Bruce Tuncks

Nev, I heard that arsenic was found in some USA soils and it rendered the soil unsuitable for horticulture. All I know is that soils here are often deficient in Phosphorous, and that Arsenic is grouped with Phosphorous on the periodic table. Has anybody ever heard about Arsenic being a problem in soils?

Wow I'm impressed by the technical expertise here. It would all be way beyond the ability of the west wimmera inspector to understand for sure. I actually heard today that the round auger-type of hole had compressed soil in the circumference and would therefore be stronger! The book said 90 cm diameter footing holes and they built 90cm square holes. when, 20 years ago, the guy was drilling footing-holes for a farm shed I was building, he was amazed that I wanted them 90 cm deep. Never before had he been asked for such deep holes, he said. But I was only following the instructions in the shed manual. I reckon, with hindsight, that half this depth would have been ok.

I would just love to be able to treat a real govt call as if it was a scam. Alas, they have not yet. I think your response should be to ask them to send you their stuff in writing. A couple at our ( seniors) gym got a call which claimed to be from the tax dept... They were told that their last returns had been audited and that they were now on an arrest list. They had to send $1,700 to get the matter resolved and their names taken off the arrest list. On their own, they may have been sufficiently afraid to pay. If so, I reckon the tax and the cops have a lot to answer for. They should have told people that they would never behave so badly.... alas they have been deafeningly silent on the matter, at least in the sort of things pensioners might read or see.

It's a minor reason for the survival of homosexuality.... those hunter-gatherers who liked sharing a sleeping -rug would survive the ice age hunting trips better. I prefer the reason that female siblings of homosexuals have more kids on average and more than make up for the deficit from those queer guys.

In Darwin, it had become standard practice to just put threaded rod down the first concrete-brick row to hold the roof trusses down. This was before Tracy.

Once, I left out the hold-down bolts for a roof, yep it was just sitting on the walls. I did it deliberately ( It was held down by tech screws, and these had just been removed. The next job was to drill them out and put in the nuts n bolts. My plan was to praise the inspector effusively for finding out my trick. In the event, he didn't notice so I said nothing to him but told the rest of the town. There was no wind this day.

Am I the only person to get angry about Anzac Day? My specific annoyance is failing to recognize just how badly our troops were treated. They were poorly led and even more poorly fed, so much so that they became unfit to fight. This happened while being troops for the richest country the planet had ever seen, and the cost of a barge-load of vegetables in Cairo would have been peanuts at the time. Ignorance? How come they knew a million times less about nutrition than Captain Cook did over a hundred years before? They were good boys, volunteers and all, and they deserved much better than they got.

If our civilization were to be wiped out, in ten thousand years there would be plenty of evidence from everywhere. I reckon the conventional view of archeology is pretty good. We would leave so much evidence that it would be beyond dispute that, for example, this enormous hole was dug to extract a mineral like copper. That's the sort of evidence that I want.

But, Red, artistic license has been around a long time. Picasso just had more than most. AND, why travel across the galaxy and not ask to see our leaders?

I think the whole " big brain" thing will be counted as an evolutionary failure. Take dogs, for example. They are as smart as they need to be, and a big brain wouldn't help them at all. ( except for this dog belonging to a mate of mine who said how his dog could do calculus problems while fetching a ball.... I didn't believe him.)

I don't think the brain grows.... but I still concede the point Red. The brain must have grown at some point, just not soon before birth as in humans.

Not in "69 Nev. In about "65 or '66 I flew at the old town strip in a brand-new Bocian, with Nobby Orchard as the instructor. There were 12,000 ft cu and the thermals were visible! Well you could see a very-wide column of dust going gradually to yellow to about 7,0000 ft Then above this, you could see the cumulus. Wow I never saw that again, not even at Alice Springs. Shortly afterwards they moved to Bond Springs, and the old town strip, plus the old grazing commons, became housing etc. This was my first real glider flight, and I loved it. Then, in later years, ( I was there in 2001 when 9/11 happened) I used to enter the Alice Springs Master's games, as gliding was a sport there. One year, I am proud to say how these games made the national news, as the whole town ran out of condoms! Nothing to do with the Bond Springs gliding, I am sorry to say. A typical task for the master's games competition was to fly up the Stuart Highway and then cross the scrub to return via the Tanami . This put the scrub crossing at the peak of the day. I remember some impressive thermals and some impressive sink too.... once I lost a 22:1 final glide 2 or 3 times in a 42:1 glider.

Because the UFO people are impossible.... humans already have their heads almost too big for the birth canal. Those UFO people are many times worse... their inventors never worked as midwives, methinks.

It's the bureacracy that MAKE you employ tradies even if you could do the job yourself. This is especially hurtful to those who have better than tradies qualifications, such as engineering degrees. But the world is built around stupid regulations enforced by stupid bullies. There was a buildings inspector around here who denied a shed footing because it was square, not round! Even though it was heavier, he foolishly thought that his " approval " meant that he liked it!

On the subject of motorbikes, I was surprised to read that the German army ww2 bikes had the side-car wheel powered from the main engine. Is this true? Surely it would make for a too-complex transmission?

I was just starting school in Alice Springs in 1950 Nev.... gosh, you are even older than me. This was reception, so I was in grade 1 in '51 etc, grade 11 in '61'. This is how I can remember what happened when, well a bit anyway.

I've got a Chinese farm buggy ( $6000) which has 2wd,4wd,4wd diff locked and also has an electric winch. It was clearly designed for the back-blocks of Tibet, since it has exhortations to "renew the fluids after immersion" etc.

Nice story Jerry... I reckon a corrupt judge is the worst of the worst. I also like the notion that while 2000 years of christianity didn't make people better, a hundred years of capitalism sure did. You have to be nice to make somebody a repeat customer. The thing that Trump and Murdoch both have is distance from the sales-point. This distance enables their true personalities to shine out, and what terrible men we see... mind you, Murdoch shows flashes of brilliance now and then. Getting rid of Tucker was one.

Doesn't sound right to me Spacy. The moon's arrival was long ago i think. It has kept our axial tilt stable and allowed agriculture to take place. A planet without a BIG moon like ours is unlikely to have a technical civilization. This is why I think we are effectively alone.

Australian soils are often deficient in phosphorous, which is why super is required to grow wheat here. The soils can have other deficiencies too... Selenium deficiency is thought to be responsible for the aborigines of Kangaroo Island dying thousands of years ago. As I have said here before, most Australian soils are 5 cycles ( sandstone weathering to soil then going back to sandstone is a cycle) away from the good volcanic soils. ( I spent years thinking that "advance Australia Fair" was written by a silly woman, such is my opinion of women and science . Well it turned out to be untrue, which proves that I am a bit of a doubting thomas. )

I reckon it was me who hopes that motorsport will keep kids from racing each other on the roads we all use.

I reckon Nev, as usual, has it right when he says " democracy is the least worst thing"

Yes, the UK was a dictatorship under Oliver Cromwell and they came back from it, unfortunately planting the seeds of puritanism in the USA. Apparently there was a time in England where you could look out and see a bunch of Cromwell's thug-soldiers trampling your kitchen garden. If they found a herb, you would be tortured till you admitted to being a secret Catholic.

To attempt to answer the last question first, I think the answer is "yes, because a dictatorship has no means of transfer of power except a big fight or a murder" Who wants to be ruled by a murderer?

I reckon we've seen in Trump and in Putin just how easily this can happen. Well it didn't happen with Trump, but there are lots of examples in history where it has happened. Maybe the modern media, with its concentration at the top, makes it more likely these days? Maybe the Westminster system is better than the Presidential system? AND, is a dictatorship necessarily weaker than a democracy?