Jerry_Atrick

Not sure, but fujitice journo Shane Dowling is running with it. https://kangaroocourtofaustralia.com/2025/11/23/kevin-rudd-pays-lawyers-to-cover-up-his-jeffrey-epstein-link/

You're not claiming to be a mining scumbag, are you?

Wilfully blind, ignorant and gullible in one. You don't play cricket for England, do you? The "man" has presided over defunding government departments designed and, in US terms, making the US clean and healthy, such as the FDA, Obamacare, the FAA, and the like. Maybe you should go over there and experience first hand what it is like. Many of my US based friends are telling me to stay away as it is turning more and more to shit Oh, and pardoning criminals to go out and murder again is also a positive in your mind, I guess?

It already has

Mate, I am not waiting for it. I bought at this time of year as a commuter, and I am going to use it as such. I didn't get my ride in today, but that is OK as the Ducati boy has said his Ducati i a little sensitive to rain and cold, and tomorrow is rainy and cold. So, I will go out then and hit those twisties. I got some of my planned items done today... To cut a very long story short, didn't go to Gloucester, but ended up at a main dealer in Exeter that had 20% off everything. BThe sales assistant was young, female, and blonde. And I thought great, a Saturday student workder. Holey moley, she knew her stuff.. well beyond blokes with 20 years riding experience. She was absolutely professional, and the lad was totally enamoured by her, professionally (though I doubt he would say no to a quick drink with her, even though he doesn't drink). @facthunter - goes to show, blondes do have brains! She would give most of us a run for our brainiac money.

Yes, although she made for great comedy, I have to admit. Also, isn't it funny how people switch from being great supporter to great critic of Chump... (or vice versa in the case of Graeme Lindsay and the Texan congressman whose name I can't remember at the moment.

Agree.. Trust me, if it made the real news, my partner would know about it. I just checked and she hasn't heard anything about it, so as the bellwhether of all shlock news, I would also call it fake. BTW, if it were true, I would agree with the purported kings response!

I did tell my son to wait until he got to Aus to learn to ride. He is starting to complain that 125CC - especially around rural areas is simply not enough power should he need to get out of a pickly - or get to 70 (for most bikes) on dual carriageways. My son is not the cavalier sort by any stretcy of the imagination and the chances of him voluntarily exceeding a speed limit, even on a Hyabusa, is about the same as someone willing first division lottery every Saturday in a row, for a month. I looked up Vicroads learner bike restrictions, and wow, was I shocked, If anything, I would have expected the restrictions to have come down unilaterally to below 250c, but can be up to 660cc if thei have a power to weight ratio of up to 150kw/tonne (actially Transport Vic lists it and not Vicroads): https://transport.vic.gov.au/road-and-active-transport/road-rules-and-safety/motorcycles/motorcycles-for-learner-and-restricted-riders#h2-e4cr8 If a bike is not on the approved list on that web page and it meets reuirements, you can apply to have the bike you want added to the list. 150kw/tonne seems massive, given the kw/tonne of a Hyabusa is about 570... So unless they have some dicky formula rather than sijmple kw/weight * factor to get weight to a tonne, it would seem just about every bike under 660cc counts. My son's desired steed, a Triumph Speed 400, would certainly fit the bill. Anyway, back to the blog: Day 5 (yesterday) of ownership saw it stand under the covers. It was a lovely sunny day and got to 9 degrees, but with this reno and needing to get stuff done, didn't get the time. I had whatsapped two of the local village riders to let them know I had a bike, but one didn't believe me. My partner and I decided to eat the the village pub last night (foor was unusually very good - I was on orange juice and sodas as the beers there aren't great and I didn't want to have wine on account of severly reducing alcohol intake). We took the dog, but he was playing up so after dinner, I took the mut home and partner stayed on. One of the riders I text arrived after I left, and my partner told me when she got home he thought I was pulling his leg. So, tomorrow - Day 7, have a small ride out planned with he who was a disbeliever. This is the route: For context, within England a slightly wider map: Day 6 (today): It started wet today and the cover did a good job of keeping the rain off. In front of the dilapidated garage is a build up of soil thanks to a blocked drain thanks to builders digging up some of the lawn dlose to the long driveway and rain washing the soil down to the drain. So, the plan today is: Gotta help prepare the cottage for this weekend's holiday let. Taking the lad to Glocester (about an hour and a half away) to get Helmet and boots (nothing much in Tauton nor Exeter; the mega store in Bristol doesn't have great deals on helmets at the moment. Back and clear the soils from the front of the garage and unblock the drain. Maybe take the bike out in the wet for a small confidence builder. Bike to be put in garage. Here is the bike today in the muck of weather we have today: A bit different to Marty's post on Celebrating Positives 😞

And it's a terrible/trajic joke of history both were put and kept democratically (and it looks like one will go as undemocratic as the other).

Looks like a lovely day for it! Sorry about my poost afterwards. For some reason your post didn't come up, nor was there a notification of replies to the thread.

Maybe a new thread? The NHS here is free at point of use. Goin to a GP costs nothing at the time. When I first came to the UK in 1996/97, I was amazed at how good it was and considering the public/private system in Australia, one was waiting longer at Aussie public hospitals, etc. But the NHS as a service has deterioriated sigfnificantly since then.. there were waits in A&E/Casualty/ER literally for days - I think 99 hours was reported at one stage! It wasn't the "Slow down, mate" attitude. The front line staff are generally (admittedly not always) conscientious and while they aren't running at break-neck speeds for 12 and beyind hours, they put in a decent amount of work. In addition, They are always on call, etc. One of the good things under TTony Blair was it was well fundedm a politics was as removed from the service as possible. You could get a GP appointment almost anyhere in the country same day, Even if you were privately insured (not very common at the time), you would go public for anything not elective. Private insurance was (and still is) very expensive. The problem is when the converatives came in, they played political football with it. Reform after reform, introducing more and more layers of management and administration, splitting them into trusts with an eye to prrivatising the system took more and more of the budget away from front line services and more and more in to management and admin. In addition, hell bent on ideology, they privatised services - some critical, which meant more of the budget to investors and more admin and even less of the budget to actual front line services., Of course, in private enterprise you tend to "innovate", which means in these sorts of situations, finding ways to extract more profit from a flat revenue.. and that rately results from captial investment. Of course, having a private/publoc model like Australia doesn't mean any of the above won't happen, either. The Howard reforms seems to have worked more for the insurance companies than the patient. I can recall before I left Australia, medical insruance was paid to Medibank Private, HBA, or a handful of others.. But the cover was almost limitless for what compared to today seems to be a very small premium. I have been researching medical insurance and it is now very expensive (of course, I was O/S when he introduced the changes, so I will have to pay the full loading when I return), and there are caps that mean once you really need the insurance you are pretty well SOL (ship outa luck). I am not against the loading per se, as it represents increased risk with age without previous contributions, but on my return to Aus, I may perpetually travel around (grey nomad???/) and use travel insurance - a lot cheaper.

For the CBT here, it is an 8am start - 2 hours in the classroom covreing the road laws, bike basics, riding basics, and safety. Then it is as long as you need on site until the instructor and student are both comfortable on the bike and confident that the road will be OK. Then a minimum of two hours on the road. There is no pass or fail per se. You either get the certificate or you don't. If you don't, it is not recorded as a fail. You keep going as and when until you do (or give up trying). Here is a not very well organised syllabus from the guvmint: https://www.gov.uk/search/all?keywords=element+&manual[]=%2Fguidance%2Fcompulsory-basic-training-cbt-syllabus-and-guidance-notes

It depends on where you align

Dat 4 of ownership - the bike tood under covers all day even though it was sunny and hit 5.5 degrees! Although, my son's jacket and gloves arrived today. He paid hommage to the roo that gave up its life for my son's safety... And he is booked in on Tuesday for the CBT (learners permit).

Isn't the idea that the value of money drops over time.. So, according to Google AI $100,000 AUD in the year 2000 is worth almost $208,000 today: Assuming no cost of maintenance/works over time nor other allowable deducations, if you don't discount for inflation and simply deduct sale price (let's say $500,000) from the purchase price you will get $400,000 gain you have to pay tax on. However, you are comparing a different dollar today than in the year 2000, where the value of the dollar less than 1/2 of what it was back then. To work out the value of your capital gain as opposed to the amount of the capital gain, you would either have to convert your original purchase price to today's value (almost $208K) oir convert the sale price of $500,000 to the value in year 2000 (c. $240k). If course doing it the latter way will mean you have to convert the difference back to today's dollars to calculate the income in today's numbers to allocate the correct tax; the former method converts to tody's values. If you don't convert the to today's value, you are overstating the value of the capital gain by almost $108,000. The raw difference (in this case $400K) does equal value (in this case, c. $292k). The only way to work out today's value of yesterday's dollar is to apply the inflation rate (or if there is some other price index more reliable indicator of purchasing power/value, than that should be used). The it comes down to the objective. Taxation policies are used to impact behaviour and therefore are not always applied fairly. For example, if you want to take hot air out of the house price market, taxing on values so more tax is being paid is one way to do it. If you want to simply tax fairly, so it is more about revenue generation than market correction, deducting inflation seems fairer as it is on value. But, of course, if like the UK, the country is broke and it needs to maximise revenue, taking out inflation should be dropped.. It will be a progressive tax as the more you make on a captial gain, the more proportionately you will pay. Personal income tax is a problem in this area (I know this is not a capital gain). As the purchasing power of money drops over time, the taxation thresholds at which different rates of tax kick in should be increased to cover the reduction in purchasing power. Famously, as in the UK, they have delayed this well beyind the current thresholds. This means you start paying tax, or paying higher rates of tax on lower values of money. This hurts the lower income earners more, because as the value of money decreases, wages tend to increase pushing say non=payers into paying tax on the same value, not amount of money. [Edit] I think a better option would be to eliminate the capital gains tax relief on property: Funny how this won't happen - just check the assets held my many senior politicians in the country - they have proven very unlikely to vote to eliminate that little deal.

Nothing stopping you from trying. Let's see how many votes you get.

One Nation is increasing in popularity - that is true. A 2% jump to be precise: https://www.roymorgan.com/findings/9951-federal-voting-intention-november-16-2025,. However, it did fall in two states. QLD, unsurprisingly, registered its biggest gain. And yes, ALP is down 2%. The reality is more and more people do feel left behind, the product if an increasingly unfair distribution of wealth. I would also say it is the disproportionate taxation and burdening middle classes that is also contributing. Couple tha with the owners of both mainstream and social media pedalling the message of their donors/sponsors/advertisers that distract from the real issue and lay blame on various "-ism's", and along comes parties that have policies to suppress democracy and sew further hatred, and you have people like Chump, Farage, etc getting prominance and ultimately power. None of their policies will solve the problems. However, the mainstream parties do have to lift their game, and that also means fighting with fire. Here's an example of the Chumps, Hansons, et al of the world work.. The major parties have to realise the messaging modes have changed and fight back sometimes using the tactics, if not the lies or misleading statements put out by those who will ultimately make lufe hell for many they purport to be the saviour of:

What is wrong with supporting big infrastructure projects? They create economic value on two levels - one is directly/indirectly while the build is going on and then increaseing economic capacity. Many jobs are directly created, investment is made, and then the thing has to be operated and maintained. Then there is the indirect economic consequences of the industries that support it - again during the build and beyond. The second economic return is the capacity it adds to the economy and consumer through workforce mobility. They are far more efficient than adding highways and road networks alone. The plan is to build it in stages and each stage will start operation - starting with the airport rail link in 2033, then the Cheltenham to Box Hill in 2035, then two more stages after that. It can take up to 30 years to deliver it all,yes, but operation will start much sooner, and benefits to the economy have already started. So, why would bebe an issue - especially if the federal government are footing some of the bill.. About time somewhere else other than NSW got the lions share (under SFM and Abbot) If the money wasn't being spent on the SRL, it would be spent on something else. Frankly, the investment is a good thing.

Maybe a False Angels patch...

Day three of ownership started for me wit a trip into Taunton for an eye test before next week's class 2 medical. I am happy to say my eyesight has improved since the last test Not sure how, but there you go. In the morning, it thow blowing a hoolie - much faster than forecas 15kts. And, contrary to the forecast, it was raining, though nnot too heavy. The car beeped at me and when I looked at the message it was warning me the outside temperature was less than 3 degrees(celcius). To be honest, I was looking for an excuse to delay picking up the bike until tomorrow as I was not looking forward to riding it back in that muck. When I got home, my son told me about a super sale Triumph was having and we should go to the local dealer to try on some clothing. Darn it. In their website they had some ripper deals, with £650 jackets down to £190; £180 gloves down to £22 (yep that is not a typo) and £400 trousers down to £90. So I took my son down to the dealer - it is the only main brand dealer in Taunton with the others either in Bristol, Exeter, or both. The dealer wasn't participating in the sale, so we came home, not long after almost buying a Speed 400: https://www.triumphmotorcycles.co.uk/motorcycles/classic/speed-400/speed-400-2024. That would be for my son on passing his A2 licence, which allows up to 47bhp bikes. But I had to remind him, first bikes tend to get dropped so a brand new one is not on the cards. We came home, ordered my son a jacket, trousers, and two sets of gloves (one for me as theyseem better than the ones I spend considerably more on). They didn't have my size in jacket or trousers or I probably would have bought them as well as they seemed better than mine that I paid about £40 more for and that, too, was on sale. I guess when Triumph has a Black Friday sale, they really have one. Then, into the car with partner and off to pick up the bike. Coincidentally, the clouds cleared, the temperature shot up to 5 degrees, and the wind died off to about 8 knots or so. When I got to the ship, the bike was sitting there resplendent in the sunshine with new heated grips and storm guards. I went in to pay for the work which included: Fitting the heated grips and storm busters Full service including: 4 litres of semi-sythetich 10W40 oil Oil filter replacement Air filter replacement Bleed and replace the brake fluid in the brake and clutch cylinders MOT (RWC) inspection Some other consumables 2.5 hours labour VAT (sales tax) He commented that although not concourse, it is a great example of a very good bike. I told him I was using it for commuting to London and he advised me on how to look after the bike. He spent a half an our showing me in detail what to do using a bike on a lift; what to buy and where from for the best price for quality. He could have kept going and I thought that was fantastic - someone who take interest in their clients because he loves bilking (he races them). So, I am certainly going to stick with him. I felt far more confident on the ride home this time. I stayed on main roads as much as possible, which took longer, but was far more enjoyable. I didn't put the heated grips on to test the storm guards and they do a pretty good job. Hands didn't get cold like they did yesterday. The good thing about htese heated grips is the controller is integrated into the left grip - no big box for vandals to rip off,which has heppened to me in the past. There are a few people in the village that have motorbikes, so I looked up Halse Motorcycle Club on Google. It must compete well with another well know motorcycle club:

HR Departments.. Have no idea how the real world works.. Won't go into detail, but one of my reports works her posterior off and wanted a couple of days compassionate leave. She doesn'tyet meet the service requirements as per the policy., which says in rare circumstances, exceptions will be given, but of course doesn't list the circumstances. I asked for an exemption based on the hours she puts in compared to the hours she is contracted. No dice from them. Rules are rules! So, Ihad totell my direct report no,but then said, do not work an hour over her contracted hours for the foreseeable future. Their loss, for two days leave!

My brother has done that.. I couldn't bring myself to even try..

Despite their not being a credible alternative to the ALP at the moment (beyond the Teals and David Pocock - the Greens seem to have swayed a little to the activist side at the moment), the ALP seems to be doing a reasonable job. There will be stuff ups and vested interests to contend with, as well as powerful lobbyists, but compared to the previous governments, they could do a lot worse given how crap the others are. I didn't think Albo had it in him and the Voice referendum jusitifed my position. But to his credit, unlike Starrmer here, he has learned a pretty valuable lesson from that stuff up and seems to be far better than many people's expectations. He hasn't made decisions that will satisfy everyone - you can't do that in politics. But it seems, with a couple of exceptions, he is finding the correct balance.

Hmm.. can't recall ever being offered free electricity when fossil was the major player in town. So much for the cost argument: https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/australia-offer-three-hours-free-solar-per-day-millions-2025-11-04/