Bruce Tuncks

Not all buses now have reporting systems. The one I travel in, admittedly a small bus ( 24 seater I think) does not have this. But both the drivers are good and smart. The bus would be a bit safer than me alone on the road. Yep, enforcement should be there to protect the innocent road-user from the fools. I wish to complain about the truck near Murtoa a couple of months ago that killed a good friend and his wife. My wife says NOT to send an email to the coroner.... any comments?

That's interesting Old K. I would have thought the easterly winds would have helped those polynesians get here, but they clearly did not. I heard, while visiting the south island of NZ, they only went to the south island to hunt, but never stayed there... apparently they found the place too cold.

I hasten to say that the idiot driver would have been ignoring lots of good advice, and also be facing a life of poverty with their pensions garnished to pay reparations.

It's a real dilemma huh, ... is it correct to protect fools from themselves or not? I come down on the side of the libertarians, and reckon the govt should confine itself to education. But, I would be really pissed off if one of my family was killed on the road by a complete idiot who was driving stupidly. Well we can't have it both ways, so as the lesser of 2 evils, I reckon it's better for a govt to confine itself to educating.

I hate any propaganda. And I reckon Murdoch money is stolen tax money he should have paid years ago but was too politically powerful to have to pay. I also hate it when the government spends money on propaganda.

Except for this about migration.... I don't think there were any boats which could cross any seas on the way here. The Malaccan traders ( those who brought the dingo here 5,000 years ago) were only just able to make the distance and I think that the abos only got here when the sea was much lower and they could walk here. The dingo is a good example of what I have been talking about.... dogs and people make a formidable hunting team, but I don't think they were used in that way at all. In time, I reckon the Maoris would have got to the east coast of Australia and they would have eaten the indigenous . We will never know huh.

Dead right, old K. There were some good things about abo culture, they were tolerant for example. Sharing too. I don't think they had our concept of private property, and this explains some of their "crimes". They may well be more right than we are on this matter, methinks. As far as "continuous" means, I have always thought that this refers to their lack of progress. Writing is a good example of this. Without writing, you can't pass on any wisdom down the generations and the odd genius among your lot will never be known. I bet that if the Incas had writing, they would have known better about the Spanish cunning ways.

I like the idea of a record of the bus speed,I didn't know about them. What actually happens to a bad driver? And the device which determined if you were alert enough is good too, but again, what if you were to ignore it? Once, I read that 90% of road fatalities were caused by the stupidest 10% of drivers, and this is true in my personal experience. AND, why not an improved "fitness to drive" test? Sure, you couldn't catch all the dangerous ones, but it would help I'm sure.

I take your point, OME. I reckon that simulators are good enough now to use as driving tests. Personally, I think the IQ test is a good one too but it is so politically incorrect that I hereby give up on the idea. SO, I reckon we need another way of getting incompetents off the road. Apparently that bus driver had just done a school trip where the teachers from his bus lodged a complaint about his driving. Obviously, this led to nothing and the result is plain to see. Just like Ben Roberts-Smith, while he may well have been guilty, those behind him in the bureaucracy are more guilty because they have no excuses of PTSD etc.

Thx, OME. But I still have to wonder if the standard is high enough. You have made a good case about the current standard being higher than I thought it was, thanx. But you yourself are clearly smart enough to have coped with even tougher. I reckon it should be about as hard as getting to fly an airliner interstate.

There have been a fair few accidents lately involving truck or buses. It has occurred to me that the problem is that it is way too easy to get a license to drive such a big and dangerous thing, and that we are giving licenses to stupid people. I know that there are lots of good truck drivers, quite a few on this site, who would know more about this. My daughter-in law drives the local hospital bus and she is very smart and very careful. I can't imagine her doing the sort of things we read about. Now I know that it is political suicide to insist on an IQ test, but surely they can achieve something worthwhile by making it harder to get a heavy-vehicle license.

My understanding of the Morant prosecution is that it was politically easier for a far-away Australian to be made the scapegoat rather than a closer pom. The anti-war lot of ( mainly rich women ) were based in England. And I like how the Australian government let their displeasure be known, thus saving future Australians from pommy firing-squads. As an irrelevant aside, the railway station in the film was my ( at the time ) local station of Gawler Central.

I never knew that nev, about black skin going whiter if kept out of the sun. I do know of abos dying of sunburn after shedding their clothes to go walkabout. I also never knew an albino, although there must have been some.

Why is it, I ask you, that people who are very obviously about 90%white identify as "indigenous?" I suggest because of the money.

They already get so much money that I reckon we should all claim aboriginality. What they lack is tough love. Looking back, I can't say that I have ever met or known of a stolen generation real person. I did have a sister-in -law who had turned up to a house where the baby inside was dehydrated and lying in 3 days of its waste. What did she do? She called an ambulance who took the baby away, probably to a hospital. Now there are many who would say that this baby was "stolen". My take on this is that the mother had too much money to spend on alcohol and/or drugs. So this is why I reckon that the problem will not go away if more money is given.

I used to be metric till I built a plane with AN hardware. So I like the idea of non-metric music. Mind you, liters is easier for me than gallons.... bugger, I'm completely screwed up.

Most guys just think you were lucky jerry.... I do.

I've had it suggested that Breaker Morant and BRS were similar characters. But I liked Breaker Morant ( well, the film portrayal ) and reckon I would not be alive without him. My grandfather was one of those " undisciplined" australian troops in WW1 who likely would have been killed by the poms. The aftermath of Morant was that pommy court-marshals could no longer kill Australian troops. I think they killed about 70 poms, but not one Australian died from any court-marshals in WW1. ( Morant was of course in the Boer War, and he was in trouble for killing civilians... Very much like Ben Roberts-Smith ) Do you guys think that BRS and Morant were similar? Do you think Morant was guilty as charged?

He would have to eat lots each day to maintain that bulk in a cold climate. I think gorillas are confined to tropical forests and they can't exist in a cold snowy place.

When in the US, flying gliders, I saw the "mom and pop" service station which had a road ( dirt track, as was the road the service station was on) and this road ended after about 2km on the top of a hill. From the top of the hill you could actually see glimpses of the area 51 buildings, where certain people think the US has the remains of crashed flying saucers. The service station owners would sell rides to gullible people to see just where the aliens were being kept. ( yes, you could see the buildings better from a glider.... they were whitewashed, and surrounded by rocky hills. I was not close enough to see an airfield, but there is one there apparently) The year before I was there, a German guy apparently landed at the base there and they locked him up for awhile checking him out. He was eventually let go. I think his accent made him sound suspicious. Personally, I find it hard to believe that the ufo wreckage and cadavers exist, how would you keep a secret like that, and why would you want to anyway? How could you swear people to secrecy beyond their retirements and deaths? If I were there, sure I would agree to silence ( if paid extra) but I would later tell my mates, especially after retiring.

yep, I read that the reason insanity is hereditary is because it is caused by the kids.

On further thought, I reckon the whole marriage business was for the in-laws. So they should pay for it. If they don't want to pay ( which I agree with ) then they should have told us not to bother with the marriage stuff.

Nev, a next-door neighbor from a previous life built a small 3 brm house and I reckon he mainly destroyed any resale value of the place.It looks small compared with all the houses around it and it is. If he had built a "normal " house, he would have made a lot of money. I reckon that the cost of the extra stuff in a bigger house would have been peanuts compared with the land price. Hopefully, he will never try and sell so he will never know.

One of the things that frightened me about going to the us is that if the cops pull you over, one cop approaches the car and the other aims his rifle at the driver. I doubted that this actually was true, but that picture shows their ( the traffic cops ) caution might be well-placed.

If that is how it really happened then I agree admin. But was not the argument about exactly that? What if it was a case of mistaken identity? There has been a lot of that around with bikie killings lately. Was he handcuffed or not? How did it happen that he became handcuffed? Anyway, I say again that the scenario of fighting such an enemy is terribly unfair to the soldiers.