onetrack

Now, all we need, is to get Nomadpete to do proofreading on his posts! 😄

Washington is the backer of the $US, but the Federal Reserve is charged with keeping the U.S. monetary system stable and functioning properly. The Federal Reserve is independent of any political demands and consists of 12 Reserve Banks and a committee that sets U.S. monetary policy, with particular emphasis on interest rates, which are a key monetary driver of any economy. The overwhelming belief amongst U.S. politicians is that the Federal Reserve must operate completely independently of any political interference and be allowed to make monetary policy corrections that it believes are needed to keep the U.S. economy and the $US on an even keel. However, the Tangerine Toddler believes he alone has to totally control the monetary policy of the U.S., and I reckon a lot of financiers and economists lose a lot of sleep over what would happen if the Tangerine Toddler got his way, and took control of the levers of the money machine. https://www.clevelandfed.org/about-us/understanding-the-federal-reserve

We have a cyclone following our NW coast around from Broome, past Port Hedland, Karratha, Dampier, Onslow, Exmouth and Coral Bay, and it's still coming South. The Pilbara Coast has had a fair amount of rain, 20mm to 120mm, and the forecast is nearly all the lower part of W.A. is going to get some rain over the next 2-3 days. That will be good, it's been a consistently hot December and January, especially in the wheatbelt, and the rain will cool things down a bit for a while. According to the 4 day outlook, most of Australia is forecast to get some rain over the next week, from a big trough lying NNW-SSE across the country. https://reg.bom.gov.au/products/IDW60281.shtml

I just found some great ideas for you Willie, on these FB reels ..... (turn your sound up for the best effect!) https://www.facebook.com/share/r/1CtKkxAoU7/ https://www.facebook.com/share/r/1BvZnkGqHu/ https://www.facebook.com/share/r/1AZG4WarDt/ https://www.facebook.com/share/r/1CBd6JeJGx/ https://www.facebook.com/share/r/1TtjAUx1GH/

The Ukrainians are using an Antonov AN-28 STOL twin turboprop, equipped with an M134 Minigun, and operated by civilians, to shoot down Russian drones. The M134 Minigun is a six-rotating-barrels machine gun that pumps out between 2000 to 6000 rounds a minute of standard NATO 7.62 x 51mm rounds. They effectively fill the air with lead, and when they hit a drone, they blast it to pieces. The AN-28 crew is claiming to have shot down nearly 150 Russian Shahed drones since starting operations. Now the Russians are equipping some of their drones with air-to-air missiles, to try and knock out Ukrainian air defence efforts. This is in addition to the drone already carrying a warhead that detonates on impact. https://www.twz.com/air/watch-ukraines-minigun-firing-drone-hunting-turboprop-in-action

Many tannins are a good preservative. We've got thousands of Qld Box trees for street trees in Perth, there's one right outside my house. Anytime I park my Hilux traytop under it, the floor stains purple blue from the Box tree tannins - but it never rusts. Jacaranda tree tannins are quite corrosive, and the leaves built up everywhere.

Apparently one major Chinese investor is dealing in huge amounts of gold futures, and has made a $3B fortune from doing so - that's enough to skew the market badly. Now he's shorting silver and planning on making another $3B. There's a real danger he'll do a Hunt Bros on the precious metals market. If you make $3B out of wheeling and dealing in precious metals futures, a lot of other people must have lost a lot of money? I'm reminded of the Metallgesellschaft oil futures fiasco in 1993. The company lost $1.3B on betting on oil futures - they should've kept their nose out of futures and stuck with the business they knew. https://finance.yahoo.com/news/china-trader-made-3-billion-054343617.html

The big problem is, that Govt assets are nearly always sold at below market prices to "mates in the know", who promptly turn them over for a massive profit. And the Govt then takes the money they got from the assets and pisses it up against the wall on vastly overpriced, often under-utilised, and generally vastly problematic, Defence purchases. Just look at the exorbitant and ever-increasing pricing of the MD F-35 fighter as an example. I employed a young Scottish bloke many years ago, who had worked for Marconi in the U.K. He said the rip-off profits staggered him when he sighted the figures. Marconi were supplying radar and navigation aids to the IAF in the late '60's, and he said, typically, a small electrical component that cost Marconi something like £14, was billed out to the IAF at a figure around £1,000!

Isn't the lane on the right, the pit lane? In F1 racing, where the speeds are terrific, they need to have a pit lane to allow separation of the cars entering and leaving the pits, due to the huge variation in the race car speeds, and the much lower speeds of the cars entering and leaving the pits. There have been many serious prangs in past decades due to collisions between cars racing past the pits at extreme speeds, and the cars entering or leaving the pits.

The military buildings in question are all heritage listed, and hold enormous emotional attachment for many, due to their links to all major wars. Plus, their architecture and construction quality is excellent, as it is with all military buildings.

This is when you can't afford a real truck ....... (turn your sound up) https://www.facebook.com/share/r/1USLyWCMJ8/

Are talking Victoria Barracks in Melbourne, or Victoria Barracks in Sydney? I was under the impression it was the Victoria Barracks in Sydney that is up for grabs.

For the hotrodders, Ed Iskenderian, of the "Isky Racing Cams" fame, passed away yesterday at the tremendous old age of 104. He was a real character, like so many hot-rodders. https://carbuzz.com/remembering-edward-isky-iskenderian/

Add "ST" after the second letter in each word and you get "JUSTICE", "PESTERING", and "JESTER".

It was well known amongst "ordinary" Australian soldiers, that the SAS were called "super-grunts", and they considered all other ordinary soldiers, as far below them in skills. Just the psychological effects of SAS training were severe, and huge numbers of SAS applicants fell out of the SAS courses, because they failed to make the grade. Their training is brutal.

Be assured, that helmet will protect you extensively on a rat bike - from spears and lances, of course. 😄

He's going to wear his rat bike helmet - fitted with a German spike, of course.

I could see this coming years ago, as Defence started on its major shopping list. I notice that the massive chunk of SAS land on the W.A. coast at Swanbourne (Campbell Barracks) isn't mentioned. There's 236Ha of pristine, mega-mega dollar, ocean-front land there, that at current values would bring in mega-billions if sold off. I see where our local nefarious resident land developer, and Politician suck-hole, is licking his lips over the sale of Campbell Barracks, saying it "could bring in $1.3B for the Govt" if sold. Pigs bum it's worth $1.3B, more like $13B - but I'll wager he'll exert pressure on the Govt to sell it to him for $1.3B. This is the value of that land in that region. A 1925 house on 1181 sq m of land in the area, sold last Oct for $12.8M. In the aerial view of the house and golf course, you can see the Campbell Barracks land in the distance. https://www.domain.com.au/property-profile/11-pearse-street-cottesloe-wa-6011

You can tell the image isn't real, because the road warning sign doesn't show a kangaroo, emu or camel. In fact, it looks like a pterodactyl warning sign.

Gee, that joke is older than Methuselah, Nev!

It was on the Internet, it must be true!

I've got a new Asian dentist. It's obvious he's highly qualified, just by his name alone. His name is Dr Fang Quac.

It's a famous photo of actress Myrna Loy, taken in 1933. I actually saw this on eBay a little while ago. https://www.ebay.com/itm/395495925964 A very attractive lass, she came from Swedish, Scottish and Welsh ancestry. She chewed through the husbands, like a lot of actresses, I think she got through 4 of them. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myrna_Loy

Re the Australian SAS and the American soldiers in Vietnam, this documentary (link below) is quite good, and pretty accurate. A lot of the war and military scenes are irrelevant, repetitive and often unrelated - but the narration is accurate. I'm not sure the Americans have learn anything since Vietnam, their arrogance and gung-ho attitude still persists. Even Gen Westmoreland was quoted as saying, "If you want to see how it's done, go to Phuoc Tuy province and see how the Australians do it". The American military was totally obsessed with one thing - enemy kill numbers. They prioritised that over anything else, this attitude simply led to American soldier lying about kills and simply throwing more and more heavy weaponry into any battle with the enemy. The VC and NVA knew this and specialised in hit and run ambushes on American troops that were very effective. Kill a good handful of Americans in the first 30 seconds, then withdraw rapidly before the Americans could even determine where the enemy were - and the VC and NVA were well away before the U.S. gunships and artillery arrived to fill the entire region with lead and explosive armaments - and half the time killing more American troops than the numbers of VC or NVA that attacked them. Many Australian SAS members had serious reservations about working with U.S. soldiers, simply because it was well known the Americans stood as high a chance of killing you, as the VC or NVA did. The technique of gathering up and studying every piece of enemy information that could be obtained, was reinforced by an Australian Army Engineer, Capt Sandy McGregor. McGregor was OC of our Engineer Squadron while I was in Vietnam - 17 Construction Sqdn. He was formerly OC of 1st Field Squadron, where he developed the Tunnel Rats teams - Engineer Sappers that went down into VC and NVA tunnels and bunkers, armed only with a torch and a pistol, to determine tunnel layouts and size - and especially, to try and capture enemy documentation and equipment. It took real guts to be a Tunnel Rat, and they had to cope with hidden booby traps in tunnels and bunkers (even poisonous snakes and scorpions), coming across enemy, and being flooded and drowned by VC/NVA traps. But the intelligence gathered by Tunnel Rats, especially documents and equipment, was utterly invaluable to Australian Intelligence. The Americans would just bomb or destroy bunkers and tunnels with explosives, and gain no enemy information. In one intelligence-gathering raid, the Australian Engineers captured a large list of NVA soldiers names, and top VC operational commanders names - but the list was ignored, and filed away by the Americans.

Yes, poor old Roy had a crappy life, I trust he's found peace now, and is reunited with his loved ones.