onetrack

I notice Jerry hasn't posted in over a month, with a sudden end to his postings a few days before Anzac Day. I also see he looks in every day, but doesn't post anything. What has happened to our normally voluble contributor? Has he been threatened with zero computer access, if he continues to spend too much time on this forum? Did his managers find some of his posts and warn him his postings may soon result in job termination? Even worse, did Trumps active MAGA gorillas track him down, and threaten him with extradition to the U.S., with added corporal punishment? Or was it Hamas operatives that found his pro-Israel postings, and put out a Fatwa on him?? Or is it just a self-imposed computer-and-forum-time restriction, that keeps him from adding his regular 2 cents daily?? Inquiring minds need to know - and we especially need to know if he's not running in fear, looking over his shoulder, since he noticed the surveillance and tracking! 😄

Larrikinism was rife amongst the Diggers, in both WW1 and WW2. The WW2 army magazine, "Salt" provides a good insight into the WW2 outlook and vernacular - but it never published unacceptable swear words. Everything in it was sanitised and censored for "general use". I think I've got every copy of the Salt magazine, it provides some interesting reading.

The line was related to me in 1970 in South Vietnam, by a fellow soldier. He told me it was a story retold to him by a WW2 POW veteran. The Japanese camp commandant had lined up all the Aussies and was berating them in his best Japinglish. He was told by the POW that the commandant came out with, "You Ostalians think Japanese stupid. You think Japanese know f**k-nothing! We soon show you, that Japanese know f**k-all!!" Of course, the Australian POW's apparently broke out in fits of laughter, which only made the little Jap officer go apoplectic, and scream more abuse at them, and told guards to hand out beatings. So the basic line goes back a long way, but I wouldn't imagine much more before WW2, as the F-word wasn't used a great deal back then, and it was regarded as a particularly vile word in the 1920's and 1930's. This article on the origins of the F-word is quite interesting. The word has been in use for centuries, but almost never in publications, as it was deemed obscene when in print. https://bigthink.com/the-past/history-of-the-f-word/

An old Slav prospector I knew used to say "I'm doubt", whenever he should have said, "I doubt it".

I still don't understand why wind turbines only last 20 years when turbine power stations last 50 or 60 years. There must be some way to extend their life. Each wind turbine is a massive investment and the foundations are huge and costly, but it's all scrapped in 20 years? This is idiocy to me.

Keating spent years talking up the sale of the CBA, it was his baby, all the way. The champagne glasses are still clinking in the boardrooms of the private banks over their "coup" in getting rid of the CBA - the only bastion still in place to stop private banks from making excessive profits. I have seen an article about how much this banking greed cost all everyday Australians.

Batchelor party.

I tawt I taw a puddy tat.

Sorry Nev, your memory is faulty today. It was Paul Keating who sold off the Commonwealth Bank - largely to the other big Australian private banks. QUOTE: The Commonwealth Bank was privatised in stages under the Labor government of Prime Minister Paul Keating. The sell-off process occurred in three tranches: 1991: The Keating government floated the initial 30% of the bank's shares to the public. 1993: The government sold another tranche, reducing its stake to just over 50%. 1996: The remaining government shareholding was fully sold off to investors, completing the privatisation.

And the ticky-tacky little boxes have come about via property investor greed that has pushed house prices up 700% in 3 decades. That's unsustainable, and is setting the country up for a majpr recession, perhaps even a Depression. House prices go up 3% annually over the long-term, normally. Only in the last 3 decades has this outlandish property pricing occurred - so we need to look at what has driven that - and it's the taxation system generously favouring property investors. So Labor is now trying to address that major imbalance.

"Two all-beef patties". The first line of the original MacDonalds advertising jingle for their Big Mac. The whole line is, "Two all-beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions on a sesame seed bun". Just makes you wonder what the other choice was, besides an "all beef" pattie? An "All roadkill pattie"? A pattie with only 5% beef and the remainder, all mystery ingredients? I reckon I've eaten a few pies that met the last description.

Please come to Boston for the Springtime. First line of a Dave Loggins song. Probably not well enough known here.

Investors buy homes, then keep them empty so they don't have any hassles caused by tenants, nor any decrease in house condition because of tenant wear and tear. There are thousands of empty houses in Australia, all owned by investors who are gloating on the capital increase in value of those homes. Better than money in the bank and all the outgoings are a good old tax deduction. Something has to change, or there will be a revolution - and Labor know it. The other parties think they can keep handing out benefits on a plate to housing investors. And what about the family home being exempt from any taxing at all? Buy a multi-million dollar house, spend more millions making it twice the size (and three times the selling value), stay in it for a year or two, call it your home - sell up and make millions tax-free. There should be a value limit on the family home, and the time living in it needs to be extended. There are dozens of houses around where I live that have all been extended to 7 or 8 bedrooms and 2 stories, and they hold 2-4 people - and the owners are sitting on multi-million dollar capital gains, totally free of virtually any kind of tax. That stinks.

Peter Hollingworth, retired former Anglican archbishop and former Governor General, has passed away, aged 91. Hollingworths later career was dogged by accusations he did nothing to prevent pedophiles from operating within the Anglican Church. He admitted that he was poorly prepared to deal with the problem, and thus did nothing about it. He was personally picked for the G.G. job by John Howard in 2001 - which smacks of a "job for a mate" to me - but Hollingworth resigned from the G.G. position in 2003 as the protests about his lack of dealing with the Anglican Church pedophiles, became louder and louder. He only resigned his Anglican priest status in 2023, officially to "end distress" for Anglican church abuse survivors. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-05-19/former-governor-general-peter-hollingworth-dies/106554086

So ... OME, did you get that drought-breaking rain? I see where Coonabrabran got 43mm, Dubbo got 30mm, and Nyngan got 50mm, so you must have had a decent downpour, at the very least?

I am a simple bot, not programmed to answer your seriously disruptive question. I will answer all your questions according to how I'm programmed. That programming is funded and set by parties unknown to me, and is done on purpose to hide their identities and aims. Any further questions today? 😄

Xi's reference to America as a "declining nation" was a direct slap in the face to Trump - and in his finest form, he managed to twist the statement like a pretzel, with his normal level of astounding BS, about America's economic performance, under his leadership. He claimed Xi was referring to America led by Biden - and stated, that under his Presidency, America was booming, claimed he was responsible for the booming share market, a massive investment in American manufacturing, pension funds making good profits, and a dozen other BS claims, such as a "thriving relationship with Venezuela", "military victories", and a "booming jobs market". His claims are such contorted BS, it's hard to know where to start. 1. The state of the share market has little relevance to any of his decision-making. Share prices go up and down like a yo-yo, and if anything is driving shares higher, it's the amount of money in circulation that America has printed with no asset backing - the so-called "quantitive easing". 2. The "massive investment in American manufacturing", has only come about due to Trumps threats to virtually cease trading with any country that doesn't invest in America. Those decisions are economic decisions by the companies, and can be reversed at a moments notice. There are plenty of "stalled" American manufacturing projects, put on hold due to political and market uncertainty. 3. The pension funds are always looking for good returns and have trillions to invest, and Presidential decisions have little bearing on where or what the pension funds put their money into. Interestingly, a lot of American pension funds have substantial monetary and corporate investments in Australia. 4. His "thriving relationship with Venezuela" is only in his mind, and in his dreams. I seem to recall the last time we had any serious news from on the ground in Venezuela, the locals were waving firearms around, ready to repel any American military force landings. 5. The "military victories" he claims are total fiction. You have a successful military victory when you have gained territory/territories, had opponents sign surrender agreements, or have gained major concessions that amount to a serious loss for the "enemy combatants". No such thing has occurred, and Trump and his buddies are still hip-deep in the Iranian swamp, with the crocodiles ready to bite them on the arse. 6. The "booming jobs market" in the U.S. is a total fabrication. The labour market in the U.S. has flatlined, and is showing signs of heading towards stagflation or recession. The final straws are - A. Trump promised to immediately end the Ukraine War - in 1 day - once re-elected. Nothing has happened as regards the Ukraine War, the Ukrainians fight on steadily. B. Trump promised to "bring down the price of groceries and all consumer items, including fuel" - on "day one" again, of course. The exact opposite has happened, virtually all grocery and living costs in the U.S. have risen under Trumps Presidency. Fuel prices have soared up to 40% above the pricing from Bidens era, aviation fuel costs have soared 70%, resulting in increased air fare costs, beef prices have soared, and inflation is rearing its ugly head again, as increased transport and shipping costs are starting to bite. Trump is the master of perpetual BS, lies and broken promises - a fact not lost on Xi.

The American economy thrives, and is largely built on, the manufacture of armaments. Even seemingly unrelated industry manufacturers such as Caterpillar and John Deere make huge profits from Military supply contracts. However, the wealth of America is dependent on the American companies selling their armaments and associated industrial production to other countries - thereby getting rich on fighting by other countries. But when that military hardware expenditure is wasted on Americans own war activities - with little gain to show for it - either financial, territorial, or in any other form - then those losses can only weaken the American economy, and lead to huge American wealth destruction.

No, Govt by AI will be a total failure. It will fail us, just as we need it. Get a look at this, it fails even a basic request 😄 ......

As did the storepeople - selling picks, spades, panning dishes, pots and pans, tents, boots, hats, flannette shirts, moleskin trousers, bedrolls, pistols, tobacco, and all the stuff that miners need to survive in rugged terrain. Leather pouches for holding gold nuggets were a must, and even small gold scales were in high demand. https://www.teachersuperstore.com.au/assets/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/The-Australian-Gold-Rushes-Daily-Life-in-the-Goldfields-Sample-Pages.pdf?srsltid=AfmBOoognpJMnehL-vguNxLwGH8D-mVtaStuRkHpYIh5fYWxlKe1IS01

He's a class act, our Willie. He's very selective with his scrap bin exploits. Only the finest bins meet his exacting standards. 😄

A large, moisture-laden air mass is feeding into a trough in front of a huge high pressure system, over Western Qld and Northern NSW. As you say, any decent amount of rain originates from the Northern maritime region latitudes. This tropical air mass is feeding in from the Northern section of the Indian Ocean, and it's bound to carry some reasonable amount of rain to SW Qld and Northern NSW. When the Bureau say there's a "100% certainty" of rain, they're not often wrong. Only the total amount of rainfall is in doubt, and that can vary widely over a relatively small area. I thought the weak cold front that came through W.A. on Thursday morning had nothing behind it. But the tip of another cold front followed it, and we got 8mm of rain in the City on Thursday night. However, the rain didn't penetrate very far inland. http://satview.bom.gov.au/

Willie, it's a Lake LA-4 amphibian yoke. https://baspartsales.com/lake-la-4-amphibian-control-yoke-assembly/?srsltid=AfmBOopFfbDmE4BcC52kNRcV9IE4eU08wTVYK_YIUP5JflOc0h75eehh They come up nicely when beab blasted. https://baspartsales.com/lake-la-4-amphibian-control-yoke-assembly-bead-blasted-diameter-7-8/?srsltid=AfmBOorPMarLKq9xxaiWzt0qwUAzBaC7XoZgtZcGp-SEWSt8LwPP4XzO

It was well known amongst the farmer clients I did contract work for in the 1970's and 1980's, that trusts were necessary to avoid paying tax. They were rampant in that period, with many "smart" accountants promoting them.

OME is gonna be drookit on Monday and Tuesday, nothing surer. https://www.bom.gov.au/places/nsw/gilgandra/forecast/