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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.""

I saw a good old Gardner 6LX on marketplace for $4,000. I love those old Gardners and used to like listening to them cruising at low revs out from the Mooloolaba port when I worked on a boat there for a year. Our little trawler has a noisy 2 stroke GM 671, but the Gardners had a beautiful sound.

Getting rid of Trump would be a massive improvement

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

-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

Our dog used to glare at me and roll his eyes when I farted. I think he learnt that from my wife. Life is so unfair sometimes.

This is one of my favourite old lanterns, a Dipti brand made in India. I don't know how old it is but I'd guess 1950's or 1960's. It's a great old lantern, very solid metal and thick embossed glass with the name Dipti Oriental Metal embossed on it. That's the old company name; they're Dipti Metal Industries these days. It also burns perfectly and never gives any problems. It's in the top three in lantern status around here. Fairly rare in this country and not easy to find one.

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.

I'm no expert, but I think sometimes when it's really hard to decide, it's better to do nothing immediately and see how the thinking is later on. A lot of people sell up and regret it at a later date. I was nearly one of them. In 2021, I was selling up and moving interstate. I was at the stage of dealing with agents and almost ready to list the place when some medical issues came along and changed the whole plan. Now a bit over four years later, I'm still here and there's nowhere in the world I'd rather be, so I'm glad I didn't go through with the original plan. I'll never be rich living here but what it has to offer regarding lifestyle is worth it many times over. On the other side of the coin, a mate of mine sold up that same year and moved to a small country town in NSW and he's as happy as a pig in a poke. He doesn't miss his former home of 40+ years at all.

It's an " ILL wind that Blows nobody any good" But Trump is mostly wind and is definitely Mentally ILL. Nev

Maybe we need a separate thread for Iran.

This is a bit off topic, but I suppose it's slightly related to a previous discussion we had about noisy Harleys with straight through pipes. A mate received his new Verex slash cut drag pipes in the mail on Friday to fit to his two month old Bonneville Speedmaster. They make them in brushed, polished (bright chrome) and black ceramic finishes. He went for the polished finish as it will fit in with the existing chrome on the bike. I think they will get fitted on Monday. The photos show the drag pipes unpacked and the bike with the standard Triumph mufflers. It will be interesting to hear how loud it is; with the Triumph mufflers it sounds like a sewing machine. It's been a long journey. Me and the mate started out making mud pies and playing with plastic toy soldiers, graduated on to slot cars and now we all have bigger toys. Maybe we'll finish off with wheelchair races in the nursing home.

Wars in the Middle East will never be finished. There is too much long-held tribal hatreds there, that have festered for centuries, and which hatreds they will never let go of. Plus, their "gun culture" puts the U.S. to shame.

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 Come To Bury Howard by David Archibald 10 February 2026 Certainly not to praise him. The evil he did as Prime Minister has gone on for too long. Howard’s last dark deed, after he lost the September 2007 election, was to pass the National Greenhouse and Energy Reporting Act. To put that in context, when he was a teenager Howard used to cross Sydney to sit at the knee of Sir Philip Baxter, former head of the Australian Energy Commission, and hear of the wonders of nuclear energy. As an elected politician, he became a one-man sleeper cell of nuclear advocacy. In private conversations, Howard used to call global warming nonsense. Nevertheless, he worked towards bringing in a carbon tax. He wanted Australia to adopt nuclear energy. To force Australia to that result, he needed to make coal-fired power generation more expensive. He was being two-faced and too cute. The National Greenhouse and Energy Reporting Act was the accounting basis for the tax. The idea was to bring it in, settle it down over a couple of years and then start taxing. Some 1,000 Australian companies continue to report their carbon consumption under that act. The total cost of employing all the accountants for this may be of the order of $500 million per annum. All of which is wasted. Close to $10 billion has been wasted over the years, for nothing. Fifteen years ago I used to be invited to give speeches at anti-carbon tax rallies on the east coast. After one such rally in front of Parliament House, I went in to meet Senator Nick Minchin, then considered to be the hard man of the Liberal right. I said to the Senator that the National Greenhouse and Energy Reporting Act should be repealed. He replied “Why would we do that?,” which meant that he had no idea how the world worked. He also said that nobody in cabinet asked Howard why he was proceeding with the carbon tax. Not that they weren’t curious about doing something so stupid, they were afraid of upsetting him. They would rather national self-harm than lose their spot in cabinet. Abbott won the 2013 election on a platform of getting rid of the carbon tax. Three days later Greg Hunt, then Liberal member for Goldstein and a Klaus Schwab protégé, talked him out of repealing the National Greenhouse and Energy Reporting Act. Why get rid of the carbon tax but keep the accounting basis for it? So stupid, but he did it. The carbon tax came back in other forms. The price of electric power tripled. Businesses and whole industries are closing. Last year the Liberal Party formally abandoned a commitment to carbon taxes, but they still yearn to remain in the Paris mutual suicide pact of 2015. This confused position means they don’t believe the words coming out of their own mouths. The electorate have noticed and are now looking elsewhere for the promise of rational government. But there is an easy test of any party’s grip on reality. If their platform does not include repeal of the National Greenhouse and Energy Reporting Act, they don’t understand anything and their professed concern for the future of our country is only performative. So far, no political party has undertaken to do so and the country remains on a glide slope to oblivion. In the meantime, as our standard of living keeps falling, curse John Howard. Curse him in living and curse him in dying. He could have killed the global warming monster in its crib but chose instead to live a lie. We continue to suffer because of his contempt for the Australian people.

He and Netanyahu are more interested in triggering regime change than getting some kind of agreement on nuclear development. In his statement justifying the attack Trump listed all the Iranian attacks on US interests snd personnel going back decades. Putin won’t be happy because he may not get some of the drones he needs.

Trump's mantra is to prevent the Iranians from ever having nuclear weapons. He says they have been given opportunities to come to the table to negotiate but have failed to do so, therefore he is determined to raze their nuclear processing facilities to the ground.

Hmm.. thinking about it, if he succeds and restores a government that is democratic and/or representative of the people, maybe he should get a peace prize. For some debate on the amount killed over a month, it has ranged from the official 3,000 purely civilian population, to up to 30,000: https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2026/jan/27/iran-protests-death-toll-disappeared-bodies-mass-burials-30000-dead That article is a month old; Wikipedia quotes different sources with wildly different estimates: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026_Iran_massacres So I think 15,000 a month is not unreasonable. To put it in perspective, if it were to continue, it would equal the number of Palestinians claimed to have been killed by Hamas (currently around 76,000) after 2 years in 5 months. Also, there is the veil if not reality that Israel is targeting th emilitary that hide behind its civilians, and Hamass has not yet differentiate the number of cilvilians and mitilarty/terrorist personnel killed. But, for the sake of the argument, let's assume they were all civilians and Hamas doesn't release its military killings. Given most Iranians are Persian and not islamic, and the definition of Genocide (at least according to Google AI is: "Genocide is the deliberate, systematic destruction—or intent to destroy—in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group... " and incl;udes destruction, which is not necessarily killing... would it not seem that the Iranian regime is on that path against anyone who doesn't give the pretence of converted to Islam, or wants their own self-determination? I have no idea of Chump's objectives, but if an unintended consequence is the re-impostiion of a government represntative of the people, preferably democratic, and disollution of state sponsored terrorism, then, well, it does deserve a peace prize, does it not?

We are promised 100-150mm over the next three days. Could be interesting.

I've been offline for most of the day, so you beat me with the report of Neil Sedaka. But there is a local one today. Lorraine Bailey, Grace Sullivan from the Aussie TV show The Sullivans, passed away today aged 89. A number of other TV and stage roles, and two Logies.

The bore water at my place must be very low in minerals. It does not leave crusts on the end of taps and seems to lather satisfactoritly. It may not actually be bore water, but just creek water since the bore is not too far from a major creek.

I did exactly the same thing just a few minutes ago. I was searching for a cheaper rate and chose Origin, then got a phone call from iSelect to change me over from AGL. After going over my bill, AGL failed to deduct one of my discounts. I won't chase the discount. Instead I've finished up with them

USA is a Joke in front of the entire world. Choose your Leader wisely next time. IF there IS a Next time. Nev

I do understand your comments Nev, and appreciate them. One thing with this project is that it's about the journey, not the destination. In regard to adding to challenges, I do a lot of that on purpose. It's the challenge of projects that attracts me, not so much the end result. Yes, there's easier way of doing things and if I just wanted the end product I'd go out and buy it and save myself a lot of time. But that's not what this project is about. All good advice from you Nev, and starting off with something good would suit some. In this case, I'm neither starting with something good, nor am I resurrecting a pile of junk. It's a scratch build; I'm building a pile of junk from scratch. That's the basic idea of it at ths stage. It will be a good challenge. I've done a lot of restoration work, but always restoring something to original condition. There's a lot more freedom in this project.

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.

Nev, do you mean 32 volt? That's what all the properties ran when I was growing up. Still got the generator in the shed. I just wish I still had the Southern Cross diesel we ran it with.

I think it's whatever floats people's boats. I think golfers are mad, but golfers don't.

Why do you want all that Power? You can't use it. Mass low down makes it safer. Reverse can be an Electric Motor. How far do you go in reverse? Blip that engine and you will tip the bike up sideways Nev

The good thing about today is that modern technology supersedes candles, etc. Modern LED lighting, cheap solar panels, lower cost batteries mean that even without a full-on rooftop system with battery, you can cobble together quite a good backup power system. Action is better than whinging.

You can check the facts on that IF you want to on relative costs. Old Coal is unreliable. That's WELL understood. The Grid infrastructure needs Work no matter what we do. You may be in an area where you nave no choice in who your Provider is. IF you are in a very remote area others will be subsidising you. Every Person with a solar and battery is helping you.. Old Coal was Amortised The costs of setting it up written off long ago because it's now beyond it's useful Life . When it fails it's usually under high Load on a hot day. Backup is costly. because it's inactive till it's needed and has to respond immediately. Battery and Pumped hydro and gas in that order. Nev

I haven't been there for at least 15 years but I've driven past it 2 or 3 times a year for the past 15 years when I am heading for Noosa. I did go there a couple of weeks ago but the only reason was to leave it for NZ via the airport. Populated by the very wealthy with all their flash toys who could not care less for the environment. Very pompous & lacking of any good taste in architectural design. A slum for the wealthy. It was named for the high cost of real estate & rapid development in the late 50s. Used to be the South Coast with Southport, Coolangatta & Burleigh Heads the main centres. It was probably quite nice back then.

Trailers develop places where a Wire can have the Insulation rubbed through.. Some trailer wiring is shoddy. You also may have a FAULTY RELAY, The original fuse may not be big enough to carry the extra stop Lights current draw. Nev

In my experience, the only fuses that fail for no reason, are the glass tube ones. Never had a modern moulded plastic type fail without real overload. Twice I have had difficult to track down overloads in vehicles, caused by unsecured wiring that vibrated or moved against bodywork. One made my headlights (only rarely, but that was too often) go out on left hand corners. The other made the engine fail, but only on right hand corners when accelerating hard. In that case the engine loom moved a certain way that it rubbed on the firewall. Intermittents are the worst to fix. Do not start fitting bigger fuses unless you wish to replace an entire loom or deal with a fire when the fault returns.

I love 💕 gargner engines in big boats.

Willie, if the fuse blew, the circuit has been overloaded. You don't mention the style of fuse (there are several). I'm speaking about the old glass fuses, now. If the fuse fell apart, or the ends fell off, I would put that down to age. However, the ends don't normally fall off, because they're held by the clips, they usually fall off when you pull them out. You can get intermittent electrical faults that are a PIA. A little patch of bare wire touching metal occasionally. A wire being occasionally crushed between other parts that move. It can be a real pain to track down a lot of the time. Look for areas where movement takes place, where things can be hit (taillights are often hit by road debris), or where moisture has crept in.

Friends won a house on the Gold Coast. They moved there but couldn't stand it.

There's a man who has never suffered the excrutiating pain of a paper cut.

The evidence looks damning, but what happene until innocent until proven guilty? Somehow the orangutan, who has about the same amount of evidence as Mountbatten seems to be immune.. from that and many other alleged crimes. Many others implicated as badly.. but nary a word about them. At least Mendleson has been arrested on suspiciopn of misconduct of public office. He will take Starmer with him.

One thing is certain. There are many many variables in this debate. For instance, how does anyone safely assert that sea levels are rising (or falling). The sea sure aint flat, nor the same 'level' all around. I suspect that modern satellite work is now busily averaging the numbers. But these are new algorithms, so cannot be used to compare ancient 'levels' with present ones. Following is from Wiki but is food for thought. "There are also "holes" in the ocean. Gravity lows. Geoid lows. The surface of the ocean tends to be perpendicular to gravity. But the composition of our planet is not homogeneous, so the gravity field deviates from any idealized form you might expect (oblate spheroid, globe, etc). The indian ocean geoid low causes sea level to be around 100 meters lower than it would be if it followed the WGS 84 geoid. NOTE: this does not mean that water is rushing in to fill the low. Gravity itself is distorted. The water is in its gravitationaly favorable location already. But by measuring gravity in that location, or by using high resolution surveying, the low can be detected." Also, coriolis affect makes oceans tend to pile up more on their west side - & the amount will depend on ocean current strength. And... every 1 millibar change in atmospheric air pressure causes a 1 cm change in sea level in the opposite direction. (Haven't fact checked that one) However, all the water from those melting glaciers & icecaps must be going somewhere.

Prince Punt? Runt? Nah you've lost me Peter! 😆

I accept that our forum debate boils down to discourse about the rate of ACC rather than the existence of it. Which still validates the wisdom of reducing our atmospheric pollutants. My opinion is that there is a big problem with the "Climate Change Debate" itself. Allowing the world media to argue obsessively over CO2, takes focus away from the multitude of other pollutions, which increasing slide under the radar. Industries (including mining, gas & oil) tend to use the most cost effective processes. They prioritise profit over human health. Individual people are not motivated either.

As long as she is not doing anything illegal, good on her still. Large companys always push the boundrys. Qantas selling seats on flights that don't exist, com bank, woolies, coles. Put some CEO's in jail will fix it.

Announcement: the dear leader had an election this morning. We hope this eladicates any confusion.

Australia 108 is Melbourne’s tallest building, standing at 316.7 meters (1,039 feet) in architectural height. Completed in September 2020, it is the tallest residential skyscraper in Australia to roof and the first supertall building in the Southern Hemisphere with at least 100 floors. Located at 70 Southbank Boulevard, Southbank, Victoria, it surpassed the Eureka Tower as Melbourne’s tallest structure and remains the city’s tallest building as of 2026 From the Australia 108 website,

Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor's arrest photo was briefly displayed at the Louvre Museum in Paris by activists from the anti-billionaire group Everyone Hates Elon on Sunday, February 22, 2026. The framed photograph, taken by Reuters photographer Phil Noble, shows Mountbatten-Windsor slumped in the back seat of a Range Rover after being released from Norfolk police custody following an 11-hour detention on suspicion of misconduct in public office. The image was hung on a wall at the museum alongside the caption “He’s Sweating Now”, a reference to a controversial 2019 interview where Mountbatten-Windsor claimed he couldn’t sweat due to a Falklands War injury, contradicting allegations by Virginia Giuffre. The display lasted only 15 minutes before Louvre staff removed it. The stunt was part of a protest against Mountbatten-Windsor’s alleged links to Jeffrey Epstein, including emails suggesting he shared confidential government information while serving as a British trade envoy. The group stated their goal was to show “how the world will remember him” and called for “Justice for all Epstein survivors.”