old man emu

All I can add to this current chat is caveat emptor

This morning I posted that I was likely to get some rain this afternoon. I checked the radar about 4:00 pm and there was a nice patch moving directly towards me. About 6:30 pm there was some rain that barely got the gutters going. I checked the radar and the patch had drifted a few kilometres to the north and there is not sign of any more rain coming over my place. Luckily I have bore water and only use rainwater for drinking. I've probably got about 380 litres of 400 in my tanks.

My sister and I took Mum (99 years old) to see a skin specialist today to have a growth on her neck checked out. The specialist identified it as something readily operable under a 'local'. What impressed me most was his admission that, considering Mum's age, he was trying to find a medical reason not to operate. That sort of caring behaviour really makes you confident of the specialist. She's booked in for day surgery next Monday week.

But he's going to tell the Mint to stop making 'pennies'. That'll be a big cost saver for the Government.

The same sort of crap he writes here.

FFS GON, if you are going to continue your membership here, wake up to the fact that many times people here post statements the likes of Marty's which are to be taken as satirical. The rest of us know what Marty intended, and had a chuckle. Of course we don't condone assassination as a solution to problems. So man, chill.

Just looked at the radar and it appears that I'll be getting some light rain later this morning. There is a 999 millibar Low just north of the NSW/Qld border.

Good things come to those who wait.

Not if you bend over too far in a tight pair of pants.

There is honour amongst the Mafia. That sets it above the GOP.

Bit of a problem for Prince Rogers Nelson (June 7, 1958 – April 21, 2016) the Artist Formerly Known As Prince w changed his name to an unpronounceable symbol, on his 35th birthday.

The weather events we are experiencing currently are definitely outside our prior experience, but as has been pointed out, accurate records really only exist for about 400 years at best, and those early ones are often anecdotal and localised. It is more likely that consistent worldwide records only began to be taken from roughly 1925. That's possibly a result of the development of civil and military aviation which depends for safety on good weather observations. For maritime operations, I suspect that sailors would just think that the weather is what it is. Probably the only way to determine if it is climate or weather that is changing is to keep analysing sediment such as glacial ice and sediments in waterbodies.

Can you imagine the complexity of the cash register software in the USA, where the price at the shelf is not the ultimate price. They add sales tax at the register, and the level of tax can vary from State to State, even city to city within a State.Say what you will about the negatives of GST, but at least it is easy to calculate, and include in the shelf price. American tourists often comment that they are surprised when they find that the register price is the same as the shelf price. Some even need to avail themselves of the free health care provided in civilised countries.

A change in the overall "climate" indicated by a change in the type of "weather" events. It's all the fault of the semantics.

Reasonably true, but a little bit of data is better than no data at all. The conclusions drawn from a small sample may not be conclusive, but they do proved one with an initial hypothesis.

I agree with your supporting comments, but I think that the things that you listed in the above post are elements of "weather". Identifying cycles over long periods of time is what I would call "climate".

Just looked it up. They do have it under a different name, Interlink. My bad.

Amongst all Trump's craziness, he has actually come out with something that that has some sense to it. He wants to stop the minting of the one cent coin. His reason is that it costs more to make a one cent coin than its face value. If you ever notice prices for day-to-day goods in the USA, like groceries, you will see that they are often priced at $(x).99. Obviously putting that price on something is for psychological reasons. We think that something priced at $(x + 1).00 is much more expensive than if it was priced at $(x).99. However, if items are priced in that way in the USA, one has to buy five items in order to get a five cent coin in change, or ten to get a ten cent coin. Otherwise, you are going to get up to four one cent coins. I have heard an argument against getting rid of that coin is that it would be inflationary. Inflation would be caused by the price of items increasing by at least one cent per item in going from $(x).99 to $(x + 1).00. But Australia long ago abandoned those very small denomination coins, and any inflationary effect seems swamped by inflation from other sources. Day-to-day items are now priced to the nearest five cents. I had a look at a recent grocery docket and the only items that showed a price in individual cents were some delicatessen products that were priced at so much per kilogram, but which, due to the weight supplied, resulted in a cost that was in odd cents. Another example is the purchase of petrol. I wanted to put $50.00's worth in my car manually, but couldn't get the pump to stop at $50, and it went over to $50.01. I paid for the fuel, and groceries ($50.08) with plastic. Those exact amounts appeared on my card statement. I know that if I had wanted to pay in cash, the fuel would have been $50.00 and the groceries $50.10. So it was a case of swings and roundabouts, but was convenient to pay with plastic. Another day I needed just to get some butter. That time I paid with a note and got coins in change. The one and two dollar coins are OK, but small denomination silver coins are basically useless and have been put in my coin container to wait for the day when I can get them converted to either gold coins or notes, or simply credited to my account. I wonder if any possible furor amongst the Yanks if these one cent coins are withdrawn would be due to their misunderstanding of the minimal effect on inflation, or the fact that despite claiming to be the most digitally savvy Nation, their financial system hasn't introduced EFTPOS. Imagine going to Colesworths and having to sign a credit card slip when you bought bread and milk.

Maybe there are a couple of different cycles operating and sometimes one or two cycles coincide. We now know that there is an eleven year solar cycle and that would have to influence rainfall. We should also look to see if here is a cycle in flood years. What the following list indicates is that maybe the cycles are shortening. Previous droughts The Federation drought: 1895 to 1902. The 1914 to 1915 drought. The World War II drought: 1937 to 1945. The 1965 to 1968 drought. The 1982 to 1983 drought. The Millennium drought: 1997 to 2009. The 2017 to 2019 drought.

I saw eggs in my local supermarket priced about $9.00. As I was preparing this post I checked online for Woollies' price. The website didn't display it and there were indications that they were out of stock

During the day I look to the west and watch the clouds build up and drift over. Then in the evening I look to the east and watch the lightning and know that those people over there are getting the water that's been sucked from the ground over here. I've mentioned before that is seems that you can draw a line passing northwest/southeast over my place and the storms pass on either side of it, but don't run along it, meaning that everyone else gets wet and I get dusty.

We have reached a stage in our politics where most votes go either to the conservatives or another mob which has different ideas from the conservatives. A present, the major Conservative parties are the Libs and the Nationals, and the the major party that's different is Labor. There are other groups with significant following, such as the Greens. Think back to the glory days of V8 car racing. At one stage the two best competitors were Ford and Holden, with Chrysler being a lesser third. So, if a report on the race was made at the halfway point, the report would tell us that, say a Ford was running first, fourth and fifth and a Holden was running second, third and seventh with a Chrysler at fifth. At that stage, you might say that between Ford and Holden, on a two maker basis, Ford was most likely to win, but that could change. So the bookies would lay odds on that two-maker preferred status. The AEC does not have the data with which to make the statement until AFTER the polls have closed, so whatever it says cannot influence the ultimate result. To quote the original JC, 'The die is cast'. Basically, the AEC is providing a snapshot of the result based on results to hand at the time. Because the majority of voters support either the Conservatives or Labor, the AEC during early counting does not mention the minor parties and Independents. If you want to see how the vote went for those minor parties and Independents, you'll have to buy the Sunday paper and look up the results. We must be thankful that we have the AEC, because it has shown itself to be able to run an election and count the resulting votes with absolute integrity, something that most other countries cannot claim.

For those who want to pilot: CASA is so strict with its medical standards that if you have a pimple on your bum, your licence could be suspended, or if you have something a bit more serious, CASA will cancel your licence. Back in the 70's, I was trying my hand a selling life assurance. You could get the assurance without a medical. Think of the level of risk of dying that the actuaries considered when setting the premium. Of course the amount of premium related to the age of the insured, but the risk was taken on. No doubt the actuaries for the assurance company had more of an idea of the risk of death amongst the population.

Maybe with a choice of voices like you could get for your GPS.

If Trump puts a 25% tariff on our aluminium and steel, we should up the rent on the properties the US has here for its military uses. I was going to say that we should bung a 25% tariff on US goods and service, but then I remembered the lesson learned from this discussion - tariffs hurt the consumer living in the country which imposed them. So we don't want to put them on. About the only bargaining chip we have is to tell the Yanks to move out. That would be in line with Trump's policy of evicting people from countries. We could also cancel AUKUS and get our subs from Europe.