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Definitely agree with the good neighbours thing. We're lucky enough to live on 5 acres, 20 minutes from Hobart, and can't see any neighbours from our place. Mind you, we get on really well with our neighbours - about 5 other families we've known over 10 years, our kids caught the same bus to school together, and we still get together a few times a year for parties. If someone needs something they put it on the group chat and usually within 5 minutes someone is offering to help.

The simple, over-riding feature of getting older is that the old body starts playing up, and needs regular repair and maintenance. And if you're 50 or 100 kms from medical care, docs, specialists, even ambulances - life gets a lot harder than it need be. I lived all through the wheatbelt of W.A. and the W.A. Goldfields all my working life, living in everything from rented farmhouses to dongas to caravans, and even old railway fettlers huts. I've never actually owned a house in my own name, I didn't place enough importance on that feature of life - much to my regret. I have no ability to purchase a house today. I part-owned various industrial properties, a mining lease, a farm, and a couple of houses, that I never ever lived in much, because they were largely occupied by my brother and his wife, while I was out in the boonies, working. But when I got together with SWMBO in my early 40's, she owned a house! - and she lets me live in it, and shares it with me - because she loves me, she likes looking after me - and because I fix anything to do with the house, or the car, or whatever else requires attention. We live in the city only about 5 kays from the CBD in a nice leafy, sought-after, quiet suburb - and we're close to 3 shopping centres, a number of major arterial roads, heaps of docs, dentists, medical centres and medical facilities, all within a few kays - and we've been here since 1990, and we don't look like moving until we get really fragile with age, or the bikies move in next door (highly unlikely). I could easily live anywhere in the country again, but SWMBO is a city girl and likes shops and theatres, and being close to where her daughter lives. Generally, most people select their living location according to how far away, or how close, they want to live to relatives (including children). Most parents want to live within a reasonable distance of children, but some don't want them close at all. Not having any children myself, and getting on O.K. with SWMBO's girl and boy from her previous marriage, makes any living area decision, easier. Of course, if we won lotto, we'd move to a nice mansion by the coast, but that's only a dream. I don't think I'd ever move into a high-rise apartment, even though that's the result for people many today - simply because I don't like living above other people, and not knowing what they're getting up to - by way of drugs, starting fires, and other aggravating risks. Good neighbours generally make people stay where they live. No neighbours often suits a lot of people.

My entire point was that the Euro's have been constantly calling the USA warmongers for the past 50 years, but they are always the first ones to call the US President whenever there is a situation in the world that might affect their economies. They have been been neglecting their own militaries knowing that the Americans are stupid enough to keep bailing them out. The Euro's had a royal meltdown when Trump called them out for not keeping their pledge of committing a few percentage points of their GDP to military spending. The EU should be its own power. There are 29 countries in the EU and there is no excuse for them not making a joint effort to protect their economies and sovereignties. The US has done 75% of the heavy lifting in keeping the Persian Gulf open to world trade while Europeans and many other countries reap the benefits. Then the Europeans turn right around and bash Americans to appease their left wing voters. As far as my fellow Americans go, we should not be trusted any longer because there there is no continuity in foreign policy from one election cycle to the next. On top of it all, we are in a non shooting civil war right now. Might sound crazy to some but it's very true. We used to be country first.........but now days we are party first.

I got a black eye from trying to slide on a G-string.

I'm guilty of this myself as a retired Navy guy. A very large percentage of other retired military from my era are of the same mindset. The hostage situation happened during my second year mark. Four years later, I was stationed in Roosevelt Roads Puerto Rico when the Marine Barracks blew up. The civilian secretary in my office came in one morning crying because CNN had just broadcasted that the Marine Barracks in Lebanon had just blown up. Her husband was a Lieutenant Navy/Marine Liaison living on the second floor of the barracks at the time. Luckily, he wasn't inside when the explosion occurred, but It took 4 days for the poor lady to find out that he was OK due to the confusion. I lost a good friend on the USS Cole. Engineman 2nd Class Marc I. Nieto He always called me "Dr. Diesel" and was constantly pestering me about technical issues with his gear. Great kid! So yeah, I'm still bitter.

Old German joke: a man goes to a newsstand every day and looks at just the front pages of all the newspapers. The guy behind the stand asks him what he's looking for. "An obituary". "But Herr Mien, obituaries aren't on the front page!" "The one I'm looking for will be.""

Getting rid of Trump would be a massive improvement

Pete Hegseth torpedoed an UNARMED ship sailing home from a friendly naval exercise, killed 87 sailors, and left the rest floating in the Indian Ocean without lifting a finger to help. On March 4th, a U.S. submarine fired a single Mark 48 torpedo into the hull of the IRIS Dena, an Iranian frigate returning from India's MILAN 2026 multinational naval exercises. The ship had roughly 180 people on board. At least 87 were killed and 61 remain missing. Sri Lanka's navy had to step in and rescue the 32 survivors. Here's what makes this even more sickening. Both the U.S. and Iran were participants in the same Indian-hosted exercise, which required ships to operate without live ammunition. The U.S. sent a P-8A patrol aircraft that flew drills alongside the Dena just days before a submarine destroyed her. Former Indian Foreign Secretary Kanwal Sibal called the attack premeditated, noting the U.S. knew exactly where the ship was because it had been invited to the same exercise. Strategic affairs expert Brahma Chellaney put it bluntly: if the Dena was lightly armed or unarmed, the strike resembles a premeditated execution more than combat. And Pete Hegseth? He bragged about it. Called it a "quiet death" at a Pentagon press conference, grinning like a man who just won a prize at the county fair. Trump has openly stated that wiping out Iran's navy is a key war objective. The Second Geneva Convention requires belligerents to take all possible measures to search for and rescue the shipwrecked after an engagement at sea. International law scholars, former Pentagon officials, and members of Congress are now openly debating whether this attack was legal and whether the U.S. violated its obligations by abandoning survivors in the water. Sinking a ship that was someone's guest, that was following peacetime protocols, that couldn't fight back. Then leaving sailors to drown thousands of miles from home. That's not strength, thats a warcrime.

The media are having a wonderful time spreading fear and anxiety, claiming that petrol will be $2.50 a litre within a couple of days. There is zero reason why petrol should go from around $1.50 on Monday to $2.50 next week, we live in a global economy with oil sourced from dozens of sources, and a small jump in the price of oil per barrel, doesn't translate to a $1 a litre increase within 10 days. It's simply motorist-gouging at its finest, and I hope it sends EV sales through the roof.

Oh, they've got a plan, alright - and it all centres around our ol' mate Donny, and the ever-increasing level of his personal financial gains - from any worldly conquests, Presidential decisions, and trade deals jockeying. I must say, I'm surprised he hasn't managed to score a deal with the U.S. military, to use Trump-branded armaments. I bet he's seen the profits of the U.S. military-industrial complex, and is itching to get his major share of them.

Flight Radar 24 is free to use. There is a paid version but I use the free version.

Yeah ... Predicting the death of a 96 year old. Amazing!

Doesn't seem like much of a prophet. He allows himself plenty of wriggle room to adjust his prophesies to match what actually happens.

You like Facts and Truth? Try using them then. Your Idol, Trump, doesn't either. Nev

Typical house and land prices in Perth have gone through the roof. Up around 40-50% in just the last 2-3 years. I was talking to a real estate agent last week. He sold a house near mine for $1.1m about 18 months ago. He said he would list it today at $1.5m. One of my daughters is renting and there’s no way she can afford to buy now. Three years ago she could probably have managed a mortgage but not now. Our other kids are reasonably secure but I worry about her. Once a parent, always a parent!

Probably the same reason I joined ... to provide some opposition to the excessive far-left viewpoints that distort facts and truth.

I think only Noddy and Big Ears would believe the world could happily tick along without major power dominance. Back to what I said earlier, the three choices to be dominated by are Russia, China and the U.S. Every power has it's pros and cons, but I'd still prefer to be under the domination of the U.S. than the other two. The Americans have their faults, but Putin and Xi don't really demonstrate any sort of society I'd like to live under. The Europeans will never get their act together to compete with the top three for power, not in your dreams.

Mrs and I bought in Central Vic 30 years ago, 40 acres. It was good until I got crook and couldn't look after the olive trees and sheep. Now living in "town" with a pub and post office, 20 minutes from the shops. Its good because she likes going to town most days. On my own I would probably starve.

The US and the Shah were quite close. When you look at a map you can easily see the strategic importance of Iran to the US and understand why they've always regretted it's loss to the Islamic regime. Resources aside, the biggest importance is it geographical location and it's boundaries. It controls the straights, acts as a huge buffer zone, shares a boundary with Turkey, a major US ally, and is just across the ditch from several of their Middle East allies. It also shares the Caspian Sea with Russia who has a naval force there, and while the regime runs Iran, Russia has free use of their airspace for launching cruise missiles from the Caspian Sea fleet. That's the path Russian missiles were taking during the Syrian conflict. It's not all about oil.

I had a feeling you're from the US.. And ex-Navy, too.. I know a few ex US Navy people; I worked for a company that was founded by one of them. Best job I had and best company I worked for, by far.

Yes but... As usual, the USA has not proposed any plan, or perthway to a regime change. As usual, the old regime has a sucession plan to continue power. As usual, USA has no plan for what to do next. Just go in all gunz blazing and expect the locals to miraculously unite their mobs and create a whole new system of government. Never worked before, unlikely to now. P.S. With the present state of amazing intel, and amazing precision strike capability, why did they destroy a school full of kids?

Well, if the girl trap is successful, you'll be told what to do. Problem solved!

Trump will fix everything Ha Ha. It would have to be by accident. Nev

I live on the highway that runs to Warren. From my front gate it is about 70 kms away. Warren is on the Macquaie River. Although the Macquarie River doesn't have the deep gouge in the landscape that we associate with a "valley", the rain clouds seem to follow its course and that means it diverts away from my place. I drove into Dubbo yesterday for shopping. Dubbo is about 60 kms south from Gilgandra. As I got to about 20 kms from Dubbo I noticed that the paddocks were greening up. About 25 kms south of Gilgandra there seems to be a boundary between the catchments of the Macquarie and Castlereagh Rivers. This seems to split the path of storms. The radar often shows the storm cells tracking to the south of this divide, so the storms avoid the Castlereagh catchment. Since farming around here involves the growing of winter grain crops, most of the ground cover in summer is just dried standing straw. About the only greenery is the grass at the edge of the road that has been watered by the run off from small storms.

-I've been with AGL for a few years. We got a smart meter at least 6 years ago, way before my wife passed. The meter is read remotely. I can log onto my account, see the current accruing cost and an estimate of what the bill will be in X number of days. These figures are constantly updated. This helps my budgeting. I wish they could do the same with gas.

Dafuq?? Do you really think Trump gives a flying f**k about the welfare of anyone who isn't Donald J Trump? Especially foreigners. Once again the stupid bastard is being led by the nose by Netanyahu, who needs yet another war to keep in power and out of court. Peace prize my arse. The only prize the orange clown deserves is "Worst President Ever", possibly upgraded to "Person who has had the most negative impact on humanity 2016-2020, and 2024 to impeachment"

Good job GON. Even if you only save a small amount, it is good take action and feel that you have some control.

Had a good laugh about the latest American, "shoot 'em up, and ask questions later", mentality. It seems that U.S. Customs and Border control were running a drone looking for illegal immigrants near the Mexican border, and they strayed into a U.S. military area. The Pentagon ordered their latest laser drone-killer into action, to defend against the "military threat", and blasted the Customs drone out of the sky, no questions asked! 😄 Naturally, Customs is furious, and is raging about everyone doing their own thing with no consultation (led by the White House, of course) - and even the FAA is getting dragged into it, with their over-arching control of airspace, and no reference to any other Govt authority. What a typical, complete CF, of American gung-ho adventurism!! https://edition.cnn.com/2026/02/26/us/pentagon-shoots-down-cbp-drone

. He forgot the toilet Paper. It will be in short supply as well as most things, if trucks can't get Fuel. If he had a Prang, He'd have Burn problems as well. Prang is an old aviation term. Nev

This morning I was listening to music on my radio. The music was mainly orchestral and the radio is mono. The thought struck me what a wonderful device the radio's speaker is. It can reproduce the wide range of pitch and tone produced by a number if instruments playing at the same time simply by an electrical current causing a fibre cone to vibrate.

At risk of thread drift, (getting back to the WARs), allow me to introduce my hero (sadly, deceased).... Col David Hackworth. Korean War & Viet Nam war. His book "About Face" is my go - to war book. Relevance? Simply this, "Has anything changed over the last 90 years when it comes to Americano arrogance and warmongering? I see the same sort of background happening now WRT Iran, as Col Hackworth observed during Viet Nam's war. Have they learned nothing? No exit plan. No "Mission Accomplished" target. No concrete mission plan. Lots of USA military might, but no follow up plan. PS I need to track down my copy of his book, leant it many times returened n-1 times

I'm calling BS on that, Onetrack. I know for sure and for certain that there is no such thing a rain.

I know that this quote comes from yers ago, but it is a good lead-in to my post. On Wednesday, 91 Octane petrol at my servo was $1.69 per litre. On Thursday it was $1.79 per litre. Today, Friday, it is $2.17 per litre. I don't think thesero got a delivery yesterday from the bulk depot less than a kilometre away. We all expect to be ripped off by the oil companies, but the only reason thedo it this week is because Trump started a war to soothe his ego, or was it to deflect attention from the Epstein files.

By that logic, anyone who gets elected is beyond criticism. Trump is the antithesis of a democratic leader and distorts the Constitution, law and even truth. He is a dictator at heart and egotistical sociopath. Just because he managed to get elected, he is actively trying to destroy society.

Yeah sadly though China's only a small part of it. These absolute morons, have let in a million and a half immigrants in their 4yrs, when we were a million houses short, but eh, so they've plus added 50% and went 1.5. To top that off, only 7% of those 1.5mill, were trades and skills we're actually also short of, the rest, God knows, they reckon family members and extras and all sorts. Butttt, apparently that's only part of it, they've also geared everything to investors and wealthy and literally sabotaged what little progress in new housing we could've made as well as reopened the door to China and their cases full of cash. Apparently, "everything " , they've done, only pushes house prices up and lines wealthy pockets. l can't pretend to even understand half of it but the immigrants and Chinese alone, more than screwed our own people especially our young. Makes me sick to the stomach but so 4yrs later we're in a worser state than ever. There's a dozen other things they've done to in real reports- can't even wrap my head around. But yep you bet rg, always a parent and yaknow, if my d wasn't to get married well she's gonna need help so l'm gonna be doing everything l can on the side. Got a small investment for her to which is suppose to go off well, if l get that lucky really hoping that can help her to by then. But yeah saw Perth rg l think they said is leading the pack this yr, must be bloody mad, feel so bad for young people there , everywhere but gees, crazy shyt over there, qld to. Somem like my place here onetrack , mine was a bit more though and closer to the coast and a really nice town but yeah worth about 130 now so nothing compared to even better town stuff let alone city but it's still 500% plus it's been rented out 18yrs to and that's paid for it 4 times over on top . Just a shame it's such small money for the market now most places better or we'd be sitting pretty eh.

I was lucky to buy a bare 2000 sq m block of industrial land in a wheatbelt tiny country town, about 130kms NNE of Perth, in 2019. I paid $10,000 for it, because the seller was retiring and selling up all his assets. In the 6-1/2 years that I've owned it, the value of the block has gone from $10,000 to $110,000. The land/property pricing "bubble" must burst in due course. I really feel for the young people starting off, buying a house must only be a dream for them. SWMBO has a friend who has 2 sons and daughter. The daughter married several years ago and both she and her hubby are on good money, and they managed to buy an old timber-framed house in an average Eastern suburb for $780,000. But the middle son isn't married and is working on the mines to try and get enough to buy a house. He proudly told his Mum recently, he'd saved up $50,000 towards the house. But he goes to look at a building block in the far northern suburbs, about 70kms from the City, and they want $500,000 for a tiny bare patch of sandy limestone. So then he finds a reasonable sort of house for sale nearby for just $800,000. He calls the agent, and the agent floors him with the words, "I'm sorry, I've already had 2 offers for the property in excess of $1,000,000!! This is the standard story around trying to buy a house today, Chinese buyers roll up carrying suitcases full of banknotes, explaining they have the cash to pay for the property, right now! AUSTRAC cash payments reporting is only being extended to real estate agents from July 1st this year. It's way too late, it should have been done 15 or 20 years ago. The flood of Chinese black money has ruined our real estate purchasing ability.

I get the feeling this person is not a fan.

It's not about continually targeting and taking out each new leader. The Americans have to deal with 50,000 hardened, dedicated, Revolutionary Guard troops, 1000's of ruthless Religious Police, and a multitude of Imams who are telling their adherents that America is Satan and coming to kill them all. Unless you have an extensive, well-thought-out, long-term plan to deal with those relentless threats, then a pile of "targeted bombing" without troops on the ground, and subversives and spies within Iran - all working seamlessly to ensure a total overthrow of the religious nutters running the place - then all the Americans will end up doing is setting the stage for "Iran-run-by-religious-nutters, MK 2". Israel has great success in neutralising opposition to them, because they use all of the above - and MOSSAD has spies everywhere, and utilises cutting-edge electronic technologies, to ensure success.

The biggest problem is, typical of American adventurism with their finest military equipment, there appears to be little proper planning for a desirable outcome in operation Epic Fury. It's like losing your temper with something that's not working properly, and hitting it with a hammer. You might feel good about assuaging your frustration in the short term, but the item become completely buggered with the hammering, and it has to be replaced with a new one, simply because you became furious with it, and attacked it without any thought for the outcome. Neither Trump, nor Hegseth, nor any of the MAGA mob running the show, can clearly articulate their long-term plan and satisfactory outcome for Iran. The messages they're sending are confused and confusing. Hegseth says his plan is not to carry out regime change. So, if the attacks are not about regime change, what are they about? Epic Fury is quite likely to become Epic Failure, if Iranian civilian casualties continue to mount, American deaths continue to mount, and world opinion - and especially Middle-Eastern opinion (from those Middle-Eastern countries who are sitting on the fence, or initially U.S.-friendly), turns adverse towards America. The Americans are very good at starting wars with a total lack of vision and planning, as regards the long-term outcome. It appears to me, they just feel the need to "kill a lot Muzzies, 'cos they hate us".

Did the elastic snap? Maybe you need a bigger size. Next time try sliding on a bigger pair.

Just as it's not all about oil, it's also not all about Trump. He's a bit like smoke and mirrors. He has an incredible knack of getting under people's skin, particularly those on the left who get almost hysterical at the mere mention of his name. I think a lot of people think a madman just woke up one day and decided to blow up Iran on impulse, well, ok, dream on. While people focus on Trump, they forget the strategic interest the US military and security people (and some politicians) have had for decades in trying to bring Iran back into their fold. The situation now is that a president finally took the gamble to try to do it, and it is a big gamble. The desire has been there since the regime deposed the Shah.

Leave your ex in Sydney, stay where you are, extend your place and get a dog. 😊

You can be just as lonely renting somewhere else. If everything is pretty good where you are now, apart from the distance to a larger town, maybe it's being on your own too much that's the main problem?

Having said the above, I'm probably not the best person to be giving advice. I'm retired, own my own acerage property debt free, on my own these days and can live comfortable enough on the age pension. I live in a little slice of paradise and don't have any factors pushing me one way or another. For someone still in the workforce with a career, there would be a lot more things to consider than what I have to.

Not in the footage I saw, there were heaps of women and very few wearing head coverings. But that was footage taken by citizens and posted on social media, so it might have been from a prodominately anti-government suburb and maybe not representative of what you see in other areas.

Maybe we need a separate thread for Iran.

Sounds like Anthropic AI are one of the rare tech companies ones common sense and vision. As these are totally foreign to the village idiot in the Oval Office, it's no wonder he doesn't like them.