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In my prime.... Zero debt. Low body fat percentage. Fluid balance perfect. Nutrition excellent. Cholestorol low. Mental health balanced. Zero alcohol, excellent hydration. This was my peak. I was eight years old.

Pocock is (or appears to be) on the correct side of most issues. The trouble is, for every Pocock there's a Bob Katter, a Clive Palmer, a Barmy Joyce or a Pauline Hanson. Well that puts them in front of PHON then, who have thought bubbles instead of policies and can't even agree amongst themselves as to what they are. Look I know the Greens sometimes seem nutty. My point is that if you want to park your vote with a protest party, at least give it to the nutters who have the best interests of the planet at heart, instead of the nutters who want to destroy it.

I kind of agree but only where the holder of such views influences others with them. If it's just your average idiot on a forum, no. If it's an influencer with 10,000 followers, yes.

This discussion has becomve very depressing, except for one thing. No matter where on the political spectrum each of us lays, we all seem to be in agreement that we have little or no say in how our country is governed and the direction its elected leaders want to take it.

Maybe wrong thread for this, but.... Russia has been creeping up and reenforcing positions near Polish and Finnish borders Neither China or Russia nor America can be trusted and have been the enemy of peace since the end of the last World War when they all began their land grabs.

And the recycled pollies PHON have at the trough are different in what way, exactly? Jerry, they've done something else before politics. They've had real jobs and careers. It's not hard to research. Pauline fried fish, Barnaby was a bean counter, David Farley started out as a jackeroo and ended up CEO of Australia's largest agricultural company, NSW leader Mike Newman is a former investment banker and NSW trade commissioner to Japan, Luke Herdegen who just won the WA byelection is a small busnessman who owns gyms, Tyron Whitten the WA senator is a former concretor and business owner, Rod Caddies the WA leader has worked in child protection, construction, mining and as an ADF reservist, and that's just some of them. Even Malcolm has had real jobs but I reckon he's too nutty to talk about.

You've got to be kidding! Why waste a good rant by reading provided refrences beforehand?

Going back to that assessment and prediction from Tony Barry of Redbridge Group, here's a quote of his opinion (based on polling) on reasons behind One Nation support: “For about 15 per cent of One Nation voters, they self-report immigration as their key consideration. But for most, they’re looking for an anti-establishment party. It’s a rejection of the two-party system,”

Righto... All those profiting by stopping action on climate policy and fossil fuels including bankers please make a orderly queue to the right.. Just close your eyes and go through the door to your reward.. Those on the left can enjoy the view of the cliff diving.

The major parties have had 125 years to get it right. In all that time you'd think they would have learned that democracy means more than just having an election every three years and then treating the electorate with contempt. They're simply not the kind of people we want governing us anymore, they've had their day, their psyches are no longer fit for purpose.

I think you'll find they get their information from their bank account and what is left in them after the bills are paid.. or their crumbling health services, etc. Murdich makes it easy ti fund someone to blame and someone to use to punish the incumbents. Look over here.. a PM who finally gets it and with really tiny tweaks, the protest party, Reform and his mates are imploding in the polls

But back to topic - yes I think Jerry has it but it's damn depressing. The fact that people are angry at the status quo I get. The fact that they don't care that things can get a lot worse for them, that's the sad bit. Looks like the lessons we should be learning from the USA are not being learned. Dark times ahead.

My son just turned up this morning to show off a Royal Enfield Himalayan with just over 1,000k on the clock that he got for a great price from a guy who had to sell it for health reasons. Kitted out with panniers and other extras so he's very happy. I don't know much about bikes, but it looks great.

Jerry, if I read the first post correctly, you said you paid 1500 for this bike. Given the ongoing electrical problems, if you can get 1200 for it, that would seem to be an excellent option.

This image isn't mine but it is taken from a better angle. Also, when a motorcyle is cornering, the rider holds the front wheel a bit away from the direction of the turn. That is counter intuitive, but the artist seems to have captured that.

90

Being a federal politician can't be easy. Imagine the protocols, rules, how policy is developed, getting information from the APS, what to declare, how to bargain with all the others without getting screwed over, your every mistake and misstep scrutinized by the press, working and networking all hours of the day and night. So if we don't want professional politicians, then we want "normal people" from all walks of life who can also be media experts and able to understand the implications and anticipate consequences of complex legislation. Which means that in most cases they will be heavily dependent on, and guided by, their staff. Who elected them (the staff?)

40

It would be good to get rid of career politicians in all partys.

Ukraine probably offers really cheap flights to Australian soldiers looking to take a working holiday.

All three have imperialist intent and stop at nothing to seek their aims. China does the long game extremely well.

I can relate to that, having never owned a new car. The newest I've bought were a couple that were around six to seven years old. Most have been in the ten to fifteen year old range. I never saw the point in going tens of thousands of dollars into debt to buy a new car when a good second hand one costing a few thousand does the same job.

Not really related to the pros and cons of windfarms, but I figured this was the best place to show this video without starting a new thread. It deals with the way the blades for these generators are made and how they are repaired. Very interesting is the fact that the person presenting the video is an Australian - and a woman as well.

Did you actually read the article? "Premier Ben Carroll said if Labor won the November election, it would work with Corrections Victoria to develop a pilot program to put supervised, minimum-security prisoners to work performing roadside maintenance. The plan would include having inmates take over basic duties such as mowing lawns, controlling weeds, removing graffiti and picking up rubbish." A photo and then "Premier Ben Carroll, who served as roads minister between 2020 and 2022, said it would free up skilled roadside maintenance crews to concentrate on fixing potholes. Low-security inmates are already involved in day-release programs doing gardening, weeding and rubbish collection in some parks." So, there is no plan to use inmates to actually fix the roads... Another beat up

Actually - I don't buy it. The biggest reason things go downhill for blue collar workers is inequality. More of the pie goes to the massively rich and trickle down economics is the same joke it's always been. Even if they blame the major parties, they're voting for the fringe party that's bought and paid for by the same rich fucks that are already ruining their lives. If they truly wanted to change things for the better, they'd vote Green or progressive independents like Pocock.

Good job it was an Offenhauser and not an Oppenheimer. That would have been a bomb.

I've come to the conclusion that my hypothesis is WRONG. The British did not go to Botany Bay to establish a base for agriculture and commerce. They went there to create a dumping ground to releive the congestion in the hulks and prisons which were filled with souls whose crimes we now consider to be at the lowest end of criminality. I've reached this conclusion through a bit more reading. My main source that lead me to this conclusion is the book 1788 by David Hill. (See notes below for book identification) From this book I learned thatin 1717 the British parliament passed an Act which enabled the transportation of felons to foreign shores. At that time those shores were those of the American colonies, to which some forty thousand convicts were taransported (into slavery) over the following sixty years. Convicts committed to transportatin were sold by theo goalers to the shipping contactors, who took them actoss the Atlantic and sold the prisoners to plantation owners for the duration of their sentences. In 1777, the Parliament passed the Hulk Act, which allowed for the confinement of convicts in decommissioned British naval vessels on the Thames and other English rivers and ports. This was seen as a temporary measure until the American insurrection was quashed, but those colonies were granted independence in 1783 through the Treaty of Paris. leaving Britain with no place to transport convicts to, and crowding began to get bad in the hulks. So, based on the promptings of Sir Joseph Banks that the east coast of New South Wales (as Cook named it) would be a great place, in depth plans were made to sens an advance party to establish a colony to which thousands of convicts could be sent in future. The problem with Botany Bay was/is that it is no good for agriculture. (I grew up on its shores, and I know what the soil is like - crap.) Joseph Banks doesn’t come out of it very well. He enthused about Australia as a verdant land of opportunity when (a) his own notes were less effusive, and (b) he’d seen hardly anything of the place and was only here for a week. All he had done was collect a lot of plants. He obviously knew nothing of the requirements for agriculture. If these comments raise your interest in that bit of histroy, I recommend the book to you. After reading it, you will wonder at the survival of those convicts, Marines and officials during their first few years on these Fatal Shores. You can chase up the book with these details: Author: David Hill Title: 1788, The Brutal Truth of the First Fleet, Publisher: Random House (William Heinemann) ISBN: 9781741668001

How often do we hear of any good work that our Local Member does for the electorate? As Mark Anthony was want to say, "The evil that men do lives after them; The good is oft interred with their bones." If those good works were publicised, then a Local Member would be assured of continued support.

I suspect one root cause of the malaise, is that politics has become a business dominated by professional politicians. Their greatest motivation is a desire to keep their job and rise through the ranks. They act as though it's a game of 'say whatever it takes, to get the votes'. The electorate no longer believes anything any of them says (even the honest ones). To restore trust they will have to get the punters to start saying 'Hey, thank goodness, xxxx did this for us! '

You are having a bad day. Don't feel bad, it could be worse. Imagine running into a wall with a boner, and breaking your nose first.

Australian music legend Gary “Angry” Anderson has suffered a cardiac arrest and is in hospital under the watch of doctors.

Count Binface, a satirical candidate in the Clacton by-election included in his policies requiring anyone who denies human-caused climate change to return to school. Quite frankly, I would have voted for him if he was in my electorate on that alone. The Australian death toll from the Nepal disaster alone - which is hard not to ague was the result of climate change - was 46. Stuff will get worse.. My favourite saying is facts don't give a ship about what people think.

On the subject of voters no longer listening, it has a two part effect. On the one hand, they no longer trust or believe the incumbents and stop listening to the sales pitch. The other factor is that the only way the majors can dismantle the One Nation juggernaut is to point out the faults and weaknesses of ON. That's where the second part comes in; people stop listenening to that as well and basiclly couldn't care less about the party's faults if it means getting rid of the status quo.

Jerry gets it. What is happening with the swing to One Nation is a movement to burn down the house and start again. The problem for the incumbents is that at some point, people are so fed up that they just stop listening. The federal Labor government has long ago realised that this could hurt them, and not just the Coalition as they initially thought. The government is and will be trying to turn it around, but once people develop a deaf ear to them, the government is done. Maybe it's reached that point now, but if not, it's not far away.

I can't get a code anymore for my online banking changes. The bank will only send a code via mobile phone now, not landline, the way I used to receive it. I don't have a mobile, and even if I did have one, there is no reception here. I'm up the creek without a paddle. In this respect, online banking doesn't exist for me any longer, I'll have to drive all the way to town, at their whim, and do my banking at the counter. The only other way is to buy a mobile phone, travel 10ks or more to higher ground, download the code, rush back home, enter it, hoping I haven't been automatically logged out due to inactivity. Everyone around here will be similarly affected.

40 Nev

If you look at the process of governing in a critical way, you'll soon see that a government elected by the people is only means of appeasement to the couner teh complaints of the people about the way they are controlled by faceless men. Just look at teh way multi-national corporations control your life. That's not something new. The American Revolution would not have happened if Britain's biggest corporation, the East India Company had not made the British Parliament mess about with the tax on tea and on the goods coming into the Colonies. No matter where on the political spectrum your politics lie, no Party can solve your problems.

Well, I watched about 10 minutes but the bum in the jeans was nowhere to be seen. False advertising! 😄

Yep, Lots of great bargains for the canny and slowish rider. Some add a high compression big bore kit, cam etc with nice pipes, ecu change. It's a common mod that makes a big change in power. One such kitted would be great second hand.

There's a lot of good low mileage second hand Royal Enfields on the market for very cheap prices. The fact that the new price is relatively low has some bearing on their used prices. They usually don't have much on the clock for a couple of reasons. First one is that a lot of people that own them are only occasional riders, and a lot of old blokes get too old for riding and sell them, still with low k's. With second hand 650 Interceptors, it's often the case that someone has bought one and not far down the track realised they're not a speed machine, so they sell to upgrade to something a bit racier. You can pick up Interceptors with 4,000 k's on the clock for half the price of a new one.

The cost of living is way too high. The ALP and Coalition have no idea how to reduce it, that's why One Nation is doing so well ... we've got to have a change. Yes, I have cash stashed already, for electricity, vehicle rego, compulsory third party insurance, Council rates (just increased 30%), and food bill increases are emptying my wallet. Petrol has gone up, so has diesel. A haircut costs me $35, nothing fancy, just a quick back & sides of my thinning grey hair. We need to put the major parties out to pasture, they've been at it too long. They've lost their way, they're still stuck in their old elitist ways. They're forgetting who the real boss is, us grunts trying to make ends meet. Ignore the people, and you're done for.

that i something I would believe.. though I am not sure they can produce it at the intensity of the players - though I am guessing there would be some relative to body size that would bring it closer than we (or I) think. I recall in year 8, Jack Leahy - my then English teacher - was telling us about an experiment where a bunch of toddlers/early walkers were put in a room behind one-way mirrored glass with a bunch of toys (those plastic type cars, balls, etc), and a bunch of relatively fit adults on the other side of the glass with the same sort of toys (obviously where necessary increased in size for the stature of the adults) and the adults had to mimic/copy everything their assigned toddler did throughout the day.. By the end of the day, apparently the toddlers were still more or less going strong, but the adults were completely stuffed. Of course, when the toddlers slept, the adults could only rest - but apparently some did fall asleep during those breaks, too. I have no idea if it is true or not, but he was one of the best teachers I had, so I have no reason to doubt him.

Unfortunately, Nev, what the rest of the world thinks, doesn't matter at all. Neither does what the people of his country think, either. Meantime, what he (and all those under him) DOES, is affecting a lot of people the world over. There is no win-win outcome. For every win, someone, somewhere, is losing. And that, my friend, IS 'The Art of The Deal'. P.S. yes, that is Capitalism as practiced in USofA.

Definitely 10.

Nice old Studebaker. I like the current culture where unrestored or minimally restored cars are as popular as full restorations. It makes it a lot more financially accessable for more people. For too long the main goal was to restore back to as new condition, and that was a very labour intensive and expensive process. It's horses for courses and the full resto people get great satisfaction doing their thing, but it's also nice not to see the history rubbed off or painted away on a lot of these old vehicles. I like the lived in look.

A man walks into a bar with a newt on his shoulder. "Cute pet," says the barman, "What's his name?" The man replies, "Tiny." "Why did you name him that?" asked the barman. "Because he's my newt." replied the man.

And yet, the accuracy of the art captured the whole racing motorcycle and rider.