willedoo

I have a question that is off topic but thought I'd ask here rather than start a new thread just for a simple question. Regarding blown fuses: does a blown fuse always indicate a problem like a short or do they sometimes just blow due to age. A fuse in my car that runs tail lights and dash lights blew; I put in a new one and everything is working good. The blown fuse would be about 23 years old and the fuses are subject to a bit of dust. Could it have been a dust related short or just old age.

Newman upset a lot of people during his three year term and lost a lot of support. Then he shot himself in the foot by going troppo in the last two weeks of the campaign. First he accused the Qld. Labor party of being funded by the outlaw motorcycle gangs, then he told people that if they didn't elect the LNP in their electorate, they would lose government funding for the electorate if the LNP was returned. That's a couple of the more noteable examples, but he went quite mad in the end and his party realised he'd totally blown their chances, but at that late stage there was little they could do. Too late to put the genie back in the bottle so they got booted out.

I remember years ago making something similar for a mate who had two broken arms. He never got to use it as his then girlfriend was a nurse and took on the bum wiping duties.

When I was there in 1985 I had a UK grandparent visa (grandfather on my mother's side). I was too old for the young people's working holiday visa so the grandparent visa allowed me to stay as long as I wanted. The visa said it didn't give you the right to reside permanently in the UK, but it had no end date or restriction.

When Campbell Newman won his messiah-like election in 2012, there were a lot of jokes about the Labor opposition all fitting into a Kombi van to drive to parliament house. Three years later they went from seven seats back to government. The LNP made a huge mistake with Newman. John-Paul Langbroek would have easily won the election for the LNP, but the party bosses thought Newman would increase the vote even more. They ended up a three year flash in the pan whereas with Langbroek they probably would have served multiple terms. The messiah election tactic worked with Bob Hawke, but Newman was a total disaster.

They're stuck between a rock and a hard place. Move too far to the right and they lose votes to Labor and the Teals. Move too far to the left to try and be Labor-Lite and they lose votes to One Nation.

The polling varies quite a bit from one pollster to another. The latest DemosAu poll has the primary vote at Labor 29%, One Nation 28%, Coalition 21%, Greens 12% and others 10%. They didn't give a preference figure but their seat preditions based on that poll were Labor 76–85. One Nation 43–54, Coalition 9-20, Greens 0-2 and all others 3-7. One change in the demographcs was women being most likely to vote One Nation at 29%, compared to Labor 27% and the Coalition 21%. The Guardian Essential poll had Labor on 30% primary, Coalition 26%, One Nation 22%, Greens 11%, independents and others 7% and 4% undecided. That poll also found nearly 60% of Australians would be open to voting for One Nation at the next federal election, including nearly half of those currently backing Labor. Around a quarter of voters said they would definitely vote One Nation and a third said they were open to it. There's more than two years to go to the federal election, so all these figures are worrying to the major parties but they have a long period to try and get that support back.

The new UK dual citizen passport rules come into effect today. Dual UK/Australian citizens have to have a valid UK passport to enter the UK, or an Australian passport with a certificate of entitlement. From a cost perspective, it's a no brainer to get a current UK passport for $190, compared to $1,100 for a certificate of entitlement.

There was another council spokesperson on the ABC radio yesterday saying they have no problems with the developer being an ex bankrupt. He said deveploment is a risky business and lots of them go broke and it's a fairly normal part of developing , so move along, nothing to see here according to council.

There's a lot of talk but a council spokesperson said they hadn't received a development application at this stage.

It's hard to see a way back for the Libs in SA for the foreseeable future, particularly with the popularity of the current premier and his mob. Here in Queensland in 2015, the Labor opposition went into the election with just seven seats and won another thirty five to win government, but in that case the sitting premier Can-Do was as popular as a turd floating in a punchbowl. Different in SA, the Libs are trying to compete against a very popular incumbent.

It must be scary for the Libs polling 14% primary vote a month out from the election. One Nation is polling 10% more than the Libs.

A couple of months ago. I only ever do it in the context of meeting up with someone for lunch. These days it's the only reason to go to a pub ( 7 years on the wagon now).

It wil be interesting to sit back and watch what happens from here to the election regarding One Nation's polling figures. We've long had the two major party dominance with Labor and the Coalition taking turns. Below them is the fringe parties with the Greens and One Nation being the biggest two of them. All the others like Family First, Shooters and Fishers and the others will probably stay where they are. Whether or not the Greens have peaked is anyone's guess but I think they have a limited ceiling unless Labor gets on the nose enough to lose significant numbers to them. The Greens seem to have low but steady support, whereas One Nation has potential for some big fluctuations in their support base. They could keep rising or even drop back down to single figures again; only time will tell.

Everybody knows they'll never govern. The only real issue from an election point of view is how far they will go. The current polling figures would be hard to sustain through to election, but who knows until the time comes. The peak they could probably ever achieve would be a deciding vote in the Senate. The amount of lower seats they could get would probably not matter here or there. I seem to remember reading somewhere that they will be concentrating on trying to pick up seats in state elections. Maybe the thinking there is to get a good solid state base that might help in a federal election. It could be bad news for the coalition as One Nation picks up more preferences from the coalition than the other way around.

I doubt Pauline has much input into their policies they present to the public. I could be wrong, but I get the feeling she has overall viewpoints that are incorporated into policy developed by Malcolm and their advisors.

Getting the multinationals to pay their fair share of tax is one that would pass the pub test but doesn't cut the mustard in the real world. The two majors don't want to go there as they know a lot of much needed foreign investment would dry up. There's plenty of other countries willing to give them a cheap run for their money.

Some of their policies have some detail, but some others might just be one paragraph, single issue. An example is their health policy which is basically to encourage better health access for regional and rural areas through the introduction of three year contracts for graduating health professionals in return for their hecs bill being wiped. With some of the obvious issues like energy, climate change etc., they have more to say. It seems to me like they only put up policies where they want change. I'd assume the lack of a defence policy would mean they have nothing to change from the status quo. A lot of their policies are populist policies, like getting multinationals to pay their fair share of tax for example. https://www.onenation.org.au/issues

I should explain that I'm not one of those fanatical lantern collectors. I probably have around a dozen or so, most working, and some that need fixing. That's not counting some junky Chinese ones in a box in the shed somewhere that are better left there. I don't think I would get any more unless something good like a Dietz Monach in good condition showed up. Some of the lantern collectors are quite obsessive about it. I've seen facebook groups that feature collectors who have rooms and garages full of them. They collect them like stamps.

The kero lanterns are like a lot of gear in that you can see the reducing quality of manufacturing over the yeas. These days a lot of them manufacture to a price for mximum profit. Most older lanterns have very thick glass globes with embossed lettering and good thickness of metal. As time went by, the metal got thinner, the glass got thinner and the embossed lettering gave way to etching. Twenty five years ago, the lanterns you could buy in camping stores were generally made in Hong Kong or China, and the quality was reasonable. These days, the Chinese made lanterns are really low quality. I've got one which is a large lantern, a copy of the Dietz No.80 design, and it amazes me how they can make glass that thin and make anything out of metal so thin. It's also got a design fault in the burner which makes the flame flare a bit with any vibration like opening or closing a door. These two lanterns I have are Dietz lanterns. Dietz is a very old American brand of lantern. I think it was in the 1950's they moved manufacturing to Hong Kong but they maintained a standard of quality. These two were bought in the mid 90's and are good quality lanterns. The one on the left is a No.80 (80 hours burn time at a low setting) and the one on the right is a Dietz Junior No.20. Even though the hot blast lanterns were an earlier design than these cold blast lanterns, some manufacturers like Dietz still offered both types for quite a long time; I know Dietz still made hot blast lanterns in the 1970's. There was probably still a good market for them. Some people (like me) prefer them for the softer, more yellowish or amber type of light they give off due to their combustion design.

There's one around here that rides a Harley with drag pipes and I must admit, he's not too bright. If he has an audience he will crank the throttle extra hard for maximum racket. I guess he thinks everyone is thinking "Wow!", whereas in reality they're all thinking "Dickhead!".

A dry grass straw that is; you'll have a lot of trouble trying to get a soft green one up there.

When you stick a grass straw up a March Fly's bum and let it go, they fly off in a straight line and can't turn.

The straight-through drag pipes seem to appearing everywhere these days. Not so bad with a quiet steady rider, but I think a lot of others like to crank that throttle on just to make a racket. A mate of mine is putting Verex drag pipes on his new Bonneville, about $1,400 for the pair I think it is. He was a bit concerned about getting pulled up with them, but he's an old bloke and rides steady so should be ok. The standard pipes on his Speedmaster sound like a sewing machine. He checked up on putting the drag pipes on it and seems to think the warranty will be ok.

Bunya nut season is almost over and so far I've survived with all fingers intact. Just a small head wound to show for it (forgot the hard hat), but it's all healed now. A very bad cockatoo high up in a tree dislodged a branch and I wore part of it. At least you can survive a pine branch fall; a bunya nut pod on the head is guaranteed to be terminal from that height. It's been the biggest season in many years, bunya nuts everywhere, millions of them.