kgwilson

I've never bought any Russian wine so I am maintaining my boycott.

In our house I use less energy than my wife but overall I use the most as I drive far more km and my flying consumes a lot. I installed a 2kw solar system in 2013 which cost $4,500.00 then. I have kept monthly records ever since. It took 5 years to pay off with the savings. We have a heat pump hot water system that I have on a timer so it does not run between 5pm & 8am so my hot water electricity is mostly solar generated. We run most things like dishwasher, washing machine, vacuum cleaner etc during the day when solar power is being generated & have mostly LED lights. Airconditioning is run when ever required but I always start it early as it is more efficient to maintain the temperature that to try & reduce it when it gets hot. It is a 7kw inverter for the main living area but uses only around 800w to maintain a constant 24 degrees on a stinking hot day. The feed in tariff started at around 18c/kwh but is now down to 9.5c/kwh. My last quarterly power bill was just under $200.00.

My guess is that it part of the latest version of the software but hasn't been linked to the number of posts made by members. On the Rec Flying site it is a rocket with most posters ranked as a Member 3/3. New posters are ranked 1/3. Odd logic.

It is sad that such an experienced and expert pilot should die from a missile that he could not outrun and on only the second day of the war. It now seems that the invasion has come to standstill and stalemate is setting in. I believe that the Ukrainians have made significant ground especially in strategic suburbs surrounding Kyiv and Odessa has become a fortress. It is also reported that at least one of Putins inner circle has resigned in opposition to the war. One would hope the longer the war continues and Putin becomes more unhinged, common sense will prevail in Russia and a lasting peace settlement will be agreed and Putin will eventually be sidelined.

My 2012 Mitsubishi Lancer Platinum was 10 years old on the 22nd of February. I have just ticked over 198,630km. It gets serviced every 15,000km & I have had to replace 1 interior light bulb, I am on the second battery and 3rd set of tyres. It has CVT transmission which has been faultless & nothing has gone wrong with it yet. My plan is to replace it with an EV when the price gets reasonable. There are some fabulous Chinese EVs but they are not available in Australia yet. With Covid, the IC shortage & now the Russians stuffing things up I may have a bit of a wait. I'll just keep going & hope things will get better.

Except that in NSW there is no check until the vehicle is 5 years old & in QLD there is no check no matter how old it is. The only check is when ownership changes hands.

With more electric vehicles coming on stream you can guarantee the pollies are working on a scheme to take their cut. Electric vehicles are perfect for congested city driving. When they are stopped in a traffic jam they use no energy at all other than the infotainment system and air conditioning which uses very little. Many electric vehicles have a separate independent battery for this. A mileage tax would therefore be more equitable when applied to electric vehicle in the city or the country.

This bloke hasn't even done his research. Churchill said "You cannot negotiate with a TIGER when your head us in its mouth" not a lion. An old reds under the bed mentality. No-one had Nuclear weapons in 1939. Putins stability is such that the West cannot take the gamble he won't use them and start WW3 which would guarantee mutually assured destruction and at least a billion deaths according to experts. The long term effects would mean curtains for the planet.

Russians disposing of their leaders murderously is a national pass time and has been going on since the Tsars. They always find a way to make it seem as if it was an accident or some misfortune.

Personally I think those who are fundamentalist and have fixed beliefs because they are told from an early age that these are true and have therefore become brainwashed into a fixed idealism are sad misinformed religious nutters. Those who think about what they have learned and look at spirituality as distinct from religion and also consider scientific knowledge and proof, I have respect for even if they still have an inkling of a creator. And as the child would say "Who was God's mum & dad?

Petrol is not expensive in Australia compared to almost anywhere in Europe (in the UK it is currently £1.64 & they say it will hit £2.50 shortly) & closer to home NZ it just went over $3.00 a litre. Our excise tax is 44.2c/litre. In NZ it is 77c a litre and 88c a litre in Auckland. GST of 15% is added to the price in NZ but 10% here. NZ has just reduced excise tax by 25cents a litre for 3 months & halved the cost of public transport for the same period, something we should be doing here as well.

The ancients were the only lot who have been right in all history. They worshipped the sun as the giver of all life. So that's it, if you need something to believe in go out in the morning & thank the sun for the existence of everything on the planet. Mankind should have outgrown religion well before now given it is the most destructive of all his inventions. The problem is there are several billion nutters who keep the myth alive and well.

The Spring thaw is imminent. The Russians will need to gain control of roads, railways and strategic centres to have any chance of control once that occurs and they are far from that goal at this stage with Ukraine putting up ever more effective defence. Russia is firing off a few long range missiles to show they are advancing but I reckon it is more of a a ploy to gain more home support and try to dampen the resolve of the Ukrainians. All the time more arms are pouring in to Ukraine and their volunteers are becoming trained and battle hardened while Russian troops are just doing their job and in many cases not very well. NATO could blow Russia away easily but with a madman who will stop at nothing, doing that would ensure WW3, M.A.D, a nuclear winter & billions of deaths. So the war will draw out into a long bloody conflict that Putin will not be able to afford for too long so a mediated settlement is the only long term solution. Putin doesn't have many mates other than Assad & a few non descripts. I can't see Xi Jinping coming to his aid militarily. He needs the west to buy everything he makes but he may well become a mediator if Nato & Ukraine accept him for the role. He is probably the only option that Putin would be happy with.

Remember when the first cars graced the streets. They were so frightening you had to have a man walking in front carrying a red flag.

If there are 4000 gods then everyone who believes in only one of them is an athiest who denies all gods but their one but then they will say I am not an athiest because I believe in my god. I can't prove my god exists and I can't prove the other 3999 don't exist. There is no logic to a belief in a god other than it gives comfort to the believer because he/she cannot accept everything evolved and their human brain is unable to accept things they will never know or understand. This is why man invented gods which evolved into religious beliefs. This has nothing to do with the belief in the principles of many religions that are often quite noble. Something like the Christian 10 commandments comes to mind. The fact that all of them are broken continuously by so called believers has nothing to do with them being excellent guiding principles.

I think the only way to get to a cease fire is for the conflict to be dragged out for months, even years. It will take a long time for sanctions no matter how stringent to have an effect on the Russian people. At present Putin is too strong & while there is some opposition to him within Russian politics it is not enough. If enough pressure can be put on the Military heads for them to realise Putin is a modern day Czar as well as opposition to him becoming a groundswell of population he will be jailed or killed (by accident of course). Dragging it out will also give the West time for the logistics of arms and equipment support and training of Ukrainians to become stronger and bolster their unwavering willingness and determination to defend their country. Putins raising the Nuclear readiness to level 2 is a sign of his weakness not strength. There are 2 more levels to go before the big red button is pushed anyway. Part of the problem is the Russian population has been fed so much propaganda that the Ukraine is run by Nazis. There are even huge billboards in Donestk and Luhansk proclaiming this as well as Putin claiming it at every opportunity. Tonight on 4 corners a 20 year old Russian who was in the Donbas region for humanitarian work was convinced of this and that Ukraine had killed 14,000 people since 2014. She had absolutely no evidence of this & felt that the invasion was a liberation but was returning to Russia for her own safety. Putin has been spouting this BS for years even though they have most of the photographs and details of these people on public memorials in Kyiv. Later, on Q&A a Russian born Australian said he supported Putins invasion & stated 13,000 people in the region had been killed by Ukranians. This bloke eventually got kicked out of the audience for supporting & advocating violence. Propaganda has been a powerful weapon exploited by every country for centuries but now with Television & social media it seems to have taken a massive turn for the worse. Look at the US and the belief millions of people still have in Trumps claim the election was stolen. It degenerates all the way to Q-Anon & other nut job outfits. I think this will be the hardest thing to overcome because a heck of a lot of Russians want to believe it & they can't accept that the Ukraine is a sovereign state when it was part of the Soviet Union and essentially Russian from 1917 till 1989.

You would think that in those 2 days Ukraine could have organised getting artillary or at least snuck up enough firepower to knock out a lot at he front of the line so it does seem that the Ukranians are stretched to the limit. The have or had 200,000 troops and thousands have been signing up since this started. As well able bodied males between 18 & 60 are not allowed to leave. The longer this is drawn out the better it gets for Ukraine & worse for Putin. It has been reported that Russian conscripts have been captured or given up and the told their captors they had no idea that they were be part of an invasion. This may or may not be true but things are definitely not going to plan for Putin at the moment

If it ends up as a nuclear stoush we are all f@#$d. The UK & US have plenty of nuclear subs with dozens of nuclear missiles, each with several warheads. They could be sneaking through the Baltic as we speak. With Putins threat to use Nukes even if there is a conventional attack by the West the only way out is to let him have Ukraine. Ukraine has around 200,000 regular troops but a far inferior arsenal of troops, equipment and firepower than Russia. Still they can give Putin a bloody nose and images and reports of dead Russian soldiers will bolster opposition to him. Personally I don't think he cares, like other megalomaniac Russian leaders before him especially Stalin. He wants Russia to be restored as a Superpower and the cost doesn't matter.

I rarely drink wine these days but I still brew my own beer & enjoy a nice cold home brewed IPA after a hot day. Also after a long day, or a frustrating day, or a great day or pretty much any day including today which is a rainy day.

Vlad will be pushing his luck if he moves past Donetsk and Luhansk where there are significant Russian populations originally due to Stalins theft of their grain, starvation of the locals & Russian resettlement in the 1930s. NATO can amass more than 3 million troops if it had to. He is banking on the West not shutting the money gate entirely as that will hurt them as much as Russia & everyone knows that in the US the only thing that talks and walks is money.

Well Putin has made his move & Biden & Boris have imposed their sanctions. Are we seeing a repeat of Hitler annexing Austria and the Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia in 1938. Nothing was done then. Hungary & Poland then took bits as well to ostensibly protect their ethnic minorities in certain regions. Within a year WW2 began.

My wifes family were from Donetsk. During the Bolshevik revolution her mother witnessed the murder of her parents who were Cossacks. Russia had dominated Ukraine for a long time and in the 30s took all the grain and starved the Ukrainian population. Then apparently the Eastern regions were repopulated by lots of ethnic Russians. Everyone was after their resources including Hitler during operation Barbarossa and that galvanised the Soviet republics to throw everything at him for the "Motherland". After the final demise of the Soviet Union and Ukraine finally gaining its independence and Russias influence severely depleted, Ukraine thought it had a new independent future. Part of the problem was the huge Russian population that had moved in to the Eastern regions from the late 30s onwards & Putins strong arm tactics and an insatiable desire to regain the Ukraine that he and many other Russians see as an integral part of Russia. Putin has been financing the Russians in the Eastern regions for decades & settling the skirmishes in 2014 & 2015 with the Minsk accord is just a minor blip with the real intention being total control. This whole episode is a massive gamble for Putin but he sees the West as weakened and unwilling to enter into a full on confrontation. The fly in the ointment is the massive wealth accumulated by the super wealthy Russian elite in the West that could be cut off entirely by the sanctions. If that comes to fruition Putin could be on very shaky ground.. Russians have never been afraid to go to war with themselves.

Not to mention a cop wearing sneakers.

The real problem is Political donations. Both sides get plenty from the fossil fuel industry & need their support or they won't be re-elected. They don't give a flying fig about the future beyond getting re-elected though they pretend to. They are still approving new coal mines. How does that equate with Net Zero by 2050. Meanwhile business with backing from banks are forging ahead with renewable energy projects at an alarming pace in spite of the dickheads we call politicians. 12 months ago I never thought I'd be able to afford an electric car. I now know that my next car (barring me falling off the perch) will be electric and most likely Chinese. That sector in China expanded by 286% in the last year. BYD is phasing out its ICE production altogether & of course many of the other players are EV only. The problem for the Chinese manufacturers is that local demand has outstripped their supply so there are very few available for export.

Electric vehicles are the future of personal transport and also for public commuting. I don't think that is in doubt. Hydrogen power is still a way off but that will become more viable as it is sourced from massive wind and solar generating farms currently in the pipeline. The 50000 hectare site in WA will produce more energy than the entire country uses currently from all sources (excluding transport). The development of battery technology in the past year has been staggering. BYD in China produce a new blade battery that has improved energy density dramatically, is guaranteed for 500,000 km and should last for up to 2 million km. When its output degrades after the car is worn out at say 500,000 km it can be used as energy storage for your home charged via your rooftop solar. A number of BYD, NIO, XPENG & other Chinese EVs now have a 1000 km range. CATL is the worlds largest battery manufacturer and now supplies TESLA with batteries for its EVs. CATL is also Chinese. There are 300 Chinese EV manufacturers producing more than 700 different models from basic boxes to ultra luxurious top of the range limousines. The argument about EVs using more fossil fuel to produce only make sense to those who look backward. Obviously everything being produced now uses materials made with the assistance from fossil fuels and existing steel making technology. This is also changing. Green steel has already been produced in Germany using no coal at all. Plastics are almost all recyclable so the argument is largely from human dinosaurs. China is now the worlds factory. Politics aside their technology is mind boggling and their infrastructure projects over the last 20 years are just astonishing. The projects happening in Australia are also mind blowing. Just check https://reneweconomy.com.au/ A Melburnian, Sam Evans has a youtube channel called The Electric Viking. He puts out several videos a week covering electric car developments around the world. There are hundreds of Videos on all things Electric Cars. Have a look. The development in just the past year is incredible. The cheapest Electric car in China is $US4,000.00. The BYD Dolphin a Corolla sized hatchback is to be released in Australia this year. The price in China is around $US20,000.00. It looks good, very high tech, has the new blade battery with a 1/2 million km battery warranty.