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Trump, or at least, the Trump organisation, has pulled the plug on Trump Tower Gold Coast.

America had a treaty with Iran on nuclear weapons, and Trump scrapped it, purely because it was arranged by Barack Obama.

Maybe DJT was cunningly trying to implicate the other see? The holy one? He doesn't like the pope much!

Have you tried ‘bring me a beer’?

Good. Most Australians wouldn't want anything marked "Trump" over here.

Definition of a gentleman - someone who knows how to play the bagpipes -- but doesn't.

It's the Prayer room in Canberra.. Nev

My positive today was a walk we did up Flinders Peak. It is a very foggy day here, but we climbed up and out of the fog into a beautiful sunny day. Then we climbed down into the fog, which still persists here at sea level. 1000011323.mp4

In the 2026 Budget, Govt services to veterans have been reduced by "better targeting" of monetary allocations. There's a lot of double-speak in this area, with DVA saying it has more money to pay to allied health providers. Then there's "an Annual Monetary Limit for veterans' allied health services", which appears to me, to be public service gobbledegook. It doesn't say, if that means individual Veterans face an annual limit on their health expenditure, or if the annual limit is the total paid to individual service providers. This needs clarification. Then there's the complication that Veterans are currently paid benefits under 3 Veterans Acts. I'm covered under the 1986 Veterans Entitlements Act, which covers all veterans up until 2004, when it was replaced by the Military Rehabilitation and Compensation Act 2004 (MRCA). There's also a third Act, the Safety Rehabilitation and Compensation (Defence-related Claims) Act 1988 (DRCA). All three Acts are being replaced from 1st July 2026, by a new "Vets Act", which will cover all Veterans. Entitlements under previous Acts will remain unchanged. The bottom line is, the number of Veterans is dropping rapidly, and they will soon only make up a small number to be serviced by DVA. As a result, the money allocated to Veterans should decrease accordingly. There are barely a handful of WW2 Veterans left, there are only a small number of Korean War Veterans, and even the Vietnam Veterans numbers are depleting rapidly. Post-Vietnam War Veterans are only a relatively small number as well, because the size of the Australian Military has been much smaller in the decades since the Vietnam War. The 2026 Budget for Veterans: QUOTE: "Based on the 2026 Federal Budget, the Australian government is restructuring veteran services, resulting in a reported reduction in expenditure to providers of approximately $779.5 million over five years. While the government describes these changes as "better targeting" of services to veterans and their families, critics describe this as a reduction in support, with some labelling it a "bandaid" solution. Key Changes and "Better Targeting" Measures: The government expects to achieve savings of $779.5 million over five years from 2025–26, with an ongoing savings of $352.4 million per year. Reduction in Payments: Specifically, "better targeting" of services is expected to decrease government payments to providers by $606.6 million over five years. Allied Health Limits: A significant portion of this involves introducing an Annual Monetary Limit for veterans' allied health services, amounting to $748 million in savings over three years starting in 2027–28. Simplifying Referral Requirements: Further savings of $30.1 million over three years will be achieved by simplifying referral requirements. Context of Reforms (VETS Act): These changes are part of the broader Veterans' Entitlements, Treatment and Support (Simplification and Harmonisation) Act 2025 (VETS Act), which takes full effect on 1 July 2026. Single System: The current complex three-Act system will be replaced by a single, updated Act (based on the MRCA) for all new claims. 'Grandparenting': The government has provided assurances that those already receiving benefits before 1 July 2026 will not have their payments reduced or altered, and will continue to receive annual indexation. Goal: The stated goal of these reforms, based on the Royal Commission recommendations, is to reduce complexity and speed up claims, which has been a major source of distress for veterans. Impact on Services: Advocacy Funding: While payments to providers are reduced, the government has reported increased funding for the Building Excellence in Support and Training (BEST) program to support free, volunteer advocate services. Allied Health Fees: In a contradictory move, the Department of Veterans' Affairs (DVA) noted that it is increasing allied health provider fees to improve veteran access to services, which was a recommendation of the Royal Commission. Grants: There will be a reduction in uncommitted grant funding for certain commemorative, memorial, and graves-related projects.The reforms aim to align veterans' support with modern workers' compensation schemes, placing a stronger emphasis on rehabilitation and early intervention."

Actually that treaty had a use by date and that date is fast approaching this year. Trump's actions might be his way of "making a deal". On July 14, 2015, the United States and its international negotiating partners reached an agreement with Iran on its nuclear program -The Iran Deal or “Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action” (JCPOA). Notice that this was an international agreement made by several countries with Iran. Trum likes to claim that it was unilateerally signed by Obama, but that, once again is a false claim. Obama signed as the representative of the USA, a country amongst others which signed. Here's an article about the history of that deal: https://armscontrolcenter.org/the-iran-deal-then-and-now/

I recently bought a brand new Samsung Galaxy A17 for under $250, on special at Big W. The camera is not exceptional, but sufficient for what I require. Here are a couple of shots I took last night, hand held, under our bedroom light. The second one is the back of a hearing aid battery pack with very small print. $2 coin for size comparison.

I know now why they are building a windfarm in my local area. For the past few days the wind has been blowing continuously, and strongly. I'm doing my laundry this morning and am not looking forward to the effort involved in hanging it out. Talk about a one armed paperhanger in a windstorm!

If Trump is so concerned about teh sons of Allah having nuclear weapons, why hasn't he taken action against Pakistan? Oh! I forgot. Pakistan doesn't have oil.

For those sarcastic people who say that donold is incapable of coherent thought..... quote: "I don't think about Americans' financial situations. I don't think about anybody. I think about one thing: We cannot let Iran have a nuclear weapon," he said. That's coherent, & proof that he does think, especially what what he thinks least of.

Surely they wait until they're in the locker room.

OT, be careful with buying a phone from overseas. I got caught out with that a couple of years ago, bought a new Samsung for my son from an ebay seller. 2 months later it had permanent lines on the screen. Seller didn't want to know about it. Samsung Australia wouldn't touch it under warranty because it wasn't an Australian phone. Samsung US didn't want to know about it because I wasn't the original purchaser in the US. So my son had to put up with the lines until he got a job and saved up for a new phone.

So you don't want such allegations Investigated Properly? They'd only Be Prosecuted IF enough evidence was found. Nev

Another reason to not follow football then. Thanks for the Info. Nev

Instead of support for ex-defence personnel, the Budget provides an additional $44.3 M to Office of Special Investigator to investigate and prosecute alleged Afghanistan war crimes.

On my new Samsung 26 Ultra phone, I just have to ask AI to draw me up a wallpaper image that suits my description. I typed, "I want a beach scene painting and nothing else, drawn in the impressionist style". It promptly produced a very good "art-deco, impressionist style" wallpaper, with a beach scene with chalk cliffs behind the beach, art-deco style ships in the distance, and impressionist images of people and umbrellas on the beach. I'd give it 9.9 out of 10.

My current gripe is around mobile phones. The Wednesday before Anzac Day, my u-beaut, 2-years-and-9-months-old Motorola Edge 30 Fusion locked up. Just wouldn't open the lock screen. Tried shutting it down and it took some effort as even the shutdown menu wouldn't respond to touch pressure for about 5 mins. When I did get it to shut down, and then re-started it, nothing had changed, it was still frozen. I could take calls still (although they sounded a bit funny), but I could do absolutely nothing else with it. Of course, part of the problem could've been the fact that I've dropped the phone numerous times in the period I've owned it. The screen cracked, the back cracked - in fact, it looked like a POS. When I asked repairers if they could fix it, they all grimaced, and said "$250 is the starting repair price, and it could end up more". 😞 I only paid $499 for it! The difference between the Motorola and the Samsungs I've owned previously, was that I could fix the Samsungs easily myself. I had a Samsung Note 4 for about 6 years, it was truly the best phone I've owned. I smashed the screen on it twice, and replaced it myself both times. That was the entire LCD assembly. The battery was replaceable on that phone, I replaced the battery twice. It had a stylus for writing notes on the screen with, and it had excellent performance all round. I think I paid about $360 for it off an eBay seller about 2016. The Note 4 was released in 2014 and became obsolete around 2020 as LTE technology appeared, and LTE technology made a lot of phones obsolete overnight. LTE is the current "backbone" of our phone services, bandwiths and "groups", being the latest evolution of 4G, and a still a support system behind 5G - although 5G actually uses advanced, scalable Orthogonal Frequency-Division Multiplexing (OFDM) framework for its technology. I have several "working" phones here - a Samsung S4, the Note 4, SWMBO's old Note 4 - and they are all useless, because they do not have LTE technology built in to them. You can install a SIM card in them, and they won't connect. I bought the Motorola as a mid-range replacement for the Note 4, and I must admit, it did work reasonably well in the 2 yrs and 9 mths before it simply locked up. So, when I had time, I set to and downloaded Motorolas "Repair Fix", the programme designed to cure Motorola software issues. But - despite loading the Repair Fix onto the Motorola, it changed absolutely nothing. I was greatly concerned that all my photos and contact information and messages were on that Motorola, and there was absolutely zero I could do to access them. 😞 In desperation, I carried out a factory reset and lost everything on the phone - and I tried the Repair Fix programme again - and still zero result. The phone was "bricked" as the young 'uns like to say. So, I decided to buy a top-of-the-wozza Samsung S26 Ultra - which comes with the stylus and some decent photographic ability. I started doing the rounds of the local stores - JB Hi-Fi, Harvey Norman, Retravision, the Good Guys, even Officeworks! Guess what? The phone is $2000 (well, ($1999 actually) at EVERY STORE - take it or leave it, was the message. Not a single discount of any kind. Asking about online "price matches" brought about general answers where they stated "they don't compete with the grey market". Yeah right. The "grey market" sellers simply buy the phones off Samsung outside Australia, and sell them for much less than the local "bricks and mortar" ripoff merchants. Knowing just how much profit there is in mobile phones, I was determined to not pay "the going rate". Of course, the S26 Ultra has only been out since late February and is the latest technology and latest processors, and the latest Android operating system (they're up to Android 16 now, and 6.2 standard for Bluetooth) - so discounts are "simply not done" on the latest phones, according to the local floggers. Even on the Samsung sales website, the phone was $1999. As a result, I went looking for an online supplier of an S26 Ultra. Bingo, I found "Nostech", based in Adelaide and Melbourne. Run by Indians of course - but they have 8 people working in the company, the two here in Adelaide and Melbourne have commerce degrees, and the other operatives are scattered through Asia - Singapore, HK, etc. They were selling on eBay and had highly satisfactory feedback. They buy the phones directly out of Vietnam (where they're manufactured), they go to HK and are then sent to buyers in Australia. Best of all - their S26 Ultra price was $1749. And for $100 extra, I could upgrade to 512GB memory, over the standard 256GB. So I bought a 512Kb - and paid $10 extra for Express Delivery via AustPost. Then the fun started. It was Anzac Day holiday on the Monday, and I thought that would slow things up for a day. However, I got notified the phone had been ordered on the Monday (27th May), and they said "2 to 4 days" delivery. I got an AP tracking number. I watched as the tracking said it had been processed at Toongabbie on the next day, Tues 28th. THEN, I watched in dismay, as the journey showed the phone going through no less than SEVENTEEN processing points within AP - and I watched it go from Sydney - to Perth - then back to Sydney again!! Jesus wept. https://auspost.com.au/mypost/track/details/34HFP509107801000964506 After 7 days and an "expected delivery date of May 5th", I gave up (because I really, really, NEEDED a working phone! - and went over to Costco and bought a new A37 5G Samsung - a mid-range phone - on special, for just $487. Normally selling for around $540 or more, it looked like a good fill-in phone, until I actually received my S26 Ultra I was still waiting for! The A37 turned out to be just an average phone, I was quite surprised that the camera on it wasn't anywhere near as good as I expected (and Samsung brag about their cameras). I tried some close up shots of a problem part I was seeking compensation on, and I couldn't get it to focus clearly at close range - despite using Macro (which is limited at .6, whereas the Motorola went down to .5 on Macro). Finally, the S26 Ultra arrived (on Tues May 5th, as AP promised (so much for "2 to 4 days" on Express Delivery) - and it is remarkable the difference in performance another $1363 makes. The S26 Ultra uses a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 processor, as compared to Samsungs own Exynos 1480 processor used in the A37. Supposedly around 20% faster than the previous Exynos processor, the Snapdragon 8 blows it out of the water. Plus, the cameras on the S26 Ultra are incredible. All in all, a stressful 2 weeks that has left me feeling a bit ragged, but with the new S26 Ultra phone up and running, and still being fine-tuned, hopefully the worst of my phone hassles are behind me. However - GUESS WHAT. Yep, today Samsung sent me a "special discount deal" from their online store - and the S26 Ultra is now available from their store for - $1750!! 🤦‍♂️

If you get a window seat even on a Moonless night you can often pick out lights that tell you where you are That's an early A-320 wing. The best seat is up the front om the Left. Nev

If it came down to a choice between those 2 shows, I'd read a book.

I went to visit my mum on Saturday and she had a YouTube video paused on her computer - something about a sniper taking a 600m shot. When I asked her about it she was telling me how interesting it was, this female sniper doing a 600m shot against the Taliban in Afghanistan recently. However, the woman on the screen and her male spotter looked like models, their olive drab clothes were WW2, their pistols looked like Glock butts with weird circular end on the slide, and the rifle had iron sights! Pure AI slop. God knows what it was telling her.

Which Sunday or Monday are those?

That's OUR POTUS. T'know. The one who fixes everything. Brilliant and eloquent, Master of the Language. Nev

Yeah, I know it's about Donold. But a lot of his utterances are random brainfarts so ....... “what a job our military and— others are doing with respect— is that right, Paul? with respect to drugs coming in by sea. meaning drugs coming in by water. by the ocean— because a lot of people don’t know what I mean by sea. they think I’m talking about vision. I’m not— I’m talking about sea, like the sea.” ? ?