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This is the age of modernist glaring white cabinets and tiles for every modern home. Imagine my surprise to stay at a recently renovated caravan park that is furnished in rustic federation shearer's quarters decor! Our mate OME has started a trend!

Great development if it works.

Why are we surprised? Trump admires dictators and despots. He has stripped the top level of administration of anyone with knowledge and brains, and replaced them with yes-men. The only required attribute is loyalty (and tribute). He has openly said that the American public won't have to vote again, and is actively dismantling democracy. He has used his position to gain him and his equally disgusting family billions - the most corrupt public figure, let alone president, ever. He supports and enables the worst white supremacists in the country, allows and encourages political violence when it's against his adversaries, and is racist himself. And we're surprised when something like this happens?

In spite of all the stuff going on so far, It's gone beyond just a case of 'What has tRump done now?'.... Quoted from Pearls & Wisdom: "a group of 36 senior neurologists, forensic psychiatrists, general psychiatrists and mental health professionals experienced in the diagnosis of cognitive disorders and evaluation of dangerousness, who had signed an earlier statement in 2024, issued an update on 30 April of this year. They cited examples of Trump’s “marked deterioration in cognitive functioning, evidenced by disorganised and tangential speech, rambling digressions, factual confusions, unexplained sudden changes of course in strategic matters, both national and international, episodes of apparent somnolence during crucial public proceeding. Grandiose and delusional beliefs, including assertions of infallibility…claims that his decision-making authority is unlimited – with no need to consider domestic and international laws and constrained only by his ‘own morality’. Severely impaired judgment and impulse control…Significant loss of self-control (disinhibition) and getting stuck on the same thoughts or actions, unable to let go or move on (perseveration), including seemingly compulsive, manic-like late-night communications – e.g., 150 social media posts in one night.” They conclude: “it is our expert opinion that Donald J. Trump is mentally unfit to be the President of the United States, and that steps to remove him from office must be undertaken with the greatest urgency”. And this bloke has 24/7/365 access to instantly start launching numerous preplanned nuclear ATTACKS. https://johnmenadue.com/post/2026/07/for-president-trump-starting-nuclear-war-as-easy-as-sending-a-tweet/

How do you writ up the insurance claim?

I knew I liked De Havillands for.some reason

No point posting them here then, Nev.

The first thing they'd do is start sending friendly emails to random blokes......

I took an instructional flight from Moorabbin today. To be honest, there's a lot I could write in the gripes thread, particularly around a) the commerical properties that have gone up, and b) the introduction of landing fees. The urban sprawl is there - the training area has less and less open country. But, that is progress. But, the flight was quite a good one. Just practiced stalls and forced landings.. Didn't die, to that is a positive (for some, I guess not ;-)) The young instructor was very professional and a natural instructor.. sad that an airline or other jet career beckons.. The flight was in an Archer with full EFIS.. Took a bit of getting used to - to be honest would need a bit more time to get comfy with it (and a manual and some prep time). Weather played ball as well.

The Trump administration has just instructed the FBI not to investigate any incidents involving ICE anymore, saying that ICE will do that themselves. That’s not going to work out well. ICE is becoming Trump’s racist paramilitary wing like Hitler’s brownshirts.

All things considered, I find gravity somewhat attractive.. It creates an atmosphere all of it's own. Nev

Some guys formed a band they called 999 megabytes. Still haven't got a gig.

I haven't put in panels as it would bre like putting lipstick on a pig. The house really needs knocking down and rebuilding, but I don't have the money for that. I know I am still paying the high price, but I handle it by paying $50 or $100 each pension day to the electric company, and to gas, water rates, etc. That way I build up a credit at a rate I can deal with, and the bill usually comes out $0 to pay. My bank balance revolves in a standard pattern, with no sudden unexpected dives.

A husband walks into Victoria’s Secret to buy his wife a sheer nightgown. The clerk shows him several options ranging from $250 to $500 - the more sheer, the higher the price. He picks the sheerest one for $500 and heads home. He gives it to his wife and asks her to go upstairs, try it on, and model it for him. Upstairs, his wife thinks, "It's so sheer it might as well be nothing! I'll just model naked, return it tomorrow, and keep the $500 refund for myself." She appears naked on the balcony and strikes a pose. The husband looks up and says, "Good grief! For $500, you'd think they'd at least iron it!" He didn't see the punch coming and should be able to see out of at least one eye by the weekend.

But Peter, that's from experts. As every one of Trump's administration picks proves, being an actual expert in something automatically disqualifies your opinion.

Yes because I did the rational thing and installed solar.

So, seventytwo virgins, eh? That's a hellava lotta goats!

Well, here is a potential development that can bring nuclear into a viable alternative: A Canadian lab just ran a chemical process on real spent nuclear fuel and pulled out 90% of the long-lived danger in 24 hours, the part that forces a burial site to last 100,000 years, with the leftovers meant to fuel a reactor https://share.google/bEVunnl6sp8t3mOVg

She was obviously taking the piss.

They feel that a man of your keen intellect would not be easily scammed, so why bother.

This mught fit a thread called "How crazy is this crazy world" The infamous Male Supremacist Tate bros (I invented that term) got a private jet flight from Romania (I think?) to USA. Now have been arrested in Miami for extradition to face charges in Blighty. LONDON – Influencer Andrew Tate and his brother Tristan have been arrested in Miami after British authorities issued 38 new charges against them, including allegations of rape and sex trafficking. Is this the image of alpha males in 2026?

Cool air More Lift. It was very cold today. I know as I put a new set of spark plugs in the 98 Au . 10 years since the last ones were fitted. Fortunately I'd used anti seize, but had to warm the engine to get the Back one out. Of course that's the Most inaccessible. It's colder here than Melbourne. 1500 feet up. Nev

He's our resident cunning linguist.

Not sure if this is good, bad, or ugly, but preparing a pack to return to the motherland with: Just need cheezels

The use of WHOM is dying out, and who being considered acceptable more often. Your time is yet to come. "To WHOM it may concern" may hang on a while . Easy to look up. Nev

So the painting of my son's house continues. Unfortunately I am out due to walking out of a door at night to what I thought was a scaffold platform.. .. but wasn't

It's their modus operandi. Make the place sound bad and offer the snake oil elixir to fix it. Same for Chump and Farage

Poor dog. Imagine being a dog and living with a human being that has less sense than you.

Already back at Blighty. My last few days became a bit manic; apart from the little training sortie, the rest of the time was spent with my mum, culminating in an assessment at Eastern Health on Thursday morning, of which I had to leg it after the family contributions to get to the airport for a Thursday arvo flight. Arrived at Heathrow Friday morning and straight into the office. It made sense as it is a lot closed than home, has great showers and I had spend my allocated holiday. Train ride home in the evening. I am back out late October/early November.

Yes, you should pay an amount related to the roads you use and the actual Mileage on those roads. (User Pays) That's FAIR. Nev

My son has a BYD Shark PHEV. I've been looking at some Australian-made videos on Youtube made by 4WD influencers, and most of what they present is positive. However there are a few things that have got me thinking that the design concept of the vehicle is wrong. First, the vehicle is a 3-tonne dual cab. It is a tall vehicle, meaning that one has to climb up into it. Why so big? It has a Gross Vehicle Mass (GVM) of 3,500 kg and a payload of approximately 790 kg. That 750 kg paylod has to include the weight of five persons plus luggage and other junk. Don't forget that if the vehicle is used to tow a caravan or other type of trailer, the towball weight has to be taken from the 750 kg. I wonder how useful it would be as a tradie's ute. How much do a tradie's tools weigh? And how often do five tradies travel in the one vehicle? Next I don't see it as an off-road vehicle. A lot of the videos show it being used off-raod, but I think this is a mistake. I think people might not understand that although each wheel of the vehicle is driven by its own motor, it does not, to my mind, equate to the traditional 4WD. While each motor delivers maximum torque immediately, off-road driving requires that the torque from an ICE or EV power plant should be controlled. I think that the correct application of an EV motor is through a gearbox if one wants to drive through mud, sand and climb mountains. BYD has been honest in stating that the battery-only range is 100 km. That is sufficient for daily running around the local area. They have been honest to say that for longer distances, the 1.5 litre ICE engine must be used. This engine is basically an onborad electrical generator which uses about 7.5 litres/100 km at highway speed without towing. Towing a medium sized caravan or horse float can blow that out to about 20 litres/100km. One advantage of teh BYD battery system is that it has outlest which can provide 240 volts. That would be useful for a tradie to run chargers for cordless tools. Why do I think the design concept is wrong? Around my way, the most popular style of work vehicle is the Toyota Hillux in single or dual cab. The vehicle weighs about 2 tonnes with a load capacity of about 900 kg. This design suits the needs of farmers and tradies. It is available in 2 or 4WD configuration. Why couldn't a model with an EV power system be made to this design? Toyota has a Hilux EV, but it is a big monster like the Shark.

Heat Pump. The figures below are quite accurate. The thing is, though the solar more than covers it. Here is today's input and out from my system. The orange stripes are power being use and the blue power being generated. Note the very long orange 4 stripes is the hot water heater which has been off for a fortnight because we have been away. Normally, the hot water only requires about 30 minutes a day. Today is a mostly cloudy day Running a 2.5 kW split system air conditioner on heat costs about $0.25 to $0.40 per hour, or roughly $2.00 to $3.20 for an 8-hour day, based on an average electricity rate of $0.35 per kWh. [1, 2, 3] Cost Breakdown Hourly Cost: $0.25 – $0.40 per hour Daily Cost (8 hours): $2.00 – $3.20 per day Electrical Draw: Uses about 0.6 kW to 0.8 kW of input power per hour (the 2.5 kW rating is the thermal heating output, not the electricity consumed). [1, 2, 3]

I put this here partly tongue-in-cheek. But Don't you think a V12 range extender on a 500hp hypercar, sounds like a monster? https://www.motortrend.com/news/evtol-range-extender-hypercar-motor-diesel-v12

Trump is about the $#1tiest Leader in the world when it comes to being trusted and keeping your word. ALL HE is CONcerned with is lining his and his families Pockets and getting revenge on those he dislikes. IF he keeps it up he will do great damage to the entire Planet. You must be totally BLIND Gon. You are flogging a Dead Horse. Nev

It takes very intelligent people to GET my jokes. Nev

You should be nice to Skeletons. After all, they have No body. Nev

It was a Chinese build. Tipper back. Single cyl, shaft drive to a short conventional diff. The frame was 2"box downtubes. Really tough. But also very dead.

Just to put the supply and demand influence on pricing, we should include data centres. These things require grid reinforcement and generation increases far above population requirements. They now affect wholesale prices. A single hyperscale data center can consume over 100 megawatts — comparable to the usage of tens of thousands of homes. Australia already hosts 154 data centers across 77 cities, operated by 58 distinct operators. And plan for many more. https://www.datacenters.world/countries/australia

There is a lot of good with social media, but these fellas are examples of what is wrong with social media. In a world where a lot of people get all their information off social media, they have presented themselves as successful men who work and play hard, and reap the rewards of that hard work. What the solcial media algorithms don't try and do is present all the info - only that which will entice you to keep clicking. So a lot of people looked to them as heroes. Also, most of our MSM and social media are not holding them to account with the intensity it deserves. So, a lot of their crap gets lost in the general noise. Even my daughter, until I pointed out to her what they really do, thought they were being unfairly vilified (she was a bit younger at the time). It has just dawned on me.. One of the benefits of having a physical newspaper (and other media - such as a TV) that was not a personal device was that parents could guide their kids to take a wider view of information and for them to find the information, despite not being availed of the diversity of information at their fingertips in the information age. With the information being more and more recactively presented based on an algorithm rather than being proactively sought, this may well get worse before it gets better.

The email came into my personal email account. As I said, if anyone on this forum would be sending me an email, it would be through the forum's messaging system. That's why I deleted the email without opening it. I knew that I could contact Jerry either through this thread or by using the forum's system. I am astounded by how elderly people could let themselves be conned into giving money to strangers who contact them online. Surely we don't have to put up billboards with messages warning that teh internet is rife with scammers in order to give protection to people.

Blimey! You are right.. The Mars here taste a lot worse than the UK, and the recipe in Aus was swapped from the UK to the USA recipe some years ago. I made the mistake of tarring Cadbury's with the same brush. I will get one tomorrow and check it out.. If better, I will defo take some back.

Is the Motherland full of Mothers. Wasn't it Angles? This Emerald Isle. This demi Paradise. (Churchill). To Be Ar nott to be? That is the Question. (Shakespeare). May you cookies not crumble. Nev

How many blondes does it take to make chocolate chip cookies? Five. One to mix the dough, four to peel the Smarties.

It's a bit cool here in Nyngan. We are camped by the river, enjoying a glass of red whilst dinner simmers on our little fire pot. Life's good.

"Leader" is a word with a number of different meanings which are influenced by context. A leader is a person with leadership abilities. Leadership, is defined as the ability of an individual, group, or organization to influence, or guide other individuals, teams, or organizations. How one becomes a leader often depends on what needs to be led. I think we are lucky in our political system in that our Party leaders are, for the most part, chosen by the group they lead. That allows us to replace underperforming leaders during the course of a parloiamentary period, and not have to wait for General Elections as is necessary in the USA. Our Prime Ministers and Premiers are the spokespersons for the government when talking about matters in general. What I would like to see at a press conference is for the leader to introduce the topic for the press conference and then introduce the relevant Minister who would then go into the details. I see the leader in such a circumstance as being like a Master of Ceremonies who is there to introduce the acts.

That's my excuse too. I'm really much younger than I look.

Problem solved

Stil covered in frost outside here which is not far from there. Beautiful clear day other wise. My Barometer is 1041 Mbs. Highest I can recall. Nev