willedoo

I grew up on a wheat farm but certainly wouldn't like to be doing it these days. Dryland cropping was always a gamble with nature, but a lot more so these days with high input costs. A mate of mine recently sold his farm and retired to town. It was only a small place, 700 acres of cultivation, and he would plant the whole place to barley if he got a favourable season, and no summer crop at all. He was more of an opportunity farmer. Both he and his wife worked off farm and they would plant the whole block out if they got the rain, or if not, just rely on their off farm job income. Sometimes they would go two or three years without a crop in dry times. Back when we were kids, that block supported a family of four kids but you'd need two or three times that acerage to do it now. Most farms in that district have all been amalgamated into bigger holdings now. They were all just separate soldier settler blocks when I was there.

There's always necessary exceptions to that. Gun laws is just one of them. There's plenty of others.

There are a few examples of the unfairness of retrospectivity in leglislation. The various state's cultural heritage acts are an example. People in one state were immediately criminalised for something that's legal in other states due to introduced leglislation being retrospective.

One of the Beetoota Advocate's satirical headlines, referring to grandfathering of leglislation: ' Labor To Finally Even The Playing Field For Younger Australians By Stopping Future Generations From Using The Tax Loopholes That Boomers Will Be Allowed To Keep Using'.

Just to clarify the above post, I'm not suggesting the Government has suddenly dreamed up these changes as a knee jerk reaction to current polling. I'm sure they would have long been there on the backburner as alternative policy, well before the election. Like a wish list to try to introduce when the time was right. But I doubt they went into last year's election denying they would introduce these changes, while knowing all along they were going to.

That's always possible, but I really doubt they went to the election intending to deceive voters. Stemming the exit of a lot of their younger voters has more to do with the broken word. For Labor, going back on their word is probably seen as the least damaging option compared to losing a lot of Gen X and younger voters. Their polling is sending them a message that it's not only the coalition that stands to lose by the surge in support for One Nation. The intergenerational inequity they are talking about constantly these days existed before the last federal election when they ruled out the changes they are now introducing. At that election One Nation polled about 6% and a lot has changed since then with almost one in four voters expressing support in polls. Among males in their thirties, that number rises to one in three. That's a lot for Labor to digest and the political expediency of stemming the flow outweighs the damage caused by breaking their word in their way of thinking. They're smart enough to know they can't stay in power without the vote of aspirational young people, and the budget is a big gamble that they're hoping won't backfire on them. Time will tell on that one.

Not my saying, just quoting one.

As the saying goes, socialism works great until you run out of someone else's money.

I can see the theory the poster made in the last point of the post, eg: "If One Nation had a candidate for Stafford, the right would have won this seat". No doubt O.N. preferences would have helped the LNP, but to get them over the line a One Nation candidate would have had to take almost 10% of the Labor vote and direct all those preferences to the LNP. Condsidering Labor already lost more than 4% of their vote to the LNP government, another 10% going to One Nation would be a big ask. It's possible, but still a big ask. I would think there would have been a certain amount of Labor voters prepared to vote ON if a candidate had run, but in lieu of that had decided to stick with Labor rather than vote LNP. The Labor opposition leader was on radio this morning praising their win and saying the result was a big wake-up call for the LNP government. Talk about a state of altered reality. Labor retained a Labor held city seat, but suffered a more than 4% swing away from them to the LNP government. Also it's very rare in by-elections for the sitting government to get a swing toward it.

I had to laugh at this AI overview of parallel parking: 'The 5-Step Parallel Parking Method 1. Find a spot: Look for a space that is at least 1.5 times the length of your vehicle.' Where I live, to do that you'd have to either have a Fiat Bambino or something smaller, or leave town and go somewhere else to look for a park.

That's a good rule to stick by. It applies well to buying motors. You see a lot of cheap junk motors on the market but when you do the mental arithmetic of doing them up, it just doesn't stack up to buying something already up and running. I think some people buy cheap flogged out motors with missing parts thinking they've got a bargain, but when they price the work and bits required, soon realise they've bought a boat anchor.

Does anyone remember seeing Elvis's Cadillac when it toured in 1968. I saw it on the top story carpark at Myers in Toowoomba. Some other cars were there on display as well, but I don't remember who they belonged to.

Another thing that works well is salt and vinegar spread over a few applications. Depending on how chrome work has been done, with some of it you can drop it in hydrochloric acid for a short time before rinsing and that will take it back to it's original nickel plating. A couple of years ago I aged a replica medieval hand and a half sword using salt and vinegar on the metal work. It took a few applications and a couple of weeks but worked well. It worked on the brass pommel and hilt as well and made it look a few hundred years old rather than a cheap replica. First thing with brass is to determine with a magnet if it really is brass and not steel with a coating. Next thing, a lot of that shiny brass is due to a clear lacquer coating, so that must be removed before ageing. Wood is the easy part, just sand off the offending coating then beat the wood up with a screwdriver, hammer or whatever, then coat it with a stain more rustic than the original. I've used dark tan leather dye on wood for good effect in ageing.

I don't know much about the Democrats but had the impression they lost their way a bit from what they originally intended to be.

Some potential wheels - these two whitewalled Road King wheels are a bit flash for a ratbike but one thing I have a lot of experience at is turning perfectly good equipment into a pile of rust. I must admit the climate here helps a lot. The Heritage softail wheel with no tyre is already nice and aged and will most likely go on the front (when I have something that can be described as a front end, that is).