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Trump continues to dig even deeper holes for himself. His pathological lying used to just raise eyebrows among world leaders. Now they are giving him back some of his own medicine. He is still insisting Meloni begged him for a photo but she has shot him to pieces with her latest comments. Mary Trump apparently said that his father told him to never accept defeat ever. He still insists he won the 2020 election & just last week walked out of an interview when a Journo stated the evidence was there & he insisted he had evidence to the contrary but has never ever produced anything (because he can't). The US has always exploited its position in every place it has set up a base or even just an embassy. The Yanks were widely despised during WW2 here, the UK & in NZ. Remember the catch phrase " over paid over sexed and over here". There were riots in Brisbane & in Wellington all due to the attitudes of US servicemen & their pompous boss MacArthur. They have rewritten history so many times. For example there were 75,000 British & Canadian troops that landed on D-Day & 57,000 Americans, all the navy ships & most of the landing craft were British & the Yanks stuffed up their landings, refused to use most of Hobarts inventions, took out half the bolts of the mulberry floating harbours so they got destroyed in a storm & had huge casualties & in the battle of the Bulge, Montgomery's 30 Corps stopped the Germans getting to Antwerp after they had over-run the yanks & Patton was too far away . The list goes on. The USA is an empire in decline and it has been for some time. The only thing Trump has been good at is hastening that decline. The sooner the leaders of rest of the World act in a positive way like Meloni & The US leaves or gets kicked out of countries it has bases in the better.

It will be more than just a price rise in prices of premium chips. The world cannot afford to give up Taiwan. At Davos, the US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said: "I would say that the single biggest threat to the world economy, the single biggest point of single failure, is that 97 percent of the high-end chips are made in Taiwan," Bessent told the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. He described a potential blockade or destruction of the island's manufacturing capacity as an "economic apocalypse," emphasizing Washington's efforts to relocate semiconductor production to American soil." A blockade of these chips would send the world into the tech dark ages and we would certainly lose the AI arms race against China. As I understand it, it would take decades to build the ecosystem required to produce these high end chips.

Trump is supported by utterly incompetent imbeciles such as J.D. Vance, who the Iranians have played like a fiddle at the peace talks in Switzerland. The Americans arrived early, and went in first to the negotiating room, giving the Iranians the pyschological edge. As seasoned negotiation veterans have said, the losing party is the first to enter the room, the victors enter last. Then the negotiations have stalled at every turn, with the Iranians knowing full well they're playing with a handful of aces. When asked if the U.S. was demanding a full and total end to Iran's nuclear programme, Vance only said, "Oh yes, we'll be negotiating an end to their nuclear programme" - like it was now of secondary importance. If the U.S. really were the winners here, they'd demand the end to Iran's nuclear programme as a primary and non-negotiable demand. Vance is a totally incompetent f****** loser, he couldn't negotiate his way out of a paper bag.

The Trump administrtation is the greatest threat to world peace, ever. Hitler, Stalin, Mao and many others don't hold a candle to him. What is a further worry are the warhawks controlling the US military. Trump's threats to Iran are nothing more than extortion. And if Israel isn't hauled in, teh Middle East will still be a bubbling cauldron. Have you caught up with the new QANTAS route to London beginning late next year? It is a non-stop flight to London, avoiding the need for a stop in teh Middle East, of even overflying that part of the world.

The saga of the green reflecting pool is classic trumpfook. First he personally gave the repair contract to a buddy. Then he insisted it painted a darker colour in spite of the known fact that dark = warmer = faster algae growth. Then within 10 days the water turned warm & green and they tipped insufficient Hydrogen Peroxide in. Then the blue Epoxy paint started to peel off & float about in the green water. Then we hear about another contract to fix all this.... the National Park Service contracted not only the coating and painting of the pool under a no-bid contract, but also an additional $1.7 million contract for a water purification system. That no-bid contract went to a firm whose ultimate owner is the J.J. Cafaro Investment Trust, led by Trump donor John J. Cafaro, whose wife chaired the 2017 International Red Cross Ball at Mar-a-Lago and who lives near Mar-a-Lago at a mansion that is listed as the water treatment company’s address in Florida corporate records. The name of the firm is Greenwater Services. What? He hired Greenwater Services?.... If only he'd thought to hire "Bluewater Services"......

We are off to Sydney today for a week. Haven’t been there for fifteen years. Broome would be better.

It did it tonight, that's why I posted that short story.

One thing I love about my place is when showers sweep in from the ocean side at night. If they're slow moving and you are out on the verandah, you can hear the noise as they move in across the valley raining down on the canefields. Sometimes you can hear it coming for a full five minutes before it hits the tin roof.

On that subject of Beach Petroleum, this photo is their geothermal / hot rocks project on the eastern side of the Flinders Range. It was taken in 2011, and a bit better quality than than previous instamatic photo. This one was taken with my little Panasonic Lumix compact. Myself and a mate went down there for about five days to do a small job. Just to the left of the well head, you can see the Beverley uranium mine at the foothill of the Flinders, which is where we were accommodated. It's a pity the project fizzled out.

He won't handle that well ,and therein lies the bigger problem. How'd you like to be living in IRAN.? about 90 million people do. Nev

No, Hawker DeHavillands at Lidcombe.

48 thousand were conscripted, 15 thousand went Vietnam. I knew a bloke who wasn't conscripted, just joined voluntarily and then volunteered to go and fight there. Unfortunately, he was involved in a friendly fire incident where one guy was too far out in front and was mistaken for an enemy combatant ... my mate shot him, sadly. I guess it was hushed up, but I got it from the horses mouth when he was back here at home. For brave acts he performed at other times, one in particular, he received bravery medals from every Western nation involved there ... all but Australia, he went on to tell me. He was not just a little peeved about that.

I think Meloni (who is not a particularly nice person herself) has made the political calculation that in most of the world, including Italy, it's more palatable with the voters to stand up to Trump rather than lick his arse. This is good, because if even right wing politicians realise this, then centrists and left leaning ones should definitely realise it. I think the clown is going to find out that he's not going to get a lot of respect or time from other world leaders any more.

The Iran peace talks in Switzerland aren’t going too well because Trump keeps posting threats about blowing Iran up if the negotiators don’t comply with what he wants. The Iranians are correctly pointing out that the threats violate the first item on Trump’s own agreement and are threatening to walk away, and Vance can’t do much to negotiate because his boss keeps pulling the rug out from under him.

He's used to Holding ALL the Cards, so he's not good in a real world. Nev

Gee! Who's fault its that? Wall Street chasing the bottom line?

Today is the Winter Solstice, the shortest day of the year. The last few days have been bitterly cold, full overcast and gloomy, all day, every day. I'm looking forward to Spring and Summer returning. To hasten it, we've booked a fortnights break in Broome, from the end of July to mid-August. That will give us a nice early burst of sunshine and warmth. I always look forward to a Winter break in Broome. The place is overpriced and always full of tourists, but the scenery and Cable Beach can't be beaten. We stay at the Habitat Resort, it's set on 9 acres (3.6Ha), and has 32 individual bungalows and apartments all spread out in a lovely heavily vegetated setting. Each bungalow is self contained, we can cook for ourselves or go up town for a feed. The Broome Golf Course is right next door, and their clubhouse sits on top of a big dune overlooking Roebuck Bay, and they serve good food and drinks. The Port of Broome has had a massive rebuild, the W.A. Govt has spent $200M building a new jetty, and a huge new floating dock, so ships can dock and depart any time, and not be dependent on the tide, as before, at the original dock, which was fixed. This was still being built when we were there last year, so it should all be finished now.

From 1969 to 1972, America put 12 men on the moon in nine missions. Eight of the surviving crew members (notably absent is the reclusive Neil Armstrong) talk about their experiences in a documentary called In The Shadow of The Moon, not to be confused with a movie of the same name released a few years later. The documentary was played on TV a few days ago. Here is a link to the Wikipedia article on the documentary - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_the_Shadow_of_the_Moon_(2007_film). Of all the astronauts who appeared in the film, only Buzz Aldrin demanded to be paid. A quote I recall from the end of the documentary was one of the astronauts who said "We sent nine trips to the moon but sceptics still say it was faked in a hangar. Why would we fake it nine times?"

Trump always raged on about "draining the swamp" in Washington DC. But the only thing he's actually done, is turned the Lincoln Reflecting Pool into a swamp.

It's good to see Giorgia doesn't suffer fools gladly. I guess this might be the end of a beautiful friendship.

Unfortunately, a house fire destroyed over 90% of my photos in 1982, so I have little to contribute by way of personal photos. But Willies post about the Argo's, and the 3-wheel trailer-mounted drill rig reminds me of the Nickel exploration that was going on in the '69-'73 period around the Goldfields of W.A. - when the nickel price was ballistic, and the Poseidon Nickel shares were going the same way. There was a lot of nickel exploration going on in the area South of Kambalda, around Widgiemooltha, at the time I turned up in the area, after leaving the Army at the finish of my National Service on 1st Oct 1971. The older brother, my business partner, had gone to the Goldfields from the Wheatbelt while I was in the Army, and that was because there was a massive drought in the W.A. Wheatbelt between 1969 and 1972, and he ran out of work. But the Nickel exploration teams were pegging like crazy in the nickel boom, and dozer work was plentiful, so the brother took one of our Cat D6C's up to the Goldfields, and made good money clearing gridlines for the peggers. When I rolled up, we were doing gridlines in the Widgiemooltha area, and the two main Nickel companies operating there were the original (U.S.) Anaconda Mining, and a Belgian company called Union Miniere. The area is full of salt lakes, with Lake Lefroy and Lake Cowan being the biggest, in a string of salt lakes that run from Kambalda to Norseman. There was a lot of drilling to be done on the salt lakes, but getting out on them was a real hassle. They often contained areas of deep mud under the salt, although some areas of the salt lakes were quite firm, and could be driven on. The only way to get to the spots requiring drilling was building elevated roads, like jetties, out across the salt. As you could imagine, this was bloody expensive. But Union Miniere had a neat little beast that could run around on the salt anywhere. I had a photo of it, but its gone. It was called the Cuthbertson Tracked Landrover. This Landrover was used substantially to get around on the lakes, and it was neat to watch. They were built by a Scottish company, who are still in business - but they no longer build tracked conversions. I wasn't aware until I did some research, that Cuthbertson only built about 15 or 20 of these units, before they ceased production of them. I have no idea what happened to Union Miniere's Cuthbertson Landrover, maybe it wore out and was scrapped. https://silodrome.com/tracked-cuthbertson-land-rover/ https://www.lrukforums.com/threads/tracked.256227/

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has told US President Donald Trump to focus on his own popularity in a recent social media post. Mr Trump had earlier taken to social media himself to say Ms Meloni was "doing poorly in Italy with her level of popularity". In response, Ms Meloni told Mr Trump that "being your friend" certainly had not helped her popularity, nor was her popularity dependent on their relationship. "My popularity depends on my ability to defend Italy's national interest, and that is exactly what I have always done," Ms Meloni said in the Instagram post. "In any case, my popularity is none of your concern. "I suggest you focus on yours."

It doesn't matter what WE believe. There is also a Presumption of innocence Unless Proven Guilty in our system. He is required to appear before a Court where the Matter will be dealt with according to the Laws of this Country.. You can comment on things like the Manner of his arrest . Very Publicly and when he was with his Kids I can't see why that was necessary at all. Nev

Have a good trip Pete, a good time of year to be heading out there. It's been over 14 years since I retired from working in the back country and haven't been there since. If I got my vehicle up to scratch I'd like to do another trip out there as I've never been there on a tourist basis, always working. From the east coast of S.E. Queensland it's bitumen all the way to Innamincka now. Last time I was out there the bitumen had extended from Jackson to past Ballera, but fell short of the border. It had been a good season with a good body of Mitchell grass as far as the eye could see. In that same batch of photos, I fund this one of an abandoned well name plate at that field where we worked for a short time. Top line is Willowie No.1, the well name - ie: first well in the Willowie field. Second line, the well owner, Innamincka Petroleum. Third line the drilling contractor - Oil Drilling and Exploration Rig 30. Fourth line, the date drilling commenced. Spud is short for spudded, the term for when the bit first bites into the ground. Fifth line, the date it was plugged and abandoned. Last line, the total depth reached.

A funny story... Whilst in the RAAF in the 70's, I did an interview for TAA and one of the questions was, "was I related to Arthur Lovell?" Very naively and innocently I answered, No! Wrong. I should have answered "Uncle Arthur, how the hell is he?" I never met him but aware of his fame for bringing Ansett's first B727 to Oz.

I take my hat off to you ome for doing that job. I remember four years ago when I was in icu after an artery operation, the first night there was a lot of commotion in an adjoining room. I don't know what the story was, but it sounded like a druggie who had od'd on purpose to suicide and he was very angry that he'd been revived. He was off his head and the police had to be there to keep him under control.

That's good. 18 is not very old but he's got through some difficult bits by now, no doubt. Nev

My eldest son is 18 today. Couldn't be prouder of the fine young man he's become. 😊

He just said the Iranian negotiators will be lucky to Make it Back to IRAN. This bloke should be in a Padded Cell. He's Stark Raving MAD. Nev