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It's gonna be a show trial to appease the multiculturalists so Labor can get some badly needed votes from it. The spotlight has now shifted from the Bondi murderer to Ben Roberts-Smith. I'm sure Ben's arrest was deliberately delayed to coincide with the Bondi murderer's long drawn out investigation. Can't blame an ethnic without an Anglo Aussie to blame also. Gotta balance things out a bit. That seems to be the unwritten motto in leftwing politics these days.

Here's why we only have a month's worth of fuel stored here.

There are now guidelines and rules about deorbit or moving to what's called a graveyard orbit FCC 5-Year Rule: The U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) adopted rules requiring satellites licensed by the US—or seeking to access the US market—to deorbit within 5 years of mission completion, a significant reduction from the previous 25-year guideline. Enforcement: In 2023, the FCC took its first enforcement action against a company (DISH) for failure to properly deorbit a satellite (EchoStar-7), demonstrating that these regulations are now being legally enforced. International Guidelines: Agencies like NASA and the Inter-Agency Space Debris Coordination Committee (IADC) provide guidelines, often adopting the 25-year maximum rule for LEO, or moving to "graveyard" orbits for satellites in higher orbits. Exceptions and Grandfathering: Existing satellites are often "grandfathered" in, meaning they do not have to comply with newer, stricter rules immediately. However, new missions must include plans for disposal.

Elon will have lots of targets waiting for him to practice his aim. Knowing his development methods, I'd prefer him to practice aiming away from me.

We don't realise how much stuff we have launched into orbit around the Earth. I often wonder how they manage to get through the active and inactive satelites that are there without colliding with something. Perhaps a furture space business will be to go around collecting the junk and returning it to Earth for recycling.

At the end of the day, it is all about money. Idealism comes next. It is a great way to make money. The general public comes last. But they are essential to support the idealism. That's how capitalism works.

True, but.... Our politicians seem to do well at making dumb remarks, and making decisions that seem silly to us. Maybe if they worked on transparent communication they would garner more respect and trust. Let's hear the real logic behind their actions.

Police Procedure: In NSW there is no need to handcuff an arrested person during transport if there is no clear chance that the arrested person will attempt to flee. If a person submits to arrest why bother possibly injuring them by cuffing? Your idea that the cuffs always go on after arrest is based on what you see depicted in American crime programmes.

The Devil speaks.

Pretty sure you are right. I just wanted to justify my view that pretty much the rest of the world now has a dim view of the American administration and the whole country. Their leader is a source of global ridicule.

Who didn't know the amount of GST in the price of a birthday cake? How many politicians didn't know the price of a packet of butter? It's easy to trip up someone on a minor detail, which is what any political opponent of another politician will do for a headline.

Whilst a politician misquoting a figure is not the best look, it is also not unheard of. Many a treasurer has misquoted inflation or interest rates at a press conference. Politicians are not scientists, and their role is to take the best advice. The denier community gets all excited if Al Gore makes a mistake, etc., as if this somehow delegitimises the established science. When it comes to climate science, I stick to my usual methods. I am not an immunologist. There is no way I can, for example, prove or disprove whether or not there is a link between vaccination and autism. I can not do the actual research myself. All I can do is look at the published research and weigh it up against any dissenting research. I believe my approach to science is quite reasonable, and surely most would agree. Why then do people throw out the peer-reviewed science in just this one area? If the science is nonsense, then perhaps someone could explain why CSIRO, NASA and a list of the world's most respected science organisations are broadly in agreement. Are they poor at science? Are left-wing loonies trying to bring down the world's economy? Are they all getting together in some kind of conspiracy? I think deniers owe us an explanation as to how and why this supposed bad science or conspiracy is occurring.

Like I said, pretty major part of what they are trying to sell.

Don't over egg it. He simply Has NO idea what he is doing and his Massive ego Motivates most of it .Nev

Thought this Wall Street article belongs here. Looks like Elon-the-Muskovite might get some serious space contracts. Just think of the possibilities! "Starship will make it possible to use low Earth orbit as a parking lot for a giant space-based arsenal. This would allow the U.S. to pre-position conventional munitions with ablation shields and inertial guidance systems to strike anywhere on Earth within minutes. Putting tens of thousands of small munitions into orbit would become cost effective, by my estimate, at around $100 a kilogram. Munitions could include bunker busters, kinetic weapons, antipersonnel, incendiaries, fuel-air explosives, cluster munitions, and antitank, antiaircraft and antiship capabilities with sophisticated terminal guidance. Starship’s payload capacity promises to be so great that it will enable the deployment of much larger single munitions than today’s biggest airplanes, enabling conventional effects of a greater magnitude against even the most deeply buried targets. New kinds of strikes would become feasible. Imagine a strike package of a thousand of 200-pound bombs, each landing precisely, at the same time, on electric grid sites, government buildings, railway crossings, border stations and road intersections—without putting planes or military personnel at risk. This wouldn’t be limited by the number of available missile launchers or by the need for multiple sorties by strike aircraft. Such a system would obviate the need to establish air superiority before bringing in bombers and the need for large numbers of expensive cruise missiles." On one hand we are developing micro war devices (drones), on the other,........ https://www.wsj.com/opinion/elon-musks-starship-heavy-could-revolutionize-warfare-04930487?st=aUntwK

Yes but that was one cherry-picked stat. If you think that a politician should be across all available data about climate change, as well as their day job, you must think they're superhuman. If this garbage article is even real, it's nothing more than a planned "gotcha" by a right wing shock jock, who incidentally is being charged with 44 counts of indecent assault.

It is pretty important if the transition is a major policy of your party! If its your job to sell those tyres, its pretty important to have know what the main contributers to the process are. CO2 is the one we hear about all the time in the climate debate.

I stole this from another thread. I think it captures the level of the world's respect for TACOtrump. Apologies to it's originator.... Around the world, non-English news outlets are finding creative ways to translate the phrase “chicken out” for news consumers who are more familiar with an egg-laying bird than the proverbial presidential clucker in chief, and to explain that the acronym has no relation at all to Mexican food. In Japan, TACO was introduced in news headlines last year during Trump’s repeated tariff announcements and reversals. At the time, it was a new English slang term spreading in the financial services industry for buying stocks cheap after a U.S. tariff announcement drove the markets lower, then selling for a profit after shares inevitably rebounded from a Trump reversal. This week, the word was back in the news, with commentators discussing the difference between TACO and “tako,” which means “octopus” in Japanese. A news segment on Fuji Television explained to viewers the origin, meaning and connotation of the acronym with the fastidiousness of an educational program. “T-A-C-O,” a newscaster spelled out, before enunciating: “TACO.” “Tako? An octopus?” another asked, mimicking the tentacles of an octopus with his arms. “Among friends, you might say, ‘Don’t chicken out,’ but it doesn’t feel like appropriate slang for a president,” a third commentator said, noting the element of scornful criticism in the English meaning. The term became so widely used this week on social media and in news coverage that shortly after the ceasefire announcement, a popular illustrator, Irasutoya, released what appeared to be two new Trump drawings: one with the president wearing a taco (of the Mexican cuisine variety) as a hat, and another of him wearing an octopus on his head. One Japanese economist invented a new linguistic format: “TACO-ru,” using a Japanese conjugation to turn the acronym into a verb, meaning, “to TACO.” In the French press, TACO has turned into “Trump always deflates,” while in Italy, some of the national papers used an Italian turn of phrase that translates roughly into “always wets himself” — pejorative takes implying fearfulness. In the Arab world, several media outlets have published explainers on the acronym, largely translating it as “Trump always backs down.” A Spanish television segment described it as “doing the chicken,” while showing an illustration of Trump carrying a chicken. As the term gained popularity last year, a Mexican news outlet made sure to distinguish that when it came to “Mister Taco,” it was not referring to the food but to Mr. President. South Korea’s version of Wikipedia, Namuwiki, has an entire entrydedicated to TACO, complete with AI-generated photos of Trump dressed in a chicken suit. It translates the phrase as: “Trump always gets scared and runs away.” The term originated last year in a Financial Times column describing the “Taco trade” among investors making sense of the quick fall and rise in the markets in response to Trump’s tariff announcements. Trump has bristled at the term, and the White House and some Trump supporters describe his approach more generously as strategic unpredictability. The use of the term to describe Trump’s change of mind on Iran has drawn criticism even from some Democrats, noting that a decision to spare the lives of 90 million Iranians shouldn’t be minimized to a meme. But in many countries, TACO has become a shorthand to make sense of the president’s extreme threats that reverberate around the world — from tariffs to military attacks — and a TACO moment can have severe repercussions for the global economy. In oil-dependent Asia, for example, the prolonged Middle East war has resulted in economic tumult and a supply chain crisis comparable to the coronavirus pandemic. In China, where the term “chicken out” does not exist in Mandarin and the taco remains an exotic dish in many parts of the country, state outlets and social media users have come up with various ideas to make the TACO meme more accessible. Chinese state broadcaster CCTV uses the phrase “back down at the last second” as its translation. Some commentators are harking back to the term “paper tiger,” an old proverb that Mao Zedong popularized in his description of American imperialism — someone that appears powerful but is weak when challenged. Others compare TACO to stalled “rotten-tail” property projects, a notorious problem of abandoned construction projects in China’s housing bubble that create legal and logistical headaches for property buyers left in a limbo. On TikTok sister site Douyin, at least one user proposed using the transliteration “Takou,” literally a “mouth/verbal flop” — a faux pas, something you shouldn’t say or you’d regret. A viral meme compared Trump’s claims of an imminent victory over Iran to e-commerce giant Pinduoduo’s gamified marketing stunt in which users are encouraged to invest a lot of time trying to clinch unattainable rewards. Another shows Trump casting a TACO spell — with firepower emanating from his hands — in a game of cards as a last resort for salvaging the stock market. Zhang Jiaqian, a meticulous translator of Trump’s social media posts, said he has not yet seen a perfect Chinese translation of TACO but shared his own view that the TACO behavior is not a sign of weakness but a scheme to maximize gains — in this case, squashing Iran’s nuclear ambitions. “We can laugh at TACO all we can want,” Zhang said, “but shouldn’t underestimate the results.”

Strategy has never been simpler....

Not really. A politician is not a scientist. You don't need to know how a tyre is manufactured to drive a car.

Ok, this one is from the Kyiv Post, so it just might be hopeful propagana.... “The enemy has begun using new drones called ‘Martians,’ which, unfortunately, have a cruising speed of up to 300 kilometers/hour [186 miles / hour], no longer fly under operator guidance but are controlled by artificial intelligence,” Prikhodko said. “They are undetectable by electronic warfare systems, and drone detectors don’t spot them.” https://www.kyivpost.com/post/73593

Former CIA director: "Russia no longer has the upper hand’ in Ukraine war Former CIA Director David Petraeus said Russia no longer has the “upper hand” in the war against Ukraine in a recent interview describing Moscow’s receding strength. “I think what’s remarkable is that Russia no longer has the upper hand,” Petraeus said in an interview published Monday by CBS. “Russia heavily outnumbers Ukraine. It outguns Ukraine. It has an economy 10 or 12 times the size of Ukraine’s. And yet the Ukrainian forces right now are stopping the Russians cold on the front lines,” he added." https://thehill.com/policy/defense/5818227-david-petraeus-ukraine-russia-war/

And here we are, spending gazillions on big oblolete submarines. Unmanned vessels do wgat these do on land.... "These ground-based systems executed over 9,000 combat and logistics missions on the front lines in March alone, up from over 2,900 in November, the ministry said in a statement."

Oh boy! When I zoom in on the reflection in his visor, I can see the film crew!

I did use to believe we needed the big business to supply jobs for Australia, but now the politicians have been bought by big business. Too many politicians of all sides go and work for the businesses that belong to portfolios they use to have. Out and out conflict of interest but none of them are going to change it. Does make our political system a con. Oops wrong thread.