old man emu

Returning to electoral promises of money being seen as vote buying, I heard a candidate announce a grant to a community for something or other. What the candidate pointed out that before the grant had been approved, those seeking it had gone through all the preparatory work so that work would be able to start if the grant was approved. That prep work involved drawing of plans, obtaining the development approval, arranging contractors to do the work etc. This is the normal practice for these community grants. My Men's Shed is applying for a grant for building extensions and the documentation of these things has to accompany the application. So it seems that the promises made to fund local projects are not in fact promises, but the confirmation of grants that would have already been approved but not announced by whichever government body was making the grant. In other words, such a 'promise' is merely electoral spin.

That's why I think demerit points are a much more equitable penalty than monetary fines.

It would be a case of the bureaucracy rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.

It is interesting to note that since 1973, several attempts have been made by the Labor Party to introduce a Bill of Rights to parliament but the legislation has never been passed. On the other hand, the Conservative former Australian Prime Minister John Howard has argued against a bill of rights for Australia on the grounds it would transfer power from elected politicians to unelected judges and bureaucrats. The idea of power being removed from judges at least seems to be being echoed at present on a continent to the northeast of Australia. When you have a look at the numerous individual documents which bear the title of a bill of rights (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_human_rights_instruments ) you can see that the concept of a basic, simple list of rights has been swamped by advocates of individual issues. God handed Moses only ten commandments, of which only four relate to behaviour in a society. It is Man who has created a plethora of commandments from those ten.

This was posted yesterday, 1/4/25. Interesting, even if you are not into militaria.

I watched a video involving a simple maths problem. The task was to find the original price of a packet of tea before a 7-1/2% tax had been applied. The video comes from the USA. I posted this as a comment: "Redo the problem after a 25% tariff has been applied." Got three likes already.

The "old farts" was meant to be humorous. Of course there would be a great diversity of opinion amongst the electorate regardless of their ages, however I was trying to imply that each of those groups grew up under different conditions from the other groups. That has got to have affected their outlook towards many subjects. Whichever Party can dial into those different outlooks would gain the most electoral support.

I can't figure out how I'm paying roughly $1.70 per litre in the country, but city folks are paying about $2.00. It used to be the other way around and the claim was that it costs money to transport the fuel. Have the oil companies acquired some sort of Star Trekian transporter beam to move fuel from the coast to the inland?

What we will have to watch is the demographic of the voters. Millennials (1981 - 1996) and a proportion of Gen Z (1997 - 2012) will definitely outnumber those born before 1964 and may be close in numbers to Gen X (1965 - 1980). How will those younger people vote. Who has listened to their hopes and fears? These are the people whose lives and those of any youngsters they have are just beginning. We old farts are looking towards life eternal. I don't think old farts can claim to set a course for the country into the future based on our experiences. I feel that the only thing that experience has taught me is that society is in a state of constant change.

Instead of concentrating on clearing up the dung heap, it would be better to begin with picking up the bits of dung. The use of outside consultants to the degree that has been done in the past is something that has denigrated the qualifications and experience of members of the Public Service. Qualified people chose to enter the Public Service for a lot of reasons that do not have wealth creation at the top of the list.

Strewth! He'll go 250 clicks on the off chance of a relationship, but won't drive a 70 click round trip for the benefit of his country! 😁 Seriously, I hope she sees you as a modern day Rudolph Valentino, and will fall into the arms of The Sheik

That's been a human trait since some warlord thought up the idea in antiquity. I don't think that we would whinge so much if tax money was spent on what the people really wanted. Just take a look at the Scandinavian countries. They get taxed pretty heavily, but it seems that the money is poured back into things that actually benefit the citizens. There's a lot of talk about government waste. Perhaps GON is correct and we need a DOGE to go through government expenditure with a fine toothed comb. As I said earlier, I've no qualms about a government spending a couple of billion on an educational facility aimed at producing people with skills the rest of the community needs. What I object to are these "fact finding" group trips overseas. In an age of instantaneous international communication, and access to information via the internet, why do highly paid individuals really need to go on these junkets? We have embassies and other representatives in most countries. Let them do the ground work and then the Ministers whose departments are involved can conference call. We've seen that some countries can discuss and plan military campaigns using a texting service.

Apps of that sort are only useful if you can use them. Not many venues in the sticks where one could use them. But, hey! I chose to live in a "remote" area and I'm just GON-ah have to cop it. The loyalty programs such as Fly Buys and the Woolworths one are pathetic. If you don't use your accumulated Fly Buy points within 12 months, they are lost. Woolworths used to give you one point per dollar spent. Now it's one point for two dollars. Takes a long time to spend $2000 dollars on supermarket items when there's only oneself, and there is the need to closely monitor the price of each item, which means shopping elsewhere. I only use my Woolies one if I go into Dubbo. I really should get a loyalty card for the local supermarket. The way that supermarket jacks up prices means I could live free throughout January on the points earned the previous year. I have one app that gives me a 4 cent per litre reduction in the price of fuel at United servos, but I think it only works in NSW and you have to have a Seniors Card to apply. There's a couple of United servos in Dubbo, but their best pump price today is $1.71 p/l. That' $1.67 with the discount. This morning I grabbed a few litres of 91 Octane locally for $169.9 and I can get it on the way home from Dubbo for $1.65 any day of the week. I try to use the discount when I go to Sydney. If I go to the United I normally use it's $1.69 less discount today. However the servo next door is often cheaper.

It's only a couple of days into the campaign and already I'm sick of being treated like a mug. So far no Party has announced anything that personally affects me, except perhaps for the temporary reduction in fuel excise, but what annoys me are the promised handouts for projects. It's not that I disagree with projects receiving support, it's just that the grant of support is vote bait. Let me give an example I heard of this morning. Albo announced support to build a major education facility in Adelaide to train nurses, paramedics and other types of health care people. Great idea to expand our capacity to train these much needed workers. However, is it realistic to think that the idea for this has suddenly popped up? Planning for such a facility would have been going on for a few years. We have a Federal Minister for Health, which means that there is a Federal Department of Health. Surely any requests for support would have been made to that department. I would rather Albo, or Dutton if he had been PM, say, "Over the previous couple of years "My Government" has been supporting the development of this facility by providing financial assistance and advice to the planners. That financial assistance has amounted to X million dollars. It is My government's intention to continue this support if re-elected and have budgeted for that amount to amount to Y billion dollars by the completion of the project." A statement like that shows that the government has actually been doing something. It removes the 'gunna' from the story and I would say would be a better indication of the Party's ability to govern than the sort of pork barreling promises we have become used to during election campaigns. Do you remember the "That wasn't a key policy promise" dismissal of an unfulfilled election promise following an election win? Don't try to buy my vote with promises of pie in the sky. Tell me what you have done as a government since you were elected so I can judge your performance. If it's not up to scratch, be prepared to sit on the opposite side of the chamber and put up with smaller offices.

Pinot Moor is a popular one for blokes with a certain condition.

The Cost-of-Living issue will be big in this election. It is clear however that governments cannot control the root cause - the behaviour of the corporate world. The ACCC recently carried out an enquiry into alleged price gouging by the supermarket chains. It reported that it could not find that this was happening, despite being told horror stories by suppliers and customers. Not being a Royal Commission, it could not compel witnesses to tell the truth, so the supermarket chains said what suited them. What was not reported on very much was that the ACCC found that the supermarket chains were just about the most profitable in the world. In its simplest form profit can be calculated using the simple formula Profit = Income - Costs. The supermarket chains go on and on about Costs, but aren't the costs of generating income tax deductible? Admittedly, a lot of those costs flow into the economy through wages (plus PAYE tax) and supply costs. However what is the source of Income? from the very pockets of customers. It seems logical that increasing Income means draining the pockets of customers. Governments can pass al sorts of laws aimed at controlling prices, but, as we have seen recently in the USA, everyone is now willing to challenge laws in the Courts, which either delays their introduction or results in their being rescinded. And if the laws hold up, where are the enforcers? It calls to mind the old acronym, BOHICA. (Bend over. Here it comes again.)

When I did the plumbing for the bathroom, I used those tap valves that are supposed to be easier for people with weak hands to turn off. I turned them off too hard and eventually the hot and cold taps would not open so I couldn't shower. This morning I bit the bullet and investigated the problem. I found that the rubber dome of the valves were stuck into the hole they were meant to seal. Winding the tap just caused the spindle shaft to move on the stem of the washer. I pulled the dome valves out and replaced them with normal type ones. Success!

Today it seems to be a bad decision, but at the time it was the correct one if it eased your hard times. Hindsight can be a cruel thing. I'm trying to get rid of stuff that was bought years ago. At the time it was a good idea, but today I think of all the money I spent then and am giving away today. How many people today want a cordless landline phone set up?

And we seem to have absorbed some of that poison.

Horses for courses. Benny Hill's shows were light-hearted music hall productions. Nothing wrong with that. But the British have a tradition of making high quality dramas in which all the theatrical skills of the Ages are applied. That makes this type of production classy.

There's more to betting on football than analysing the player list, especially in a game like Rules where ball movement is through the air most of the time.

I've watched that video previously. The story is good, but the title is clickbait.

That's what happens when you let lawyers play with the meaning of words.

Sooner than you think. The cockies around here seem to be happy. They are saying that they will be sowing by Easter. I'm amazed at how grain production has changed since the 1970s. No more burning stubble, or ploughing it in. With GPS controlling the tractors they now sow between the rows of standing stubble from the previous crop. GPS also control the headers at harvest time. The most the driver has to do is monitor the harvester's progress to avoid trees and engage the unloading auger when the field bin comes alongside. Other than that it's just a matter of monitoring systems and watching out for things that could damage the machine. As for temporary storage of harvested grain, they now have a method of filling storage tubes using a method similar to that used to fill sausages. Then they can store the grin in the field until is is convenient to sell it off. No more spending days lined up at a Grain Corp silo waiting a turn to unload. The mind boggles at the financial investment in machinery and such required for 'profitable' farming these days.

That's a bit queer.