willedoo

In that case, Trump would have got it right the second time.

The funny thing is the video is not meant to be a satire of Trump. If you view it on Youtube you can see the bloke is a dedicated Trump/MAGA supporter. Reading through the squillion pro Trump comments below the video, quite a few of them have that Russian bot feel about them as well. I'd think it was a given that the Kremlin bots give any pro Trump channels a lot of attention.

I have bad memories of the old dial-up system. You could go and make a cup of coffee while a simple HTML page loaded.

The 3G network is going this month. I retired the old Samsung Galaxy S5 as it was 4G capable but not 4G+VoLTE capable. I ended up buying a second hand Galaxy S10e from a dealer selling through evilbay. It was only a couple of hundred dollars and not a bad phone. The 10e is a smaller phone than the other S10 phones, fairly close to the size of the old S5 and is not one of those phones that's always trying to jump out of your pocket. I still keep the old S5 charged and use it as an alarm clock and time clock beside the bed as it's more user friendly in that role, particularly with the physical button to activate the screen at night.

Sometimes I wonder why I bother with my NBN plan. My server is Internode, soon to vanish totally under the TPG umbrella. For $49.95 per month I get 100 GB of not so reliable data. My mobile phone is with Aldi and I could upgrade to a bigger plan of 120 GB of data per month, 5G enabled, unlimited standard calls and SMS to Australian numbers and 20 select countries for $49 per month. Also when I use the phone as a mobile hot spot for the laptop, it's noticably faster than the NBN and that's with 4G and not 5G. The NBN here is fixed wireless. It's been ok, but the last three months has been a bit unreliable. There's a possibility that could be my modem and not the NBN signal at fault.

Ukrainian General Staff have reported that the Russian Kilo class submarine 'Rostov-on-Don' has been sunk in Sevastopol. It's the submarine that was undergoing repairs after being hit in a cruise missile attack last September while in dry dock. This time it was in floating condition alongside a maintenance barge in Kilen Bay. The attached screen grab from Google Maps shows it before the sinking. It's now 'Rostov-on-Bottom'. The orcs will be p*ssed off after spending ten months and squillions of dollars repairing it. I don't know why they bothered; it was always going to be a (wounded) sitting duck where it was. I get it that it was a 300 million dollar boat and wasn't able to be moved to safer waters for repair, but their logic defies me at times.

Kremlin spokesman Peskov has said the Russian Air Force is fully prepared to combat Ukrainian F-16s.

Rock hard beds and terrible food in the Olympic Village was a criticism by athletes that I heard on the radio.

This is the New York Post taking the p*ss out of Biden, post debate and before he dropped out of the race. Jill Biden did an interview for Vogue which came out around the same time as the debate.

I think it's a mix of both. Rat cunning combined with stupidity.

They'll probably have sensors to deploy an all round airbag when they detect a fall happening.

I can imagine one day in the future exoskeletons for paraplegics will be commonplace. As the technology grows, they'll no doubt get a lot smoother and more agile.

The only way you can serve as president three times is to be a stand-in for less than two years (a part term) and get elected for two terms.

It is. Trump can only do one more term. 22nd Amendment, Section 1: No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice, and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the office of the President more than once.

Like a case of piles, he won't be easy to get rid of. If he loses this election, at the 2028 election he will be the same age as Biden would have been going into the 2024 election, so if his health holds it will be like a stuck record. The only thing is that if he loses two elections in a row, his star might start to fade in the Republican Party. But not if If it's a close call and they maintain the stolen election claim. In that case, the legend will continue to grow in their small, confused minds. The other alternative is that he wins the election, the world suffers the fool for another four years, then he can't run again. If that happens, he will still have a lot of sway over the Republican Party beyond 2028, but the next candidate wouldn't have the god/rock star status of Trump. In that case it would be up to the Democrats to beat them on policy. I think it will be a lot of years before the Republican Party returns to it's former self as it was before the crazies hijacked the party. The Republican Party of Reagan and the like is unrecognisable in this current crop of fruit loops.

Here's the cover of the New York magazine. I can see Obama, Biden, Nancy Pilosi and George Clooney celebrating. I don't know who the others are.

This bloke is a paraplegic and carrying the Olympic torch while walking with a robotic exoskeleton.

It's nice when you throw a bit of wood on the fire and there just happens to be some sandalwood in it. Reminds me of all that incense they burn in Bali.

The DC-3 at our local air museum is supposed to be the oldest one in Australia. It was a KLM plane originally flying from Europe to Batavia as Jakarta was known as back then. It then changed to the local KNILM and eventually evacuated out here when the Japanese were occupying NEI. It was under Dutch control for a while until the Yanks commandeered it into the USAAF. They seem to think MacArthur flew on it once. Gough definitely did. I wonder how many times he banged his head on the ceiling.

My general rate is $993 per half year, so $1986 p.a.. The other levies would be fairly similar I'd guess. On an annual basis council levies for environment, transport and arts and heritage amount to $149 p.a. making the annual council component $2135. Added to that council collects on behalf of the state government the state emergency management levy ($119 pa) and the rural fire levy ($25 pa). We don't have town water down my road so that saves a bit more and I don't have wheelie bins so I don't get charged the waste management fee. I think I'm probably the only resident in the whole road that doesn't have bins.

onetrack, are those the rates on an annual basis? The reason I ask is that here we pay half yearly, eg: two rates bills per year for the six month period. I ease the pain by paying them weekly. The council lets you do that via direct bank debit. I think it suits them because they get access to your money earlier and it suits some ratepayers because you don't get lumped with the full bill every six months.

One thing about Obama, he knew how to speak.

That's just Obama making excuses for doing sweet F.A. when Putin took Crimea. It wasn't only his weakness at fault, it was the Europeans as well. They slapped Putin's little toe with a wet cabbage leaf which is one way of describing their p*ss weak sanctions that Putin just laughed at. The Russian economy continued to boom and Putin kept building up to what he's doing now. In 2014 Obama and the others sent a message to Putin that read 'We're weak, you're strong, do what you like". The green flag. My apologies to the Obama fans but I have almost zero respect for the bloke.

Regarding the new land valuations: I just received my rates bill and the local council has partially done the right thing by decreasing the cents in the dollar formula for calculating rates. The result is an increase of $365 per year instead of the expected $1,000 increase under the previous calculation rate. They've also increased their pensioner discount by $14 p.a. which makes a net gain to council of $351. The state government pensioner rates discount didn't change. It's one of those things you just have to cop on the chin. The reality is the rates here are still cheaper than in a lot of council districts out the back of woop woop. Those places have cheaper land and cheaper housing but often the rates are quite a bit higher than here on the coast.

The net favourable rating of Trump's running mate JD Vance has gone from minus 6 to minus fifteen in the space of a week. Meanwhile, Trump's appearance at the National Association of Black Journalists in Chicago didn't go too well.