onetrack

I was reading an article about "Libyan desert glass" today, and how the scientists are totally perplexed on how it formed. It is primarily silicon, but it contains microscopic zircon crystals - and it has been fused at temperatures unlike anything ever found on Earth - even in molten magma. The general opinion is that it formed in a meteorite burst over Libya in antiquity - but the scientists still say that doesn't fully explain the intricate atomic patterns found inside the glass. More recent scientific studies say the Libyan desert glass was formed via a massive asteroid impact. But the problem with that line of investigation is - there is no impact crater anywhere near the Libyan desert, capable of supporting that story. The experts claim the crater is depply buried under the desert sands and needs more investigative work to find it. In the article, they showed the Winged Scarab Pendant found in King Tut's tomb. It contains Libyan Desert Glass amongst the inlaid gemstones. Now, just looking at the close up of the pendant, I'm blown away by the skills, the complexity and the workmanship in this pendant. The experts say the ancient Egyptians were a race of primitive idol-worshippers who somehow managed some impressive building feats such as the Pyramids, using primitive transport methods. They had no electricity, no high-tech steels, only wood-fired furnaces, no modern grinding equipment, and supposedly just primitive hand tools. I call BS on those suppositions - these people were an advanced race with skills and equipment equalling modern techniques. It takes over 1000°C to melt gold, and intricate, high-tech tools to work it - to cut gemstones - and it takes artisans of exceptional skill to cut and shape those stones and fabricate the precious metals into shape. Take a close look at this pendant, you can expand the photo substantially to see the detail. https://egypt-museum.com/winged-scarab-pendant-of-tutankhamun/

BYD has a dedicated RHD assembly line in one of their factories. It churns out a new RHD BYD car, every 52 seconds. Trump has handed ownership of the car market to the Chinese. https://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/an-enormous-ship-docked-in-melbourne-today-its-cargo-could-permanently-change-australian-motoring-20260531-p602f6.html

That's because the U.S. oil companies take advantage of high world oil prices to make extra levels of profit, and the Americans pay accordingly.

If there's good moisture going deep into the soil, when the top dries out enough to carry out seeding operations, it only takes a bit more rain in the season to produce a reasonable cropping result.

The imbecile is unhinged and living in an alternate reality. He wakes up un the middle of the night and goes on hours-long rants on social media, BS-ing about how wonderful his plans and results are - when the reality in the cold light of day, is the exact opposite of what he's promoting. He raves on last night, claiming the Iranians are ready to sign his peace deal on his terms, and it will be a wonderful peace deal, and so great for America. Then the reality in the cold light of day is the Iranians have cancelled all peace negotiations due to Israels attacks in Southern Lebanon, and they won't restart them until Israel stops its attacks there. If this BS-ing, lying, abusive moron was in a job anywhere else, he'd have been shown the door as regards his unacceptable behaviour, and told to never come back. Yet, his entire sycophantic, mealy-mouthed, gutless bunch of equivalent morons in his administration, continue to support every lie, every mouthy piece of BS, like it was Gods own Truth. I cannot believe America has descended into such a state of propaganda and alternative reality, that it makes the Goebbels reign look like pure unadulterated truth. The Iranians have it all over Trump, he has achieved precisely nothing in his massive war expenditure and aims to reduce Iran to a submissive ruin. He has brought about increased costs for every single country in the world (including America), and he still tries to claim the American economy is booming, and Americans have to thank him for leading them to increased prosperity. I don't really know how long it will take for the Americans as a whole (including the dumb Republicans who continue to support Trump) to come to the conclusion that Trump is the biggest disaster of a leader that has ever sat in the White House. An abusive, disruptive, totally corrupt, totally self-centred narcissist, who cannot utter two sentences, without at least one of them being a total lying fabrication that tries to reverse the truth.

Aaarrrgghh!! Does anyone else hate those video shots where a monstrous machine passes over the top of the camera? Watching it, I feel like I'm tied to the railroad tracks! My innate fear must come from the nightmares I had as a child, where I used to dream about being stuck to the ground, and a big tip truck backed up to me, and dumped its load of sand on top of me! I'd wake up in shock and fear, and probably crying out, too. It was terrifying as a youngster. I have no idea what caused me to have such terrifying nightmares.

Yes, it used to be called Foundation Day, but PC demanded its name be changed to something more inclusive.

I thought Victorians left Victoria to go find some liveable weather?? Most of the Victorians that left, went to QLD because they wanted decent weather, not specifically because of their Labor Govt. Victoria has gained in population every year since the pandemic ended, so your numbers are BS, just like Hansons regular BS. If Labor f**** everything it touches (as you're claiming), how come W.A. is doing quite well under a State Labor Govt? The Liberals here on the Left Coast have disappeared up their own arse. They keep on producing leaders of the Party who are total dropkicks and unelectable. Now they have a former dropkick disc jockey/cum Lord Mayor (and he stuffed up Perth City Council, too), claiming he can lead the Liberals back into power. He's a legend in his own bathtime.

Willie, the storm had little effect on me. We ended up with a fair amount of vegetation trash, the big Jacaranda in our backyard lost a small branch, and the fruit trees took a pounding - but there wasn't a huge amount of rain in the storm, we ended up with a whisker over 33mm from Saturday evening to this (Monday) morning. It's a holiday here (W.A. Day) and many people are at home, having cancelled trips and events due to the storm warning, so everyone seems to be out and about now, picking up limbs and leaves and trash. The low-lying areas and the river estuarine areas are the ones that went under water. The River backed up due to the storm surge, coupled with a king tide, and it put a lot of areas under water that I haven't seen submerged for years. The buildings on the coast take the brunt of any stormy winds, the houses and apartments near the coast always seem to lose parts of roofs when a big storm comes through. I'm about 6.5kms inland from the coast, as the crow flies, so the winds are moderated by the time they get to my neck of the woods.

I've always believed that earthquakes are associated with strong storms with intense winds and heavy rain. The rainfall often lubricates fault lines, and if they're already under tectonic strain, the lubricating and weight effect of heavy rain will often trigger earthquakes. I'm convinced we're due for a decent earthquake again in Australia, they usually come about every 60 years.

Don't ever forget the old political adage - "A week is a long time in politics!" Next week, the polls could look entirely different.

Yes, a full moon does create higher than normal tides - but the tide height is also dependent on whether the Moon (or Sun) is at perigee or apogee, and whether the Sun and Moon and Earth are fully aligned. The Moon is currently close to perigee, so its gravitational pull is higher than it's been in recent years. Re the barometric pressure, Busselton Jetty weather recording instruments went off line in the storm, but Busselton Airport recorded 989.9hPa at 7:00 on 31/05, so a reasonably intense low. The centre of the low was well S of Albany, and it appeared to be around 987hPa at its centre. In Perth, we recorded 997.1hPa at 4:00AM on 31/05.

This is local news from this morning, the weather has taken a turn for the worse this afternoon. https://www.watoday.com.au/national/western-australia/wa-storm-leaves-thousands-without-power-across-the-state-20260531-p602e9.html https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-05-31/intense-storm-hits-wa-thousands-without-power/106741236 It's not being helped much by the current full moon causing high tides. So with the storm surge, a lot of places along the Swan River are under water.

No Willie, I've never been through it, although I've been through the Maritime Museum. I've been told numerous times it's quite interesting - to us, as blokes, anyway. SWMBO would never go through it, she is quite claustrophobic.

Gee, I never knew the Collins subs were so slow. By the time they got to the war zone, the war would be over. Small autonomous subs must be the future. Each one would be much lower cost, losing one of them would only be a fraction of the cost of losing an AUKUS sub - and sub crews are getting harder and harder to find. No-one wants to be crammed into a steel tube for weeks at a time, living in cramped conditions, and knowing that any genuine war fighting - or even a mistake or malfunction, could mean the end of their lives in a horrible manner.

I doubt very much whether ON has the leadership to run an effective, sizeable Opposition party. "Boof" Joyce is a dill, Pauline is just a stirrer with no concrete plans for Australia, worthy of consideration, and many of their choices for political representation largely end up being duds, often changing sides, turning out to have an unsavoury past, or just throwing in the towel.

The Canadians lost over $500M in the mid-1990's on a Defence acquisition plan for EH-101 helicopters, that was cancelled by an incoming new PM. But that amount pales into loose change when you consider we have signed up for a $368 BILLION deal for these subs. I don't know where that kind of money is going to come from - and if the deal is canned, we'll be paying multiple billions in penalties just to do that. We have already had the French subs fiasco, where we paid out $835M to the Naval Group in France for the French subs contract cancellation. I'm convinced some future Govt will can the AUKUS subs as unaffordable and technically obsolete.

We've certainly earned that moniker well and truly today. The wind is still screaming, and looks like keeping up for a while yet. They had a gust of 102kmh at Swanbourne, and gusts of 133kmh and 135kmh at the Capes this afternoon. Rottnest Island recorded a gust of 113kmh just before 3:00PM, but it looks like the wind knocked the recording station out, it's currently offline. This is the most intense low pressure system I've encountered for quite a while, so maybe the BOM was right about it being a 1-in-5 year storm. My SD is currently without power in Stoneville, up in the Hills.

Yes, electing Abbott as President of the Liberal Party is a guaranteed way to ensure the future Liberal Party will be able to hold an entire Party meeting, in a room the size of a disabled toilet.

We are only getting the used subs as a stop-gap measure until the new subs are built. But I still reckon the subs will be totally obsolete before they're even half built - leaving us with more monstrous Defence expenditure losses.

No, that's the priests in charge of the choir. How did you expect those boys to reach those high notes, without being grabbed by the nuts?

We've just had a pretty violent low pressure system move through the SW of the State, bringing much needed rain, along with strong winds. The BOM got a bit hysterical yesterday with a Severe Storm Warning, talking up a "one in 5 year storm" with 125km/hr winds, but the winds weren't quite that bad, with a number of areas around Perth and the foothills recording 98km/hr maximum wind gusts, with average wind speeds probably around 65-80km/hr. The SW Capes - Cape Naturaliste and Cape Leeuwin, recorded 109km/hr and 119km/hr maximum gusts, and Busselton Jetty recorded 109km/hr as a maximum gust. Rainfall overall was between about 10-25mm, with most inland areas receiving useful falls, although a few strips missed out and only recorded 6-8mm. There's the normal amount of Winter storm damage, a good number of trees down, a few sheds and sheets of iron went flying, and there's a few thousand people without power this morning. No damage to report here at home, although the fruit trees took a pummelling, there are mandarins and limes everywhere in the backyard, although the orange tree is O.K. They're all in full fruit, of course, as expected for this time of year.

The U.S. Council on Foreign Relations always produces informative outlines of other countries systems of Govts and political problems. The article below is a CFR article from 2008, and it has been archived because of more recent events in Iran, but it gives good information about how Khomeini was a hardline Islamic Fundamentalist who wrote a book stating that Iranian government must only operate under "velayat-e faqih" (guardianship of the Islamic jurist), which is deeply intertwined with Mahdist beliefs. Mahdist beliefs center on the messianic concept of the Mahdi (the "Right-Guided One"), an eschatological figure in Islam who will appear at the end of times to vanquish evil, restore universal justice, and enforce the true teachings of the (Islamic) faith. The Mahdi is known in Islam as "the Hidden One". Believed to be the twelfth Imam, Muhammad al-Mahdi, he is said to have entered a state of divine concealment (Occultation) in 941 CE, and will return at the end of time to restore justice. This Islamic belief is identical to the Christian belief that Jesus Christ will reveal himself in the flesh, and return to the Earth to rule it, at the future time known as "the Second Coming". Perhaps unsurprisingly, the Islamics believe that Jesus Christ will return with the Mahdi - but the Mahdi will be the prominent divine figure, and Jesus Christ will only be a returning prophet. The basis of all Mahdi beliefs is that the West and Christianity is corrupt and evil, and the repository of Satan (the Evil One) - and therefore, only true Islam, in the form of Mahdism, can produce peace and justice worldwide. The bottom line is Khomeini sought sole domineering control of Iran and its people, under a very repressive, undemocratic Islamic system that places religion, politics and everyday life into one tightly-bound structure, with Imams controlling every single action involving rule of the people, and with very little personal freedom - especially anything to do with ruling clique protests, or complaints against Imams, or trying to worship other religions. https://www.cfr.org/backgrounders/religion-and-politics-iran