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Might be a good idea to postpone any flying until your bad vehicle patch has passed.

I think they missed a few letters in the title. The full word is "Megalomania"

I have finally finished my book with the title Hidden Rivers of Gold which covers the origins of Deep Lead Mining, the technology and challenges, and the final years of mining in the Carisbrook-Moolort area of Victoria which led to huge financial losses and very little gold. Characters involved included the State Premier and a future president of the USA. This was all around the turn of the 20th Century. The book can be purchased through online booksellers including Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Fishpond, Booktopia and Angus and Robertson. Prices vary a lot, and some are in US$ so check carefully. The book is published by Echo Books.

Talking of tractors, we went on a bicycle tour a couple of days ago, the local guide was very informative. Apparently here the water buffalo were traditionally used to work the rice paddles. Now however there's a communal tractor in each area. The locals refer to them as "Chinese buffalo".

They had him down on the ground and under control, and his gun removed. There was no need to put 10 bullets into him after that. I can't go back into my viewing history to pull up a source video, but I did see one that mentioned what had happened previously. However, since I didn't watch the video I can't confirm for which side of the argument it was produced. But what is said to have happened back then did not happen on the day he died. Further, were those ICE agents involved in his death the same ones who were involved in the earlier incident? I would suggest that those associated with the events of his death are not likely to have positively identified him since over that period they no doubt swa and interacted with very many other persons. This back and forth can only be stopped by a full and impartial investigation of the incident. Unfortunately, in present day USA finding an impartial examiner seems like finding a unicorn horn in a pile of rocking horse manure.

The latest on Alex Pretti, the Vet Nurse shot by ICE, is that the bullet was not the cause of death, according to the autopsy. He had serious internal injuries, including broken ribs, which may have caused the death when they pounced on him. He had a run-in with ICE a week or so earlier. I saw the video where he charged the ICE agents, shouting and cursing them, kicked their car breaking the tail light, and spat on the car. This could have caused the agents to attack him when he returned. The story goes that he resigned from his nursing position a month or so ago, jooint some protest group or other, and have been acting erratically. These details, including the autopsy report were supplied by him widow according to the report.

First a disclaimer: at this stage this thread is very speculative, but from time to time I can post on any (if any) progress. The thinking is to convert some of my junk into a rideable non road registered rat bike. What brought this on is that I've recently been doing a complete workshop renovation, and when that's up and functional, a build project like this would be a bit of fun for the rainy days. The plan at this stage is: 1. Finish the workshop renovation. The 6x6 metre space has been mainly cleaned out, so at least I'm able to walk around in there and do some work in the shed at the present time. There's still a lot of structural changes to do - relocating diagonal braces, walling in one whole side, building more benches and shelving etc. and finally get the lathe, mill, presses and other gear set up. 2. Start mustering up parts and bits and pieces. As a basic starting point for the design, number one priority is to build it as a sidecar outfit as I no longer have the physical ability to ride a heavy weight solo bike. Secondly, I prefer the more moderate style rat bikes rather than the extreme steampunk types where the builder has added every contraption known to mankind including the kitchen sink. Those types are a bit amusing, but not my cup of tea. As an explanation, the first of the attached photos I would describe as a fairly moderate Mad Max style, the second is way too bizzarre for my liking.

I don't know IF there's Much GOLD in writing Books? .I would keep Digging at Today's Prices. Nev

Cool go Willie go... Full build log please. Phil

It's true that a First World society is in a position to use more energy than othr societies, but I get a bit sick, as a membr of a 27 million strong society, of being accused of being an environmental vandal when in fact most of the energy used in this world is being used by the billions living north of the Equator.

This link contains the video of him spitting on the ICE vehicle. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-15510095/Alex-Pretti-ICE-clash-past-protests-minnesota.html?ito=social-facebook And this one shows him busting the tail light.. https://7news.com.au/news/minneapolis-ice-shooting-alex-pretti-seen-in-scuffle-with-federal-agents-a-few-days-before-death-c-21469597

Trump is promoting the Melania movie "....Selling out, fast" One the opening night, a number of theatres reported not a single ticket sold. Others reported less than ten. And it's getting rave reviews on social media... I'd rather poke my eyes out with a burnt stick. If they showed this on a plane, people would walk out. As someone said, "It's all about ME."

Geez you build a lot on a simple question. Most conflict is over Land ownership and who is entitled to what. Abrahamic doesn't cover the entire World either. Mostly based on the East Mediterranean and Middle East and except for OIL, wouldn't be THAT Important. Why did Bush attack Iraq Based on a Lie. Hussein had NO WMD's. . Murdoch said at the time. After this WAR is over, Petrol will be ALMOST FREE.. Nev

Yes.. And that was over 900 years ago. Since then, there have been many wars in the name of religion, partiularly the Abrahamic ones - in Europe and the Middle-East, at least. Do any of those justify the same behviour today of the other side? With some exceptions, the global society could move on after WWII at an alarming rate - sometimes within the same generation, but after one or two generations - definitely. But is society not supposed to move on after 1,000 years (and religious wars peretrated by both sides of the Christian/Islam sides since)? The problems with the "they did it a thousand years ago, so we can't be the pot calling the ketttle black" mentality, particularly of events of around a millenia ago are two fold.. First, it sort of legitimises what is happening today bit and therefore emboldens those who use it to justify their stance to do it. That is never a good thing. Secondly, that legitimising of one side of the hate argument justifies and emboldens the other side of the hate argument as being persecuted for events long gone before they were twinkles in their parent's eyes. And the vicious circle intensifies and society polarises. Also on that logic, Jews have suffered at the hands of pertrators of religious wars for millenia, too. Therefore, they have many more wars to start before they sqaure the ledger. Do you agree that would be the right thing to do? I don't.

Jerry, one bright spot that's turned the current position better - SWMBO came back from the operation very pleased, because the Doc had avoided a skin graft with a "flap" surgical removal process. This process is used quite commonly now, and many Docs are skilled at it. They make an incision and lift the skin back, then remove the cancerous bit, then pull the flap back and stitch it in place over the area of tumour removal. Done properly, it looks very good when healed. I had the flap procedure done on my face a few years ago, when I had to have a weeping cyst removed from one cheek. It's nearly impossible to see the scars and stitching on my face, so no-one can call me "Scarface"!. SWMBO is home now and resting, no bending over for three days, a need to keep her wound covered in the shower, and back to get the stitches taken out in a week. She's much happier than when she went in this morning.

I didn't know whether to give a sad or like or a thanks to the post; I went with the thanks in the end because of the gist of the post, but hope SWMBO's op goes well and she gets better soon. Also, hope you have your hearing aid back by the time you read this! (And I usually find a new engine solves all my old engine issues - hope Perkins pistons come out soon).

Well, don't really wanna rehash this ugliness but apparently in Perth, cops are now carrying assault rifles . Exactly what l said they have to do except l toned in down and said just keep one in the cop car and as they usually work in pairs make one of them a well trained marksmen. Perth's gone one further literally walking round carrying rifles. God almighty, what have we become ? Not saying l wanted any of it, l hate it with a passion and l hate what they've done to our once peaceful safe country. Dunno if this is going on in any of the other capitals, a friend in WA just told me about there though and she's so upset about it.

Combined with those high narrow handlebars it would be very interesting.

Jeez, how do you corner with a square section tyre like that?

As far as I can tell a lot (in agricultural areas) is shared between a few families - fields, animals, equipment etc. We met an old lady who has the machine which separates the rice grains from the husks. Each farmer pays her according to the weight of rice processed - at 700 dong (about 4 cents) per kilo. To give some comparison, street food like bahn mi (salad roll) is around 20,000 dong ($1.10). Poor old thing had lost the fingers on her right hand to the machine, and was about 80, but still working all day. Fortunately now the tour company pays her a bit to show foreigners how the rice is processed. As far as looking after equipment, I reckon they're a country of motor mechanics - they must be good to keep the millions of scooters on the road! We've been here for 2 weeks today, and fly back Tuesday (arriving Wednesday).

The fun part is hunting around the place for the components. This afternoon I did a trip down to the bottom shed in the hope that I might have kept a full set of 16" lugged skinny tyres that were originally part of the Suzuki LJ 80 gear that I once had. Fortunately I'd kept them and one of them would make a good front tyre on a spoked rim. The second attached photo is a pic from the net showing one on a front wheel. It gives it a chunky, military look. These two photos are of an old copper hot water system tank that I was hoping to use as the main body section of the sidecar. At this stage I'm not so sure about it. If it was 20% bigger in dimension it would be perfect. It's a bit small, around 600mm at it's widest point and at the point where the opening would be cut, it would have an opening of around 500mm.

I think that was Under Campbell Newmans reign . HE didn't last Long. Joh was famous for "Feeding the Chooks" and taking bribes (paper bag over there) and the Joh and Flo Push for PM AND He was a Man of God.. That helps to get the Blue Rinse Ladies in. HE also had a Female Pilot to fly his Plane. Nev

Anywhere other than USA, maybe. However there are a lot of US cities where the missus won't duck down to the shops for a bottle of milk without making sure her handgun is in her purse. Carrying a gun is so normalised over there. The fact he (legally) carried a gun is not unusual. Nor is it relevent to what happened. Nor is it justification for ANYBODY to put ten bullets into a person's back (unless that person was directly threatening someone with the gun). The victim was face down on the ground, pinned down by several men, and actually his gun had been removed from him before the first shot was fired. Back in Joh Bjelkie Peterson's day, things got perilously bad in Queensland with regard to protesters, but at least nobody got shot. At the time, it was illegal for 3 or more people to gather in the streets, as that constituted "a mob of uncontrolled protesters", and warranted a sound roughing up by the coppers.

Ever heard of the Crusades? Nev

When are You returning? Communal Tractor? I wonder WHO looks after it? Nev

He Looks better than Trump Who is 10 years younger. Nev

New Cranks are readily available. I wouldn't run a crank that was Ground to that Much Undersize. It's likely to be fatigued. My Dexta has a radiator leak. it's only 68years old, Nev

Head cracking was an Issue with Them. Nev

China IS trying to DO THEIR BIT. Trump ISN'T. Nev

It must be all in the stars. Yesterday, I went to mow my 95 yr old neighbours lawn, and his Briggs & Stratton powered Scott Bonnar reel mower refused point blank to start. This is a good used mower I purchased for him about 6 mths ago, and I went over it, and gave it a "birthday" on maintenance, as soon as I bought it. It has run well for that 6 mths. B&S engines rarely fail to run, but nonetheless this one refused. No spark, dead as a Dodo. Took the cowling off, checked all the electrics, decided the coil was RS. Went and tested it - yep, open circuit. Went to no less than THREE mower crowds, before I actually found a crowd with one in stock! FFS, this is a B&S coil, there are millions of B&S engines out there. What's even worse, they ripped me off mercilessly to the tune of $95 for it!! You can buy them from China for $10!! The one I was sold, is made in Argentina! They probably bought it cheaper than a Chinese one! I haven't fitted it yet, because I went to have an annual hearing test just after lunch yesterday, and even though the audiologist told me there was little deterioration in my hearing in the last year, she revised my hearing aid settings, and hooked the hearing aids (via wi-fi) to her computer to do the reset. All good. Went to walk out the door, the RHS hearing aid went dead. Went back in and told her, she looked puzzled and hooked them up again, and reset them. Went home, walked in the door, the RHS hearing aid went dead again. Went back to the audiologist (luckily, she's only 10 mins away, the advantages of city living), and she checked it out again, and declared it totally US, and in need of major repair. I'm annoyed because these hearing aids are only 12 mths old! They were a brand new build in Jan 2025. I'm getting a bit sick of the reliability of this Oticon stuff, they seem to pack up regularly. And when they need repair, they need to be sent to the East Coast to do the repairs!! It takes 2 weeks to get them back. FFS!! I live in a major city with a population of 2.3M people! - why can't Oticon have a hearing aid repair centre here in Perth? Then, it gets worse. The hearing aids I have, are a matched pair of "in-the-ear" hearing aids. They "talk" to each other, the button on the RHS one sets the programmes (there are 3 programmes in them), and adjusts the volume up, while the button on the LHS one adjusts the volume down, and also changes the programmes. As soon as you lose the RHS hearing aid, you lose the ability to raise the volume up. So they lend me a "loan" hearing aid. But the loan hearing aid is a "behind the ear" type of hearing aid. It's not anywhere near as powerful as my originals, and it has no compatibility with the LHS in-the-ear hearing aid. So it's like driving a car with 14" highway tyres on one side, and 18" off-road tyres on the other side, it makes life quite difficult! Meantimes, SWMBO has had to go in for a skin cancer op this morning. She's not happy, the doc insists on cutting a big chunk off the top of her ear and has to do a skin graft to repair it. She hates being cut up at the best of times, and the Skin Check WA doc (a woman) is a tiger on cutting bits out of you at every opportunity. So now she's got a fortnight of restricted activity and recovery, while her ear heals up. Hopefully, this afternoon, things will start looking up, when I fit the new coil to Barneys mower and get that operational again. Meantimes, my Chamberlain tractor engine repair is a struggle, I'm having serious levels of trouble getting the Perkins 6 cyl engine apart for reconditioning, it's really dragging out. The engine was full of water, and the pistons were all rusted into the cylinders. I soaked the bores in a 50-50 mixture of diesel and ATF for over a month, a highly recommended cure for engine corrosion, and it has worked to a certain degree. But every piston is fighting all the way to be removed from those cylinders. I've got 4 out so far, and 2 more to go. What is making it harder is, I can't turn the crankshaft, so I'm going to have to pull the crankshaft out now, so I can get proper access to the underside of the two remaining pistons, to drive them out. And I found the crankshaft has already been ground .030" undersize, and I'm not sure if .040" undersize bearings are available. I hope I don't have to go looking for another crankshaft. One upside is, I found a bloke from Parkes, NSW, on FB, who had two NOS Perkins 6 cyl engine overhaul kits for sale, for $900 each. He delivered one to Perth for me in that price, so that is a big saving on buying a new engine O/H kit, they are close on $1500 to buy new, now. Jerry, I trust your bad luck run ends soon, and you find a top-condition used car for a bargain price. I love deceased estates, the relatives nearly always sell off a mint-condition car that the deceased person bought not long before they died, and you usually acquire a bargain in a private sale. I got SWMBO's Camry that way in 2014, the owner was a WW2 tail-gunner in a Halifax, he lived to 91, and bought the car new when he was 88! Accordingly, it had seen little use (13,000kms), and his son was wealthy, and just wanted to quit it. We got it for $19K, when it was listed everywhere as being worth $23K. What was worse, after we bought it, SWMBO spotted a handwritten note the son had, where he'd listed $18K as the likely car sale price! But he was a really nice bloke, so we didn't mind paying him the extra $1K! 😄

It's funny how the memory plays tricks on you. I've had a rusty old V8 block hanging about the place for a few decades and hadn't laid eyes on it for years. From memory it was a flathead Ford block, but when I finally found it yesterday, that couldn't be further from the truth as it was an ohv block. After a lot of googling and youtubing I finally identified it as a 273 Chrysler block. Most likely out of a Valiant.

Solar pretty Much makes your airconditioner free for cooling. Nev

At present, it's part or the energy mix for pretty much everyone. For me, and a rapidly growing number of others, solar power is ALL of my energy supply. (Edit): And soon solar is also to be fuelling most of my motoring. For the forseeable future, I'll keep my diesel ute for the big jobs. (Horses for courses.)

Plenty of DELIBERATE Misinformation out there, from People with Vested Interests. Nev

Energy from the sun is a part of the logical choice. It depends on who you talk to.

You Need to quote the source on Matters such as this. . Nev

Any how the Infernal combustion even when highly developed surely Must be close to being displaced by ELECTRIC as so many tools etc have been. An electric motor is nearly 100% efficient and Maintenance free and very simple. Weather extremes all over the Planet should wake up people to action to stop BURNING Hydrocarbons and being such energy Junkies as WE are.. Energy from the SUN is a Logical choice. It comes HERE anyway. Nev

Correct.

Well that gave it away. Mr Chekov - Walter Koenig

You will have to be a Star Trek fan to know this one.

Aaah. Is that a TACO act?

US debt is around US$38 trillion & most of it is owned internally. About US$8 trillion is owned by foreign countries. Japan, China & UK are the biggest external owners of US debt. When the value of the US$ drops so does the value of the debt. Investors are slowly moving away from the US as a safe investment & this is being reflected to a degree in the loss of value of the US$ as well. Trumps dumb and erratic policies will probably see interest rates rise to try to stem the outflow of investment in the US. He's only been there a year & the rot is setting in already.

Marty, I used to be able to pull wheelstands on that Suzuki 50 stepthrough before I put the sidecar on it. It didn't have it's own power to do it, so you had to stand up on the pegs and start bouncing the weight over the bars a couple of times and on the right bounce, heave back on the handlebars while you gave it a handful. Once up on the back wheel, it was all balance.

Trump is SO UNCOUTH that HE wanted Melania to wander around half naked so everyone around would be Jealous of HIM. He Calls Underaged Girls "The Merchandise"... Thanks GOP. He's USED you Like HE uses everyone, and the More He is Given the MORE HE wants. Nev

I am not having a great run with vehicles lately. First the deer and the mini.. And on the weekend, the Volvo decided to emit clunky noises from its rear end. So off to the local mechanic, and since it is the only one around after their competitor retired, I am in for a wait as there is a solid pipeline of work to be done ahead of mine. No probs. Thought I would hire a car for a week. This evening, driving through the village down the road, I hit a massive pot hole at low speed but enough to cause some rumblings coming from its front end. FFS, another damaged vehicle. Thankkfully I took full fat insurance, but crickey, I have just had enough of cars at the moment. Have to be thankful of small mercies - although I got my medical, I am not flying yet.