onetrack

Our current roads and railways only fail because they're built to meet one-in-50 year floods. If they were built to meet one-in-100 year floods, we would not be able to afford them. Roads need rebuilding after 50 years anyway, due to massive levels of traffic hammering and increasing traffic levels.

Never sweat, it's all sweet. Hegseth and Trump claim they know exactly what they're doing, their great plan is precisely on track, and they're going to pick the next Leader of Iran. 🤣 The war will be over in a couple of weeks, the Iranians will buckle like a house of cards, and become totally compliant, once they see Trumps and Hegseths military might. So, you can look forward to one of Donnys offspring (Donny Jnr?) getting this plum President of Iran job (it comes with massive renumeration, and plenty of bonuses in gold, from Iran's central bank, for "targets met") - and Iran will turn into a thriving democracy under the Trump dynastys iron worldwide rule - with cryptocurrency, resorts and hotels, all bearing the Trump brand, providing a massive boost to Irans GDP! Onya Donny!! 🤣

I don't think anything has changed in hundreds of years, Nev. This is Australia, land of extremes. Look up the old newspapers from the 1800's on Trove and read about the unbelievable floods in the Northern NSW rivers in the 1800's. Pull out S.A. rail history and get a look at the massive washouts on the Ghan line, 50, 60, 70, 80 and 90 years ago. Miles of track and embankments washed away - regularly. Ron Fitchs book on the S.A. and Commonwealth Railways ("Australian Railwayman") is full of railway flooding disasters that would make you weep. Ron Fitch lived to 105, and saw it all. The Murray River massive flood of 2022/2023, still didn't reach the major flood level of the Murray River in the 1870 flood! So much for "weather events getting worse"! It's a beat-up of major proportions. I've seen major floods in the early 1960's in W.A. that I have never seen since. And Global Warming wasn't a buzzword, back then.

I'm staggered by the enormous levels of rainfall and flood damage in the North of South Australia, the SE of the NT and the SW areas of Qld, from the massive rains they've had over the last few weeks. I was looking at the flooding on Elkedra Station, SSE of Tennant Creek, they got 600mm in ONE day, double their annual rainfall average. It just blows you away. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-02-26/flood-damage-cattle-stations-nt/106391070 Then there's the damage in NE and East of S.A., the Barrier Hwy looks like a disaster zone in places. Never seen so much road damage for years. And then I was watching videos of the raging torrents of water coming down through the Flinders Ranges creeks, it was like something you'd see in a tropical zone. This is Warriana Creek at Beltana, S of Leigh Creek. Nothing surer than the fact that Lake Eyre will fill to overflowing shortly.

Stellantis' loss is purely and simply, shocking management, right from the top. Poor quality products, overpriced, constant poor assembly and poor manufacturing complaints from customers being ignored, a CEO who rewarded himself with a disgusting US$39M pay package, while his company was hiding massive problems and heading for a cliff. Not to mention massively overpriced spare parts, and after-sales service that treated Stellantis customers like they were dog shit on salesmans shoes. Remember the local Jeep owner who publically destroyed his new Jeep "lemon" that had mutliple faults that Jeep/Chrysler wouldn't fix under warranty? Jeep Grand Cherokee sales went from 16,582 annually in 2014, to just 645 in 2024! Not exactly a stunning sales record! And every one of Stellantis' 14 automotive products has the same problems! Senior management in this company needs to be sent back to Business School, to learn how to manufacture products that are relatively fault free, that people want, that are competitively priced, and where the customers get treated like the valuable clients they are! - not treated like they're just a nuisance!

I reckon I could do a better job of predictions with more accuracy, than his airy shots in the dark. But I would not be in the least surprised to see Trump fabricate a National Emergency, so he could declare elections suspended, and make himself President on a continuing basis.

It must be rather unfortunate to have the surname Madoff, and to lecture on wealth transfer!

I was lucky to buy a bare 2000 sq m block of industrial land in a wheatbelt tiny country town, about 130kms NNE of Perth, in 2019. I paid $10,000 for it, because the seller was retiring and selling up all his assets. In the 6-1/2 years that I've owned it, the value of the block has gone from $10,000 to $110,000. The land/property pricing "bubble" must burst in due course. I really feel for the young people starting off, buying a house must only be a dream for them. SWMBO has a friend who has 2 sons and daughter. The daughter married several years ago and both she and her hubby are on good money, and they managed to buy an old timber-framed house in an average Eastern suburb for $780,000. But the middle son isn't married and is working on the mines to try and get enough to buy a house. He proudly told his Mum recently, he'd saved up $50,000 towards the house. But he goes to look at a building block in the far northern suburbs, about 70kms from the City, and they want $500,000 for a tiny bare patch of sandy limestone. So then he finds a reasonable sort of house for sale nearby for just $800,000. He calls the agent, and the agent floors him with the words, "I'm sorry, I've already had 2 offers for the property in excess of $1,000,000!! This is the standard story around trying to buy a house today, Chinese buyers roll up carrying suitcases full of banknotes, explaining they have the cash to pay for the property, right now! AUSTRAC cash payments reporting is only being extended to real estate agents from July 1st this year. It's way too late, it should have been done 15 or 20 years ago. The flood of Chinese black money has ruined our real estate purchasing ability.

Wars anywhere, have to be run on a legal framework, otherwise leaders can be listed and charged and tried as war criminals. 196 countries have signed the Geneva Convention, which outlines what combatants must not do. However, there are plenty of countries and armed groups in the world who have never signed the GC, and who fail to observe any of the Geneva Conventions. https://www.icrc.org/en/document/what-are-rules-of-war-Geneva-Conventions

South Korea actually appealed directly to the U.N., when NK troops invaded on June 25, 1950. The U.N. passed a resolution two days later (Resolution 83), recommending that Allied nations come to SK's aid with military forces to repel the NK troops. U.N. Resolution on July 7, 1950, saw a unified U.N. Command structure formed from 16 nations. The U.S. took operational command of Allied troops in the action and they provided 90% of the troops in the Korean War, all under the command of Gen Douglas MacArthur. The war ended at a stalemate because Douglas MacArthur pushed into Nth Korea, and NK and China overwhelmed the Allied troops with sheer numbers, and MacArthur was forced to retreat. He reportedly requested military leaders for 30 to 50 nuclear weapons to use against the Chinese and Nth Koreans - and he also petitioned Congress directly, complaining about the Administrations war policies. Truman found out MacArthur had "gone over his head", and dismissed MacArthur, and the war ended with a truce - and the demarcation line at the 38th parallel, was then set in stone. After the Viet Minh defeated the French soundly at the Battle of Điện Biên Phủ in mid-1954, the Geneva Accord produced a Vietnam divided into two - the Communist North and the non-Communist South. The Americans supported the South, and provided 700 "military advisors" from 1955. The South was ruled by the totally corrupt and totally decadent, President Ngo Dinh Diem. Diem was a Catholic and repressed the Buddhists like Hitler did with the Jews. The situation got so bad, the Buddhist monks started regular self-immolation, and after Diem refused to step down, he was assassinated in a CIA-led coup on 2nd Nov 1963, just 20 days before Kennedys assassination. Meantimes, President Kennedy, himself a Catholic, had increased the American "advisor" presence in Vietnam from 700 in the mid 1950's to 16,000 by the time Kennedy was assassinated. As the Communist troops from the North made ever-increasing territorial gains on the South, the fluffed-up "Gulf of Tonkin" incident was enough reason for Lyndon B Johnson to escalate the war, with a huge level of bombings of the North, and ever-increasing U.S. troops on the ground. The requests from the South for military help were continuous, from the time the Communists aggressively invaded South Vietnam, in Jan 1959. The Gulf War began after Iraq, led by Saddam Hussein, invaded and occupied Kuwait on August 2, 1990, following disputes over debt and oil. In response to the invasion, the U. N. Security Council passed resolutions condemning the act, and demanding immediate withdrawal. A US-led international coalition of 35 nations was formed to liberate Kuwait. Following the failure of diplomatic efforts, and the passing of a UN-authorised deadline, the coalition launched Operation Desert Storm on January 17, 1991, successfully driving Iraqi forces out of Kuwait by February 28, 1991. Iraq initially requested assistance in the first place to beat back ISIS. The result was Operation Inherent Resolve. It was a military coalition operation, involving 80 countries, put together by the U.S. to defeat ISIS. But it became messy, because the Syrian Assad regime did not request military assistance to defeat ISIS, and ISIS had large number of fighters in Syria. The U.S. decided to move into Syria, regardless, supporting local military groups that looked useful to them. The U.S. nearly always declines to accept "requests for military assistance" from foreign countries, because that then makes the U.S. actions dependent on those requests - and if the country decides to revoke its request, the U.S must withdraw.

The simple, over-riding feature of getting older is that the old body starts playing up, and needs regular repair and maintenance. And if you're 50 or 100 kms from medical care, docs, specialists, even ambulances - life gets a lot harder than it need be. I lived all through the wheatbelt of W.A. and the W.A. Goldfields all my working life, living in everything from rented farmhouses to dongas to caravans, and even old railway fettlers huts. I've never actually owned a house in my own name, I didn't place enough importance on that feature of life - much to my regret. I have no ability to purchase a house today. I part-owned various industrial properties, a mining lease, a farm, and a couple of houses, that I never ever lived in much, because they were largely occupied by my brother and his wife, while I was out in the boonies, working. But when I got together with SWMBO in my early 40's, she owned a house! - and she lets me live in it, and shares it with me - because she loves me, she likes looking after me - and because I fix anything to do with the house, or the car, or whatever else requires attention. We live in the city only about 5 kays from the CBD in a nice leafy, sought-after, quiet suburb - and we're close to 3 shopping centres, a number of major arterial roads, heaps of docs, dentists, medical centres and medical facilities, all within a few kays - and we've been here since 1990, and we don't look like moving until we get really fragile with age, or the bikies move in next door (highly unlikely). I could easily live anywhere in the country again, but SWMBO is a city girl and likes shops and theatres, and being close to where her daughter lives. Generally, most people select their living location according to how far away, or how close, they want to live to relatives (including children). Most parents want to live within a reasonable distance of children, but some don't want them close at all. Not having any children myself, and getting on O.K. with SWMBO's girl and boy from her previous marriage, makes any living area decision, easier. Of course, if we won lotto, we'd move to a nice mansion by the coast, but that's only a dream. I don't think I'd ever move into a high-rise apartment, even though that's the result for people many today - simply because I don't like living above other people, and not knowing what they're getting up to - by way of drugs, starting fires, and other aggravating risks. Good neighbours generally make people stay where they live. No neighbours often suits a lot of people.

Laura Tingle of the ABC has a pretty good outline of where this war is going. Iran is attacking Middle-Eastern neighbours, intending to cause maximum global economic disruption effects, and to get those neighbours to use up mega-dollar U.S.-provided armaments, trying to stop low-dollar-value Iranian missiles from wreaking havoc on their cities and industries. The classic guerilla war methods. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-03-04/iran-hitting-trump-via-gulf-states-after-us-israel-strikes/106412880

It's not about continually targeting and taking out each new leader. The Americans have to deal with 50,000 hardened, dedicated, Revolutionary Guard troops, 1000's of ruthless Religious Police, and a multitude of Imams who are telling their adherents that America is Satan and coming to kill them all. Unless you have an extensive, well-thought-out, long-term plan to deal with those relentless threats, then a pile of "targeted bombing" without troops on the ground, and subversives and spies within Iran - all working seamlessly to ensure a total overthrow of the religious nutters running the place - then all the Americans will end up doing is setting the stage for "Iran-run-by-religious-nutters, MK 2". Israel has great success in neutralising opposition to them, because they use all of the above - and MOSSAD has spies everywhere, and utilises cutting-edge electronic technologies, to ensure success.

GON, do you really think that this current "Muzzie bombing" campaign will produce a highly satisfactory outcome? I'll wager it will only harden a lot of radical Muzzies to form more, "Death to America" groups.

The biggest problem is, typical of American adventurism with their finest military equipment, there appears to be little proper planning for a desirable outcome in operation Epic Fury. It's like losing your temper with something that's not working properly, and hitting it with a hammer. You might feel good about assuaging your frustration in the short term, but the item become completely buggered with the hammering, and it has to be replaced with a new one, simply because you became furious with it, and attacked it without any thought for the outcome. Neither Trump, nor Hegseth, nor any of the MAGA mob running the show, can clearly articulate their long-term plan and satisfactory outcome for Iran. The messages they're sending are confused and confusing. Hegseth says his plan is not to carry out regime change. So, if the attacks are not about regime change, what are they about? Epic Fury is quite likely to become Epic Failure, if Iranian civilian casualties continue to mount, American deaths continue to mount, and world opinion - and especially Middle-Eastern opinion (from those Middle-Eastern countries who are sitting on the fence, or initially U.S.-friendly), turns adverse towards America. The Americans are very good at starting wars with a total lack of vision and planning, as regards the long-term outcome. It appears to me, they just feel the need to "kill a lot Muzzies, 'cos they hate us".

Only Congress has the constitutional ability to declare War on an American enemy - but the President has full authority, as the U.S. military C-in-C , to attack any enemy of America, who is believed to be plotting any terror attack against America. Trump has long railed against any effort by Congress to control his decision-making, believing he alone has complete control of the major decision-making in America. What we should be all concerned about is the religious fundamentalists in America and Israel are the ones driving all this Middle East war activity. Not a lot different to the extreme religious fundamentalists in the Middle Eastern countries. Hegseth is on a par with an Ayatollah, believing he has the God-given power to decide who lives or dies in the region. And he's a raging drunk, along with his Christian Fundamentalist beliefs. Plus, many U.S. military leaders, or former military leaders, including Mark Kelly, believe he doesn't have the mental capacity for the job he's been given. https://www.poynter.org/fact-checking/2026/can-president-go-to-war-without-congress-iran-strikes/#:~:text=Article I%2C Section 8 of,when Franklin Roosevelt was president.

The latest reports are saying the aircraft were F-15's.

The latest news is that it appears trigger-happy Kuwaitis have shot down 3 x USAAF F-18's, in a severe case of "friendly fire". It seems that all the crews baled out successfully.

Lust for oil has been the root cause of many wars over the last 80 or 90 years - but in this case, I'm not so sure it plays as big a part in the attempted removal of the regime. But Trump and Americans in general nurse a long-held and extremely bitter grudge against Iran, largely due to the constant chants of "Death to America", the 1979-81 hostage crisis, the bombing of the USS Cole and the bombing of the U.S. Marine barracks in Lebanon. Netanyahu nurses a bigger grudge than America against Iran and Islamic terrorists, because they killed his brother at Entebbe. He burns with anti-Islamic hatred. And Irans constantly repeated aim of "wiping Israel off the face of the Earth" only feeds Bibi's hatred of them. So, a big Yes. I would not say 100% subservient, but he's very happy that the Israelis aims, and his aims, align. Plus, he can see major gains for Trump Inc in beachside resorts, hotels, deals, etc, in a Middle East that he can move into, without a lot of opposition. Many Iranians want to be free of religious terror, but many hard-liners still exist in the country. Whether the former can subdue the latter without external support, seems dubious at this point. Civilians always suffer the most in wars. I can tell you this much - Trumps claim that the "war will be finished in 4 weeks", holds about as much value, as his claim that he would end the Ukraine War, in 1 day. I would have to opine this war is going to incur many civilian casualties over many months, maybe even years. I agree completely. I doubt Iran will get "better" for a long time to come, perhaps 20 or 30 years. Islamic hardliners will keep coming to the fore, and continue to gather up more adherents, after losing their initial adherents. That is the vexing question. Many world leaders and senior politicians seem to be quite happy that the Ayatollah is gone. But "justification" can only be measured by the eventual outcome, which is very unclear at this point in time.

China has supplied Iran with a modest number of missiles in recent months - but those Chinese shipments have probably been a lot less than Iran lost in the 12 Day War with Israel in June 2025. It's reported that Iran had reserves of around 2500 missiles before the 12 Day War, but lost around 1000 of them to war use and damage from Israeli strikes. There are reports the Iranian missile stockpile has returned to something like 2000 missiles. Sending those missiles off at a decent rate will reduce their stockpile, as they couldn't build them as fast as they fire them off, in a decent punch-up. However, Iran still has a dangerous number of major missile-building facilities, and a refined missile-building capacity, with a number of hardened underground manufacturing facilities. The bottom line is that Iran is dependent on raw supplies of dual-use electronics, sodium perchlorate for rocket fuel, and more than likely, goodly amounts of steel for missile casings - and China is their major and eager supplier. There are agreements in place to keep the missile raw materials flowing from China, but whether they will continue with an Iranian administration and military forces in some level of disarray, remains to be seen. China is accepting payment for all this military support in Iranian crude. Iran is in a bit of a bind as regards blocking the Straits of Hormuz for lengthy periods, because it needs the Straits open to be able to ship crude to China and the rest of the world. Iran will try to seriously disrupt international shipping in the Straits, mainly to drive up oil prices, and make the American war effort more costly to them, and to try and disrupt the U.S. economy by sharply increased oil prices. Of course, sharply increased oil prices only benefit Iran, when it comes to oil income.

It appears the U.K. DVLA (Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency) requires specific character heights (64mm), widths (44mm), and font thickness (10mm) on British motorcycle numberplates. Accordingly, the required character size, spacing, and margins results in a standard large size, most commonly 9 inches by 7 inches, or approximately 228mm x 178mm. In addition, the large rear plate holder acts as an extended mudguard, reducing spray and road grime being flung up the riders back, from the rear wheel.

The problem now is that Iran is not a united country, never has been, and there are plenty of different groups within Iran ready to take over from the Ayatollahs - and fight each other for that dominant position. Look for a replication of Libya. The worst part is, the Iranians will be planning a revenge attack from out of left field, and that will likely be either an economic attack or a military attack. They will mine or block the Straits of Hormuz and make the whole world pay in terms of a vastly increased oil price. We can look forward to rising oil prices this week, simply due to the attack by the U.S. Then there's the fact that the Iranians are the worlds best missile experts, and we know little of what they have hidden. They could quite easily launch a large warhead missile at an American city, and even if it's not a nuke, they could cause a lot of grief. They're like an injured snake, it might look like it's fatally injured, but it can still possess a vicious bite and lash out, too.

Wars in the Middle East will never be finished. There is too much long-held tribal hatreds there, that have festered for centuries, and which hatreds they will never let go of. Plus, their "gun culture" puts the U.S. to shame.