kgwilson

Yes Sky News Australia is verging on the Ultra Right Wing mouthpiece that was Fox News & Breitbart in the US during the Trump era, cherry picking their data from stories blowing it out of all proportion, getting the facts wrong & only ever making an apology if forced to.

When I did my national service in 1970 we had the SLR & M16. The SLR was an excellent rifle though long & heavy 7.62 calibre but accurate at long range & easy to maintain. The M16 was light but not very accurate & was a piece of crap in the field as any bit of dirt would stop it working & it was finnicky to maintain with too many small bits.

The AK47 is easily the most popular assault rifle in the world and can cope with a lot of abuse, is cheap to produce and easy to use but it is not very accurate at more than 300 metres. But then it is an assault rifle not a sniper rifle. These in the photo could be the later version AK74 (the number meaning the year of original design) which takes a 5.45 round compared to the 47 that takes a 7.62 round.

I am a recent import having been here for only 17 years, but from an external view Bob Hawke was seen as a leader and champion of the common man. Australian politics though have always been hampered by in fighting between States and too many levels of government stifling progress and encouraging corruption. Since the coalition has been in power Australia has slipped several places in the World democracy index, way behind our nearest neighbour but miles ahead to the so called leader of the free world. USA is not even considered a full democracy any more. The term given by the EIU is "Flawed Democracy". Morrison & Abbot tie for worst since I've been here.

Hence the saying "Clever as a Crow". There are plenty of humans who would not have worked that out. Absolutely incredible.

It has been said for at least a hundred years that "the first casualty of war is the truth". Every war has been filled with atrocities, cover ups, and propaganda from all sides. The Germans had been murdering Jews, intellectuals, homosexuals, gypsies and anyone considered non Aryan since the early 1930s yet not much got through the wall of misinformation and into the public eye of the rest of the western world. When some of it did get published during the war it was mostly ignored. The allies were genuinely shocked when the concentration camps were eventually liberated even though information had been filtering through to them for the entire war. After the main Nuremburg trials there were thousands of ex Nazis lined up for trial but the British and American governments didn't have the stomach to push it through and a huge number were just let go to integrate back into society in the late 40s and early 50s. The aftermath of this conflict will drag on for years and there will be numerous perpetrators who get away scot-free. It is not right and downright disgusting but that is just the way it is and will be.

Bushmaster being 4 wheeled vehicles may be great in Australia & Afghanistan but how will they perform in the mud of the Spring thaw? This has stuffed advances in Ukraine since the beginning of WW2 & even before that.

I've never bought any Russian wine so I am maintaining my boycott.

In our house I use less energy than my wife but overall I use the most as I drive far more km and my flying consumes a lot. I installed a 2kw solar system in 2013 which cost $4,500.00 then. I have kept monthly records ever since. It took 5 years to pay off with the savings. We have a heat pump hot water system that I have on a timer so it does not run between 5pm & 8am so my hot water electricity is mostly solar generated. We run most things like dishwasher, washing machine, vacuum cleaner etc during the day when solar power is being generated & have mostly LED lights. Airconditioning is run when ever required but I always start it early as it is more efficient to maintain the temperature that to try & reduce it when it gets hot. It is a 7kw inverter for the main living area but uses only around 800w to maintain a constant 24 degrees on a stinking hot day. The feed in tariff started at around 18c/kwh but is now down to 9.5c/kwh. My last quarterly power bill was just under $200.00.

My guess is that it part of the latest version of the software but hasn't been linked to the number of posts made by members. On the Rec Flying site it is a rocket with most posters ranked as a Member 3/3. New posters are ranked 1/3. Odd logic.

It is sad that such an experienced and expert pilot should die from a missile that he could not outrun and on only the second day of the war. It now seems that the invasion has come to standstill and stalemate is setting in. I believe that the Ukrainians have made significant ground especially in strategic suburbs surrounding Kyiv and Odessa has become a fortress. It is also reported that at least one of Putins inner circle has resigned in opposition to the war. One would hope the longer the war continues and Putin becomes more unhinged, common sense will prevail in Russia and a lasting peace settlement will be agreed and Putin will eventually be sidelined.

My 2012 Mitsubishi Lancer Platinum was 10 years old on the 22nd of February. I have just ticked over 198,630km. It gets serviced every 15,000km & I have had to replace 1 interior light bulb, I am on the second battery and 3rd set of tyres. It has CVT transmission which has been faultless & nothing has gone wrong with it yet. My plan is to replace it with an EV when the price gets reasonable. There are some fabulous Chinese EVs but they are not available in Australia yet. With Covid, the IC shortage & now the Russians stuffing things up I may have a bit of a wait. I'll just keep going & hope things will get better.

Except that in NSW there is no check until the vehicle is 5 years old & in QLD there is no check no matter how old it is. The only check is when ownership changes hands.

With more electric vehicles coming on stream you can guarantee the pollies are working on a scheme to take their cut. Electric vehicles are perfect for congested city driving. When they are stopped in a traffic jam they use no energy at all other than the infotainment system and air conditioning which uses very little. Many electric vehicles have a separate independent battery for this. A mileage tax would therefore be more equitable when applied to electric vehicle in the city or the country.

This bloke hasn't even done his research. Churchill said "You cannot negotiate with a TIGER when your head us in its mouth" not a lion. An old reds under the bed mentality. No-one had Nuclear weapons in 1939. Putins stability is such that the West cannot take the gamble he won't use them and start WW3 which would guarantee mutually assured destruction and at least a billion deaths according to experts. The long term effects would mean curtains for the planet.

Russians disposing of their leaders murderously is a national pass time and has been going on since the Tsars. They always find a way to make it seem as if it was an accident or some misfortune.

Personally I think those who are fundamentalist and have fixed beliefs because they are told from an early age that these are true and have therefore become brainwashed into a fixed idealism are sad misinformed religious nutters. Those who think about what they have learned and look at spirituality as distinct from religion and also consider scientific knowledge and proof, I have respect for even if they still have an inkling of a creator. And as the child would say "Who was God's mum & dad?

Petrol is not expensive in Australia compared to almost anywhere in Europe (in the UK it is currently £1.64 & they say it will hit £2.50 shortly) & closer to home NZ it just went over $3.00 a litre. Our excise tax is 44.2c/litre. In NZ it is 77c a litre and 88c a litre in Auckland. GST of 15% is added to the price in NZ but 10% here. NZ has just reduced excise tax by 25cents a litre for 3 months & halved the cost of public transport for the same period, something we should be doing here as well.

The ancients were the only lot who have been right in all history. They worshipped the sun as the giver of all life. So that's it, if you need something to believe in go out in the morning & thank the sun for the existence of everything on the planet. Mankind should have outgrown religion well before now given it is the most destructive of all his inventions. The problem is there are several billion nutters who keep the myth alive and well.

The Spring thaw is imminent. The Russians will need to gain control of roads, railways and strategic centres to have any chance of control once that occurs and they are far from that goal at this stage with Ukraine putting up ever more effective defence. Russia is firing off a few long range missiles to show they are advancing but I reckon it is more of a a ploy to gain more home support and try to dampen the resolve of the Ukrainians. All the time more arms are pouring in to Ukraine and their volunteers are becoming trained and battle hardened while Russian troops are just doing their job and in many cases not very well. NATO could blow Russia away easily but with a madman who will stop at nothing, doing that would ensure WW3, M.A.D, a nuclear winter & billions of deaths. So the war will draw out into a long bloody conflict that Putin will not be able to afford for too long so a mediated settlement is the only long term solution. Putin doesn't have many mates other than Assad & a few non descripts. I can't see Xi Jinping coming to his aid militarily. He needs the west to buy everything he makes but he may well become a mediator if Nato & Ukraine accept him for the role. He is probably the only option that Putin would be happy with.

Remember when the first cars graced the streets. They were so frightening you had to have a man walking in front carrying a red flag.

If there are 4000 gods then everyone who believes in only one of them is an athiest who denies all gods but their one but then they will say I am not an athiest because I believe in my god. I can't prove my god exists and I can't prove the other 3999 don't exist. There is no logic to a belief in a god other than it gives comfort to the believer because he/she cannot accept everything evolved and their human brain is unable to accept things they will never know or understand. This is why man invented gods which evolved into religious beliefs. This has nothing to do with the belief in the principles of many religions that are often quite noble. Something like the Christian 10 commandments comes to mind. The fact that all of them are broken continuously by so called believers has nothing to do with them being excellent guiding principles.

I think the only way to get to a cease fire is for the conflict to be dragged out for months, even years. It will take a long time for sanctions no matter how stringent to have an effect on the Russian people. At present Putin is too strong & while there is some opposition to him within Russian politics it is not enough. If enough pressure can be put on the Military heads for them to realise Putin is a modern day Czar as well as opposition to him becoming a groundswell of population he will be jailed or killed (by accident of course). Dragging it out will also give the West time for the logistics of arms and equipment support and training of Ukrainians to become stronger and bolster their unwavering willingness and determination to defend their country. Putins raising the Nuclear readiness to level 2 is a sign of his weakness not strength. There are 2 more levels to go before the big red button is pushed anyway. Part of the problem is the Russian population has been fed so much propaganda that the Ukraine is run by Nazis. There are even huge billboards in Donestk and Luhansk proclaiming this as well as Putin claiming it at every opportunity. Tonight on 4 corners a 20 year old Russian who was in the Donbas region for humanitarian work was convinced of this and that Ukraine had killed 14,000 people since 2014. She had absolutely no evidence of this & felt that the invasion was a liberation but was returning to Russia for her own safety. Putin has been spouting this BS for years even though they have most of the photographs and details of these people on public memorials in Kyiv. Later, on Q&A a Russian born Australian said he supported Putins invasion & stated 13,000 people in the region had been killed by Ukranians. This bloke eventually got kicked out of the audience for supporting & advocating violence. Propaganda has been a powerful weapon exploited by every country for centuries but now with Television & social media it seems to have taken a massive turn for the worse. Look at the US and the belief millions of people still have in Trumps claim the election was stolen. It degenerates all the way to Q-Anon & other nut job outfits. I think this will be the hardest thing to overcome because a heck of a lot of Russians want to believe it & they can't accept that the Ukraine is a sovereign state when it was part of the Soviet Union and essentially Russian from 1917 till 1989.

You would think that in those 2 days Ukraine could have organised getting artillary or at least snuck up enough firepower to knock out a lot at he front of the line so it does seem that the Ukranians are stretched to the limit. The have or had 200,000 troops and thousands have been signing up since this started. As well able bodied males between 18 & 60 are not allowed to leave. The longer this is drawn out the better it gets for Ukraine & worse for Putin. It has been reported that Russian conscripts have been captured or given up and the told their captors they had no idea that they were be part of an invasion. This may or may not be true but things are definitely not going to plan for Putin at the moment

If it ends up as a nuclear stoush we are all f@#$d. The UK & US have plenty of nuclear subs with dozens of nuclear missiles, each with several warheads. They could be sneaking through the Baltic as we speak. With Putins threat to use Nukes even if there is a conventional attack by the West the only way out is to let him have Ukraine. Ukraine has around 200,000 regular troops but a far inferior arsenal of troops, equipment and firepower than Russia. Still they can give Putin a bloody nose and images and reports of dead Russian soldiers will bolster opposition to him. Personally I don't think he cares, like other megalomaniac Russian leaders before him especially Stalin. He wants Russia to be restored as a Superpower and the cost doesn't matter.