kgwilson

According to the report it crashed in Western Iraq Iraq shares its Eastern border with Iran The Yanks will know its exact location from the flight log and GPS apart from other sophsiticated equipment on board. Iran would have to send its troops in to Iraq & there is no love lost between the 2 countries. They fought an 8 year long war starting in 1980 along their different religious beliefs. Most Iraqis are Sunni Moslems & Iran is Shia.

The price you pay is determined by supply & demand, nothing to do with the government. The Australian public has far too many panic merchants. I saw line ups the other day with people filling Jerry cans flat out. So the demand goes up & so does the price all based on fear and greed. Not only that fuel companies base their price largely on the cost of replacement in todays dollars not what they pay when the fuel you are using was paid for. It takes from 2 weeks to over a month from leaving the crude export point to being refined into useable fuel and then transported to petrol stations. Australia being a long way from most of the supply points is at the end of the time frame, so at least a month.

Alan Kholer provides a good summary of the influence of religion in politics in this article below. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-03-09/oil-markets-qatar-gulf-iran-religion-litics-straight-of-hormuz/106380388

Christian Fundamentalist religions are a bit more subtle & use more psychological methods but still use fear as a weapon. They helped put Trump in the White House. They have learned from their violent past and with modern technology exposing everything it makes it harder to enforce their will so sects have appeared, with draconian rules and women being subservient often just being used as baby factories. There are plenty of these in the US and here as well. One in NZ, Gloriavale was recently exposed & the leader jailed. The iranian regime is just a bigger more violent and controlling group dictatorship. Their psychological power is so great that even when their homes and livelihoods have been destroyed and family members killed they still praise their God.

That seems a pretty dumb place to store our crude given the geographical distance. We probably have no means to refines it here anyway but the yanks always do whatever they like irrespective of agreements and/or water tight contracts.

I travelled through Iran to Afghanistan in 1975 before the Shah was deposed. I found most locals polite but border officials etc were not. I even hitch hiked from the Turkish border to a small town & then took a bus to Tehran. The main roads were good having been built by the US but the rest was quite poor then. I was only there for a week & saw some amazing architecture & ancient sites. If the place wasn't run by Islamist fanatics it would be great. The Shah was very wealthy but most people were poor. One of the reasons for the original takeover. Back to the sinking of the Iranian warship. US military sources stated it was the first sinking of a an enemy ship by a submarine launched torpedo since WW2. Well No. There have been 4 since and of course that included the British nuclear submarine HMS Conqueror sinking the Argentine cruiser General Belgrano in 1982 during the Falklands war. The Yanks don't get much right especially history that they continually re-write to suit their narrative. As for fuel prices it doesn't bother me as they have yet to figure out how to tax the sun.

The new cars are smaller, lighter & are hybrids with a 50/50 split between internal combustion & electric power & use 100% sustainable fuels. The drivers have to manage the power split now. I've watched the Formula E cars a couple of times & they have incredible acceleration but races are shorter due to battery constraints but now the Gen 3 versions are 4WD & allow for fast charging pit stops of 600kW

Most of the beef we export to the USA is lean beef mixed with fattier US beef for hamburgers, you know Trumps favoutite big Mac. The US cattle herd has been in decline for decades reaching a low of 86.2 million down from over 90 million a decade ago. It has been in decline for over 75 years.

The WLTP range for the MG Excite 51 is 350km not 405km. The WLTP range for my MG Essence 64 is 435km with the lower spec Excite 64 it is 450km. None of the models has a quoted 405km range. This is the old out dated NEDC range which was very inaccurate & was created in laboratory tests in the 1980s based on urban driving. It was last updated in 1997. A friend of mine has an Excite 51 & gets over 300km. In mine the range is about 380 to 400km based on 110km highway driving & some 50 - 80 km driving. Driving around in an urban environment at 50 - 60 kmh gives me much higher range. The range estimator (also known as the guess-O-meter) has given me 505km from a full charge & that would have been close if I hadn't gone over 50kmh. It has a level of intelligence that works out the range based on your driving style & it is surprisingly accurate. It is 182km from my house to Gold Coast Airport & a few weeks ago I left with 100% charge & arrived with 52%. Most of this was at 110kmh on the Pacific Highway. I could have got home without getting a charge but just like with my old petrol car I would never let the fuel get that low. I spent 15 minutes at the BP in Ballina for a comfort stop & coffee & added some charge. Cost me $9.04 but there was plenty left when I got home. Other than long trips it costs nothing to run my EV as I charge from solar, supplemented by my home battery and 3 hours of free power every day. I'll never have to worry about the price of petrol going up because of wars or other reasons for shortage. In any vehicle, electric or internal combustion it all depends on how you drive, the terrain, weather, the total weight of the vehicle and use of accessories like air conditioning etc.

I wouldn't own a hybrid for reasons of complexity with 2 power plants, a small battery and a complex drive train, maintenance and a reliance on fossil fuels. Studies have shown most hybrid owners do not get anywhere near the claimed economy. There are a number of reasons but with plug in hybrids many owners do not plug them in so their fuel consumption from the relatively small ICE engine can be very high. For most of my EV driving the energy is free as I charge at home off my rooftop solar panels supported by my home battery plus getting free power for 3 hours a day. On a recent trip to NZ I left the car at Gold Coast airport after leaving home with 100% battery. I still had just over 50% when I got to the airport. Most of the trip was at 110kMh. I stopped at Ballina BP on the way home & put it on the fast charger for 15 minutes while I went for a comfort break & coffee. It was pouring with rain at the time & I wanted a buffer to make sure I'd get home. Cost me $9.04 for a bit over 15 kWh of charge so had plenty left when I got home.

I stand corrected. Toyota lost ground considerably in China, its second largest market after the US for 3 years but had a slight 0.2% increase in 2025. Hybrids are less popular in China mainly due to government incentives for BEVs.

Pretty much all of the legacy auto manufacturers are declining. Stellantis is a basket case. Toyota has had its head in the sand for years thinking electric vehicles will disappear. They still have good sales in the West but are down worldwide considerably. Why is this happening? Unless you have been underground for the past few years it is obvious. Electric vehicles are taking over. Tesla made them mainstream but not for the average car buyer due to cost and the fossil fuel industry promoting misinformation. The rise of Chinese car manufacture is the main reason. The world wide forecast increase in EV sales in 2025 was 21%, the same was in 2024.. The year ended with sales passing 25%. The December numbers in Australia were 38% up on the previous year surpassing expectations. EV sales now make up over 13% of car sales in Australia. China has now passed Japan as the largest supplier of cars to Australia. We are though one of the slowest EV converts in the Western world. Other reasons include range increases, very little maintenance, long warranties and most of all lower cost as basic small Chinese made EVs have reached price parity with ICE equivalents. EV market share in the UK reached 23% by the end of 2025 with the rest of Europe 19.3%. The Nordic countries are way ahead with Noway (97%) & Denmark (70%) Sweden a bit lower at over 40% but 60% including hybrids. Trump land has gone the other way as you might expect with a 1% decline overall other than in California, Washington & Colorado. Trump won't allow Chinese EVs in & GM, Ford & the US part of Stellantis are losing ground and bleeding capital by producing mediocre EVs. If it wasn't for Tesla the US market would be stuffed. Musk has done a good job of helping this occur.

I've never been able to figure out how someone believes there is an all creator god and there is a heaven & hell but also believes in evolution. There is a blind eye in there somewhere or a bob each way..

That was a paper written 8 years ago. Latest scientific research shows the sea level has indeed risen. Physical evidence confirms this. There are numerous reports also. This is googles AI perspective. Tuvalu faces an existential threat from climate change, with rising sea levels expected to submerge much of its low-lying land (average elevation <2 meters) by 2050 and render 95% of the nation uninhabitable by 2100. The sea around Tuvalu is rising at roughly 4-5mm per year, significantly faster than the global average. Saltwater intrusion is contaminating groundwater and crops, forcing the nation to consider adapting through land reclamation or potential digital migration.

Tell the people of Tuvalu that the sea level is not rising or for that matter Kiribati, the Marshall Islands and the Maldives. The highest point on Tuvalu is only 4.5 metres above sea level and the sea is already invading their lower areas making their gardens die from salination. It is forecast that Tuvalu will be completely uninhabitable by 2100.