Bruce

If everybody got the dole, there would be no need to police it and this would save millions. Also, those on the dole could choose to do some part-time work and not have to worry about losing their dole. And employers would be able to pay their workers less, since they have the dole as a top-up. I reckon its a better idea than spending 100 billion on useless submarines.

There is a country ( I think it is Iceland ) which pays the dole to everybody. So all wages are lower, and yet you can live on the dole if you want to. I like the idea.

Well I would like some help eg for gardening. Now looking up the cost of this, I see that $50 per hour is considered cheap for gardening labor, but its too much for me. The Newstart is $7.50 an hour ( 300 divided by 40 hours) . Why the big difference? I would be happy to pay $10 per hour but not $50. BUT would you be required to take out thousands of dollars worth of insurance and spend big on training and safety gear? These costs would be deal-killers too.

It's not much to live on especially if you pay rent. How about allowing newstart people to earn more money on the side without losing their pensions? I would like to employ one or two for a few hours a week, as long as this could be done without legal risk. Surely this would be a win/win situation, where the newstart people could earn some more money and oldies like myself could have a bit of help. There should be many ways to stop this being abused, eg by sacking existing employees and rehiring them as newstart people . Mind you, our governments seem very poor at spotting opportunities to scam welfare.

Who exactly is the "australian energy market operator?" Who hires and fires them? where do they get paid from?

Yep,I did teach her to drive and I wanted to teach her maintenance too but I was outgunned. I once told her to bring some cheap oil and some cheap coolant, like you get from the supermarket... " how much?" she said." About 20 dollars " I replied. " I'll just take it to a service place" she said. "OK, but that will cost a lot more than $20 ", says me. There is a short silence, then comes this tone she uses on retards.. louder and slower than usual... " Daaaad, who on earth would pay more than $20 to get a car serviced?"

Old K, did all those countries really have nukes? My understanding is that the only unknown one is Israel. I have read that they own apartments in all the major cities and have smuggled-in nukes ready to be set off with a phone call. Personally, I would like Australia to have its own nukes, with Jabiru based drones for delivery. This will be an unpopular idea for sure.

My daughter's car was parked out the front ( daughter at netball at the time ) when this mate arrived and asked why the car out front had 2 flat tyres. On inspection, they weren't flat but had about 5psi. The curbside ones were the worst, and together with the camber in the road, that car had a big lean. So I pumped them all up to 35 psi and lost the wheel trims in the process, on account of how they were interfering with the valves. Then I went out. The car was gone when I returned. Later that evening I rang and asked her did she notice anything different about the car when she drove it home.... "nope" was the answer.

The only hay in Alice Springs came up on the train. My sister used to beg the loose bits for her horse, making sure that the bales were disturbed enough to make more loose bits for next time. They were those small bales you don't see much these days. I would have loved a ute, but in those days I thought that girls were like angels and completely unattainable so it wouldn't have helped much.

I reckon Methusala has a good point. If you bluster a lot then you can do things like bring the troops home without appearing weak. I think it possible that the US is at war less under Trump than it was with Obama.

A good cautionary story about corporal punishment to kids( true story): There was this stocky youth in Alice Springs whose father belted him once too often and it turned into a fight which the 14 year-old son won. The father had a mental breakdown and was sent " down south " never to be heard of again. The son achieved more fame as a seventeen year old for rolling his ute on account of how his girlfriend was playing with him at the time. Us 15 year-olds were jealous.

Thanks for your posts willedoo, you sure have given us more real stuff than the media ever has. I spent about a week in Libya in the 1970's ( there was an Australian demonstration farm near Benghazi) and a lot of what you say about Putin was true of Gaddafi. Sure, the english-speaking drivers assigned to me were probably all secret police, but their enthusiasm for taking foreigner's profits back and spending the money on Libyans was genuine. And the schools where the boys and girls played in the yards were not contrived for me. Gosh I reckon that Libya was far better off under Gaddafi than it is now.

Lots of things emit radiation. TV for example. Organic muesli too. If you have the right meter, you can compare things. You will find that granite bench-tops are quite high, as is going out into the sunlight. TV's used to be quite high too, I dunno about the latest ones. In SA, there was a scare about how there was more cancer in Whyalla, until it was shown that this was exactly explained by the extra hours of sunshine there. So... your phone emits radiation, and this might give you cancer. Bugger, this is making me need a beer.... but whoa! there is radiation in my beer, plus some cancerous chemical.

There is a big thing about Russia that sticks out badly: It appears common for journalists to be murdered there, probably at orders from the top. Now here, I am aghast at the use of police to raid news offices here, but this is a million times less bad than ordering the murders of journalists. Putin is portrayed here as a KGB thug who made good during the transition. This is highly believable when so many official murders happen.

There is hope if you consider this very forum: I get stuff here which is unpolluted by Murdoch or anybody else. As for the paper, I am weaning myself off it right now, helped by the last price hike to $1.90. My son thinks reading the paper is a funny old-fashioned thing to do in this age of the internet.

In the first world war, there were numerous referendums on conscription because the "no" answers were not what the government of the day wanted to hear. So they called another referendum... If they had got a "yes " vote, there would only ever have been one.

Octave is right about recycling Lithium batteries but ahead of his time. Last time I bought a lead-acid for the car, the price astounded me. Why so much? " price of lead mate" the guy said. " Well there has been no lead used in this old battery " so it will be worth a lot in trade in huh?" "Doesn't work that way mate", I was told. $2 for the old battery and $160 for the new one.

There is a report along the lines of what you guys are saying, and that is that solar and wind are cheaper. My only problem is that storage was not mentioned. Gas fired plants for emergency high loads were referred to but only in passing. The trouble with this argument is that I hope to be wrong, because solar and wind suits my politics of independence. But so far the figures don't show the cheapness I want to see. Dick Smith was lamenting that Australian food was manufactured much cheaper in France and they used Australian uranium in nuclear reactors and had much cheaper power costs than here. I certainly don't want to see subsidies to build and run nuclear power, but neither do I want to see artificial costs and delays built in. Anyway, the nuclear argument has been lost I reckon. At least until the Chinese begin making cheap and modern reactors.

Well said Jerry. I reckon an un-regulated paedophile would have had an on-going history of offending, and this does not appear to be so in this case. Gosh its hard to ask for proof in a case like this. I am reminded of Sir William Slim, the governor-general of Australia and a decorated war hero. There is credible and supported evidence that he was a paedophile, yet he has not been outed yet. My wife wants all monuments to him removed and his estate fined millions, and I agree with her. How could you expect a ten year-old orphan to produce legal proof against the governor general? Apparently the governor-general would visit an orphanage, and a good-looking boy would be led to the vice-regal limo, whereupon all the aides would retreat for an hour. This charge came from one of the boys, who subsequently became head of the ABC. The charge was then supported by other boys, but the official response says " unproven allegations". Here's a challenge for Litespeed, how about doing something about this guy?

A nuclear power plant well away from cropping country and big enough to provide power for most of Australia was what I was referring to. Alas it will never happen because we are too stupid to see the benefit. And why could you not recirculate the cooling water? If stored solar and wind could be made cheaper, I would like that but have yet to be convinced that it is possible. The price of electricity here should be the cheapest in the world, not the most expensive.

Octave, could you tell us about your fridge? I wanted to go off the grid but decided the fridge was the killer. Maybe I was too pessimistic.

Feels strange for me to be accused of siding with a bishop, what with me being a follower of Dawkins and a lapsed Anglican. Here's where I stand: I would have found Pell guilty. My punishment would have included less jail time and more financial restitution to the victims. I would have awarded them $100,000 each, to be paid for by Pell. And I would have recognised that nasty community attitudes, like we have seen displayed here, were in a small way to blame for the suicide of one boy. There have been societies where the outrage and consequent shame would have been a lot less. A contributing factor is clearly the requirement for celibacy in the job that Pell did. This is a barbaric idea. Right now, Pell is the underdog and I admit to feeling sorry for his plight, as I feel sorry for those poor choir-boys. My mind will change if he wins his next appeal and becomes legally innocent. I will still think him guilty but will stop feeling sorry for him.

Yes a reactor on a ship is further compromised by the need to keep it light and compact. Melbourne had 2 nuclear reactors in the port when an American aircraft carrier visited. I was expecting a protest from Labor and the Greens, but alas there was only stuff about how the prostitutes and bartenders made millions... well those 2 occupations were not specifically mentioned, but everybody knows what happens. Getting back to Labor and the Greens.. Why did they allow this and still ban a nuclear power plant out Broken Hill way?

Incarceration costs about $300 a day, mainly for the shifts of guards needed for 24/7 surveillance. If a criminal accountant had to pay restitution plus fines plus lose his license, that might be worse for him than a term in prison. Personally, I would prefer a year or two in prison to being bankrupted. So I would reserve incarceration for those who you have a reasonable fear for what they might do if free. There used to be a term " criminally insane " and I for one want them made harmless, by locking them up if other treatment is unreliable. And Octave, you do have a good point about Pell being violent. And abusing his position. Against that is the absurdity of expecting a physically healthy young man to be celibate, and the awful way in which society expects victims to feel shame. Both those things were heavy contributors to the sad crime and the suicide of one of the victims.

Reminds me of the Vietnam war... but here is Scomo visiting Vietnam in search of trade growth. To the applause of the once pro-war press. I'm proud of being anti that war, but I never had a problem with the soldiers who were there, and I never met anyone who did. That could have been me if my marble had come up, and I reckon they did a good job under impossible circumstances. It was terrible when they were mistreated on coming home, but this mistreatment wasn't by me or any of my mates.