onetrack

Mega-billionaire and premium-grade Trump supporter, Paul Singer, has been identified as the primary beneficiary of the U.S. takeover of Venezuela. His investment company recently purchased all of the oil assets of Venezuela (oil refineries, terminals, and service stations) for$5.9B, in a "distressed sale", ordered by a Delaware court, after the State-owned Venezuelan oil company defaulted on loan repayments - all due to U.S. sanctions on Venezuelan oil. The Master of the Delaware court who ordered the sale of the Venezuelan oil assets, is also a major Trump supporter. https://asiatimes.com/2026/01/billionaire-trump-megadonor-set-to-make-killing-on-venezuela-oil/

Ahem .... convicts were first sent to Australia in 1788, not 1868. Back to the history books for you, Jerry! W.A. can lay claim to be the only State founded by free settlers (1826 for Albany, and 1829 for Perth), and W.A. only had convicts sent here between 1850 and 1868 - therefore only a small percentage of West Aussies, can claim convict ancestry. My parents arrived as "Ten-Pound Poms", Dad from England in 1925, and Mum from Scotland in 1929. Mum was fond of the old comment, "We arrived as 'Assisted Immigrants', not 'Insisted Immigrants'". 😄

It must have been some wild ride inside that "Sea-Bug", in that heavy sea!! (watch the 2nd YouTube clip). I'll wager they went through a few sick bags!! https://www.jalopnik.com/i-finally-found-what-the-ocean-going-vw-beetle-that-ins-1846145700/

NEWS FLASH! Melbourne, already known for being a bit of a hole, has shown what it can really do, by way of big holes! 😄

You forgot to mention the shocking VW handling at speed. They got the nickname "Turtle" because so many ended up on their back. If I had a dollar for every VW Beetle I've sighted on its roof, I'd have enough for a decent holiday. They would go from understeer to oversteer in a flash on bends, and catch out the unwary, inexperienced drivers. The only thing worse for handling than a Beetle, was the rear-engined Czech Tatra V8. The Tatra's killed quite a number of Nazi officers with their vicious handling - it was possibly one of the Allies greatest secret assets in WW2. The German High Command ended up banning all Nazi officers from owning or driving Tatra V8's .

The C-17's are heavy lift aircraft carrying tactical equipment to Britain, quite likely preparing for an operation such as intercepting oil tankers carrying Russian oil. Don't forget, DT, and his backers, have a major interest in ensuring America once again dominates the world oil market. I've been a little confused about the role Venezuelan oil plays in the world oil market. The initial information was that Venezuelan oil plays only a tiny part amongst the global oil producers, around 2% of world production. So the global oil traders simply shrugged off any impact on their trading from the Venezuelan invasion by the U.S.. But the true picture is, that Venezuelas oil reserves are the worlds largest, bigger than any Arab nation, including Saudi Arabia. What is even better, their oil is heavy, sour crude, which is what U.S. refineries are designed to treat. Canadian and Venezuelan crude are the primary feedstocks for these refineries. But the Canadians are looking to curtail U.S. sales of their crude, and to sell it elsewhere, thanks to Donalds trade war with Canada. The Venezuelans are sitting on 303 BILLION barrels of oil reserves, but their oil pumping efforts are pitiful, obviously due to lack of American oil money. Donald is all set to fix that. The problem is though, Donald probably thinks he can even control the global oil price by grabbing all the Venezuelan oil - but it doesn't work that way. He's getting set to drill and pump and flood the global oil market with lots of oil, at a time when global oil consumption has plateaued, and it's highly likely oil consumption will start on a path of decline, as the EV's and renewable energy projects continue to increase. This will tend to reduce the global oil price. However, OPEC still controls global oil prices to a very large degree, and they may cut production a little to keep the price up. No doubt Donald even thinks he can increase global oil consumption by encouraging and ramping up IC-engine production, particularly in the U.S. - but I personally think that's going into fantasy land.

It's O.K., the Indians that work for ANZ in Mumbai, received the copy of your hoax email, and they'll advise their mates operating the scam, to improve their style. 😄 I can't help but think, how so many of these scammers have inside knowledge of how the banking systems operate.

Renting always put you at a disadvantage, because the landlord/landlady can die, sell up, or just toss you out, because they "want to redevelop". Nothing says "secure" like owning your own home. Pick a place that is low maintenance and doesn't encompass a big area or lots of rooms, which most people don't need, and never use, anyway. Around my neck of the woods (inner-city Perth), we have 30's, 40's and 50's houses that are quite often heritage listed or have other restrictions on them, and most purchasers move in here because we have one of the "old, leafy, quiet, sought-after suburbs", and because they have money to extend, modernise and revamp the properties. As a result, every second house around here is anywhere from 5 to 8 bedrooms, have massive rear extensions, second stories added, swimming pools installed - and most of those houses are occupied by just TWO people!! I guess these owners must pay out constantly for house maintenance and cleaning, because I sure wouldn't want to be doing all that work by myself! We live in a house built in 1957, it had 2 bedrooms and sleepout originally, then the previous owner (and original builder) turned the sleepout into a third bedroom with a modest brick extension. We put in a new kitchen in 2005, and a new bathroom the year before last, and that might be the last renovations we do - although SWMBO talks about re-doing the kitchen again. We don't really want to move, because this spot is very central, very quiet, no crime, the rates are relatively modest, and everything we look at elsewhere is either going to cost us a lot more, or we get jammed into a tiny block in a new housing estate. The last is something neither of us want, we're on a little under 600 sq m, have lots of nice big trees and a well-established garden, and we don't have neighbours arguing just 3 metres away. Plus, our house has nice big rooms and high ceilings, larger than the standard of the time, because the original owner was a builder. I would never ever move to a rented property simply because of the insecurity angle. I like knowing that I can decide when and how I move, not having it forced on me at a bad time.

The Express is extremely alarmist, and nothing sells news like saying WW3 is upon us. Putin is too smart to confront the U.S. directly, and he'll find a way to undermine the Americans efforts in Venezuela.

Yes, manuals are virtually disappearing in Australia, the gurus are saying it will soon be hard to buy a new manual car here. A lot of the manual transmission manufacturers are either cutting right back, or even preparing to shut up shop, as their market shrinks massively due to EV's and hybrids not needing manual transmissions, and the general preference amongst new car buyers, for automatics.

Here's another reason to be wary of Chinese EV's - there will be a major "consolidation" of Chinese EV brands in the next year or two. That means up to 50 Chinese EV brands will vanish. Some will be allowed to go broke, the others will merge into the bigger Chinese brand names, and those lesser brand names will disappear. https://www.drive.com.au/news/chinese-electric-car-brands-could-face-closure-amid-a-massive-market-realignment-in-2026/ The problem is simply the rush to electrification was too sudden and the desire to provide lots of "gimmicky" features burnt up a lot of Chinese EV companys money. I believe, eventually, that EV's will become a major part of the motoring environment, but I can't see IC-engine vehicles ever disappearing totally, or disappearing overnight. I'm looking ahead to find a replacement for SMWBO's 2012 Camry Atara. The Camry is a great car, drives beautifully, and rides and handles like it's on rails - and for a 2.5L engine, it has exceptional fuel economy, as well as more than adequate power. On long smooth highway runs, it's not uncommon to see it running at 6.5L/100kms. The problem is, every vehicle I look at, that is a current model hybrid or IC-engine replacement, doesn't have any better fuel economy than the Camry, no matter what they claim. And from numerous reports I've read, the claimed fuel economy of many hybrids, doesn't match the company claims, in real-life use. Plus, I'm very wary of the complexity of hybrids. I don't need to replace the Camry soon, because it's only done 113,000 kays and it's still in perfect condition. But I'd like to move up to a medium-size SUV, as we both find the Camry is too low now, as far as climbing into and out of it goes. SWMBO in particular is griping about this aspect. Unlike your partner, SWMBO would be happy with an EV, provided it wasn't too gimmicky - but the problem is finding the right balance between running costs, "user-friendliness" of the vehicle, purchase cost, resalability, and reliability. We've been Toyota owners for over 33 years, and worn out a fair number of Toyotas, and every one of them has provided astounding reliability and low running costs, along with high resale value and ease of reselling the vehicle after we finished with it. But Toyota are lagging a bit with their inbuilt conservativeness and a lack of models that don't appeal. We hired a hybrid Corolla last July and we're weren't impressed with it - especially when it came to refuelling it when we returned it. The fuel savings were nowhere near what I had expected. Add in the "features" complexity, such as the annoying "lane correction", the problem with the seatbelt sensors in the back seat, that went off when we placed a suitcase on the seat (and we struggled to identify what the warning was about), and the fact that the one time I was driving along about 70 kmh, resting my hand on the gearshift - and I accidentally bumped it into neutral - whereby it immediately slammed on full emergency braking, nearly throwing us through the windscreen!! It was lucky there was no-one behind us, or we probably would worn them up the bum. All these things make me think that our next car will need a lot more "features" investigation prior to purchase, than our past purchases. One of the things that annoys me is the propensity to fit sunroofs, black interiors, heated steering wheels, and heated seats to nearly all the current models on offer - and I want none of those features, because we live in a warm climate - which point seems to evade a lot of car manufacturers.

Those kind of bike owners usually have a very fast and very short life. We call them "temporary Australians".

Trump has invaded Venezuela simply because Chavez nationalised multiple billions of U.S. oil companies assets when he was in control. These billionaires running the oil companies are Trumps main backers, and they want their oil assets back (and the oil output and revenues of course), and everything else is just incidental. Trump and his lackeys will simply install a puppet who supports Trump and the U.S. oil companies, and the puppet will ensure the armed forces of Venezuela will keep the civil protests under control - because they're "the enemies of the countrys democracy". We're right back to the "good ol' boys" 1950's style of world domination! And don't forget, we've got a World War going with all those Christian-hating Muzzies, too! One can only hope Russia moves a heap of war materials and armed support to Venezuela, thus hampering their current efforts in the Ukraine. Zelinskyy supports the Trump move into Venezuela, now I know why.

I've actually been looking at a 2022-2024 Nissan Leaf as a trial used EV. They're very reliable and well built, but their battery technology is now obsolete, as they don't use inbuilt battery cooling to deal with heat buildup in the battery, which shortens range and battery life. In addition, they use the CHAdeMO charging protocol, which is also becoming obsolete (primarily due to the inability to handle large amperage, as I understand). The Leafs resale is relatively poor, making them a bit a bargain, IMO. Of course, that poor resale is aided by the fact the Leaf is now obsolete, and no longer produced, but every report from Leaf owners that I've perused, says they have spent virtually nothing on Leaf repairs, often after having travelled high kms. I'd rather buy a used Japanese-built EV than a new Chinese EV, as I'm not convinced the Chinese EV build quality is up to scratch yet - and the worst part of Chinese EV's is the lack of parts, and the even lower level of factory backup and support. The Chinese essentially regard their EV's as toasters - it craps itself, don't fix it, go buy a new one. There's a quite a few people making a killing here, buying low km wrecked Chinese cars and selling parts, panels and components off them, because people with Chinese EV's that have been pranged or have developed faults, are finding out they have long waits for parts, there's a multitude of confusing models, language difficulties, a lack of properly-written manuals, and a general "couldn't care less" attitude from the major Chinese manufacturers. BYD, here's looking at you!

Someone told me John Revolta was a hard charger in Greased Lightning.