"Didn't Trump have outside help to get elected.[?]"

Yes...from about 60 million US citizens.

Hi MHaze,

Gosh, almost as many as Clinton's voters. I wonder what might have happened if the Russians had switched ?

AJ, I can't find any supporting evidenced for Trump's chess prowess, so I've come to the realisation that I must have dreamt it: we all have weird nightmares :) No more oysters before bed-time :>(

Joe

Bloody hell you right-whingers take the cake.

I cooled on Obama pretty quickly once it was evident the rhetoric wasn't matching the actions. Not going after the banks post the financial crisis was a real disappointment but there were many others like drone strikes on American citizens.

You guys on the other hand think the sun shines out of Trump's arse and seem determined to forgive any transgression this bloke makes.

Hey it is okay if you criticise him every once in a while. In fact it will make you a little more credible.

Not admitting any mistakes by him leaves you as sycophantic dopes.

Dear Loudmouth,

A chess playing Trump was a meme for a little while on social media. It was a form of humour that seems to have percolated down to you as fact, probably with the same kind of mechanism which left you calling the Rabbit Proof Fence a myth.

Our lefties, here & in the US & Europe have gone rabid in their denunciation of Trump.

They have to invent problems, as they have not a single thing to hold up to the light.

Ultimately they will learn that like the nursery rime of the boy who called wolf, all this caterwauling is totally counter productive. Their over the top screaming is becoming merely background noise, that no real people will even notice in the near future.

All they are doing is proving us right in believing they are ratbags, with not a useful thought in their bodies. Rather like their beloved climate scientists actually.

Hi Steele,

I'm glad you've raised the Rabbit-Proof Fence story again: I got hold of the actual book, 135 pages, and almost ten pages of it are definitely associated with the actual Fence, both the outer and the inner fences, although I'm puzzled why both.

Contrary to the front cover, which shows three poor little girls staggering across a vast salt lake, those ten pages (well, okay, eight, if you leave out the story of the Aboriginal bloke accosting Molly) seem to depict the children skipping and gambolling along the road, in a land of bounty, and sometimes even along the Fence, finishing the bulk of their journey from Moore River of about forty pages in just ten. Perhaps nothing much happened and they finished what was the hardest part of the journey in the shortest time. Did they get lifts up along the road ? I couldn't possibly comment.

I recommend anybody to get hold of a copy and make their own minds up. Sorry, Steele, I'm still wedded to facts and evidence, whatever they may be. There's no reality without them.

Joe

Dear Joe,

We've covered this ground before.

The subject of the "Stolen Generations" exemplifies
the arguments of those who insist that there is no
such thing as "objective history."

In discussing this issue the historian can establish
that an act took place on a certain day, but this, by
historical standards, constitutes only chronology or,
as East Europeans call it, "faktologija" (factology).

The moment the historian begins to look critically at
motivation, circumstances, context, or any other such
considerations, the product becomes unacceptable for
one or another camp of readers.

Some people (survivors and victims' relatives) are usually
more interested in condemnation and punishment than in
explanation. Explanations seem tantamount to sympathizing and excusing.

This all too easily leads onto the questionable practice of
stereotyping. If people are reluctant to modify their
judgements continued stereotyping can encourage "counter-
stereotyping" and the result is usually a complete breakdown
in communication.

Which is unfortunate. The aim of education is the knowledge,
not of facts, but of values.