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Just overheard a great line in the tearoom... "The only war Trump had an exit strategy for, was Vietnam!"

So Trump's had a full public meltdown because Australia won't send warships to help him unfuck a war he started without telling anyone. Let that sink in for a second. He launched this thing with Israel 3 weeks ago. Didn't consult NATO. Didn't consult Australia. Didn't consult Japan. Explicitly said at the start he didn't need or want anyone's help. And now he's on Truth Social in all caps screaming that we're all ungrateful. Mate, you can't tell everyone to fuck off and then get angry when they all fuck off. Here's what happened. He blew the shit out of Iran. Destroyed the navy, the air force, the radar, the leadership. Great. Total victory. Mission accomplished. Brought the banner and everything. One small problem. The Strait of Hormuz is still shut. It's full of mines and anti-ship missiles and Iranian drone boats. The tankers won't sail. The insurance companies won't touch it. And 20% of the world's oil is just sitting there going absolutely nowhere. So suddenly Captain America needs help. He spends the whole weekend ringing every country with a boat. China. France. Japan. South Korea. The UK. Canada. Australia. Basically anyone with a dinghy and a flag. The response from most of them? "Get fucked." Germany said, and I'm paraphrasing only slightly: "You didn't ask us before you started the war. You told us you didn't want our help. And now you're upset? Yeah, nah." France said they'd be happy to help escort ships once the bombing stops and Iran agrees to let them. So basically never. Spain said no. Poland said no. Sweden said no. Australia said we haven't even been formally asked and also no. So what does Trump do? Does he reflect? Reassess? Pick up the phone like a grown adult? Of course not. He jumps on Truth Social and goes full toddler. "We don't need NATO! We NEVER needed NATO! We don't need Japan or Australia or South Korea! WE DO NOT NEED THE HELP OF ANYONE!" Mate. You were literally begging 15 countries for ships 48 hours ago. That's like getting turned down for a date and screaming "SHE WAS UGLY ANYWAY" loud enough for the whole pub to hear. You're not fooling anyone, dickhead. Everyone saw you practise your opener in the bathroom mirror. And he specifically named Australia. Which is genuinely fucking insane. We have shown up to every single American war for nearly a century. Korea. Vietnam. Iraq. Twice. Afghanistan for 20 bloody years. Five Eyes. AUKUS. Pine Gap. We are literally the most reliable ally the United States has ever had. And the one time, the ONE time, we look at the situation and go "yeah this one's a bit cooked mate, we'll sit this out," he loses his shit and calls us foolish on the internet. You know what's actually foolish? Starting a war without a plan to reopen the strait that carries a fifth of the world's oil supply. That's foolish. Blowing up someone's entire military and then being surprised when they use asymmetric warfare to shut down global shipping. That's foolish. Spending a year slapping tariffs on your allies, calling them freeloaders, threatening to annex their territory, and then wondering why they won't come running when you need a favour. That's fucking foolish. But here's the bit that should really worry you. He named Australia, Japan, and South Korea. That's the Indo-Pacific alliance. That's AUKUS. That's the Quad. That's the entire strategic architecture built to counter China. And he just told all 3 of them to get stuffed on social media. Xi Jinping is watching this with a bucket of popcorn and the biggest grin on the planet. Meanwhile Australia is getting absolutely smashed. We've got 2 refineries. About 3 weeks of fuel reserves. Diesel heading for $3 a litre. Farmers are already running out of fuel. They can't harvest. They can't plant. Fuel rationing has started in towns across the country. Food prices are through the roof because every step of the supply chain runs on diesel we don't have. The RBA just hiked interest rates because the fuel and food spikes from this war are driving inflation and recession fears are real. Australians are getting hit at the bowser, hit at the checkout, hit on their mortgage, and the bloke who caused all of it is calling US foolish. This isn't strength. This is a narcissist who heard "no" and couldn't cope. This is a bloke flipping the Monopoly board because he landed on someone else's hotel. And every time he does it, every single time, he pushes allies one step further toward making their own arrangements. That's how alliances die. Not with a bang. With a tantrum on Truth Social at 11 in the morning. Australia's not foolish for sitting this one out. 15 countries might be the only countries in this whole mess that are actually thinking clearly and holding this shit fest from spilling into WWIII And seriously, Donald. You're trying to bully Australia? NATO? Mate, we live in a country where everything is actively trying to kill us. Every single day. We've got 21 of the 25 most venomous snakes on the planet. Twenty one. Out of twenty five. The inland taipan, the single most venomous snake on earth, one bite can kill over 100 grown adults, just vibing in the outback like it's nothing. We've got the Sydney funnel web, the deadliest spider in the world, and it lives in people's fucking gardens where our kids keep them as pets. We've got jellyfish that can stop your heart. Sharks. Crocodiles the size of a small truck. An octopus the size of a golf ball that can kill you in minutes. A plant that makes you want to throw yourself off a cliff if you brush against it. A fucking dinosaur bird, that will literally disembowel you with its feet. Stonefish. Cone snails. The sun itself trying to give us cancer by 10am. We share a continent with every venomous nightmare God ever created on a Friday afternoon when he was clearly in a bad mood. And you think we're scared of a bloke in an ill fitting suit who can't spell "hereby" and throws tantrums on his phone? We couldn't give 2 fucks what you think, Donald. We wrestle things with actual teeth. You're not even in the top 50 most dangerous things an Australian deals with on an average Tuesday. Australia will survive this god awful administration. But if you're gunna shoot yourself in the foot, leave us the fuck out of it wanker.

I really think the AUKUS deal and the Yank submarine deal needs to be cancelled - from our end. The last thing we need is to deal with, is a tantrum-throwing toddler when he's supposed to be leading the worlds only remaining superpower, and setting statesmanship-like behaviour and standards. On top of that, the subs are vastly overpriced, and will be delivered 30 years too late, and be obsolete when they are delivered.

Now we can hope he spits the dummy and cancels the AUKUS deal

Antonov is based in Ukraine, and in the small stuff, so is Aeroprakt (Foxbat aircraft).

Most of the brains of the Soviet Union was centered in Ukraine back in those days. They provided the bulk of engineering and development for the Soviet Union and industrial capacity. It's where the tanks, armoured vehicles, tractors and machinery were designed, developed and manufactured. Aircraft and rocket engines was another area. Right up until the Ukraine/Russia war Russia was still buying their helicopter engines from Ukraine. We tend to think of Russia as the centre of the Soviet Union but Ukraine was where all the talent was. As an analogy, the Russian approach to opening a can would be to bash it with a hammer; Ukrainians would sit down and design a can opener.

Cuba is easy to subdue these days. Iran is a Large Fortress. Boots on the ground will be like quicksand. Make Afghanistan look like a tea and scones party by comparison. Trump is a BIG FAKE little boy with dangerous toys in his Pram. Nev

Following US Supreme Court's ruling that Trump's tariffs are illegal, countries which negotiated relief agreements with the USA to reduce tariff levels applying to them are starting to tear up those agreements. While onw might think that the agreements were entered into to provide benefits for the country, you have to remember that such agreements are two-sided. In exchange for the USA lowering tariffs, the USA also gained benefits, depending on what teh particular country had to offer. Now, with the agreements torn up, the USA has lost any benefit it scored.

A comment from the Middle east conflict thread was that EVs are still too expensive. There are plenty of high end expensive EVs but at the lower end they have reached price parity with ICE vehicles and there are now some new Chinese town runabout EVs with low range (2-300 km) that are cheaper that entry level ICE cars. What's more as they don't have all the ICE powerplant, transmission, etc issues they have more room in them for people & luggage. No fuel costs if you charge off your rooftop solar, clean & quiet. Great if you live in the big city. The BYD Atto 1 is 24k with 310 km range. The Dongfeng Box will likely be cheaper as it is about $NZ26k there & has better range.

The World needs a regime change in the USA. Nev

Zelensky has just signed a deal with Britain for the manufacture of Ukrainian designed drones. One thing that we are ignorant of is how smart in the area of industrial design the Ukranians are. I think we have the impression that they are just farmers and miners, but they are industrially powerful.

Firstly, THANK YOU everyone for your concern. I’m ok — just a bit shaken up, but I’ll be fine. For those who don’t know what happened, I was robbed this morning filling my car up at the petrol station, ready for an early start. After it happened my hands were shaking, I felt dizzy and I was probably in shock. My money was gone, so I called the police. They were fantastic and even called an ambulance because my blood pressure was through the roof. The officer asked if I knew who did it… I said: “Yes… it was pump number 4.”

The answer is simple. Get an electric car. Solar, and petrol prices are a thing of the past..

Looks like it’s a ‘no’ from us then.

That manuscript was a copy of a Facebook post.

What Red said times 10

Hmm. I think it was the high court's that held up uncompetitive Practises implemented by Mercedes Australia that implemented anagency model removing competition between dealers.. in fact it was the dealers that took them to court for breach of contract. Chrysler are a ship show and have been for a long time.. Others have been crap to Aussie consumers for ages. And they are only calling it out now with the Chinese?

https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/world/there-s-one-big-winner-from-the-war-in-iran-and-it-s-not-donald-trump/ar-AA1YLxnZ?ocid=winp2fptaskbar&cvid=ebeb4d843c2e447de5bc3e8850748819&ei=39

https://www.msn.com/en-au/money/news/prime-minister-albanese-s-warning-to-new-car-brands/ar-AA1YRB40?ocid=winp2fptaskbar&cvid=ebeb4d843c2e447de5bc3e8850748819&ei=39

I think that issue is steadily fading. We are noticing more and more EV's with interstate number plates. And now we are more likely to know somebody who drives one, and we get first hand feedback which is more reliable than any media blurbs.

Cuba, huh. Didn't Iran provide enough distraction from the Epstein files?

I reckon a lot of people are looking for about 450-500km range in an EV before they're comfortable with the technology. "Range anxiety" is still a real psychological killer for EV's.

Slaves have to be fed and Housed,. With this New method it's cheaper. Nev

He Knew the Price B4 He filled it. He could claim absent mindedness but then his Licence may cease to be available. Nev.

You are probably still in shock after getting robbed at the servo.

Wait up! Didn't you say it is a 170 mile commute? Now you tell us it was "under an hour"? How fast were you riding?

Amazing the rising tide of condemnation and calls for removal of the entire Trump administration. I was going to post a particularly vitriolic post but when I went back to copy it, the page refreshed and I lost it.

Getting back to the US batteries in Iran..... I'd say Zelensky is chuckling about Donolds rejection of his offer to help combat Iranian drones. Donold would rather use Patriot missiles. Where is Dept of Govt Efficiency when you need it? A single Patriot (PAC-3 MSE) interceptor missile costs approximately $4 million. A full Patriot battery—including launchers, radar, and control station—costs over $1 billion, with individual missiles for export sometimes costing between $6 million and $10 million." $4,000,000.00 to zap a $35,000 drone. Gives a whole new meaning to "war of attrition". Presently USA is bleeding $1 billion a day on their "excursion" to Iran.

It is still in common parlance today

He is fully comp insured.. but third party is privatised. And yes, the prices are astromimical.

The amount of electrical power generated by house rooftops in Australia is more than all the public and private power stations combined. All that's needed is electrical storage, and most States are addressing that angle as we speak. Here in W.A., the State Govt is installing massive batteries at Collie and at other locations, to stabilise the grid and to make use of the power generated by house rooftops during the day. A large percentage of people aren't home during the day, so the power being generated just needs to be stored. https://www.synergy.net.au/Our-energy/SynergyRED/Large-Scale-Battery-Energy-Storage-Systems/Collie-Battery-Energy-Storage-System

Not quite a conversion on the road to Damascus, but it looks like I'll be taking my first ride in an EV next week. My son has bought a BYD Shark 6 for himself and a BYD Sealion for the family car. My son has a business pimping up 4WDs. He worked out plans to do what he wants to his Shark and has had initial talks with the sellers of BYDs, interesting them in his idea. If his talks produce anything, his business will contract to do up these cars as special vehicles, which will add something special to retailer's offerings. From what he says, he thinks he will be starting limited production around Spring. As well as doing this stuff with BYDs, he will still be doing similar work on the usual suspects. It's good to see a young man (geez! He's 36!!) having a go. I can only wish him success. However, no matter how successful he becomes in business, he'll still be my dickhead of a son.

You become a 'Blinking idiot" with you Indicator left on. You will get to hate "Tin Tops" who don't see you. Nev

We know that Trump went into this war without planning. We all know that he knows nothing of military history. The reason that Napoleon and Hitler were defeated in Russia, and why the Allies won the wars in Europe and the Pacific boiled down to the provision of supplies. If you use up all your supplies, then you cannot fight on. This is what is happening to the USA in Iran. What is also sickening is the amount of money that has been spent in making all these weapons. The US Government has spent the money buying the weapons from manufacturers. The money, which could have been used for the betterment of the citizens of the USA has been burned up and is gone forever. So while Trump blows up US Government funds on an ill-advised ego trip, Americans go without adequate medical care, housing and food. Their efforts generated the government funds, but they do not benefit from their efforts.

They still have them. Stay & work here for next to nothing or get deported.