kgwilson

No-one was being charged anything to transit the Strait of Hormuz before Trump with no strategy and his bum boy Netanyahu attacked Iran to get rid of the Ayatollah & blow everything up & supposedly ensure a regime change. They have failed on all counts other than killing Khamenei. Iran now seems more united than ever and they have a huge arsenal of weapons, a huge army and over 90 million people. Whatever plan that Trump/Netanyahu had hasn't pleased the US military as Hegseth has just fired the top Army General to join the more than a dozen others he's got rid of. Iran may have a terrorist supporting regime but the best way to get it to knuckle down & fight back is exactly what has happened. If Trump sends his 50,000 troops in even with their superior weaponry etc they face over 600,000 revolutionary guards with another 300,000 reserves all armed to the teeth with heaps of missiles & drones and about 2000 tanks.

Hegseth has fired the top uniformed Army General Randy George. He has now fired more than a dozen of the top brass Generals & Admirals since taking office. He would have told Hegseth the truth about their failure to deal with Iran that has so far cost over $US39 billion so he was fired by the Alcoholic part time fox news host and Evangelist Christian nutcase.

I was in Israel for a short time in 1973. The Israelis were very hospitable and were under constant threat then. The 6 day war in 67 was the last one then but the world was in the middle of the aircraft hijacking phase at the time. I fully supported Israels position and role then, after the holocaust & persecution they'd been through, to building a state and home for their people. Times, actions and attitudes have changed. Netanyahu is a War Criminal & needs to be prosecuted and jailed. He already would be if the Hamas terrorist attack had never happened. 75,000 Palestinians have been killed and Gaza destroyed. Palestinians are being evicted from the West bank and illegal Jewish settlements set up there. Israel has killed numerous aid workers & press personnel in Gaza with excuses or denials every time that they were targeting Hamas. They has excellent intelligence & the most sophisticated of weaponry but somehow can't get their targets and through the whole conflict still couldn't find Hamas or their hostages. They broke the ceasefire numerous times always with excuses and have now claimed part of Gaza for themselves. Now they are taking part of Lebanon. Without Trumps support this would not have happened who also wants Netanyahu pardoned. Trump has turned the US into a dictatorship with him as president assuming absolute power, achieved by appointing unqualified sycophants to top roles and ignoring all rules of order and decency. He is ignorant, poorly educated & supported by 60 million fundamentalist evangellical christians now called MAGA. He even thinks he was appointed by some GOD he professes to believe in. I have not read any of JAs long rants and don't intend to.

So for $495.00 you get a hole to put stuff in. If you don't pay is the hole filled i n?

Fuel excise is about 50 cents a litre. GST is calculated on the retail price including the excise so an additional 10%. EVs currently pay nothing but hybrids pay whenever they fill up with petrol or diesel. Studies have shown that hybrids don't get anywhere near the economy quoted by the manufacturer. This is partly due to the fact that many hybrid owners don't recharge them regularly. They are already taxing EVs in NZ and it is on the basis of providing an odometer reading at certain intervals. This also occurs with diesel cars but commercial diesel vehicles are fitted with hub meters. Diesel doesn't have excise tax in NZ so it is cheaper at the pump than petrol. Victoria had a short lived tax on EV distance travelled but it was pulled after the court ruled it illegal as only the federal gov't can levy such taxes.

The fuel tax collected by the federal government on the sale of petrol & diesel etc does not go in to roading at all. It goes in to the governments consolidated revenue fund. Some of it is allocated to land transport infrastructure & some goes to other services like health and education. It depends on the government of the day what they do with it. Pretty much all State registration charges go in to transport infrastructure though & EVs pay their fair share of that.

The US has been morally bankrupt for at least 80 years probably more. The debt now stands at $US39 trillion & in 2024 it was 124.3% of GDP. In comparison Australias debt is $AUD 881.9 billion & 32% of GDP. If any company had a debt ratio like the US it would have been bankrupted years ago & investors would have got virtually nothing in the dollar back. Most of the US debt is held internally by the Federal reserve system plus bonds, banks, pension funds & individuals. China, Japan & the UK are the biggest foreign investors. If i were them I'd be seriously looking at cashing up & getting out now.

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

Most of the beef we export to the USA is lean beef mixed with fattier US beef for hamburgers, you know Trumps favoutite big Mac. The US cattle herd has been in decline for decades reaching a low of 86.2 million down from over 90 million a decade ago. It has been in decline for over 75 years.

The WLTP range for the MG Excite 51 is 350km not 405km. The WLTP range for my MG Essence 64 is 435km with the lower spec Excite 64 it is 450km. None of the models has a quoted 405km range. This is the old out dated NEDC range which was very inaccurate & was created in laboratory tests in the 1980s based on urban driving. It was last updated in 1997. A friend of mine has an Excite 51 & gets over 300km. In mine the range is about 380 to 400km based on 110km highway driving & some 50 - 80 km driving. Driving around in an urban environment at 50 - 60 kmh gives me much higher range. The range estimator (also known as the guess-O-meter) has given me 505km from a full charge & that would have been close if I hadn't gone over 50kmh. It has a level of intelligence that works out the range based on your driving style & it is surprisingly accurate. It is 182km from my house to Gold Coast Airport & a few weeks ago I left with 100% charge & arrived with 52%. Most of this was at 110kmh on the Pacific Highway. I could have got home without getting a charge but just like with my old petrol car I would never let the fuel get that low. I spent 15 minutes at the BP in Ballina for a comfort stop & coffee & added some charge. Cost me $9.04 but there was plenty left when I got home. Other than long trips it costs nothing to run my EV as I charge from solar, supplemented by my home battery and 3 hours of free power every day. I'll never have to worry about the price of petrol going up because of wars or other reasons for shortage. In any vehicle, electric or internal combustion it all depends on how you drive, the terrain, weather, the total weight of the vehicle and use of accessories like air conditioning etc.

I wouldn't own a hybrid for reasons of complexity with 2 power plants, a small battery and a complex drive train, maintenance and a reliance on fossil fuels. Studies have shown most hybrid owners do not get anywhere near the claimed economy. There are a number of reasons but with plug in hybrids many owners do not plug them in so their fuel consumption from the relatively small ICE engine can be very high. For most of my EV driving the energy is free as I charge at home off my rooftop solar panels supported by my home battery plus getting free power for 3 hours a day. On a recent trip to NZ I left the car at Gold Coast airport after leaving home with 100% battery. I still had just over 50% when I got to the airport. Most of the trip was at 110kMh. I stopped at Ballina BP on the way home & put it on the fast charger for 15 minutes while I went for a comfort break & coffee. It was pouring with rain at the time & I wanted a buffer to make sure I'd get home. Cost me $9.04 for a bit over 15 kWh of charge so had plenty left when I got home.