willedoo

I wonder if the Greens have reached their peak support. I don't know about other states but in Queensland they sit around the same support percentages as One Nation. More of a fringe dweller that a serious contender for government. I think their biggest achievement would be balance of power in the Senate.

Musk probably thinks it looks cool which is a priority with him. It's probably got as big a future as that useless pickup truck he put out.

I see where they've got a week to go before parliament finishes for the year. If they call an early election next year, this might be the last sitting week for the term. Albo & Co. are trying to get a lot of legislation through in the week; a lot of it has been sitting around for a long time and some of it is rushed through and not well finished off. The weasel words about the cost of living crisis wear a bit thin on voters when the government is spending some of their last energy of the parliamentary term on pushing through electoral reform that will increase public election funding for the major parties. Talk about out of touch with the needs of the voters. That's a bad call when along comes Dutton running on cost of living, housing, energy and climate change and immigration. It will be a populist campaign from the opposition with not a great deal of policy detail but I think it will beat the government. Labor has traditionally lost votes to the Greens but considering the Greens of late have been as popular as a turd in a punch bowl at a party, votes swinging from Labor might well go the way of the opposition instead of the Greens this time. A lot of voters might look at the government's performance over the last three years and think their promises for the next three are likely a bit hollow, so think they have nothing to lose by giving the other team a go. If Dutton gets in he won't have won the election, it will be Albo who has lost it. It seems to be the way with most of our elections. People don't particularly want the new government, it's more a case they just don't want the old one.

A lot of kids under 16 have older siblings or friends over 16. What's to stop the over 16s creating a second account in their name and letting the under 16s use it as their own.

spacey, most of those charities use third party companies to raise their charity loot. There will be several different charities all contracting the same mob to do their fundraising. When someone rings up saying they are from xxx charity, they're not, but are from the contracted fundraising company. If they can suck people in to permanent monthly payments, the usual rule of thumb is the first 12 months of payments goes to the third party fundraising company. You'll be paying them for a year before one cent goes to the charity cause. My guess is the chuggers outside supermarkets are also working for a third party.

With a site like that the restoration is basically using a dozer or grader to push the removed spinifex back over the site. The main object is to scatter the seed stock back over the cleared site. There would be a certain amount of root stock still in the ground as well.

This is that same camp site after a lot of human foot traffic. It looks like a mob of cattle has been through it. The person in the white chef's tunic was a bloke who was pretending to be the cook. Chefs are ok at chefing but they rarely make good camp cooks. He kept us alive though and that's the main thing. That job was the one and only time I've worked in the Simpson. I'd flown over it a couple of times previously. First time in 1982 in a Cherokee Six in a drought year when it was all sand and hardly any vegetation. That was flying from Windorah to Alice Springs. The second time was in 1985 when it was much greener on a trip from Halls Creek to somewhere west of Gidgealpa. That was a nice uneventful flight compared to the issues we had with the Cherokee on the first flight. On that one it took us a couple of goes to get across. Eventually we got across with no radio or instruments and had to land at Ringwood Station and use their phone to alert Alice Springs airport to clear some airspace for us to come in without comms. At Alice we got a new alternator and finished the trip to Halls Creek with no further problems.

That wasn't the best camp site being soft and sandy but there were no better options. From memory we had to tow the trucks on site and tow them back out to the track when we left. The track was fairly hard as it had served as a rig road a couple of years before and still had the clay surface mostly intact. There was the old rig site with a capped well not far south of our camp site but it was out of bounds for camping. Same with claypans due to environmental restrictions and there aren't many claypans in that area anyway. It was on the first day at work on that trip that I came across Reg Sprigg's original base camp #1 from the 1960's when he did that west/east crossing with his family. It was when he had his Geosurveys company pre Beach Petroleum. I think the claim was they were the first white people to cross the Simpson from west to east. I'd have to re-read the book on him (Rock Star-the story of Reg Sprigg) to be sure but I think they were doing a magnetic survey grid. One of his partners was doing the north south lines. I came over a sand dune and spotted a star picket which survey companies use as permanent markers on lines. When I checked the stamped aluminium tag attached it had the Geosurveys detail on it. There was a bit of debris scattered around and a few old baked beans cans. The beans had long dried up and you could hear them rattle if you shook the can. It had probably been buried and dug up and scattered by dingos over the years.

In the Simpson. It had been a good season, the dune corridors were all covered in grasses and herbage. I can remember coming across a bloke doing a trip on an off road bike. He was on a north/south track that ran up from the French Line and eventually exits the desert on the western side.

Found some old work photos, from around 2011 if the memory is correct. Taken on one of those small Panasonic cameras, a DMC-LZ1 according to the image data. The name Lumix rings a bell. Off to the Simpson for a bit of adventure in these photos:

Some 15 year olds might find it a bit odd that they can watch a 15+ movie containing sex scenes and drug use but they will now be banned from posting a picture of their new surfboard on Instagram. The bill would have some admirable goals but I'm wondering if it's another not so well thought out distraction for the government when the clock is ticking to an election. Well intentioned but maybe more thought could have been put into it.

Albo would have been better off leaving the voice for a second term and instead using that spent energy on something that locks in votes. The social media age restriction bill seems to be a bit distracting for them so late in the term, another one best left for a second term in my opinion. There could be a few lost first time votes there. Would an 18 or 19 year old vote for a government that's just booted their 15 year old sibling off social media platforms.

I don't think it's just the leader. They've been a fairly uninspiring bunch all round. The challenge with being so unnoticeable as a government is how to convince the punters that they are worth a gamble rather than trying something else. If they do lose, I wonder who will lead them. Jim Chalmers maybe.

It's just over 20 years since an Australian prime minister was reelected. By that I mean not reelected to their seat but having led the parliamentary party to two successive election victories. The last was Howard in 2004. I'm not a betting man but my tip is that we won't see it again this election. It could be close but I don't see it going Albo's way.

Short range up to 1,000 klm Medium range 1,000 to 3,000 Intermediate range 3,000 to 5,500 Intercontinental more that 5,500.

Going back to the 1980's when I spent a bit of time in SE Asia I always used that procedure when travelling or dealing with certain people. If you wear long trousers and a long sleeve business shirt and are reasonably dressed while travelling in Asia, people are much more helpful, cooperative and respectful. They really look down their nose on those tourists who travel on buses and trains dressed in shorts, thongs and T shirts. In their culture shorts are what poor people and rice farmers wear and to see tourists dressed like that in situations that would normally call for a better standard of dress is a bit offensive to a lot of locals.

The way that article reads nobody has used ICBMs. The Russians are claiming to have combat tested a mid range hypersonic missile and Zelensky was quoted as saying the Russians fired missiles 'matching the speed and altitude of an ICBM'. You can have a missile matching the speed and altitude of an ICBM but if you don't have intercontinental range it's a mid range missile and not an ICBM. Another aspect is that it would be a waste of ICBMs to use them at such short range as the Caspian Sea to Ukraine when mid range missiles are easily within range capability.

Made in China jeans will always be a problem. If you can track some down made in Africa you should be right.

Julia can stay at my place.

Boris Yeltsin got up to some legendary antics at times. Like the time when he produced it on the tarmac in the USA. He was visiting the US and was fairly tanked when he was leaving. Walking (or staggering) across to his plane, he stopped, flopped it out, and p*ssed on the tarmac in front of everyone. He had a certain style about him.

He's never lived this one down.

Speaking of cheap suits, here's Medvedev dancing in his blue suit. At least Yeltsin was amusing, Medvedev is a total dick.

I can't see Trump's new best friend sticking around for long. Mixing two fragile egos like theirs is like mixing oil and water. There is a lot of difference between them though. Trump is very much a people person and thrives on socialising whereas Musk is very socially disfunctional.

That NV engine in the OP sold within the day. He had $120 on it. Said it was in good condition, turned over but not running. Just a question about those older engines. If you run them on unleaded do you need an additive or are they ok with straight fuel?

Medvedev is an alcoholic, he's rarely sober.