onetrack

Developers always want to make millions from every scrap of "available" land and are intent on ignoring flood plain water height records - and they always manage to capture shire councillors to support them. They either bribe the councillors or dazzle them with the level of extra income the council will get from the development. Nearly every country in the world is the same. Americans keep building in the floodplain of the mighty Mississippi - and every Mississippi flood is bigger and higher than the last one, because all the developments slow up the downstream movement of floodwaters, so the flooding upstream becomes worse.

It can certainly be very difficult to prove sex trafficking and sexual abuse allegations. Witness the length of time it took to nail Rolf Harris. Bill Clinton is refusing to be subpoenaed in the Epstein investigations, because of two angles - one, he almost certainly had sex with underage girls with Epstein (knowing Bills ethics and morality from the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal) - and two, he's likely to be suspicious (and rightly so) that the current investigation is only about finding and blaming Democrats and their supporters who associated with Epstein. Don't forget there's a wild undercurrent of outrageous and unbelievable claims about the "Deep State", running a global paedophile ring, aided by leading Democrats. This conspiracy theory was started by the Q-Anon movement, and died down for a while, but those same conspiracy activists are always looking to revive this "evil underground Democrat conspiracy" line. Rabid Trump supporters are always looking for a good conspiracy story, America runs on conspiracies. I can recall conspiracy theorists advancing wild conspiracies way back to the 1960's, it's a disease in America, paranoia is rampant there - someone in hidden power, is always out to get ya! https://link.motherjones.com/public/40655751

This media outlet rightly points out, that despite Sascha Rileys claims going viral, nothing that he claims can be verified - anywhere. So, take it as simply unsubstantiated allegations, and remember that Riley is also reputed to be an Army Veteran who suffered a head injury in combat. His claims have actually been around for much, much longer than the last few days, and the propagation of his claims just recently, appears highly likely to be the work of bots. https://www.msn.com/en-in/news/world/who-is-sasha-riley-and-why-is-alleged-epstein-survivors-testimony-audio-going-viral/ar-AA1U8Yxy

The full, true story is somewhat different. Battel was actually under orders from his superior, Max Liedtke. Their aim was to keep Jews alive for the Nazi war machine. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Battel

I don't believe any of Sascha Rileys stories. I think the bloke is suffering from mental illness and hallucinations. I do believe Trump almost certainly had sexual interactions with underage girls, but it's highly unlikely anything he has done will ever come to light. He has too many supporters that can ensure nothing survives in records relating to his "Epstein" behaviour.

Yes, reputedly the 3rd windiest city in the world. I don't mind the winds - at least the air comes from the huge, largely unpolluted ocean areas, of the Southern and Indian Oceans. But I do find any strong constant winds in the wheatbelt, annoying and intrusive.

I can handle her, and she knows me well enough when to stop pushing buttons. But if she spots injustice happening, God help those carrying out the injustice.

If you lived in the poverty of London in the 1800's, you'd probably get depressed, too.

Here on the Left Coast, we've been getting a lot of very strong and constant winds, the last month to six weeks. You get periods of strong winds, then you get periods of relative calm. There was a long calm period in late Spring. The strong winds are caused by very deep depressions coming up against very strong high pressure systems.

I do my banking with Bendigo Bank, because I'm a shareholder in the local branch. But Bendigo are going the same way as the Big Banks, too - shutting branches and pulling out ATM's. I simply keep more cash on hand at home now. I also deal a lot with the Credit Unions or banks that have been formed out of Credit Unions. These mobs are generally good to deal with, but they lack branches simply because of their size and limited funding. So I just keep my main monetary dealings with them, online. I like the fact the profits from CU's and the small banks go to the customers, who are the shareholders.

That's a very youthful Roy Orbison.

She's a Police Superintendents daughter, Nev - I reckon they should know.

What a greedy, grasping grub, the Tangerine Toddler is. They might as well call it the Ignoble Prize now. Just watch for all the new, outrageously-priced Trump merchandise, with his stupid grinning mug featuring the medal around his neck.

SWMBO can cut off someone's head with just a few well-chosen words!! 😄

It's just dreadful the way this country is allowing important skills to be lost ....

Yep, and 51 immigrants were killed by one right wing nut job in Christchurch, and 77 people were killed in Norway by another right wing nut job - and these two mass murderers still have plenty of followers. The cure is to find the radicals from each side, before they commit their ideologically-motivated terrorism attacks.

I think they should knock the bridge down, and replace it with a far bigger and more imposing one, and call it "The Bridge of Jewish-Muslim Reconciliation" - and see how long it lasts.

The minimum wage rate in the U.S. is US$7.25 hr. This rate has been unaltered since July 2009. That's 17 years. Employees who receive tips in their job are entitled to be paid just US$2.13 hr - provided their tips bring their wage hourly rate up to the Federal mimimum. I think this tells us all we need to know, about the greed of American capitalism.

Al Jazeera is reporting that a number of U.S. Senators (Democrat and Republican) are planning to introduce a bill, forbidding any financial expenditure on any attack, on any NATO country. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/1/14/us-senators-introduce-bill-to-stop-trump-seizing-greenland

What are you referring to, Nev? You've lost me with the last statement.

It was a joke, FFS. Yes, our military surplus stores were generally called "Military Disposals", but they also advertised as "military surplus".

When I was a child, our family were the poorest in the area. We couldn't afford new clothing, all our clothing came from military surplus stores. I was the only Japanese General in my class!

It must be time to get a sidecar for it, so it can't fall over on you. 😄

Australia needs to send the U.S. an ambassador that's as mad and erratic and chaotic as Trump is - just to keep him off-balance. Tell him one thing one day, with great conviction, then reverse it the next day. Trump understands that.