kgwilson

Yep it's TACO Tuesday. Just another one to add to the list. 4 Corners was interesting last night. It just confirmed that the billionaires club is running the US & to hell with the people so long as they continue to profit in ever increasing amounts.

He's just an uncouth C**t.

Electric car owners are mostly smirking right now, me included. With enough solar on the roof and in the battery there is enough to run the house & car as well as export to the grid. Even Trump can't stop the sun shining unless there was a MAD conflict with most of the Northern hemisphere stuffed and a Nuclear Winter created. Out of all those with a big red button there are only 2 that are irrational enough to even contemplate this. No prizes for guessing which two.

When you buy a new car, service and warranty should be at the top of your list of reasons for the purchase. Not much point of having a flash car in the garage if it won't go. There are so many new Chinese brands, the choice is mind boggling. When I bought my MG4 I knew there was a nation wide MG dealership network plus the warranty was very good (7 years unlimited km on everything including the traction battery except tyres & the 12 volt battery). At the time BYD had no dealer network, a poor warranty and very expensive servicing & that was just a checkup as there was virtually nothing to do. I don't know about the mulittude of other Chinese brands of EVs, Hybrids & ICE vehicles now sold here. I am sure they will get set up or are starting to but you would not want to be too far away from the main centres if you had a break down. China has taken over from Japan as the main supplier of new cars to Australia.

A comment from the Middle east conflict thread was that EVs are still too expensive. There are plenty of high end expensive EVs but at the lower end they have reached price parity with ICE vehicles and there are now some new Chinese town runabout EVs with low range (2-300 km) that are cheaper that entry level ICE cars. What's more as they don't have all the ICE powerplant, transmission, etc issues they have more room in them for people & luggage. No fuel costs if you charge off your rooftop solar, clean & quiet. Great if you live in the big city. The BYD Atto 1 is 24k with 310 km range. The Dongfeng Box will likely be cheaper as it is about $NZ26k there & has better range.

They still have them. Stay & work here for next to nothing or get deported.

It is only the Maga faithful nutters who believe the Bullshit Trump and Hegseth continue to spew out. The majority of US voters are unhappy with this war and the escalation with Iran continuing to inflict more damage each time they come out with comments like totally destroyed, and obliterated etc. The US is running short of its top end missiles at $50 million a pop & is getting help from Ukraine to provide attack drones. Iran has thousands & will be manufacturing more at full speed. The only good thing is they won't be sending many if any to Russia for use against Ukraine. There is now no doubt that the US under Trump is a dictatorship & when congress & the senate try to reign things in he will declare some sort of wartime emergency to assume absolute power which he almost has now.

I can't think of a single place the US has gone in to to protect their interests where they have been successful. Korea, Panama, Nicaragua, Chile, Vietnam, Iraq, Somalia, Afghanistan to name a few. The CIA has been involved in overthrows of democratically elected (mostly socialist) governments causing major problems resulting in chaos & confusion with thousands killed when before the US got involved everything was working except those countries shunned the US. Trump managed to pull off the capture of the Venezuelan leader ostensible to get control of their oil under the guise of stopping the drug trade, but the country is still run by the original regime and their military is intact. We have been pulled in to all the American wars due to treaty obligations. If it isn't in Trumps interest would the US come to our aid in a local conflict? Given his rhetoric, threats to pull out of treaties and threats to others I think the answer is a definitive No.

According to the report it crashed in Western Iraq Iraq shares its Eastern border with Iran The Yanks will know its exact location from the flight log and GPS apart from other sophsiticated equipment on board. Iran would have to send its troops in to Iraq & there is no love lost between the 2 countries. They fought an 8 year long war starting in 1980 along their different religious beliefs. Most Iraqis are Sunni Moslems & Iran is Shia.

The price you pay is determined by supply & demand, nothing to do with the government. The Australian public has far too many panic merchants. I saw line ups the other day with people filling Jerry cans flat out. So the demand goes up & so does the price all based on fear and greed. Not only that fuel companies base their price largely on the cost of replacement in todays dollars not what they pay when the fuel you are using was paid for. It takes from 2 weeks to over a month from leaving the crude export point to being refined into useable fuel and then transported to petrol stations. Australia being a long way from most of the supply points is at the end of the time frame, so at least a month.

Alan Kholer provides a good summary of the influence of religion in politics in this article below. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-03-09/oil-markets-qatar-gulf-iran-religion-litics-straight-of-hormuz/106380388

Christian Fundamentalist religions are a bit more subtle & use more psychological methods but still use fear as a weapon. They helped put Trump in the White House. They have learned from their violent past and with modern technology exposing everything it makes it harder to enforce their will so sects have appeared, with draconian rules and women being subservient often just being used as baby factories. There are plenty of these in the US and here as well. One in NZ, Gloriavale was recently exposed & the leader jailed. The iranian regime is just a bigger more violent and controlling group dictatorship. Their psychological power is so great that even when their homes and livelihoods have been destroyed and family members killed they still praise their God.

That seems a pretty dumb place to store our crude given the geographical distance. We probably have no means to refines it here anyway but the yanks always do whatever they like irrespective of agreements and/or water tight contracts.

I travelled through Iran to Afghanistan in 1975 before the Shah was deposed. I found most locals polite but border officials etc were not. I even hitch hiked from the Turkish border to a small town & then took a bus to Tehran. The main roads were good having been built by the US but the rest was quite poor then. I was only there for a week & saw some amazing architecture & ancient sites. If the place wasn't run by Islamist fanatics it would be great. The Shah was very wealthy but most people were poor. One of the reasons for the original takeover. Back to the sinking of the Iranian warship. US military sources stated it was the first sinking of a an enemy ship by a submarine launched torpedo since WW2. Well No. There have been 4 since and of course that included the British nuclear submarine HMS Conqueror sinking the Argentine cruiser General Belgrano in 1982 during the Falklands war. The Yanks don't get much right especially history that they continually re-write to suit their narrative. As for fuel prices it doesn't bother me as they have yet to figure out how to tax the sun.

The new cars are smaller, lighter & are hybrids with a 50/50 split between internal combustion & electric power & use 100% sustainable fuels. The drivers have to manage the power split now. I've watched the Formula E cars a couple of times & they have incredible acceleration but races are shorter due to battery constraints but now the Gen 3 versions are 4WD & allow for fast charging pit stops of 600kW