Yenn

We are still waiting for rain, we have had little bits, just enough to get the grass green and so far less than 60mm for the mont and less than 200 for the year to date. my dam is dry or as near as matters, but we have had about 15mm today. Just praying for some of that deluge. Roads and railways have been built across flood plains, which are seldom wet, but when they do run the water goes over the road and increases speed as it falls on the downstream side. Result is massive erosion on the downstream side and I have seen railway lines suspended in space where the ballast and embankment have all gone downstream. Having big rocks around makes it worse as the water speeds up as it is deflected around the rocks, resulting in big gullies. It seems that most of the older people who understood water have retired or been pushed aside and I don't think the younger generation know what really happens. I am sure that the TV and radio weather experts have no idea. They keep coming up with North Qld having massive rainfall which will cause floods and they are talking of 30 to 100mm, which up here is just about enough to settle the dust.

So is carpet. Come to think of it some of the junk food has less food value than carpet. I tried a hamburger in 1991 and decided it wasn't really food. Only tried it because it was advertised as the best hamburger in Qld. Ditto for pizza, it is hard to get a good one.

OME you are scraping the bottom of a very old barrel now. For the information of most of us, who haven't been visiting this forum for multiple years, this was a long debated topic, way back when Pontius was a student pilot.

Octave. Your comment about Parliament house problem would have gone away if it had been handled better misses the point. In the past those problems were handled so as to make them go away, but now women are getting fed up with the treatment. They must realise that all the time they were getting talked out of going to the police, they were making it worse for themselves and their fellow women. We are now told that women are waiting for the government to do something about the problem. With the government we have that is not going to work. Women should be telling the government what has to happen and it is not enough for them to say the behaviour must stop, they must come up with a means to make it stop. Possibly it should be enacted that any alledged case of rape or sexual misconduct will be reported to the police by whoever brings the subject up. No doubt women would not want that.

If one in six women has been sexually assaulted, how come I have never met a woman who says she has been assaulted? Do i live a life away from women? Do women not talk to me, but tell everyone else about their problems? Even my wife can't really say that she knows any woman who has been assaulted, she did once hear gossip about a friend, but no hard facts from the woman herself. That is the problem, women are attacked, but they will not come forward and point the finger. They only expect us to know what happens and fix it, without giving us the information needed.

I stuffed that up, I used reverse arms when I meant to say present arms. I think the reason the Brits hung onto the 303 so long was because they could not envisage an army without the rifle drill.

I was doing touch and goes at Grovedale in Vic, in a C150 and suddenly the plane did not want to climb, I had to keep pushing the nose down to get speed up and was wondering what was happening. I seemed to be very low, practically down among the chimney pots. No idea what was wrong and I was looking around, when suddenly I saw a big barn door following me. I had forgotten to lift the flaps. That was OK, but next morning just before we started work one of my workmates said that the police were looking for some bloke who had been low flying over Grovedale. That was what scared me until I realised he was conning me. Many years later a brand new C172 was brought to our local strip as a demo and I flew it. By this time I had some time in C172s so I was quite at home. I did my usual on base leg, pressed the flap lever down for the first ten degrees of flap and then had to keep pushing the nose down to maintain speed. Cesna had changed the switch. No longer was it push for each stage of flap, but push down until you had what you want and then push back up. That was nearly as embarrassing, but no matter, the plane I flew had manual flaps, so much better.

Jerry. You ask when was the last time that a governor failed to sign in being a law. I don't know, but I do know that the Qld Governor, who went on to be a Governor General signed int law a bill which amalgamated local councils. That was after the Qld Premier Anna Bligh had stated that there would have to be a referendum and then passed an act to ensure that a referendum was not necessary. That Governor did not even have the decency to reply to my letter asking about that obvious treacherous act.

Octave, your post came up while I was writing my last offering. Scomo will not do anything that could cast him in a bad light. He is expert at always turning around any question to cast the opposition in a bad light. He has only one aim in life and that is to be PM for as long as possible and to cosy up to anyone who will agree with him. I cannot see any desire from him to make life better or safer for women, only a quick, cheap retort to denigrate anyone who gets up his nose.

I believe ALP staffers. If there was not any bad behaviour among the pollies and there staff I would be very surprised. I believe Brittany Higgins, but I don't really know what I am believing. I have no idea who is supposed to have raped her. I don't think that has been divulged to the general public, which means I don't know who to tell my granddaughter to avoid. There have been massive rallies around the country by women wanting change and an end to sexual molestation. All well and good, but what is the change to be. How can rapists be brought to trial, if the women don't speak up. I agree that it is bad for women, but I fail to see how I or anyone else can do anything about the situation without men being named. There was one woman on TV last night at a rally and she said the situation was bad, but added that she didn't know why it carried on. She hit the nail on the head, we need those women to step forward to stop other women being molested. If Christian Porter thinks that a defamation case against the ABC will solve his problems, I wonder what a case against the person who brought the whole thing into the public eye would do. I reckon he is not game to find out for fear of more coming into court than he can hide.

One of the reasons that there is doubt about the safety of the jab is probably political. Our esteemed PM wanted to get the jab early, so he came up with the idea that he would have it to show how much he trusted it, and be an example to the rest of us. We are already experiencing what lack of immunity will do for us. We are short of fruit pickers and that could be eased if there was immunity, which allowed workers to come into the country. No workers available so the idea is to import pineapples from Taiwan and let the Aussie grown pineapples rot on the ground. We may not need the vaccine to protect us, but we need it to be able to recommence travel.

Reverse arms had the barrel on your toecap. Present arms was correctly called "For inspection reverse arms" and you held the rifle diagonally across your body, with the bolt back and your thumb nail in the breech, reflecting light up the barrel. That was of course in the days of the Lee Enfield 303.

I se that Christian Porter has started a defamation case against the ABC. He was not game to launch a defamation case against the people who brought up the case against him. I wonder why? Wouldn't he want to clear his name and also stop anyone defaming him, or maybe he could not see a way clear to make the allegations go away if he brought them into court. Something smells and it is not roses.

Australia has gone all American with the twirling rifles. It looks a bit odd to see a rifle put down on the ground muzzle down. Not something you would want to do with a real firearm.

The thing that really scares me is that if we became a Republic with a president, that President would be someone like John Howard. I can't think of any past PM who would be trustworthy as a President. Keating the least repulsive and Morrison, well least said soonest mended, but he would never be able to speak for Australians. Rudd, just possible.

W.A must be doing OK. The RSL in my nearest city which is Gladstone, collapsed many years ago. The RSL hall was sold off and now they meet in the bowls club.

Going on past results I cannot see our government coming up with a Presidents constitutional powers that make sense. Our governments seem to make laws that are impossible to understand or to use. They are incompetent, but it doesn't matter, because they keep changing the laws. That is not good enough for powers of a President. The statement that if we became a republic we would appear to be making our own decisions is false, at the moment most of our decisions seem to be at the behest of the USA. That is apparent to blind Freddy. It wold be good to get rid of the Union Flag from our flag, but that doesn't require us to become a republic. We have already changed the Aussie flag. I think it all boils down to the old question. If it aint broke, why fix it?

I agree with Willi, but the Liberal federal leader is not only very ordinary, he has been actively denigrating the State Premiers about their handling of Covid and the electors could see that their outcome would have been far worse if Scumbag had his way. He is yet to learn that it is better to be thought a fool,, than to open his mouth and dispel all doubt. The Libs in Qld lost their election by making stupid statements about opening up the state when Covid was bad and it seems WA has gone the same way. It seems that the Libs have lost the trust of the voters. I wonder why?

Pie tomorrow. Yipee.

There seems to be growing interest in Australia becoming a republic again. The interest I mean again. There is controversy with the royal family, due to the smear campaign started in Opras interview. Smear seems to be the way we are going, just following the lead of the USA. Speaking of which the USA is a wonderful example of a republic, complete with President and all the political brouha ha. I think most of us would like to see an Australian as head of state rather than have a Pommie Queen, but there is a big question. What sort of a republic would we be? In the past we had a referendum, in which Turnbull plaid a big part as the prime mover. That referendum decided we would stay with the present system. Mainly I think because Turnbull wanted the politicians to decide who would be president. I could be wrong here but that is as I see it. At present we have a Governor General doing what a President would do, and for many years the G.G. has been an Australian and some of them have done a really good job. There has been no visible interference from the Royal Family in the past. Even the dismissal of Whitlam, was not at the Queens behest, but done by an Australian appointed G.G. The politicians have always been the ones to decide upon who our G.G will be and so far I have seen a couple who are definitely not acceptable in the way they have behaved and another at least who was not up to the job. So how would we appoint a President? Do we even need a President? Surely the leaders of politics are responsible for all that happens with the country. If we followed the USA example it seems that we would be getting a stand in for God as a President, surely we don't want that, having seen 4 years of presidential idiocy. Personally I don't trust our politicians to choose someone to be our head of state, no matter what his responsibilities are. We need to define what a President would do and his or her responsibilities. Looking at the USA example we need a non political person, not the member of a political party. We would also have to re write the constitution. That would open a massive can of worms as we would have to include all sorts of things that our present constitution does not mention. We may even have to ensure that the government abides by the constitution, rather than expecting to be able to lay all responsibility at the States feet. Does anyone have any good ideas on the subject? How would it work? Does religion have any say in this matter? Could a religious top dog be acceptable as President? My opinion is that the military seem to have given us the best Governors General, but look at Myanmar.

Obviously Italy and all the rest of Europe need the vaccine more than we do. But there was money put into its developement by Australia and the associated delivery of vaccines to Australia. If we accept that Italy needs it more and allow them to break a contract, it will allow them to open their borders to tourism that would have come to Australia. We should not allow ourselves to be betrayed in a contract just because a country that stuffed up its response to a threat,wants to benefit at our expanse.

I found this on the internet, thought it an intelligent list of questions. Not that Scumbag would ever even think to ask them. https://thenewdaily.com.au/news/2021/03/05/madonna-king-10-questions-for-jenny/ I note that he believes his disgraced minister and he has said that women should be believed, but there is no sign that he acts upon his own advice.

Well it was not the man I expected, but also not a man I would respect. Now it is up to Christian porter. Is he going to sit back and do nothing about these accusations, in which case there will always be doubt. He needs to clear his name and he has been libelled supposedly. What will he do? Nothing or bring a civil case against his accusers. My guess is he will do nothing, so obviously does not care about his real standing in the public eye.

The minister involved is supposedly going to give a press conference today..Going on what I see on TV news and how announcements have been made in the last few days I reckon that Josh Friedenburg will be talking to the press today. That is just a guess on my and my wife's part. I would have thought it better for those making the allegations to have named the minister, but of course they do not have enough evidence to secure a conviction. They are afraid of a libel case against them. So far all we really have is a few people making hearsay allegations against a person unnamed, or to put it bluntly. A smear campign.

We have a problem with women complaining of rape years after the attack. We have a problem with women not ever reporting rape. Supposedly it is because they are badly treated if the come forward and complain, that means it is OK to keep quiet so the woman does not feel degraded. no matter that other women could be saved if she came forward. Now SB Morrison says alledged rape claims will be forwarded to the Federal Police. What will that do? Will it result in those rape allegations being investigated? Maybe it will result in even less allegations being made, because the woman knows that to even breathe the word is going to have the police knocking on her door. Good for Scumbag, problem solved, his mates carry on as before. In the meantime we have women being sexually molested but keeping quiet about it, but still expecting us to do something about it. There is nothing I can do if I am not made aware of the problem and Scumbag is making sure I don't know the problem.