Bruce

News to me that Whitlam was overseas. I would have gone on the streets at the time to support him against what I saw was a coup. These days, I hold it against him that he brought in thousands of Lebanese, many of whom are still on welfare.

looks good to me Phil, but what are the black things under the tomatoes?

That's close to the biggest markup I know of... A fuel pump for an imported European car. Cost to the importer = $70, selling price to the customer = $1400.

The figure of 26% for IC engines comes to mind. Thermal efficiency is quite a low figure. Then transmission losses are about 50% for grid electricity. So the total efficiency is about 13% from the energy in the fuel to electricity... But wait, the efficiency of the usage is not 100%. Overall efficiency of 10% would be normal. None of this matters much except for the damage done to the atmosphere which notices the original amount. Personally, I am doubtful if our species is capable of saving the planet. We have evolved to be short-term thinkers, and its asking a lot for people to make sacrifices for longer-term goals. The average person doesn't pay their credit card off each month, even though this would get them the most value in a six-month timeframe. Asking these people to pay heed to something years away? A big ask, say I.

Electric cars should last a lot longer than IC cars. Except for the battery packs. When they get cheaper than $20,000 I'd buy one for town use. By then, the grid will be overloaded by all the chargers in use. At least you could run a charger from solar panels although you need quite a few.

Thanks guys. I have experienced card fraud even with the debit-only one I use for online transactions. Apparently the cost of card fraud (to the banks, who footed the bill at least in my case ) is less than the extra profits they make by having lax policies. It is surprising that Australia has better credit card laws than the UK.

Maybe the second worst thing is the slow startup time. Wrecking the planet would be the worst thing.

Hope you are right old K. The worst thing about coal is that it takes days to get going. Hydro is a better backup as it takes less than an hour to get going. And you can pump stuff uphill if you have excess power. I don't know how the cost works out, probably cheaper than batteries if you have a good site but I bet it's more than the average voter will want to pay.

My understanding is that if a country has signed up to NOT have nukes, the nuclear countries "guarantee" that we will never be subject to a nuclear strike. This means that the nuclear countries would ALL carry out a nuclear strike on the bad country? Is that a correct understanding?

Renewables are too expensive old K. Unless you are happy to have no power when they aren't producing. I know of a guy who lives like this, but he is alone because his woman left him. Lots of people would go off the grid ( including me ) if storage wasn't so expensive. Storage costs about $1000 per kWh and that's the problem. This figure needs to come down to about $10 per kWh to compete with present-day mains power. The cheap storage does not have to be light and compact, just cheap. It's the most important research project there is I reckon. At the farm, I am off the grid as far as water and sewage are concerned, and its better and cheaper than being in Adelaide and getting ripped off to benefit some overseas billionaires.

There is hope on the horizon for cheaper storage. Sodium batteries instead of lithium for example. In the meantime, I get grumpy when I hear claims like how Victoria will be 40 percent renewable as soon as all the new wind-farms are finished. By this I think they mean that the coal-fired backup is being wasted on a windy day. Learn up on basic science and go nuclear say I , but my words are also wasted on the wind.

The Koran says that stuff, so yes Old K does have an authoritative source.

At least we haven't got carriers. The payroll is over a million a day, and they are such inviting targets. The ww3 scenario for Australia is for nukes on the North-west Cape American base, Sydney and Melbourne. How would some submarines help that?

I don't think our submarines would be much of a deterrent. A better deterrent would be lots of Jabirus with nuclear-tipped homing missiles. Old K, you didn't specify which neighbor. Indonesia? China? I doubt that PNG or New Zealand are big threats.

Recently, Pauline Hanson said that she would save government money by cutting back on submarines. Personally, I have been saying that for years. I sure agree with her, and I take the opportunity to ask again for anybody to come up with a credible use for these submarines. ( The best answer will win a prize. You have to say what country we are at war with and what the exact mission will be )... So far, the winning suggestion is that if we go to war with Indonesia, the submarines can help rescue stranded holidaymakers from Bali. This isn't very good I know. But vague stuff like " keep our trade routes open" is worse and ineligible.

There is history in that Nev, but the present lot of refugees are fleeing ( they say ) persecution from their own people, maybe those belonging to a different sect. Take Ethiopian refugees for example. There would be few of them still alive that remember colonial times or the second world war. The same would go for most of the rest. I once worked with an Iranian whose family sought refuge because they were Bahai and would have been killed ( they said ) if they stayed. It is true that Iraq was badly interfered with and is still semi-occupied by the US, but they are self-governing to the extent of being able to mistreat their own daughters. Look at that video, there is no way that the fault lies anywhere but in their awful culture. Surely they can't blame colonial history for that.

What I can't understand is how the bleeding heart feminists, of all people, are against women like this. I have actually heard them use the culture argument to condone such barbarity. And yet they get angry about trivial things in our culture. Personally, I would use removal of citizenship and deportation back to their country of origin so frequently against the lot who bring their rotten culture to our country that they would change their ways. This may actually have had a chance of becoming accepted in those far-off times before the "born overseas " lot were a smaller percentage of the voters. Surely, those who are fleeing their awful country, in fear of their lives they say, would be happy to leave the culture which made it so bad and start again?

Our whole system where candidates need to get money to get elected makes us corrupt. The result is that we are governed to the benefit of those moneyed interests who fund the political parties. Immigration numbers are a good example. They are way higher than would be voted for in a plebiscite, and why? Because the rich people who own apartment blocks or subdivideable land or shopping malls or even investment houses want big immigration and this is their repayment requirement. I don't mean to say this is done openly or crudely. But the aspiring politicians know the score. There are several other examples of this.

Today I phoned Jabiru with the number of my new credit card so they can send me bits and charge them to that card. They have been completely trustworthy in the past. Now they did not ask for the security number. ( nor the pin number of course) . Another place I have dealt with wanted the security number and I felt uncomfortable giving it to them. Does anybody know why the difference? As a suspicious old bugger, the card I use is a debit card with only a bit of money in it. Am I being too cautious here?

But what about cold fresh water and warm salt water ? The warm saline gulf stream is buoyant over the cold less saline Greenland meltwater/seawater mix but not by as much as it used to be. This is because there is a lot more meltwater in the mix these days. The sudden sinking of the gulf-stream has featured in disaster movies.

There was a mental case in Port Augusta jail who would wander around most of the day with poo in his pants , because he didn't have the ability to know any better. He may still be there for all I know. My informant said he was too inoffensive and childish to be violent. The only good reason for incarceration is to protect the public from dangerous people. South Australia had a thinker in residence who said exactly that about ten years ago. She said that all other offenders can be punished in other ways. The cabinet actually agreed with her, but they reckoned the public liked incarceration so they didn't change anything.

A few years ago there was a big backyard in suburban Adelaide with about 6 caravans in it. The inhabitants were old men, probably some alcoholics among them. The news showed the local council towing the vans away , and when the guy in charge was asked where the old men were going to sleep that night, he said that it wasn't the council's problem where they slept.

A police officer I know well was told to take part in a raid and arrest... " Not necessary, he said " I'll ring her up and ask her to come in" which was what happened. As a rule though, individual police would not have discretion if ordered to do raids.

Those forces were indeed there, but what amazing coincidence that it actually happened in real life. Wouldn't it be wonderful if Australia halved its military spending and helped fund NASA. Yep, this is a dream of mine.

But the government in Vic is labor... that's whats got me so puzzled.