Old Koreelah

Some of the road crash deceased recovered by my VRA team have definitely fallen into this category, others maybe. At least one deliberate attempt failed due to the safety features of the car. All caused lots of trauma to others, as well as considerable cost to society. There’s a lot more of it than the media lets on, perhaps for fear of the “copycat” effect.

An expression of faith in Australia’s heavy industry, an advance towards green steel: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-04-04/gfg-alliance-liberty-electric-furnace-green-steel/102186420

So true Nev. There seems to be a sort of vindictive budget in the affairs of men; if one brings happiness to thousands, he must use up a disproportionate amount of his own.

That headline sounds typical of that rag.

The battery is the other victim of infrequent use; mine failed me a couple if times recently after my car was ignored for a week or two.

I’d love to see that, but history tells us otherwise; winners fall out over the spoils of war. There have been some noteworthy examples of teamwork between state leaders of opposing parties. Now that Labor has swept the continent clean, expect more blood on the floor than normal as the Premiers bicker over money.

In any other line of work, you’d be severely penalised financially for jumping ship from a job you had recently applied for and won. He asked to be elected representative of a group of people. Now we have to go through the expense of doing it all again. The cost of the by-election should be taken from his pension.

At the time the Belarus factory in Minsk was reputed to be the world’s biggest tractor factory, supplying the sprawling Soviet agricultural sector. It was said their main fault was lower build quality because on State Farms, if one broke down, you just went and got another one.

We had a similar experience each time we crossed the border from USA into Canada.

We old farts are of the lucky generation; I was even luckier to be able to build my own home, after our bank manager said I’d never get a loan on my single income. Don’t be surprised when the current working generation lose enthusiasm for all the discounts we seniors are currently entitled to.

Not only dogs could smell Germans, if this story is to be believed: http://www.strangehistory.net/2015/03/20/24713/

Stiffer sidewalls seem to be the main difference of the new “low friction” tyres used on some Electric Vehicles to acheive a few extra km range.

Speaking of honesty, the jaded, cynical Vicar in “The Larkins” is one my favourite characters. He’s honest enough to say what many of them probably think.

My short foray into the wine industry was an eye-opener. We had an infestation of foul-smelling little triangle-shaped beetles just as the grapes were ripening. They all went into the crusher- and some of those wines won medals!

After I’d used them to protect my newly-planted trees, I carried 400 tyres up my hill and used them as a retaining wall. The hard part was filling them; two steel buckets of rocks per tyre, gathered by hand and carried up the hill. That terrace will outlast me, as long as I protect it from wildfires. If a fire takes hold in a tyre, you’d never put it out.

A knew an old mechanic who described how the Luftwaffe abandoned his Czech airbase before the Red Army got there. Instead of just taking over the impressive facilities, the Soviets blasted everything to oblivion. When they arrived they set about rebuilding.

A perfect trade: the Kim dynasty has surely amasses lots of ammunition for it’s future war of expansion, but can’t even feed it’s enormous army, let alone the general population.

Don’t bet on it, OME. I’m still trying to get change of a $10 note I handed to my 5 YO grandie as payment for a “Bluey” figurine she was selling for $2 in her “garage sale”. Little blighter knows the value of a bob and probably still has her first shilling!

Plate Tectonics can take credit for causing the Wallace Line, which divides Eurasian animals from Australian ones (kangaroos are found on some Indonesian islands). When sea levels were about 120m lower during the Ice Ages, this was still deep water dividing the two continental areas. I’ve crossed the deep trench between Bali and Lombok in a small, overloaded passenger ferry; heavy swell kept us drenched the whole trip! That narrow Strait also has political implications: it’s probably the only place where US nuclear submarines can travel undetected between the Pacific and Indian Oceans. I suspect it was a factor in JFK’s support of Indonesia’s takeover of western Papua. Jakarta could easily have allowed the Soviets to place sensors there to detect American subs.

Remember the ABC TV series “The Inventors”? Always some great new home-grown idea that might change the world. The panel always included a range of expertise and this lady was a pocket rocket even then; now she’s changing the way we make steel! https://www.smh.com.au/environment/sustainability/in-a-world-desperate-to-go-green-nsw-steel-town-is-providing-a-solution-20230330-p5cwl4.html

As with so many great advances, Wegener was trained in a different field, so came to Geology with a fresh perspective. He copped lots of ridicule from the conservative establishment, but contributed more to Science than many. Plenty of that obstruction still going on.

Winston Churchill