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Power outages typically happen due to natural events like fires, falling tree branches, storms and lightning strikes, or accidents like a car running into a power pole. Some may be due to equipment failures that may or may not be due to inadequate maintenance/replacement. Nearly all are random events that the power company can't predict and is not responsible for. Their obligation in an outage is to restore power as quickly as possible. Also to notify residents of planned outages. If the outage goes on for long enough, here in the West at least you can put in a claim for compensation for spoiled food etc. We were without power for a week once after a severe storm and got compensation. I'm not sure what you could say in another letter that would change the fact that outages happen, or what you would expect the power company to do about them. Did they literally tell you to mind your own business? What did you write in your previous letter to get that kind of response?

Trump won't be at all happy when he notices that Musk's increasing unpopularity starts rubbing off on his own approval ratings. He already won't be happy about Musk appearing on the cover of Time sitting behind his desk. The cozy relationship may start to develop a few cracks.

It's pretty clear after just these first few weeks that the post-war world order largely established by the US has now been rescinded by the US, and is well and truly dead. Trump's view is that domination and intimidation are far more effective ways to make America great again than traditional diplomacy, free trade and shared values with other nations. The US no longer has allies or enemies, only competitors that Trump is determined to beat. Only quid pro quo deals matter now, corruption is legal, and he sees himself like Putin, only a bigger and better version. Ukraine is now Europe's problem except that Zelensky owes the US for all the munitions it was given for free by Biden. America is now being run for the benefit of the the occupant of the White House and his pliant GOP entourage. Court orders and the rule of law are largely irrelevant, former insurrectionists are now patriotic heroes, and the national accounts are being managed by the swindlers and thieves. It's a pretty sorry state of affairs. I wonder what the world will look like in 12 months from now.

So corruption is now an approved business practice for US companies doing business in foreign countries. That also conveniently removes any ethical constraint on Trump from accepting foreign bribes for favours as part of his official duties, not that he could be prosecuted anyway because he's immune. What else would you expect from a crook.

Their website says they are happy to respond to complaints so why not try it? Besides, aren’t you just looking for an explanation? That’s different to making a complaint.

Chat GPT5 should be interesting.

So you’re saying you’re now redundant?

They are just gathering statistics, but why don’t you ask them? They have an on-line enquiry form. Let us know how you go.

I’ve just had a look at their website. Maybe you can show me where all this favouritism is happening because I can’t find it.

Fair enough, but what do you mean by ‘giving preference’? They count the votes for all the individual candidates in the election so where does the preference come in?

The AEC does not give preferences. The voters do. It’s pretty simple.

The AEC is not pre-empting anything. it is simply recording the election results, not corrupting them. You are boxing at shadows and seeing things that are not there. I assume when you say `we are too dumb and gullible to be aware of it', you are not including yourself among the deluded masses?

I don't think it's special treatment. They're just recognising the reality that with two major parties taking most of the votes, a minority party or an independent is not going to have the numbers to form government. It's also just a prediction tool, not some kind of award to the major parties.

Or not flush and preserve the documents.

It also only works if the computer is plugged in.

It may not take that long. The mid-terms might see the Democrats back in charge of the House of Representatives and the Senate which would help, although by then most of the damage will have been done and Trump will probably still be the ruling monarch with Musk as his lead inquisitor.

Exactly right, but Trump is incapable of understanding that. On top of that, the cost of providing that support via USAID is small change in terms of the US budget, so it's good value. No doubt there are parts of the USAID budget that could and should be reviewed and ditched, but feeding the whole organisation `into the woodchipper' as Musk is intent of doing is not in America's interest. The Chinese will be happy to pick up the slack and sideline the US.

And at the same time raking in millions from his conflict of interest investments, truth(joke) social deal, flogging dodgy sneakers, bitcoin tokens, cheap bibles, and other scams. If he had any decency, the least he could do is donate his dollar to USAID.

Because whatever `good' they may be doing, which is a matter of opinion anyway, is far outweighed by the chaos they are creating by their slash and burn approach to destroying every institution they can get their hands on. Besides which a lot of what they are doing is blatantly illegal, which is why the courts are stepping in.

Agreed. It’s about half an hour from us. Have often called in there on the way to or from somewhere.

The only saving grace is that his inherent incompetence and ignorance will probably mean that he won’t accomplish all that he would like to. As his attempt to tax the small parcel trade shows, signing an executive order doesn’t make it magically happen, and things that do happen often have unintended consequences that make them untenable.

He's just sacked the Chairman and a number of board members from the Kennedy Centre for the Performing Arts, and announced that he will be the new chairman. I don't think he knows anything about arts and culture, but I guess we can now expect World Championship Wresting to be elevated to the Performing Arts.

IFR is above my pay grade unfortunately. I’m just a humble VFR pilot. How many Australian weekend fliers need IFR anyway, particularly here in the Wild West. VFR has got me around a lot of the country so far.

No thanks. I’ll stick to the RV. Less performance but also MUCH less to own and fly.

No. Scarily convincing. Would it stand up to a fact check?