willedoo

I always thought that was a bit ironic, being the only band menber without a beard and having the name Beard. One year he had a very short one for a while, but the rest of the time just a mustache. Billy Gibbons would really feel the loss considering they've played together in ZZ Top since 1969; a long time. A good rocking band in their day with that distinctive Texan sound.

Just an update on the 600 million government support deal for PNG entering the NRL with the PNG Chiefs entering the comp in 2028. The 600 million support package is spread over ten years; 290 million goes to direct support for the PNG franchise and infrastructure, and 60 million for license and operational fees. 250 million is earmarked for the Pacific Rugby League Partnership for community, health, and education programs in the member states PNG, Fiji, Samoa and Tonga. The Pacific Rugby League Partnership is a partnership between the Australian Rugby League Commission, PNG, Fiji, Samoa, Tonga and the Australian Government.

I thought someone must have been crook when they announced the cancellation of those shows a few days ago. Reverend Billy is the only original band member left now out of the three.

It's on topic. All these things with Toyotas happened in one local government region or another.

I had an old petrol three speed back in the early 70's, had the transfer shift lever on the dash if my memory is correct. They were very leggy in first gear high range, probably a bit too highly geared in first. That high ratio first gear made them very popular with bull catchers in the NT back in the day. A good sprinter. In 1988 we did a contract on Roper Station and we came across a lot of parts off old three speed Toyotas lying around in the bush from where the bull catchers had been diong running repairs. They used to bust a lot of transfer cases.

Yes, I certainly don't miss the old HJ-45's. They were a good workhorse in the bush, but a pain out on the bitumen. They were a bit giggly headed on some of those rougher bitumen roads. From memory I think they used to put wedge kits on the springs to improve the way they tracked, but I don't know if it was legal or not. In the early days we used to drive to work a lot and it was about a sixteen hour drive from Toowoomba to Moomba, so the later five speed Toyotas were much appreciated when we got them. Later on in time, flying Brisbane - Adelaide - Moomba was even better. We used to go Qantas or Virgin to Adelaide, then the National Jet/Cobham BAe-146 up to Moomba. Much more luxurious. We didn't always work out of Moomba, but over all the years, we worked around there more than any other place. The old HJ-45's are collector's items now. It costs an arm and a leg to buy a decent one.

I heard a tale about one hitting the side of a vehicle and ending up in the back seat, badly injured but still alive and kicking. A similar thing happened to a mate of mine. He was driving a HJ-45 on a property, so not going fast. He turned his head toward his mate in the passenger seat as they were talking, just as a big roo smashed into the driver's side door. On hearing the crash, he instinctively turned his head back and the roo's head and shoulders were protruding into the window and he was face to face with the roo with only couple of inches separating them. It was only for a split second till the roo's head and shoulders recoiled back out of the vehicle. It traumatised him a bit I think. A bit of a coincidence but some time after that, the same mate that had the roo come in his window was in the pasenger seat and I was driving. Very similar story, I was talking to him and unfortunately had my mouth open when a long, springy mulga root flicked up off the front wheel, hit the door with a loud bang and threw about half a shovelful of red dirt in my face. Because I was talking at the time, the mouth was full of red dirt as well. The mate thought it was funny but I wasn't overly amused. At least it wasn't a roo.

Peter, I don't know if you get the same Trevago ads we get up here, but ours have that bloke with the foreign accent and the really big, white plastic eBay teeth. I really don't know what they were thinking there; a missed attempt at comedy perhaps. Another one that gets me reaching for the mute button is the Best Sheds ad. The young pro surfer lady that does the ads is a very nice, bubbly person but the voice grates. That combines with the rapid delivery of the ad to make it even worse. I figure the rapid fire tempo of the ad is custom made for the football (NRL) broadcasts. With the ad being fast and short, they can squeeze it in after a try when play comes to a halt while the kicker is attempting a conversion, then flip back to the footy in time to catch the action.

I'd beg to differ on that. The way I see it, the cause of most arguments on this site is people playing the man and not the topic. The inability of some to debate in a civilised and well mannered way without being outright rude to people. I don't think I'd like to sugar coat straight out bad behaviour as misinterpretation. For sure misinterpretation happens but I think the inability to handle opposing viewpoints combined with bad manners is a bigger contributing factor.

I can certainly relate to that. I had a 30% increase last year, not quite so much this year. Main reason is our council has got themselves one billion dollars in debt trying to compete with the Gold Coast. The shire rates income goes almost entirely to paying council staff salaries; they have around 1,800 employees all up, 1,000 of them in office jobs. My rates are currently around $2,200 per year. No services with that, no water, sewerage or wheelie bins. I could opt for wheelie bins but for two bins, a rubbish bin and recycle bin, the fees are several hundred dollars per year so it would bring my rates bill closer to $3,000 per year if I had them. The small amount of rubbish I make, it's way cheaper to do the occasional trip to the dump. They slash the road verge twice a year - usually two weeks before the six monthly rates bills are due, so we always know when we see council slashers about, we'll get a rates bill in the next couple of weeks. I'd be a lot happier with them if they'd just treat the local residents with a bit of respect. On the subject of council land zonings, you would think in a normal world the local council would have the decency to notify residents of an intention to rezone their land, but this council doesn't. I've had my block rezoned twice and never heard anything from council about it. It started off as Rural A, then was rezoned to Rural Residential and now to one called Limited Development - Sustainable Landscape which is a heavily restricted green zone. I'm quite happy with that zoning as I love the environment on my place, and think the more protection, the better, but it's the principle of rezoning without notifying a landowner that I think is wrong. In my mind it's just common manners to do so. With septic tanks being banned, some people opt for a pump-out tank. In days gone by, people could hire a licensed contractor to do the pump out and the charge was quite reasonable and only needed the cost incurred on a by use basis, ie: you were only out of pocket if the tank was near full and needed emptying. Council saw that as another cash cow and banned the use of contractors, allowing only council to do the service. Problem is it's not on an as needed basis. They put a levy on top of the rates bill so you have to pay several hundred dollars per year for the service whether you need it or not. The Mafia has nothing on this mob.

Of those completion figures, I'd guess most of that is in the cities and larger regional areas.

So far, Victoria is the only state that's achieved almost 100% roll out of smart meters. Here's the state figures for smart meter roll out completion: Victoria 99%, W.A. 90%, Tasmania 78%, N.T. 50%, S.A. 46%, Qld. 42%, ACT 40%, NSW 39%. I think there's a lot of factors in the mix. It's the retailers who are doing it, so depending how many customers they have and where they're located, it's a staged roll out. If the roll out becomes available in your district, it's free for the consumer. If you apply for one before that, I think there's a fee involved.

A lot of truth in that. Smaller rural councils generally are a lot more in touch with the community and there's only a few bad eggs among those councils. A lot of the bigger councils have totally lost the concept of being there to serve the community and a lot think they are our masters rather than our servants. I've never been one for party politics in councils like they have in the city councils, but taking into account the inept rabble we have posing as our local council, it makes me wonder whether party alligned councilors would make it easier to turf the lot out at an election. As it stands, some councillors lose their jobs at election time and some major offenders remain, so things don't get any better. If it was party based, would it make them perform any better. Maybe it would if they thought the whole bunch was at risk or at least a majority of them. Another factor is that it's not only the elected councillors that are the problem. The council bureaucrats have a lot to answer for as well. My advice to anyone who has a good, well performing and honest council is to appreciate what you have because a lot of people don't have that.

It seems to be the elephant in the room when it comes to politics. It's only my opinion, but in our three tiered system of government I consider local government the weak link in the chain. There are good local governments (unfortunately mine has never been in that category), but there are are lot of bad ones. They can be either corrupt, wasteful, inefficient, incompetent, arrogant, bullying or a combination of any or all of those things. My state over time has handed local government too much autonomy in my opinion, and I'd like to see more oversight by the state local government department. I don't have statistics on hand, but I've read in the past that other states have retained more control over local government than ours has. There was always a problem with some councils, but the amalgation several years ago led to super councils and made the whole issue a lot worse. Inconsistencies between councils is another issue. As an example, on the news today the Moreton Bay council announced they are dedicating a local park to rough sleepers and homeless people and letting them use the council toilet and shower facilities there. Their idea is to have the homeless in a more manageable situation regarding facilities and support services. On the other hand, the Gold Coast council is issuing heavy fines to rough sleepers, and confiscating and destroying their gear.

Getting a bit off topic, but on that subject of outsourcing tech support, a couple of companies I deal with outsource customer and tech support to the Phillipines and their support has always been good. I think one of them uses work from home staff as you can often hear village or urban noises in the background like roosters crowing, babies crying and motorbikes riding past.

Today I rang Red Energy and arranged swapping to them after my next Origin bill due in a couple of weeks. It was very refreshing to talk to Australian based customer support. Everything worked well and went great just like it used to with Origin before they outsourced their customer support overseas. Sub standard customer support is the number one reason I'm leaving Origin; the data breach incident is just another contributing factor. At the end of this month it's good riddance Origin. Price wise, they're fairly close. Based on my useage, Red Energy is about $100 per year cheaper than Origin. When I get settled in to Red Energy, the next step is to get a smart meter installed and that will remove the problem of the contract meter readers who don't like going off the bitumen on to rural properties. I could deal with estimated bills if the meter readers were honest about their reasons given for not accessing the property but they're not. It's another case of good service going to the pack when things get contracted out. When Energex (the primary supplier/wholesaler) employed their own people to read the meters they quite happily accessed the property for 30+ years without a problem. I think the roll out date here for smart meters ends in 2030, so sometime in the next couple of years I would be compelled to swap to a smart meter anyway.

Maybe not the correct thread for this, but it's regarding the word 'unprecedented' which has become a very overused buzzword these days. I always thought the word was fairly straight forward, eg: something is either unprecedented or it's not unprecedented (in another term - precedented). But not so, the BBC has taken to using the term 'almost unprecedented'. The way I interpret it, 'almost unprecedented' is precedented, same thing.

I know the feeling. Arthritis in the knees means normal knee propulsion to get up off the ground is long gone. I end up like a beetle on my back, then have to roll over on all fours and get up that way.

I was going through some files and came across this photo from when I was converting my shed from 36 sq.m to 85 sq.m.. Checked the exif data and it was taken eighteen years ago. How times change. What really stands out is how decrepit the body is now and how I'd have no hope of building that these days. I can barely lift my old jackhammer, let alone use it.

Adapting Gerry Rafferty's lyrics to Australian politics: "Clowns to the left of us, Jokers to the right, here we are, stuck in the middle with Albo".

It will be interesting to see what becomes of a high court challenge. The judge in this case said it functioned as a test case for the claims of both parties. Marty, you judge Hanson's intent on her past history and you have every reason to, but a court can't take any previous statements on other past matters into account; they must only judge on the matter at hand. If an appeal to the high court happens, they'll have to judge on whether her words I quoted in a previous post constitute racism. The words alone don't in my opinion. Pakistan is a geographic area and a soverign state, so on words alone she's telling someone to go back there. It's her intent in using those words that the courts decide on. On words alone it's no different than if you came up here and I told you to piss off back to Tasmania. You know yourself how many times Tasmanians have said they wish mainlanders would piss off back to the mainland. That's not racist, and it could be argued not necessarily Stateist, just a desire to be left alone. But on words alone, it's no different to what Hanson said.

Sorry to requote Marty but she didn't tweet that. This is the text in question: “Your attitude appalls and disgusts me. When you immigrated to Australia you took every advantage of this country. You took citizenship, bought multiple homes, and a job in a parliament. It’s clear you’re not happy, so pack your bags and piss off back to Pakistan - PH.” Probably where you've got that from is that Justice Angus Stewart found Hanson’s comment that Faruqi should “piss off back to Pakistan” was a “variant of the slogan ‘go back to from where you came from’” which he said was an a “racist trope” and a “strong form of racism”. So she didn't say it but the Judge had the opinion that it meant the same as another saying they considered racist.

No I'm not saying that Marty. Read my post more carefully. What I'm saying is that the words alone don't refer to race, only former nationality. Get over the Hanson thing for a minute and think about the words alone, no matter who utters them. She told the person to piss off back to the country she migrated from, no mention of the person's race or religion. Forget about Hanson and look at the example of a white Australian telling a white Kiwi to piss off back to NZ. Would those words alone constitute racism of one white person toward another? I'd consider a case like that to be nationalistic based and not race based. If Hanson had told a white South African to piss off back to South Africa, is that racist? Would she be having a go at the person's race or nationality? The point I'm making is, that the words she used are not racist but nationalistic. That's looking solely at the wording and not taking perceived intent into account. The court obviously made the decision that they thought she had racist intent in what she said. The words alone (regardless of who spoke them) don't convey that. That's what a high court challenge will have to sort out.

Trike seen in Brisbane last week.

Section 8(1) of the RDA makes it lawful.