onetrack

Heart attacks and cancer take out 1.2M Americans every year, they are America's biggest killers. A lot of that can be put down to their rubbishy, ultra-processed food, full of toxic additives. If you pick up a factory processed food and the ingredients label reads like a biblical text, or an extract from a science article, put it back. The food processing additives are nearly all industrial by-products, or based on petroleum-orgin chemicals. The worst part is buying food that says it has no additives. Not in their factory, anyway. Then you find out they are importing food ingredients from other countries, that have had illegal, un-approved or dodgy additives added, in that other country. Orange juice is an example. You buy Australian-packaged orange juice, it says, "no additives, just 100% orange juice". Then you find out they're importing orange juice CONCENTRATE from Brazil, where additives not approved here, have been added to the concentrate. So you're getting un-approved additives in your juice, yet the manufacturers here, tell you you aren't. Our food labelling system is as dodgy as a 3 dollar note. Another interesting angle is seed oils. RFK Junior, despite his crazyiness, does have some relevant points with his crusade against seed oils. Here's an example. Cottonseed oil is the most common frying/cooking oil used. It's used in every commercial kitchen, cafe and restuarant. Why? Because it's cheap, and no food business will pay a lot more, for better quality oils. The rub with cottonseed oil is - cotton is not recognised as a food crop. Food crops have all sorts of laws banning certain pesticides and weedicides from being used on them. Not so with cotton. Cotton is attacked by hordes of bugs, they love the stuff. So the cotton growers use millions of litres of highly toxic pesticides, and weedicides to assist in cotton growth - and half of them are not allowed in food production. But the cotton seeds are then processed to yield lots of cheap oil, which is then sold as cooking and frying oil. It is idiocy. I read an article the other day, where a cooking guru was lamenting the cooking show chefs, and their lack of attention to good, healthy cooking oils. The writer talked about how the celebrity chefs went to great pains to select premium foods and indulge in celebrated food preparation processes - then they reached for cheap, shitty cottonseed oil, to cook it all in!!

WTF is going on with the trucking scene? This is like a 3rd world country scenario. Yet, the authorities keep imposing more restrictions, more fines, more petty regulations - and this still happens. It must be time to start a root-and-branch teardown on the current system and start looking at driving training and skills levels. If you run up the back of another slowing semi with your truck, you should never have gained a truck licence in the first place. Too many cowboys driving trucks like they're race cars. I get too many truck drivers travelling too close behind me now. In the road train country, they are obliged to keep 200M between road trains, I often see two road trains much closer together than 200M.

Heart attack on a stick, like so much American-style food.

Geez, what a nightmare of a job, trying to machine those cam lobes! They must have used an eccentric rotating jig?

Here's the Electric Viking (Sam Evans), ruthlessly pounding Toyota for their transmission design failures. It's not only the U760E, six-speed model that is faulty (from 2012 onwards), it's also the UA80 and UB80, eight speed tranmissions as well, that have serious shortcomings in design and lifespan. The eight speed transmission is the later, so-called "improved transmission" as compared to the six speed. One bloke in the U.S. got refused a warranty claim for his faulty eight speed transmission, and was quoted $75,000 (!) to replace the knackered transmission in his Toyota Highlander! Little wonder he's on the lawsuit warpath!! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VpKYot7rL00

Willie - Here's a Steam Punk Goldwing for sale locally, that might give you some ideas! I like the jerry can panniers and the fake exhaust pipes. https://www.facebook.com/marketplace/item/4553036374957016 Of course, if you feel like going the Full Mad Max, you could always build a Steam Punk Chariot! https://www.webbikeworld.com/steampunk-goldwing-goes-auction/

Who knows what went on behind the scenes for Scomo to pull this job? Mates amongst mates, or string-pulling?

You get a packet of 2 Mentos with most Supercheap automotive parts or consumable purchases. But I hate Mentos, so they get binned. The Camry transmission story is ongoing. The Toyota dealer gave us the Camry back on Friday evening - after having held it for 3 days, and having never even laid a spanner on it. The "Service Advisor" (you don't get to speak to the Service Manager any more), says they hope to get a reply back from Toyota Head Office by this Friday, as to whether they will replace anything under warranty. That will be 10 days they've had to consider their position. I reckon I'm right, they are running it through their legal dept to see which loophole they can use to squeeze out of paying out anything. In America, there's apparently more than one class action lawsuit being initiated against Toyota for the faulty transmission problem. This looks like a costly headache for them.

You're pretty close, Marty! It's actually for UTI's! https://www.chemistwarehouse.com.au/buy/8190/ural-effervescent-powder-lemon-28-sachets

There is also scientific proof that the Earth suffers from mega-droughts about every 1000 years. These mega-droughts have been blamed for civilisation collapse in some regions, where entire civilisations just disappeared. If there are mega-droughts on a regular basis, this indicates long-term cyclical events in the climate, such as extreme heat periods, extreme rainfall periods, and extreme storms. Yet, the climate scientists tell us all these previously-mentioned events are simply the result of GW. I think the whole story is a lot more complex. We certainly have pumped a lot of pollutants into our atmosphere since the start of the Industrial Revolution, and anything we can do to moderate that, must be advantageous.

I'm a little puzzled as to how scientists get really precise CO2 measurements from 5000 and 6000 years ago, when they didn't have their current instruments there.

Right there is the problem. As soon as you start measuring temperatures in Reaumurs, the climate goes to hell in a handbasket.

Jerry, you mean there's still hope for MAGA diehards?? 😄

I have a gripe - and it's nothing to do with language - although my language may coarsen shortly if I don't get some satisfaction. SWMBO's 2012 Camry has crapped itself. Well, not completely DOA - but it recently developed a lag in upshift and a nasty associated shudder and vibration in the drivetrain that became very concerning. Some internet-thingy AI-assisted research tells me that Toyota had/has some huge problems with the Aisin U760E transmission as fitted to 2012-2014 Camrys and RAV4's. It appears the PCM (Powertrain Control Module - we no longer have simple ECU's, they are integrated PCM's now) was badly programmed originally, to allow the torque converter lock-up clutch to lock up at relatively low speed - say around 30-35kmh. This was done to assist in improved fuel economy and to allow Toyota to brag about that improved fuel economy. I must comment that the Camry IS very economical on fuel. However, the problem is that allowing the lock-up clutch in the TC to engage at such low speed (it used to be around 60kmh before they TC locked up), it overloads the lock-up clutch. This results in lock-up clutch burnout, shudder and a severe lag in upshifting. Eventually, the transmission can be destroyed if it gets bad enough. The cure is a reprogramming of the TCM and a complete TC replacement. Now, here's where it gets interesting. Toyota recognised they had a problem with this transmission, way back about 2014. So they agreed to come good with free repairs and replacements, under an "Extended Warranty" that was to run for 8 years or 150,000 miles (this was primarily an American problem - strangely enough, I can find no mention of the problem in Australia). Toyota produced over 940,000 vehicles with this transmission. They replaced around 100,000 TC's for free, it appears. So we dropped the Camry off at the local Toyota dealer Wednesday morning, and they examined it and immediately identified the problem as the faulty TC/programming problem. The TC is shot, and in need of total replacement. That's major surgery, of course - either the engine comes out, or the transmission is dropped out. The cost is going to be substantial. The Camry is 14 yrs old and has done just 120,000kms. On the first day, things went very quiet. I got a call from the dealer at 4:20PM, telling me what the problem was, and they had sent in a claim to Toyota head office for the repair to be a warranty claim, whereby Toyota will cover the TC replacement cost. I might add, a new TC has to be flown in from Japan. Today is Friday and still dead silence. I rang the dealer and asked where we were at. He says they're still waiting on a response from Toyota as to whether they will cover the repair. I guess they're consulting with their lawyers to see how vindictive we could be. We've been loyal Toyota owners for nearly 40 years, and we buy them for their reliability and resale. But right now, my loyalty is wavering. This is not a good look, Mr Toyota. I know the car is well out of warranty, but I never expected to be doing a transmission overhaul at 120,000kms, either. What is worse, the dealer hasn't laid a spanner on it in 3 days. He's waiting, and I'm waiting. I don't know why it should take so long to consider a warranty claim, Toyota must have developed into a huge paper and responsibility-shuffling bureaucracy. At least, the dealer has offered us a loan car.

Just a heads up, advising that the Govt's 32c per litre reduction in fuel excise ends on June 30th. However, the Govt has decided, in a "balanced" move, that come 1st July, only half the excise reduction on fuel will apply. This means that on the 1st July, fuel prices will rise 16c per litre. The 16c per litre excise reduction will remain in place until August 2nd, when the Govt will again review the fuel situation. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-06-21/why-fuel-excise-cut-will-continue-to-lesser-extent-until-august/106824392

The bulk of the place names in W.A. are Anglicised from the local Aboriginal dialects, and often are quite inaccurate in the translation - to the extent, that a pronunciation of the proper Aboriginal name of those places would be nearly impossible for most people. The bottom line is, the Aboriginal languages have died out because they have no way of keeping up with technological advances. This is the reason the English language is the language of Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics, Construction and Aviation. The Aboriginal languages are primarily concerned with place names and land forms, and waterways and waterholes - all that was needed to sustain the nomadic, hunter-gatherer lifestyle, which involved just the immediate everyday needs.

GON, the U.S. Military forces leave Australia after a 6 month deployment. There are approximately 2000 Marines based in the Territory from March to October, then they go home. There are no U.S. Military force bases in Australia with permanently-based personnel, unlike Japan, Sth Korea, Germany, Italy, etc. The Australian military facilities used by the Americans are used on a Joint Rotational basis, or are Joint Defence Facilities with some American personnel based here permanently. Marine Rotational Force: - Darwin: Approximately 2,000 U.S. Marines and sailors deploy to northern Australia every year. They arrive in March to conduct several joint drills, such as Exercise Pitch Black and Southern Jackaroo, before returning to the U.S. in October. Aircraft and Bomber Rotations: The U.S. routinely sends aircraft (like B-52 bombers stationed temporarily at RAAF Base Tindal) for operations, and stores aerial troop carriers in the country, but the personnel are continually cycled in and out. Joint Defence Facilities: Bases like the Joint Defence Facility Pine Gap operate as cooperatively managed Australian and U.S. intelligence sites with permanently stationed administrative and intelligence personnel. A number of the overseas American military bases are treated as "Sovereign territory" by the Americans. I cannot see that being allowed here. In the U.K., the bases are leased to the Americans, the British Govt retains sovereignty over the land. In Spain, the U.S. bases are jointly owned by the Spanish and the Americans.

Those Huaneng Ruichi 90 tonne all-electric dump trucks use battery swap technology - something I have been saying for some time, is necessary for speed of operation. The battery swapping is automated and carried out in minutes. Then they can get on with charging the flat batteries at their leisure, when excess or cheap power is available.

I've heard of musical toilets before, but this takes it to a whole new level! https://en.japantravel.com/article/the-musical-toilets-of-japan/11090

I read where Twiggy went to Caterpillar and asked them to build him a fleet of battery-powered big haul trucks. But they refused, saying the idea wasn't practical. So Twiggy went to Liebherr and asked the same question, they said "Yes" - so Liebherr are building the electric haul trucks for Twiggys operations. But 240 tonne trucks are only modest-sized trucks in the scheme of things. 400 tonners are common in numerous big mines. Cat did develop the "hybrid" diesel/electric D7E tractor in 2009, and have sold quite a few of them, about 10,000 units I STR. But the electric D7E has a diesel engine driving an alternator, which then drives a big electric motor, which drives the tracks - similar to diesel-electric locomotives. Essentially, the only savings with a diesel-electric crawler tractor or haul truck is in the transmission cost, with reduced costs as regards manufacturing and repair costs - and a fuel saving from the engine running at a set speed. The cost savings have to increase in the long run with all-electric power, although the up-front costs for electrification are massive, and the battery costs are also horrendous. It's yet to be revealed what battery technology Liebherr are going to use in Twiggys haul trucks - whether it's Lithium or Sodium. The Sodium batteries are starting to catch up to Lithium as regards power output, and they're much cheaper. But the Sodium batteries are heavier. In a mining truck application, the weight factor may not be such a problem as one might envisage.

It's obvious then. You're language-deficient, and need more training in obsolete languages and cultures. We'll book you in for a course in reading Sumerian cuneiform next week, so you can keep up, when they start using it for directions and nomenclature as well.

I can recall one wartime aviation hero, he survived the very worst of battle, and came home unscathed. Before he even went to War, his Anson and another, collided in mid-air, locked together, and he brought both crippled aircraft down to a safe landing, earning many kudos for his skill. Then, after returning from War with a DFM, he was sent to a training unit at Sale. But he collided with a bus on his pushbike in March 1944, and was killed. His name was F/O Leonard Graham Fuller.

It's some of the lines from Stings "Every Breath You Take". Not exactly as in the song, but it reads, "Every breath you take, every move you make, I'll be watching you". The accurate wording is "Every breath you take, and every move you make, Every bond you break, every step you take, I'll be watching you".

GON, it wasn't a KLM plane, it was a Malaysia Airlines flight, MH17. And your mates name is actually spelled Gerry. It was a very sad event, made worse by the lack of acknowledgement or responsibility for downing the aircraft, on the Russians part. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-08-15/victorian-mh17-victims-formally-identified/5672970 Why didn't you go back to fitting and turning at Hawker-DeHavilland after you did your NS? It was obligatory for businesses to hold job positions open for their employees doing National Service. QUOTE: "Under the National Service Act 1964, employers were legally obligated to hold positions open for employees who were called up for compulsory military duty. Key Details of the Mandate: Reinstatement Obligation: Employers had to restore servicemen to their previous positions (or an equivalent role) as soon as practicable upon their completion of full-time service. Terms and Conditions: The returned employee was entitled to the same salary, status, and seniority they would have achieved if they had not been conscripted. Eligibility Rules: To qualify, the employee typically needed to have been employed by the business for a set period prior to their call-up."

Trump is supported by utterly incompetent imbeciles such as J.D. Vance, who the Iranians have played like a fiddle at the peace talks in Switzerland. The Americans arrived early, and went in first to the negotiating room, giving the Iranians the pyschological edge. As seasoned negotiation veterans have said, the losing party is the first to enter the room, the victors enter last. Then the negotiations have stalled at every turn, with the Iranians knowing full well they're playing with a handful of aces. When asked if the U.S. was demanding a full and total end to Iran's nuclear programme, Vance only said, "Oh yes, we'll be negotiating an end to their nuclear programme" - like it was now of secondary importance. If the U.S. really were the winners here, they'd demand the end to Iran's nuclear programme as a primary and non-negotiable demand. Vance is a totally incompetent f****** loser, he couldn't negotiate his way out of a paper bag.