than people:
- although the situation is not as extreme as it was in the 1970s and early 80s, when there were 60 to 70 million head of sheep in the country, versus a population of barely three million people. (At the same time as this, prime minister Robert Muldoon was quietly trying to reduce the human population. He made immigration more difficult, and turned a blind eye to the significant numbers who were emigrating).
Bill.
i remember once asking how the planet could possibly accommodate all the people who have ever lived?
after the resurrection i mean.
the answer i was told is that the gb had calculated that all the people who have ever lived could all fit on to the isle of wight?!.
He's right, those deserts have a huge amount of water in their aquifers:
Whether or not, though, there is enough water there to irrigate the entire expanse of desert is another matter.
In the case of the Australian deserts, there certainly isn't. As an example, the site I was involved with (BHP Billiton's Olympic Dam mine) had to run a line of artesian bores out as far as 200 km away from the plant, just to bring in sufficient water for a mineral processing operation. That bore line could not deliver anywhere near enough water to turn the arid country in between into arable land (even if the bore water had been suitable for irrigation purposes - which it wasn't).
Bill
i remember once asking how the planet could possibly accommodate all the people who have ever lived?
after the resurrection i mean.
the answer i was told is that the gb had calculated that all the people who have ever lived could all fit on to the isle of wight?!.
rebel8
This was accompanied by a small movement at the time to "green the desert". The belief was that you could pump water into the desert, plant trees, and soon it would no longer be the desert. Claims were made that the desert was so fertile that crops could grow overnight.
It is not just the JWs that have come up with the "irrigating the deserts" story, either. I can remember once reading a Plain Truth magazine, in which the author (presumably H.W. Armstrong) made the claim that there are large bodies of water trapped in the ground beneath all the world's deserts - and thereby inferring that irrigation should not be much of a difficulty.
Presumably, he got that idea from Australia's Great Artesian Basin, and then extrapolated this onto all other arid regions in the world. Even much of the water in the GAB is toxic. At the site I worked at on the edge of the desert in South Australia, the artesian water was seven times as saline as seawater. To make it in any way usable required a three-stage filtration process (including Reverse Osmosis filtration). They might as well have just said that, as most of the earth's surface is covered by oceans, irrigation / water supply should never be an issue!
Bill
who were your past circuit overseers?
i'm sure a lot of us actually know mutual people, as the co's relocate all over the country.. here's a few from the southeast us: (let me know if you recognize any names and post yours too please...).
ellwood johnson (new york/philadelphia area for several years also).
Forty-something years later, I still am unable to forget Rex Mainwaring!
Do any others in Australia remember "Cyclone Rex"?
He certainly terrorised us all in S.E. Queensland, when he went on a mission to re-invigorate "The Work", which had somewhat gone into decline during the immediate post-1975 years.
Bill.
PS: For "re-invigorate", read "kick-@$$"
recently shared this with me.. they compared the tiredness they felt after attending an assembly and meetings, and noted how much worse it was than actually working and studying hard for hours for their secular employment!
why were they so exhausted after an assembly/meeting?
no, it wasn't satan.
No - I never wondered why I always came back from assemblies/conventions in a worn-out state:
- to me, that was never, ever a mystery.
To steal a line from William Shakespeare, the JW assemblies and conventions (not to mention their meetings in general) all come under the heading of Much Ado About Nothing !
Bill.
just found out that the australian governong body member known as geoffrey jackson got engaged to a sister about two weeks ago.
it really shocked me at first but then i remembered how other members of the gb have remarried in the past like daniel sidlik.
what made me say "woah" was hearing that the holy bride to be is really young!
Did you guys know there is a polynesian place name called : Taumata-whaka-tanei-hanakoauau-o-tamatea-turipukaka-pikimaunga-horo-nuku-pokai-whenuakutana-tahu
Here is a photograph of the place, the the Hawkes Bay region of New Zealand's North Island.
Bill.
just got done watching parts of the october episode at jdub.broadcasting and it looks like the definition of "sacred service" is getting an update.
construction work, helping out fellow dubs, even helping out non-beliebers and opposers will soon be adding up to record progress for publishers... gett ready for a huge increase in hours being reported.... can you hear it now??
my how jw.org provides.... pbrow.
What was that bull-story they once concocted about how their flip-flops in doctrine are just like sailing a yacht:
- i.e. how it tacks to the left, then to the right while sailing into the wind, yet the overall direction of progress is forwards?
For a time in the late 1970s, the WTS was saying this very same thing about what constituted "sacred service". That didn't last very long, though. It seemed to be recanted about the same time as Raymond Franz got dumped from the Governing Body.
Bill.
earlier this morning, i posted off to the the institute of engineers an application for membership as an "engineering associate":.
- today being just over 40 years since the congregation's retards elders made me abandon my apprenticeship.. (in this part of the world, the pre-1975 hype was taken to that level.
not being content to prevent young persons attending university, they went one step further and treated with hostility any youngster who would "tie up five years of their lives" by entering into an apprenticeship.
GrreatTeacher,
Yes, it is an emotional event, isn't it.
Bill
earlier this morning, i posted off to the the institute of engineers an application for membership as an "engineering associate":.
- today being just over 40 years since the congregation's retards elders made me abandon my apprenticeship.. (in this part of the world, the pre-1975 hype was taken to that level.
not being content to prevent young persons attending university, they went one step further and treated with hostility any youngster who would "tie up five years of their lives" by entering into an apprenticeship.
The final piece to this has now been completed.
I have just received my certificate as an Associate Member of the Institute of Engineers:
- some 39 years after it ought to have happened.
(But better late than never!)
Bill.
i think that it's possible that they're getting ready to issue a new end time date insinuation like they did with 1975. now i know what some of you are probably thinking: why would they be so stupid as to repeat such a mistake, knowing what happened in 1975?
well here're two reasons why i think they could do it:.
first, it's important to remember that they are deluded.
Could "this generation" inspire another a new "1975 debacle"?
For the sake of those who would get hurt as a consequence, I would hope not.
But then again, when it comes to #uc*ing bloody religion, anything is likely!
Bill.
