kgwilson

They are generally over patriotic but it is implanted in them from an early age. I watched some of the Oshkosh air shows and the overly patriotic commentary as well as all american music blasting from the PA system was almost sickening. They played the national anthem many times and they all stand with hand on heart. In the suburbs you see US flags flying from houses everywhere. They go on about their freedom all the time but have the highest incarceration rate in the world and the worst gun violence anywhere. A large percentade of the population knows nothing about anywhere else in the world.

Trump has been indicted yet again along with 18 others including Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell, this time in Georgia for one of the most blatant attempts to change the vote there. He is going to be quite busy fronting court in the next year or 2. There has been a lot of comment on whether Trump is Authoritarian of Fascist. This comment from Robert Reich US professor, author, lawyer and political commentator points clearly in one direction.

John Dickenson, the father of modern Hang Gliding has died. His original design was a flat kite but he adopted the rogallo design and his kites & then gliders first free flown by Bill Moyes became the standard. https://www.fai.org/news/john-dickenson-1934-2023-rip?type=node&id=24473&fbclid=IwAR2x8hLidTQIHEmyX_oFi2ePoh5Aio7Df4sHyrjEA9tZXwSSYGucPyK7vTM

That article hits the nail dead centre. These monster Utes are useless at everything except being able to tow 4.5 tonnes so caravans have grown to suit. Since the pandeminc I have noticed a big increase in large off road style caravans being towed by these monsters. The government needs to start taxing these things with extra import dutes to compensate for their massive emmissions compared to the normal ute. The thing is that even normal Utes have grown drmatically in the last 10 years. Hilux, Triton Ranger & B50s plus the Chinese additions are all much larger than they used to be. I watched a youtube clip of the US House Transportation committee questioning the Transport Secretary Pete Butigieg on the move to transition to electric cars on an infrastructure bill. The questioning revolved around whether a fridge consumes as much power as an electric car. The answer is obvious and Butigieg was clear in his assertion that the existing infrastructure needs to be upgraded as a matter of urgency & if it is, the goals can easily be achieved. The politicians rambled on and just refused to accept that and decided the US infrastructure would not cope & fossil fuels will be required way beyond the climate deadlines. Of course it is all about money & taxing more to get this done will lose them votes and/or power. US industry though is in a dramatic reimagination phase and investment & venture capital is going in to electric technolgies and energy storage. Telsa is by far the largest car manufacturer in the world by market capitalisation and is still ahead of all of its rivals despite the high cost. The ICE vehicle insustry can clearly see the writing on the wall and is appealing to the sector of the market that it can squeeze easily, cashed up Boguns and whatever you call people who are right wing climate change deniers who need to show off their egos because of other inadequacies in their lives.

Absolutely fantasic achievements from some brilliant scientific, engineering and chemical minds but none will be of any use when the destruction of our environment occurs from our obsession with endless economic growth and wealth.

Once again the donald demonstrates to anyone with an IQ above 30 that he is the biggest most incompetent, ill informed, biggotted, narcisistic, nasty nutjob ever to be promoted by 30 or 40 million of his > IQ 30 contempories.

Ukraine retaliated with several Himars strikes on Russian positions in Donetsk and South East Ukraine. The most devastating though was on a large Russian base in Crimea which is also on a major highway. the initial explosian was heard 30km away and ammunition continued to detonate throughout the day so they were not able to put the fire out. The highway was closed & several villages had to be evacuated. The fate of personnel at the base is unknown at this stage.

I just watched the ABC doco on Putin. Very much an American viewpoint but it gives an interesting comment on Putins character and ruthlessness throughout 5 US presidencys. Biden was there throughout and the only one to (finally) draw a line in the sand. Clinton didn't want to rock the boat, Bush was just a fool, Obama didn't want to rock the boat and Trump was/is a complete idiot.

Why would the Russians allow anything as they have shown absolutely no compliance with any international agreement since their invasion & have committed more war crimes than you can count. Putin has been declared a terrorist and will be arrested if he steps foot in any signatory country. The plant is not producing power and the control rods have been inserted so it is in a holding pattern but still poses massive dangers should anything go wrong. The Ukrainians still manage the plant but the Russians control it and could easily detonate some of their explosives they have there in order to generate a radioactive leak. That is a threat they aim to keep.

Americans seem so ingrained with their religious culture they have to mention their god in every exclamation of concern insterspersed with the odd S & F bomb. Their god must be pretty liberal, unlike them though.

The best thing that can happen is happening. Continued ineptitude, infighting and jockeying for position with corruption at every level. Poorly trained troops and poor leadership are not helping them either. The only major issue IMO is that if there is a shit fight & Putin is pushed out, someone even worse may take the reins.

My money is on the Prig. Putin has been able to manage the Russian media and the older ex Soviet population but the cracks are now quite visible. Wagners could quite easily generate a coup in Belarus as Lukas military is reportedly not that flash. The fact that it only took a few hours from Putins threat to arrest the Prig and his men to "alls well" and no action will be taken is a pretty good indication of the Prigs influence. Lapdog Lukashenko is desperate to maintain some sort of relevance with his involvement. Not only that the Oligarchs are reputedly flat out recruiting their own armies. This has to have an effect on the Russians fighting in Ukraine especially after the Prigs statements that the whole thing has been a charade. They are already being beaten back in the initial skirmishes of Ukraines counter offensive and their softening up strategy of major disruption of Russian logistics. Prigozhins motivation is money and power and he seems pretty pissed off about Russian corruption. He won't stay long doing nothing in Belarus & he won't be going back to Ukraine. Africa & money beckons but so does his Russian loyalty and desire to weed out corruption despite the fact that he was once a theif. And of course the only benefactor is UKRAINE.

The good thing is that dissent in Russia is growing. More and more ordinary Russians now have friends or relatives that have been killed of wounded in the war. The problem is still that most of these do not come from the upper and middle class Russians who live in the St Petersburg or Moscow areas. How many top quality troops has Prigozhin actually got left? Most of the recruited criminals got killed at Bakhmut. He said himself that Wagners lost 20,000 there.

Today Trumps former attorney general William Barr who was once a staunch supporter stated if even half of the indictments are true and can be proven (should be easy as they found the stuff at his house) Trump is Toast. Trump retaliated by calling Barr a "gutless pig" and some of the ultra right wing, mindless, gun toting, nut case, MAGA supporters are calling for civil war. This is getting interesting & would be hilarious except some of these nutters are serious even extending to a Republican Arizona Congressman stoking the fire.

It is only a temproary problem. The water will recede within a week or so and things will get back to normal except no water storage, no water for Crimea, and no electricity from the Hydro plant.

As endorsed by D Trump Esq.

His ego would probably get the better of him but that sure would put the cat among the pigeons.

I'd like to get my hands on an original Mini Station Wagon. When I worked in London in 74-75 as a Sparkies mate it was just the best thing for getting around the city & there was plenty of room for all our gear, switch boards & reels of cable etc in the back & ladders on top. I think it was just a van as the Countryman was a bit more up market as I recall.

Putting aside reliability and build issues the Landrovers I drove when I was in the Army in NZ back in 69-70 went everywhere without problems and impressed me greatly at the time. The Defender which was the last of the utility Landrovers has been discontinued but the baton has been picked up by a UK Billionaire and the Ineos Grenadier has been born. It looks like a Defender but inside and underneath it is all new and a pretty good utility 4WD though doesn't come cheap at 100k for the cheapest option. Soon to hit the Australian market.

There are so many apps for phones, mostly android that you should never throw your old phone away. There are apps that can enable your phone to be used for just about any sort of camera you like. So long as wifi is still operative you can use it as a web cam, dash cam, security cam, a magnifying glass, distance measuring device & all sorts of special effects. There are far fewer apps for Apple devices as the OS is proprietry & Apple always wants its cut.

Blackadder has the best explanation

In 1982 I was the Meet Director for the NZ Hang Gliding Champs & one of the sponsors was the local Lada Dealer & I got a new Niva to drive around in. The takeoff point was at the top of the Kaimai range of mountains & there was a pretty steep winding track to get there. The Niva was a very capable 4WD & outperformed most other 4WDs of its day. The problem was the interior was made of cheap plastic and had terrible fittings, seats etc. Within a couple of days both the interior door handles broke off, the rear view mirror fell off and a lot of other things crapped out but it never stopped. The Dealer didn't make any comments when I took it back with bits missing and things not working. That was just normal for a Niva.

Wagners have finally taken Bahkmut after about 10 months and the loss of around 70,000 troops. The word is that after securing some trenches they are going to move out. This whole saga is completely crazy. The entire city has been reduced to rubble. Nothing is left so they have gained nothing but a bit of ground. When the counter offensive happens the Ukrainians will most likely just go around it and cut off whoever is left there (probably Russian army conscripts) defending a complete wasteland.

The Belarusian batallion of the Ukraine army is a lot smaller than the Belarusian Army in Belarus, but is better equipped and better trained. If Lukashenko went & Putin wasn't able to prop his lackeys up I reckon there would be a lot of desertion of Belarusians across to the Ukrainian side. Either that or the opposition that really won the last election would form a new democratic government & Putin would become even more isolated.

The West has supplied a lot of equipment to Ukraine but at one stage, I think after the offensive last Summer, Russia was the largest donor of military hardware to Ukraine. It was very handy too as Ukraine already had trained personnel to use it.