onetrack

The best description of Trump I've seen recently, is "bullshit-artist-in-Chief", from the Russian, Vladimir Frolov, a former Russian diplomat. Trump has no ability to forge proper plans, and to see them carried out - he makes arbitrary decisions on the fly, and then fails to follow up, as he finds something else to take up his attention - either flattery, or some vicious political revenge move. He claims he's settled the war in Gaza. But he's done nothing to disarm Hamas. He claims if they don't disarm, then the Americans will get in there, and "blow the crap out of them". It's all BS - he has no strategic plans to ensure that talks with Hamas produce meaningful results. He has no communications lines established with Hamas, he speaks to them through his Presidential media outbursts. Hamas regard him as just a mouthy fool, and rightfully so. Hamas fighters have come out from hiding, now the bombing has stopped, are carrying good weaponry and driving new pickups - and are set on establishing their power base in Gaza and the Middle East once again. https://www.watoday.com.au/world/north-america/after-the-extraordinary-moment-of-trump-s-mid-east-peace-plan-here-come-the-morning-after-blues-20251016-p5n339.html

I've driven about 3,000,000 kays over exactly 60 years, and I started driving in the bush at 16 (unlicenced), and spent vast amounts of my driving time in rural and goldfields areas. I've hit dozens of 'roos over the decades, and virtually all my vehicles were equipped with 'roobars. They were lightweight steel 'roobars, and they all worked without fail. There was a bloke called Geoff Neve (F G Neve & Co) in Kalgoorlie who made the best tubular 'roobars. He's long gone now, as a 'roobar fabricator. The worst section of road for 'roos I've ever encountered was Kalgoorlie to Leonora to Laverton (W.A.) in the late 1980's. The 'roos were in multiple hundreds, and you couldn't go 5 kms without hitting one, or having a near-miss with one. Many people avoided driving that section of road at night. You would easily see 200-300 'roos in an hour on the roadsides. The roadsides were clear, and the vegetation was slashed back about 20 metres each side of the highway - but the 'roos would come out after a shower of rain, to drink from the little puddles on the road, or to munch on the fresh green shoots by the road edges. I've always practiced slowing down where 'roos are prevalent, and stopping quickly in a straight line, if a 'roo impact looks like it's going to occur. I also find leaning on the horn works, the 'roos can be dazzled by your headlights, but they will move at the sound of a horn. The problem is trying to figure out where they will go. Many a time, I've had a 'roo double back, when I think it's gone. I've found, if a 'roo is heading across your path, steer to where it currently is (provided the road is clear, and provided no major swerve is involved), and by the time you reach that point, the 'roo is gone from that spot, regardless of which way it has jumped.

"Put the money on the fridge, Wog!!" 😄

Ace Frehley, founding member of the rock group KISS, has died. One must note, to balance the depressing news of most of the rock stars of our youth slipping away every week, that Keith Richards is still alive and well. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-10-17/ace-frehley-guitarist-kiss-dies-aged-74/105902920

And Trump devalues the Presidential Medal of Freedom, by awarding it posthumously to Charlie Kirk. Meantimes, Trumps America denies even basic food, medicine and job entitlements to employees. When Amazon employed are injured on the job because of poor working conditions - rather than Amazon examining and improving their employees working conditions, they installed vending machines in their factories. The vending machines dispense painkillers. And the employees have to pay for them. The article from a former FTC Commissioner fired by Trump, makes the Trump agenda plain to see - it's all about ensuring billionaires can continue to destroy the little people of America. It's a long article, and it makes depressing reading. The FTC was set up to prevent unfairness in commerce by promoting fair competition, and protecting consumers from unfair or deceptive practices. The FTC has been gutted by Trump and his billionaire cronies, so they have no opposition to their devious, greedy behaviour. https://newrepublic.com/article/201171/alvaro-bedoya-ftc-became-populist

Nothing has really changed in thousands of years - it's just that today, the money levels of military expenditure are mind-boggling. and the military-industrial complex is better organised than ever, to make fat profits from War.

Acne.

When the Muslims in this region stop teaching their little children that real power comes from the barrel of a gun, and teaches them to carry firearms as soon as they can walk, then there's little hope of any lasting peace in this region. https://www.un.org/unispal/document/auto-insert-181056/

Bamboo.

And how many thousand years before that happens, Spacey? I'm not sure if I've got that amount of lifespan left!

I just hate it, when you wonder where that last 10 days went!

Getting back to the Universe, we like to think our Milky Way Galaxy is pretty big and impressive. But the boffins have estimated that the Milky Way is only ONE of TWO TRILLION Galaxies (some smaller, and many larger than the Milky Way) in the OBSERVABLE Universe (to us mere mortals). We can only "see" (observe) about 46.5 million Light Years into the Universe (that is, the Observable Universe is 93 million Light Years in diameter) - because of the finite speed of light, and because the Universe is still expanding at a colossal rate. And it's ALL made up out of those myriads of tiny and unmeasurable particles, described and spoken about, in Nomadpete's video. Kind of puts your daily importance into the right perspective, doesn't it?

You could just never get the show up, if you had ED.

So .... the Universe is not eternally expanding, it's actually a tetracontadigon? 🤔

My gripe today is the slackness of tradies and the poor design of a lot of domestic equipment. My 94-yr-old Italian neighbour Barney rings my doorbell at 8:30 AM this morning, just as I had planned an easy day. He told me in his broken English, his "air conditioner bracket was broken". I do all his running repairs, because he's childless, and his wife died about 10 years ago, and he's totally computer illiterate and he can't find any tradies any more, because there's no more telephone book or yellow pages book. I told him I'd be over in an hour to look at it. I get over there and find his stove rangehood had completely fallen off the wall, and landed on his stove! You should've seen the bodgie setup these installers had put in, to hold the rangehood up. It was an old rangehood, at least 40 or 50 years old (Barney's been in the house since 1994, and he said it was installed long before he got there). Fortunately, that made it a pretty simple and basic setup - but the installers had used screws that were too short and too small, and they'd simply pulled out of the wall. There were large wooden dowels (about broomhandle diameter) installed in the wall and they'd hammered plastic rawlplugs into the dowels, but the rawlplugs hadn't gone in far enough - and there appeared to be previous repairs as well, because someone had spread plaster or filler around the dowels, which plaster had fallen out as well. I decided the dowels were still quite useable, we just needed to dig up some larger and much longer screws. The rangehood was covered in thick grease, which all needed to be cleaned off before I could do anything, as the grease was getting everywhere. I took the rangehood out onto the back lawn and scrubbed it thoroughly with hot soapy water, until it was nice and clean. Then we set out on a hunt for some big screws. Barney went through all his tins of screws and could only come up with some big countersunk head woodscrews. I told him we needed regular button head screws, and I thought I might have something. As luck would have it, I had a few 14G x 65mm type 17 concrete screws that looked ideal for the job. There were only two screws holding the rangehood up. I drilled out the dowels to take long rawlplugs and ensured the concrete screws would go in without any problems. They did. Then came the fun of re-installing this prick of a thing. It was heavy, and awkward, and the screw holes were right up inside the rangehood housing, with tight access - and no lighting, of course. Add in, trying to stand on a wooden chair to get enough height, and lean over the stove at the same time, as you're trying to get the screws to start in the correct spot - all the while you have to look over the back of the rangehood to see where the screw is pointing, and turn the screw from the underside of the rangehood housing! Barney's not much help of course, he's pretty wobbly on his pins, and he uses a walker fairly regularly - although he get around the house without it. He couldn't even hold my phone with the light on in the right position to put light on the screw heads, as he'd have to stand on a chair, too! Fortunately, I managed to get the rangehood to hold in position by resting it on the top edge of the tiles under it, while I managed to get the screws started. Barney helped by holding pressure on the rangehood, to prevent it from dropping. I managed to get both screws started, and then spun them in with an 8mm socket on my battery drill. One jammed 2/3rds of the way in, but after backing it out, then screwing it in again a couple of times, it went right in and got an excellent grip. I was sweating like a horse with the effort, and with the effort of getting up and down constantly, and also having to kneel on the chair as well, which my knees protest about greatly now. Both screws got a great hold on the wall, and the rangehood was fully secured. I went and got my Silastic gun and squirted wet area silicone all around the edges of it to finish it off. Barney came out with some home grown Italian garlic and $50 for my trouble. Not exactly tradies rates, it took me two hours in total! - but I'd be happy enough to fix it for him for free, he's a good neighbour, and has been for nearly 30 years. So it all ended up a positive type of morning!