kgwilson

Before Trump & Musk began their destructive mismanagement a few short weeks ago I was reading an article about the worst cars of 2024 from a prominent Auto mag. The first statement on the worst cars was "everything from the USA that isn't a Tesla". Now it is everything from the USA including Teslas if current sales have any thing to do with it. They do seem to have an unhealthy relationship with enormous gas guzzling Pickup trucks producing more emissions than any other brands. Interestingly though RAMs are built in the US but the company is owned by Stellantis with its HQ in the Netherlands. Trumps plan to ban Chinese cars and tariff imports from everywhere & the RAM price is indicative of his ignorance of where all the components for the US auto industry come from.

Was he there with Paul and Mary as well?

That was only due to his hate of Hitler and the almost infinite supply of canon fodder to take a lot of heat from the western front. he was one of the big 3 but was never trusted by anyone. In the 1930s Stalins communist collective farming methods failed and so did the crops so he took most of the grain from Ukraine and starved the Ukranians. Over 5 million perished. Then he settled Russians in the eastern parts of Ukraine after decimating the population so he could claim it as part of Russia as it had always been (not). That is one of the main reasons there are a lot of Russian speaking people in the Donbas and the eastern Oblasts. My wifes mother was born in Donetsk & spoke Russian but hated the Russians. Her grandparents were White Russians & were murdered by the Trotskyists during the 2017 revolution. Putin doesn't care about his own people. Russia has lost anywhere between 100,000 & 800,000 killed or injured. No-one really knows because Putin will never allow the real numbers to become known for fear of a massive backlash which could see him fall out of a window.

I haven't been near the U toob lately but last night was surprised at the huge number of US based news, public information organisations, celebrities etc tearing in to trump like there is no tomorrow, correcting the lies and disinformation from his mob.. Some of them fear there may not be a tomorrow if the current debacle continues. After Vance got into Zelenskyy he went on vacation in Vermont only to be met with heaps of protesters waving Ukraine flags and protest banners. He'd have been mobbed in to submission if it wasn't for the secret service. It is good to see that there is a large number of good Americans who know the truth & I am pretty sure there are a lot who voted for him and now wish they hadn't. Apart from tariffs, his bullying and declarations of acquisition of countries & territories, changing place names and supposedly stopping illegal immigration nothing material has happened. Stopping the war in 1 day went to 100 days and then as soon as possible & then to a diversionary attack on Zelenskyy which has only hardened the resolve of the rest of the West to continue support. Europe has already started ramping up its defence industries & while the US has the biggest, the UKs BAE systems is the 6th or 7th largest worldwide. Add Airbus & Thales and others in Europe & the dependence on US suppliers will be heading South. The trouble is all the bluff and bluster, insults and the like as he said "makes great television" all it does is increase opposition to him and damages the reputation of the US from its already low point to an even lower point.

A month in to this despots 4 year term and the entire world now knows what they already knew but seemed a bit afraid to admit. Trump is a clown, a complete f#$kwit, a malignant narcissist, 100% untrustworthy, a pathalogical liar, an ignoramus & got voted in by 33% of the eligible voters in the US. It will take some time but the US will become isolated if its once allies move away to form their own security pacts and alliances. Nato will morph into a European alliance and US bases in Europe and probably many countries around the globe will begin to disappear. Trumps policies will increase inflation for the US populous and only the Billionaires will benefit. Bullying tactics and threats only work for a while and statements like acquiring Greenland, Canada & Panama & turning the Gaza strip into Trump land will be forgotten. It will take some time but some of the cracks already evident will widen and fester and eventually there will not be enough new theatrical insulting performances to stop the rot and even though Trumps rusted on support base will keep the faith, mostly due to them being fed a diet of only Trump positive information through the right wing US media, it will not be enough. Bear in mind that he got in with a very small margin much less than Bidens over him after the first term and the mid terms only 2 years away may see a shift in the senate and congress.

It took Britain till the 1980s to pay for all the lend lease stuff they got in WW2. Russia also got massive lend lease aid but paid none of it back. Of course this would be lost on Trump. He knows nothing of history and doesn't read books. It's all about him and he has to win even when he has lost he refuses to acknowledge that as in the previous election.

Killing me Softly, one of her best.

Facts don't matter to Trump, they never have. It is all about him and his ego. So long as he is in the headlines, that is all that matters. He has only been there for a month so far, though it feels a lot longer. He seems to think the world revolves around him, however in a couple of years I reckon the chickens will come home to roost. The problem is it will take a lot longer to repair the damage. If every country trading with the US pulled back and left them on their own their economy would wither & die. That won't happen of course but Trumps current strategy is encouraging the rest of the world to think about alternatives.

And he is now blaming Ukraine for Putins invasion. There are no limits to this megalomaniacs depravity.

The water temperature about 15 NM off the coast here at Corindi beach is currently 27 degrees. Normally it would be 24 to 25 degrees at this time of the year so 2 to 3 deg hotter than normal. Local fishers are complaining about no fish anywhere so I reckon they have all gone somewhere cooler. No cyclones yet but they will start forming within the next month or so & may track South & with the warm water could get pretty intense. We'll see.

CATL are now providing between 1 & 2 million km warranties on their EV batteries. The chemistry and longevity is improving all the time and solid state batteries will be available for some Chinese EVs before the end of this year. The MG4 I bought now has a 10 year 250,000 km warranty on both car & battery. In China the MG4 called the Mulan has a lifetime warranty on the battery transferable to new owners. Honda & Toyota have been promising solid state batteries for over 5 years but have not been able to crack the technology while CATL the worlds largest battery manufacturer said nothing & quietly achieved it. There is still a lot of misinformation and disinformation about EV batteries supported by fossil fuel companies & the right wing press though they are slowly losing any credibility they had. While Teslas are great cars I'm glad I didn't buy one purely because of madman Musk who now looks to be a malignant narcissist like his orange mate.

That is 4.826 metres so the record probably still stands. Cardwell only gets rain during the monsoon wet season & very little for the rest of the year.

Albo has had a yarn to Trump & Trump has called him a "very fine man" & is considering tariff exemptions due to the US trade surplus with Australia. Dutton of course won't give Albo any credit. Politics Aarrgghh!

I've said it before, Trump is a Malignant Narcissist, diagnosed by multiple Clinical Psychologists. He is incapable of feeling empathy and will do anything to be front and centre of everything. He couldn't care less about anything else.

Musk was a visionary, a bit like Steve Jobs of Apple. Apple now are the 3rd largest mobile phone maker after Samsung & Xaiomi now that Jobs is dead. He was reputedly an arsehole but developed a following of iphone fans that were almost like disciples. Apple will end up like Nokia, once by far the biggest mobile phone company. iphones have become boring with few new or innovative features and are far too expensive. An iphone 16 looks almost the same as an iphone 11 Now Musk is orchestrating the demise of the company he created with his antics and ultra right wing concepts. He is the richest person on the planet & was given a $US65 Billion salary in 2024 from Tesla. The US justice dept would not approve it even though it was approved by Teslas shareholders & would be one of the reasons he jumped in to bed with Trump The EV industry is far bigger than just Tesla and while in some markets the increases slowed in 2024, world wide the increase in sales was pretty much as expected, championed of course by the Chinese who now produce by far the most EVs and are way ahead in innovation and battery technology as well as almost every part of the support infrastructure from high speed charging, 5 minute battery swap stations etc. Many of the legacy auto makers will not survive even in the medium term. There were 17. 1 million new EVs sold globally in 2024 up from 13.6 million in 2023 & 10.4 million in 2022. About 114,000 EVs were sold in Australia in 2024, still a small percentage of cars sold but a record high.