willedoo

They have a similar thing in Indonesia. I forget the words but they translate to rubber time, meaning flexible time. You see it written for some routes on blackboard timetables at bus stations.

Trump's post debate ad:

It would have been a good project if it had worked out. The idea was to power the nearby uranium mine.

At the Paralana project, the rock had a high uranium and thorium content giving it a high heat production rate. Modelling suggested a temperature of 200°C at 4,000 metres which was approximately the original planned TD. That's about twice the depth of the average oil or gas well in that sort of country.

spacey, if you're talking about the Paralana project east of the Beverley uranium mine, it was shelved due to lack of funding as far as I know. Petratherm was a small company with limited finances. They had a 24 million dollar Renewable Energy Development Program grant but couldn't raise the other 5 million they needed despite achieving a reasonable amount of technical success. Beach was the operating partner. I was there in 2011 putting in an earth tank to hold water for the scheduled drilling of the second well. I don't know how far they got with proof of concept as it was shelved in 2014 as you say. I found this photo I took in 2011 of the well (with old Gerty in the background). There wasn't much there at the time, just the capped well, a genset and fuel tank, and a shipping container set up as a small office with computers and gear for a passive seismic array. The best part of that job was staying at the Beverley mine. Talk about luxury.

Outgoing Conservative MP Sir Robert Buckland is fed up with his mob and said "I'm fed up of personal agendas and jockeying for position, the truth is now — with the Conservatives facing this electoral Armageddon — it's going to be like a group of bald men arguing over a comb". Sounds like a good description.

The F-111 engines were a no-no as ours were basically the same engine as in the Iranian Tomcats as far as I can remember. Amberely has an engine on display but it's heavily cut away for demonstration purposes and it's on an air base. I don't think any civilian museums were allowed any F-111 engines or engine components. The Iranians would probably like to get hold of a few spare parts. They were the only country outside the U.S. that received the F-14, so there's not many sources for parts.

It's always possible the U.S. has set the limit of 8 de-mil'd museum offerings. Either way, the defence department refuses to give their reasons, even though they did apologise for overlooking the original expressions of interest. Whether or not it's the U.S. setting the number at eight or our defence department doing it might not ever be known. There is a FOI request in but it may not be successful. You would think it would be a simple matter for our department to say the limit is set by the Americans and it's out of their hands if that was the case, but instead they are just not answering.

Even HARS and the department's own museum at Amberley didn't get a Hornet. Here's three of them on their way to be buried:

Zamunda definition:

Here's my gripe: the Defence Department flatly refuses to allow Queensland to have a Hornet for museum display and preservation, yet they are burying forty of them in... you guessed it, Queensland. Only eight have been allocated to museums around the nation and they won't budge on that number.

The Russians have gone all Mad Max lately but their motorcycle wave assaults have been failing badly. It doesn't work but they keep doing it.

I seem to be missing something here. The way I read the court decision is that there is immunity from criminal prosecution (and I assume civil) for official acts but not for unofficial acts. I don't know if it would influence impeachment as it's not criminal or civil prosecution and the penalty for a guilty impeachment verdict is removal from office only.

The court decision said that former presidents have absolute immunity from prosecution for their official acts and no immunity for unofficial acts. Anything he did that was not an official act as president is still answerable to the law.

The commentary I read was of the opinion that Biden holds enough sway in the party that the decision to stand down would have to come from him. It was also said the only people with a chance of influencing him are Obama and Pelosi. Also mentioned was that he's a stubborn person and that Jill is right behind him pushing. Biden can possibly still beat Trump if he keeps away from debates and other non scripted appearances. When he has a good day he's still an effective campaigner. The problem is the good days are getting fewer. It's one thing to have long term speech issues that make communication more difficult, but to regularly lose the train of thought when speaking in public is worrying. Losing one's train of thought is not a speech issue, it's a brain issue.

According to exit polls Marine Le Pen's far-right National Rally party has won the first round of France's parliamentary election. Her party is on 34%. The New Popular Front, a newly created far-left coalition, has taken 28.1 per cent and Emmanuel Macron's centrist Renaissance party has taken 20.3 per cent. France is first past the post which means if it was a single round vote, Marine Le Pen's party would be in government. Under a preferential voting system like we have, her National Rally party would lose. All parties who get more than 12.5% of the vote go through to a second round vote in a week's time and first past the post wins. France has a tradition of ganging up on parties they don't want to win. Various interests are encouraging those in third place to drop out and throw their support behind those in second place to keep Le Pen's party out. That's the thing with first past the post - you can have a government that two thirds of voters voted against. A lot of people say first past the post is the most democratic, but it can also result in a government that a large majority of people oppose.It all depends on your interpretation of democracy.

Quote from Barack Obama on his Xcrement account - "Bad debate nights happen. Trust me, I know. But this election is still a choice between someone who has fought for ordinary folks his entire life and someone who only cares about himself. Between someone who tells the truth; who knows right from wrong and will give it to the American people straight — and someone who lies through his teeth for his own benefit. Last night didn’t change that, and it’s why so much is at stake in November."

When I was in London in 1985 you could buy cans of VB at a liquor store but you couldn't buy them in a carton. You had to buy 24 separate cans and try to juggle them home in a large brown paper bag which is not easy when you have the wobbly boot on. Very primitive I thought. You couldn't buy take-aways at a pub when I was there, at least not at the ones I went to. At closing time, if you wanted take-aways, you had to wander down the street to the liquor store and do the juggling act.

My wavy hair started waving goodbye to my forehead when I turned 30. As the years go by the memory of hair recedes as well.

I wonder if they'll have any more debates. They seem a bit pointless when you have Trump dodging every question with his usual waffle.

I sometimes wonder whether if any of these candidate debates make any real difference to the electoral outcome. I doubt many of them would look forward to having to do it.

The Democrats have a big problem. At the debate, poor old Joe looked like he should be in aged care. I only saw cherry picked highlights, but most of the time he was staring into space with his mouth open. Obviously he was trying to understand Trump speaking (not an easy task) but he was really struggling. My first thought was that they had Joe medicated. The format was always going to be a disaster for Joe with no notes allowed or any contact with their respective teams. They could have note paper to write things down, but no pre-written notes allowed. One good thing was the mute button so only the candidate who's turn it was had a live microphone. Some critics of the debate are saying it was elder abuse to allow Joe to go through that. It wasn't a good look.

It's another perspective, but I still don't see what that has to do with the intention of Red's post. Maybe I'm just not reading enough into it. I thought it was a straightforward post and couldn't see any hint of support for America's actions against Assange. I'm not debating the issues of Assange's guilt or not or the US deep state thing, or the issue of transparency; all I'm saying is I think his post was misinterpreted and quite wide of the mark at that..

Re-read Red's post and think about it. If Assange had obtained classified Australian military and government documents via illegal hacking and published them, he would have been charged with very serious offences in this country. That's the first point I think Red is making. The second point is that because he has not committed a crime in this country he's being white knighted here. I didn't see anything in Red's post to suggest that Red supports the right of the US to murder civilians and keep it quiet under the threadbare fig leaf of "National Security". I think it's a bit distasteful that you would ask him that. You seem to have completely misinterpreted his post. I think you owe him an apology.