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There was a TV show set in Melbourne with the actors satarised their being Greek. The show was called Acropolis Now. One of the characters was Effie, played by Mary Coustas. The character "Effie", was a stereotypical second-generation Greek Australian prone to malapropisms. A common one of hers was " how embarassment". https://www.facebook.com/nickg1/videos/the-first-time-that-now-iconic-phrase-howembarrassment-was-heard-on-aussie-tv-on/2132406587584055/

The last census showed approx 1 million homes unoccupied on census night. That shows a lack of homes is not the issue but house hoarding. A clear case of a broken and unethical taxation regime.

Father Hartigan was my mum's teacher in Narrandera.

I remember when the wife and I went to England, leaving my son at home to fend for himself. Typical smartarsed teenager, he had put a ringtone on my wife's phone that was the sound of police sirens. We were sitting in a cafe in the village in Yorkshire where they filmed the TV show Heartbeat when he phoned us. The place was filled with the sound of sirens and everyone was looking about for the emergency vehicle. Of course, it was the son. It was mid-morning in England, but getting on for dinner time in Sydney. The stupid bugger rang to ask his Mum how to cook some dish he wanted for dinner.

A person I know has a house or two in town that are unoccupied. Why? Because of the costs of repairing the damage that tenants cause. That is probably one of the reasons for the numbers of vacant houses.

But it’s their three legged system of government that allows a corrupt president to accumulate so much power. It would be very difficult if not impossible for a prime minister of this country to do what Trump is doing.

What else would you expect from an abusive, vicious President who has started fights with every single person on the planet who disagreed with him!

And every creek a banker ran, And dams filled overtop; "We'll all be rooned," said Hanrahan, "If this rain doesn't stop."

Had a shit of a night's sleep last night! Kept getting woken up by the rain pounding on the roof. When I got up this morning water was laying is sheets across the ground. I had to go out and clear twigs and leaves from the drainage channels I dug back when the last big rains came. I measured 50 mm in the rain guage, and it is still raining. The rain event is supposed to last for the next couple of days.

Hey! Wait a mo! That can't be OUR Jerry. There aren't enough keyboard errors. Where's my tinfoil hat?

Yeah - silly idea by the poms, sending their worst people to a better place!

Bots would be able to spell better.

Then there's Mario in The Wog Boy - "They say I know f*ck nothing. But I know f*ck all!"

An old Slav prospector I knew used to say "I'm doubt", whenever he should have said, "I doubt it".

They can be amusing sometimes. I remember an old Croatian bloke telling me once, in all seriousness (although with a few shots of slivovitz on board) - "My wife, ok, I get home a bit late, and my wife, he say to me, 'What in the hell have you been??'"

Like everything these days. Publish a story about a horror renter and it puts the wind up a landlord. Vetting of potential tenants is a pretty terrifying process for a tenant needing a home.

And the ticky-tacky little boxes have come about via property investor greed that has pushed house prices up 700% in 3 decades. That's unsustainable, and is setting the country up for a majpr recession, perhaps even a Depression. House prices go up 3% annually over the long-term, normally. Only in the last 3 decades has this outlandish property pricing occurred - so we need to look at what has driven that - and it's the taxation system generously favouring property investors. So Labor is now trying to address that major imbalance.

Private homes are paid for by already taxed Money and NOTHING deductible. To retrospectively change the rules would not be taxing. it would be Confiscation of an asset by deception as a lot of it's VALUE is because of Inflation, with No deductions for ANYTHING Interest rates, council rates, repairs. insurance along the way. How unfair would that Be? . Over long periods of time the dwelling becomes valueless and only the Land makes it worth anything, Many Houses just get pushed over. An empty lot would be worth More. It costs Money to demolish and tidy up.. When you rent, you know exactly what it will cost you. If the neighbours are from Hell you can Just Move without Paying crazy amounts of Money . If you are the kind of Person that Moves a lot, Owning a House is the One thing you Might consider NOT doing. They can tie you down and absorb all your spare cash.. Most are Now on tiny Blocks where there is Nothing but the House and car garage. You can't fit between the walls of your Place and next door. Ticky Tacky little boxes all in a row.. How depressing. Nev

I say the same thing. However, although the sale pricing of the property has doubled, the value hasn't really changed since the money (if I sold right now) doesn't buy a more grand place. Capital gains are only realised by wealthy speculators who buy multiple properties.

No it doesn't. Take 12 houses for sale, 10 @ $1m, 2 at $600,000. The average (mean) is 10 x $1m + 2 x $600K = $11,200,000/12 = $9,333,333 The median is $1m + $600K =$1.600K / 2 = $800K

Wondered where that went. The perils of technology and senility.

If you had that flow all the time Marty you could set up a hydro system. A few years ago I saw a homebuilt one on youtube that a bloke had made from a Hitachi washing machine.

Bit damp down here at the moment, over 140mm in last 3 days. Our little creek which is normally a gentle trickle.

Scomo gave it a try, how many ministries was he secretly running?

That's just your algorithm working for you.

The only time that will happen is after their next civil war. The senate already has the power to restrict Trump but they have become impotent with Trump quoting Emergencies when there are none and all the government appointees being sycophants. The only hope is republicans losing their house majority after the mid terms.

I'm noticing a new trend in short YouTube videos. There is a lot coming up which show Obama's behaviour towards people, or his sense of humour. They show a very positive image of a person.

Rather than rewriting the constitution, if they just follow it...... Founding fathers tried to separate state from all religion. The US really began it's slide when the christian lobby got control - about the same time their (&our) government implemented prayer sessions into government processes. The only thing needed to reclaim some semblance of respect is to get the whole lot to obey the rule of law, ditch religious fundamentalism, and drop the Electoral College.

I've got an idea for gun control in the USA! Invoke the spitir of teh Second Amendment which says "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." The spirit of that amendment was to provide secutiry for the State. Therfore, make it a condition of gunownership that a person join a militia unit and attend training that leads to the unit being well regulated. If a person does not do that, then no firearm. People would find it too inconvenient to give up their time for that, and so would hand in their firearms.

Since I bought my new Samsung phone for under $250 when new iphones cost $1,000+ (some costing over $2000), I often don't carry it with me, it's a bit big and heavy compared to my old iphone. I rarely get calls, and when I do it's usually my daughter wanting me to pick up something at the shops. However, yesterday I went to a funeral, and forgot to put it on "Do not disturb." Wouldn't you know, halfway through the eulogy, the bloody thing goes off loud enough to almost waken the dead. I pulled it out of my pocket and the caller ID on the lock screen said "Possible Fraud". I shut it off as quick as I could.

Hmm welcome AI

Since Australia is one of the few countries that drives on the left we have to accept that the majority of vehicles built worldwide are for right hand drive. It is annoying if you have grown up with the indicator lever on the right, but eventually you retrain yourself if your vehicle has it on the left. Can you remember the push-button gear selector in, I think, early Valiants?

That report is a misleading simplification. AEMC projects a 5% fall in the cost of producing electricity over the next five years. However, retail prices could rise by as much as 13% over the next five years due to inflation, network and distribution costs, compliance and investment costs, demand growth, retailer return on investment, and weather volatility.

Will the day come, when 'Robot dog bites robot postman' hits the headlines?

A windfarm in sa that I had a bit to do with, with small MW turbines has had it life extended to 30 years. I am curious to see how the larger ones go. Huge amounts of forces when you have 162m rotors sitting on 150M towers.

I know one white boomer who quite rightly got kicked off the radio - Alan Jones.

Is He a Convict? . Aren't we all supposed to be descendants of FELONS? Is NOTHING Sacred? Nev

Hopefully, he is enroute to sunny Orstraya at last!

I always suspected he was a bot. 😂

Boomers, or baby boomers, are the generation born between 1946 and 1964, after WWII. Baby boomers are the demographic cohort preceded by the Silent Generation and followed by Generation X.

I think the Jap story was in a book You'll die in Singapore.

Most Shy Cancels are sheltered Workshops.. They wouldn't WORK in a tub of Yeast. Nev

Very, very, very old. It has been attributed to a German POW camp Kommondant and I have also heard it attributed to a Japanese POW camp Commondant.

Coz he's not Winnie the shit.

If you'd Woken the dead, you would have Made Big Headlines.. Nev

We had two rentals. I sold one after five years because we were losing money on it despite it being a nice house with good tenants paying a fair rent, mainly because there was no capital gain over those years. We probably lost $50k overall. I still have the other one, a small A-frame where the increase in block value has been the main driver of capital gain as the house is so small. It has been rented out over the last 20 years to a handful of tenants - all young singles or couples in their early twenties who were great. On the other hand a rental next to my son’s place was utterly trashed by the tenants before the owners managed to get rid of them. Our daughter now rents the A-frame because she like so many others has been priced out of the market and can’t afford to buy. She gets it for what it costs me to keep the property because I don’t want to make money from our kids and hopefully that will help her to save and buy her own place one day. We are very fortunate to have this property now, but I have mixed feelings about properties as investments in general unless you’re pretty hard nosed about pushing rents and cutting costs.

Investors buy homes, then keep them empty so they don't have any hassles caused by tenants, nor any decrease in house condition because of tenant wear and tear. There are thousands of empty houses in Australia, all owned by investors who are gloating on the capital increase in value of those homes. Better than money in the bank and all the outgoings are a good old tax deduction. Something has to change, or there will be a revolution - and Labor know it. The other parties think they can keep handing out benefits on a plate to housing investors. And what about the family home being exempt from any taxing at all? Buy a multi-million dollar house, spend more millions making it twice the size (and three times the selling value), stay in it for a year or two, call it your home - sell up and make millions tax-free. There should be a value limit on the family home, and the time living in it needs to be extended. There are dozens of houses around where I live that have all been extended to 7 or 8 bedrooms and 2 stories, and they hold 2-4 people - and the owners are sitting on multi-million dollar capital gains, totally free of virtually any kind of tax. That stinks.

Our current home has doubled in value (at least) since we bought it nine years ago. We are in a very small rural town, you could call it a hamlet, and I can see no reason for that sort of increase. Fortunately, all our five kids are now approaching or past 50 years old and have paid off their hex debts and most of their house costs, but the grandkids are entering a very different world.

Hear that Benjamin Netanyahu is the worst US president sunce Eloin Musk. But pootin was no better

Mean is the average. Median is halfway down the list between the highest and the lowest.