onetrack

The answer to HIGHER and LOWER is B.

We've got a Chief Justice here on the left coast who has taken the rather rare and unusual step of speaking out against these sovereign citizens, and the way they waste the courts time (and their own money and effort), essentially trying to advance spurious and outright dumb legal positions that have no standing (nor any logic to their arguments, in many cases). This group of people are angry and disruptive, and believe that no-one has the right to tell them what to do - and the thinking originates from the lawlessness of backwoods early America. They're intent on destabilising our entire social and legal order, that has developed over centuries, and which was forged by wars, revolts and protests. It's a far from perfect system, but it works as long as people follow the rules and regulations, that have all been instituted to keep society functioning and civil. Sovereign citizens arguments offer no better system, just one of total lawlessness and self interest. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-08-19/wa-chief-justice-peter-quinlan-warning-sovereign-citizens/105668072

Ian, this is good work, thanks for your effort, everything is working well. I must say I'm not enthused by the new colour scheme, though.

Marty, your answer is one a Kiwi would give!

B_G Bag, Beg, Big, Bog, Bug.

I blame the sovereign citizen outbreak on the level of inbreeding in rural areas - along with too much exposure to American media, especially the anti-Govt, conspiracy sites. We have one here on the left coast, one Wayne Glew - he's an ex-copper, for FFS!!! Of all the people who should be highly conversant with the law, and how we live under the rule of law, he should be the one speaking out against these imbeciles! - let alone leading them, and forming a support group! Get a look at his followers in the photos outside the Geraldton Courthouse - I guess if they opened their mouths, there'd be an average of about 6 teeth missing!! https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-08-29/sovereign-citizen-growing-movement-regional-australia/105702148

Well, it looks like I've got plenty of support, and I was quite surprised at the number of politicians who have rounded on Katter for his abusive, demeaning, and threatening behaviour. Even David Littleproud, who I generally regard as pretty useless, gave Katter a serve. Albo was right onto it, and his comment was very good. Katter expects to be called "The Honourable R Katter", but there's nothing honourable, distinguishing, or statesmanlike, in his thuggish outburst at the journo. He'd be right at home as a standover merchant for the crime kingpins of Western Sydney, maybe they could offer him a job. I always considered Katter as just a backwoods buffoon, but now he's dropped down to the bottom feeders of society, in my estimation. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-08-29/politicians-chastise-bob-katter-threats-against-journalist/105711616

I just watched that abusive, half-deranged prick, Bob Katter, threatening to punch the crap out of the journo who had the temerity to tell Katter he came from Lebanese heritage (Katters grandfather was Lebanese), when Katter was ranting about immigrants from the Middle East. Bob Katter is a thug, pure and simple. Katter has some huge personality problems, and I'd hope a lot of people see this thuggish interaction with the journo, and think twice about voting for the bloke. Anyone who behaves in the manner he did with this journo, who was only pointing out the truth of Katters ancestry, doesn't deserve to hold public office with his threatening, abusive attitude. He's essentially shown he's the equivalent of the classic Middle Eastern thug from Western Sydney.

I also tried our Wi-Fi speed using my phone, and was quite surprised to find, there was only a very minor difference in internet speed to my phone, via Wi-Fi! I was fully expecting to have to buy a new router to match the FTTH connection, but the new router we installed when the FTTC connection was installed about 6 years ago, is doing the job just fine. However, typical of the electronic waste caused by technology upgrades, we had to bin our NBN Connection device that was formerly installed by the router to handle the FTTC signal.

The media are already beating the sympathy drum for him. The situation is only one of his own making - fed by his arrogant, angry, abusive, lawless (and now, murderous) attitude. https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/in-his-own-words-accused-cop-killer-dezi-freeman-speaks-of-hardships-hatred-20250828-p5mqhg.html

He'll be laying low in a bunker he's constructed, I'll wager. This prick is also a "prepper", so he'll be properly set up for when the "tyrannical Govt forces" come for him. This is Wieambilla all over again.

We got our NBN line (FTTC) installed down our street about 6 years ago. Our area was late in the NBN rollout, so we ended up with FTTC, instead of the earlier, less-satisfactory version, FTTN. I find it amazing that the NBN and internet providers wanted a serious amount of money to connect fibre from the footpath to our home, at the time the NBN was installed in the street. Oh, yes, FTTH installation was a big-ticket item, back then. So, I was quite intrigued to get an offer from Iinet just earlier this month, for them to connect FTTH for FREE! I wonder what has changed in the interim? They've all made so much money from the NBN, it's embarrassing? - and they feel the need to hand some back? Needless to say, I accepted their offer, and we had the fibre run into the house last week. I was expecting they would run the fibre in the conduit that held the copper line - but no, they couldn't pull the fibre cable through the conduit because the last installation clowns squashed the conduit somewhere along its length, making it impossible for the techies to pull the cable through. So they had to dig up all our paving and install a new conduit. Then, they found the conduit along the footpath had been crushed too! What kind of incompetents are the NBN employing? I might add, ALL the work on any of the fibre has been carried out by people from the sub-continent! Is there some kind of lesson in this? I'm reminded of Prince Phillips gaffe, when he sighted a crappy piece of switchboard work in a factory in Edinburgh, and let rip with, "It looks like it was put in by an Indian!" Somehow, the latest bunch of fibre installers managed to find a way around the squashed conduit in the street problem, and all is well, and it was left in operational condition as they departed. I also got handed an NBN Connection Box user manual that was just slightly water-damaged, but at least it was readable! I did have a fair bit of trouble understanding Drhuv, the leading hand, simply because of his dreadful thick accent, and mangled English. But he did seem competent enough. We had to have the NBN box installed on the front wall of the house - but our office is at the rear of the house - so we had to call in a sparky to get him to install a data cable to run the NBN signal to the router in the office. Simon, our local sparky turned up today. and he roared into the data cable installation like a man possessed. He and his offsider were finished inside an hour, and that involved pulling tiles off the roof, pulling the fibre the length of the house, and down inside a rear wall. He's an excellent sparky, and always does a good job - and does it fast. We hooked the computers up to the fibre, and I must say I was quite surprised at the increase in internet speed. We're now running at 108.8 Mbps download speed, and 18.48 Mbps upload speed. I have to admit, I thought the upload speed would be higher, but it is late afternoon, and possibly the upload speed is being affected by that timing.

Cat and Mac.

We had a comic for a morning radio announcer here, years ago - Lionel Lewis was his name - and he regularly wisecracked, "They reckon you can't take it with you! I'm gunna prove them wrong! I've ordered a fireproof money belt!" 😄 Another of his classics was, "I recently slipped and fell into the Swan River! But I was lucky enough to be dragged out by the balls!" He then went on to thank Mr and Mrs Ball for rescuing him. 😄

I don't understand how these police thought it was safe to just walk up and confront this nutter. This Freeman fruitcake has stated he hates police with a vengeance, he tried to sue a police officer who cancelled his driving licence, he's constantly claimed to be a "sovereign citizen" and above the law - and he was "well known to police" - yet they still think it's safe to turn up without serious protection, and just walk up to him, and arrest him?? Just the fact he claims he's a sovereign citizen should be enough to ring alarm bells the length of the country. These nutcases all claim they're above the law, and are prepared at all times to kill anyone in authority. They constitute the greatest terrorism danger to society that exists today, and I don't say that lightly. Anyone who claims to be a sovereign citizen has rescinded any right to live in our law-abiding society, and they should be arrested by the SOG and jailed until they rescind their views - and even then, they should be watched on a daily basis. They are crazies of the highest level, and they have killed more people in America, post 9/11, than any Islamic terrorist. They align themselves with the murderous "Posse Comitatus" nutters, with white supremacists, and with virtually all "anti-Govt" haters. They despise any form of authority over them, and they rate as high level psychopaths and sociopaths. I think the Victorian Police need to take a hard look at themselves over this disastrous foray, and re-jig how they treat these nutcases as soon as they announce their hatreds.

That's not a photo of Bob Crane. Bob Crane was murdered at age 49, and that photo shows a man in his 60's. The photo is a manipulated image from a scammy YooToob video, which is full of inaccuracy and general BS information. YooToob is full of this kind of sh**.

SKIBIDIE.

So, what about all the photos of Aboriginal cultural places taken 100 or 150 years ago? They've been widely distributed for decades, does that mean they all need to be taken down now? What a crock of sh** and PC wokie-ness his stuff has become. I love the way things that are prohibited under Aboriginal culture can be approved once payment is made to Aboriginal corporations. I think I need to make my local Christian church a no-go sacred place, and start making rules and regulations about who can take photos of it, or not.

Strength. All the other words contain all the vowels.

The problem is, we speak English in Australia, and it's our primary language - and it's the primary language of all the technological sections of our Western society and institutions. It's the language of Computer Technology, it's the language of the Construction Industry, it's the language of Engineering, Science, Chemistry, Maths, and even of the Airways. Are we going to try and start introducing unpronounceable Aboriginal words into all these Sciences, too? Make everyone learn a new language? The problem is, there are several hundred unpronounceable Aboriginal dialects, and many of those dialects have even died out. We expect immigrants to pass English skills tests - then we give them unpronounceable names in Aboriginal dialects for place names!! We've already had an exercise here in the West where a tourist fell down a local waterfall. The tourists (Asians) called 000 looking for help, and when asked for the name of the recently-(Aboriginal)-renamed waterfall, they couldn't pronounce it! - thus leading to a substantial delay in getting medical assistance to them, while the 000 operator tried to figure out where they were. We already have a large number of place names in W.A., from the 1800's - and they are Anglicised Aboriginal place names, or what the Aboriginal name sounded like to an English speaker. The original settlers were happy enough to ask the local Indigenes what their name was for the area, and the settlers and colonial authorities were generally obliging enough to call the area or place by its Aboriginal reference name. In many areas, the Aboriginals didn't have place names for locations, although they knew where they were, and they were often just referred to, as something like "the place of yams", or some other general description name, that referred to whatever they acquired in that area.

No problem for me, about three quarters of my equipment is still imperial measure, and I can still buy small diameter nuts and bolts with unthreaded shank. For the uninitiated, a set screw has the thread all the way to the underside of the head, a bolt has an unthreaded portion left on the shank. The unthreaded portion is called "the grip length". https://www.bolts.co.uk/guides-and-tips/nuts-and-bolts/the-difference-between-bolts-and-set-screws/?srsltid=AfmBOorz9uoAZzWGYlnyzAjahbC9_I393ZObZqVf-KhImEWr_2_RS3H5 Bunnings Aerospace have them. https://www.bunnings.com.au/pinnacle-5-16-x-1-yellow-zinc-hi-tensile-hex-bolt-nut-6-pack_p0054207?srsltid=AfmBOooMq-k1EoIb4wdKeohacwYrC4igOX30ri5pRdDa6AT60qHjJrJ_ Most automotive parts suppliers have small Champion packs of nuts and bolts on a rotating stand. https://championfasteners.com.au/product-category/blister-packs/bolts-nuts-packs-blister-packs/ Bolt and Nut Australia still call them nuts and bolts. https://www.boltandnut.com.au/5-16-x-24-tpi-unf-fine-zinc-hex-bolts-high-tensile-grade-8?srsltid=AfmBOopblKy_pW6MFl1VWtNb8bYa5YUkQlvwOM2sRQQ0tkCPnt8QBObz I buy a few bolts and nuts from AIMS Industrial or Blackwoods, but Caterpillar are the best for high grade fasteners, and for giving you the fastener specifications. But you do have to have the Caterpillar "One Safe Source" book for the bolt and nut part numbers. It's readily available online in PDF format.

Well, it's still wet, and getter wetter - and now it's COLD, too! Perth had a maximum temperature of just 11.4° today, the coldest Winter day here for 50 years. It was bitter outside, and it was also raining in squalls, and dark and gloomy as well. We have already exceeded our total average Winter rainfall (June, July, August), and our August rainfall is already 50mm over the monthly average for August - and another 16mm will send us into new rainfall record territory for the August average. The best part is the rain for the last 2 months has spread widely into the State and the crops are looking fantastic. From a very dry Summer and Spring, and a sowing season where grain was largely scratched into very dry soil, and the crops struggled to make headway in May and June - the turnaround from the end of the first week in July has been nothing short of amazing. The GIWA has already boosted the States total grain crop estimate, to be well above average, at 21.9M tonnes - but since they released their August report a couple of weeks ago, we've had a lot more rain, and the crop tonnage can only go up from here on in. Personally, I'm looking forward to a break in the Winter weather and some nice sunny Spring days. We're off to the Dowerin Machinery Field Days on Wednesday, the rain will have eased, but it's not going to be a warm day, by any measure. The forecast for Dowerin is 1° to 15° with occasional showers - and the wind will be cold, too!

No, that's an ancient WW2 furphy. Plenty of soldiers in Vietnam got "the jack" (VD), some a lot more than once - thus proving they didn't have any problems with libido. I really don't understand how you could "lose everything you had", simply by being conscripted. How did that occur? I came home with $3500 in the bank, enough to buy a new Holden sedan. We had nothing much to spend our money on.

I was never fearful of being conscripted, it was just another challenging life adventure to be faced, as far as I was concerned. I've faced nearly every major life challenge that one can face - poverty as a child, bullying at school, mistreatment by teachers, conscription, car crashes that weren't my fault (I was 5 and an innocent passenger when that first happened), plenty of close brushes with death via machinery, and also being in a combat zone, lost my house and virtually all I owned in a fire that was no fault of mine, had a bank destroy my business and all my assets after 30 years of asset building, endured deaths of close family members, some at a young age, and suffered from severe stuttering from childhood until around age 40. I was never involved in any traumatic treatment in the Australian Army, but I was on the receiving end of extreme dislike, that bordered on abusive treatment, by some of the Army regulars, who often viewed conscripts as unworthy trash who diluted Army morale. I was called "reo shit" a few times in Vietnam by a couple of hardened Army regulars who were essentially drunken deadbeats, anyway. "Reo" was the slang for "reinforcement", as troops rotated into Vietnam were deemed "reinforcements" in official-speak. I shrugged off their abusive comments and ensured I associated with them as little as possible. The situation wasn't helped by the fact I wasn't a drinker (and about 20% of the troops didn't drink alcohol, or drank very little, which may come as a surprise to some), so I wasn't part of their "boozing" group, which made up a large part of the regular Army culture. There are stories of supposedly legendary regular Army NCO's, who made their platoon members drink beer from their (NCO) boots, supposedly to bring about cohesion and mateship in platoons. IMO, this is the height of Army dickhead thinking and outlook, and I certainly wouldn't take part in any BS moves such as that, which moves I would consider divisive, rather than uniting. But there were a lot of Regular Army dickheads one had to work with - it was no secret that a lot of Army Regulars were in the Army because they couldn't hold down a job outside the Army, or fit in with civilian life. Despite all that, I was still promoted and given NCO rank, which was extremely rare as a "nasho", because the Army normally saw giving rank to nashos as a useless move, thanks to the fact they were only there for 2 years. Regulars had to sign up for 6 years and nearly always got priority in promotions.

It's got nothing to do with survival of the fittest - the treatment of Australian veterans, and their entitlements (in your case), are in place under our countrys laws, in the form of the "Veterans Entitlements Act, 1986". The VEA 1986 comprises two large volumes, and every decision in those two volumes has been tested in an Australian Court of Law by complainants alleging they were owed compensation or entitlements, and the ensuing decisions as to whether they were owed compensation or entitlements, or not, is set in stone in the judgments from those cases. It's not reasonable to expect some form of compensation or entitlement simply because you were conscripted. The compensations and entitlements are for service in a defined War Zone, or for "Service related injuries" (regardless of where they were incurred). As a Vietnam Veteran who did qualifying service in a recognised War Zone, and who incurred disabilities as a result of that service, I get the exact entitlements as laid down in the VEA 1986, and nothing else. I get a Service Pension, which is essentially the same as an Age Pension, except it is awarded at an earlier age than the allotted retirement age. I also get a disability payment based on my disabilities assessment. The basic Service Pension is the same amount of money as the Age Pension, and eligibility is tested using the same Means Test as the Age Pension. In some cases a small extra allowance is paid to War Veterans, depending on their circumstances. The only other difference is that the Dept of Veterans Affairs pays my pension, not Centrelink. I might add I'm extremely grateful to the Australian Govt and the DVA for the support they give to Australian War Veterans, we certainly get far better treatment than U.K. Veterans.