Bruce Tuncks

They didn't use a victa where I fixed the house in Alice Springs. Nor did they have a garden hose which would have been useful. So they sat on the fence and watched the fire till the brigade came out. They subsequently left the ( no longer liveable ) house, as did the family which lived opposite. We had some dealings with the opposite lot, mainly by feeding the kids when the men had spent the social security money on grog. We also stopped using the clothes-line when we went out on account of how the women would take clothes they liked from the line. None of this really annoyed me, but the smouldering fire in their back-yard did. Aborigines turned out to be exempt from "fire bans" of all sorts. ( They had to call the smouldering log a "comfort fire" ). If you rang the cops, you would be asked if the perps could be abos. If you answered "yes" then you were told that no cops would come, and you should see a solicitor one day.

These days he goes around singing the praises of those who told him to stop burning off.

Surely there could be more pedestrian button switches? their lack sure is a worry. Getting back to the problem of burning off, I once went to a seminar on the subject. A typical farmer told the audience that he never meant to stop burning his stubble, but then his yields dropped badly and he was told that there was zero organic matter in his topsoil due to his continued burning of stubble. It took years to get the land back to full productivity without burning at all, but he eventually did.

If I were asked by a poller, I would pretend that I was going to vote for Trump. Remember how lots of hilaries voters didn't bother to come out, because they thought it was a foregone conclusion? I reckon Kamala is not making that same mistake. Personally, I reckon it will not even be that close and Kamala will easily win.

OME, according to the website of the " american olive oil association" heating olive oil does NOT change the properties for health benefits since monounsaturated does not change to saturated on heating. Well I dunno, but it is interesting since I reckon your doctor is equally credible ... yet the story is completely different.

I reckon that dna testing should be VOLUNTARY for over some age. Then we might be able to lessen the number of nut cases around, and save money too. ( I am assuming the refusees are nut cases) I say "over some age" to stop parents from taking the choice away from their kids, who should make up their own minds. I would choose 18 as the age at which kids might know if the risks of public knowledge outweigh the risks of not knowing. If insurance companies choose to not insure you without a dna test, well that's their business and something for the new 18 y/o's to take into account. Personally, i reckon the insurance companies could easily come up with different rates depending on the dna news or lack thereof.

The most chilling thing I have heard so far has been the palestinian leader who said how they were "winning" with the way they were forcing the israelis to become the bad guys. ( They were doing this by causing their own people to die...) What hope is there? And another thing... that US guy who said how he was the first to notice how the nearby moslem countries were not helping the palestinians was just wrong....there has been discussion of this here for example. Not that he was wrong on everything, I agree with jerry.

PS. I bought Australian cars for as long as I could, from a chrysler Simca to leylands to various holdens to a ford falcon. I wonder though if the companies concerned ever made money. Even so, I would still like to be able to buy "designed and made in Australia". My Jabirus are all that is left.

good stuff onetrack... but my impression was that wa came late to the federation, and it held out for the railway line to do this... do you agree?

My impression is that aboriginals are related to the australopithicines, the lot that preceded modern homo sapiens. their facial features and their culture both reflect this.

I once was told that real black-belt hari-krishnas can levitate. Alas, they cannot do it in the prescence of unbelievers, on account of bad vibrations or something like that.

Sorry, but I don't agree about "further from europeans means a better culture". Personally, I reckon the abo culture is terrible, especially for the womenfolk. I knew a senior matron from Alice Springs hospital, who told me that abo women regularly show up with horrific injuries inflicted"at home" and they had nobody to complain to. The woke-influenced would tell them that their wonderful culture had been "infected " by whites. As a young kid, I was actually present at a kangaroo-feast ( at yuendumu) where the big men of the tribe were surrounded by dogs and women, to whom they would throw their scraps. That the kangaroos were shot with rifles impressed me but I reckon nobody else there.

While I have to admit that "wood-fired barbes" are of similar problems for asthmatics, I have to point out that "smoking ceremonies" are illegal these days at least for whitefellers. They would be caught up in the "anti-smoking net".

And Marty , I reckon that it is one thing to hate the rich kids who go to Scotch College, it is a quite different thing to fund, with taxpayer's money, abos who just want to be nasty. Personally, I would reduce their funding by the amount of rent they would have got from that rich school.

There was definitely no "welcome to country" ever in the Alice Springs area. Me and Walter ( the black kid I sat next to in grade 4-5 ) would have known about it for sure. Just as there were no "stolen" generation kids... we would have known them by name, and ( thanks for asking) Walter from borroloola went home for school holidays. The fact is and was, the different tribes hated each other and they needed a lot of space between them or they would kill each other. All was well until the govt found it was much cheaper to get them living in suburbs in Alice Springs, whereupon different tribes may find themselves living together.

As much as i don't like to disagree with onetrack, I have to with respect to "the first nations culture". I reckon its a terrible culture, especially for the womenfolk. My first idea about this was to wonder why they tended to stay with the rough white man who kidnapped them, till I found just how badly they were treated by the tribe. This was as a youth in the 1950's Alice Springs.

There actually was an emperor with the heart of an explorer. He went to the east coast of africa and learned that europe had nothing to offer. He had whole ships dedicated to growing vegetables. Alas, when he died, the new emperor dismantled all his stuff.

I always thought that the chinese demonstrated the weakness of authoritarian rule very well. They led the world at gunpowder etc and then succumbed to the improved european guns, because they wasted the opportunity to improve. They could have owned australia but failed for the same reason. And the list goes on to include even aircraft. The basic problem was that their emperor had no way of improving his lot in life.

Onto Captain Cook, who has always been a hero of mine. He was of humble origins, saved by an old lady who sent him to navy school. He was the only person on the planet who was a good sea-captain and also a good enough mathematician to work out his longitude at sea from astronomical fixings. He figured out what caused scurvy many years before Stuart failed to do so, and as a result, he could keep a crew alive to return the ship. I just hate how the woke lot seem to like destroying his statues.

Wow nomad, yep they sure are smart birds. Once, I hit one with an electric model plane prop and I felt bad when it plummeted down to be joined by it's mate on the ground. I didn't want to disturb their grief, but half an hour later, the crook one had recovered enough to fly away! I had noticed that well-known people were not swooped, but dogs sure were, especially black and-white border collies. I love how they ( the magpies) are so unafraid that they will fearlessly attack. Mind you, where I used to live, the tiny little birds we called willy-wagtails used to chase the magpies away.

The main enemy of the magpies are the kookaburras, they seem to hate each other.

I never heard about the guy with his eye pecked out, but in Edenhope, there was a letter-delivering lady who got lots of magpies killed cos they frightened her. I was, and still are, angry at her. I may have bought her a helmet, but that's all. We have lots of magpies around here, and I really like them.

In South Australia, we have had an especially smart person way up there who has refused to allow annual inspections for cars in. Interstate, they pay big money for little gain, as the inspector gains as many cars to "repair" as he loses to angry motorists. Most people with defective cars are only too well aware of their car's shortcomings, and they drive accordingly. I personally never owned a sound car till later in life, and I never had a crash in a "defective" car.

yep, red, but the odds are terrible. I once read that if you buy all the tickets, you only get a third of your money back. Is this true?

If I lived there, I too would buy a gun and keep it under my pillow. Thank goodness I live in a more civilised society huh. What's the good of not owning one if everybody else does?