willedoo

I'm not sure whether it was a statewide directive from the Greens in the Queensland election, but in my region all the roadside corflute signage for the Greens had them dressed up in khaki uniform. It was a bit comical with them all looking like the Irwins in the Australia Zoo ads. The signage made it look a bit fake, but then again most campaign signage looks a bit dodgy. I can just see Adam Bandt sitting in the Qantas Chairman's Lounge with his short sleeve khaki shirt on.

Day three and the sky hasn't fallen in yet.

I better not show that to my feathered mate; he'll expect cake instead of the dog pellets.

Seeing $1,300 would have been a bit of a shock.

You learn a lot on this forum. I've always pulled the Honda engine onto compression when not using it, but this afternoon I gave the muffler a squirt as noted.

That would be wishful thinking on Luka's part. The Belarusian military is one that the Russians really could beat. They're not much better than Kadyrov's TikTok warriors.

Another thing I'm getting used to is WhatsApp. So far I only use it for calls to friends who don't have a very good signal for a normal mobile phone calls. They get a lot of dropouts so use WhatsApp for calls whenever they can.

Jerry, what does redundancy in the mobile network mean?

With the NBN I get 100GB of data per month with no monthly rollover of unused data for $50 per month. With Aldi for the same price I get 130GB of data, unlimited phone calls and sms in Australia and 30 other countries, plus any unused data rolls over and accumulates. For a single user like myself, the phone data plan so far seems cheaper, faster and more reliable than the NBN. I would think in a multiple user household, the NBN plans would be more suitable.

Did you hear about the lady who received a bill in the mail and set fire to it. Her name was Bernadette.

My trial of phone data vs the NBN is going ok so far. The phone connection is set to mobile hotspot and wireless from there to the laptop. I've paid for another month on the NBN plan to keep it active until I decide whether or not to ditch it for good. The idea is to do the whole month using only the phone to get an idea of reliability and speed. I've been doing it for a week now and it's passed those tests. The economics and value for money side of it is already well in the phone's favour. So far the occasional times the phone slows a bit or has a drop out for a few seconds is not a problem.

I'd vouch for that. I've got a tradie quality Makita drill and also a green cheap range one. The cheap one growled like a 20 year old drill when it was fresh out of the box. The gear quality sounds like it's streets apart.

The Army made some nice storage boxes in their day. I saw this Engineer's box on FB Marketplace today. It looks like hoop pine and would have that nice old hoop pine smell no doubt. I have a couple of Army old rifle crates made from hoop pine with the rope handles. Also a few boxes that held some type of actuator. They are mostly plywood, but the timber pieces inside to hold the item in place are hoop pine and some even have red cedar pieces inside them. They used to refit and re-purpose a lot of boxes; you often see the old markings showing under the paint indicating a former use.

If Harris wins, I doubt Trump will just fade away. He'll still be there for the term with a large and loony portion of the population totally devoted to him. I can visualise him trying his usual hardest to destabilise the Democrat administration. Whether the Trump infection of the Republican party would continue is a guess. Maybe they'll write him off as a loser, but if he still has a groundswell of Republican voter support his hold on the party will probably remain. A Trump loss means he can still run in 2028. It wouldn't be in Trump's DNA to accept that he might be too old by then. You would normally think that if he declines mentally in the next four years that he would lose support. The problem is, the crazier he gets, the more rusted on his crazy devotees become.

It makes you wonder how far the Korean troops would stretch if claimed loss figures of Russians are anything to go by. Estonia's intelligence service is saying Russian losses for October, killed and injured, could reach 40,000. It's hard to imagine such numbers but it's common to hear of battalion sized losses in one day. There's reports that the Koreans aren't highly trained or skilled. Maybe that just means they will fit in well with Russian forces. Other reports have the Koreans arriving in the Kursk region, so possibly they will be used for local defence rather than front line positions. If they go to the front line in Ukraine they might get the same treatment as the convict recruits, of which very few have survived. The main use of the prisoners has been in meat assaults where they send them forward in suicidal assaults so the regular forces can identify Ukrainian artillery positions in order to direct counter-battery fire on them. The interesting part would be the politics of wasting all the Korean troops, although Kim probably doesn't give two hoots about the troops he's sending. He'd be more interested in what he can get from putin in return.

Saw this on Reddit:

It's difficult to think of two planes as an airline, particularly when only one of them works.

Czech Airlines has shut down after 101 years in operation.

There's been a racket going on around here the last few nights. It sounds like a gang of curlews.

Some say the Greens have drifted away from their roots and have become the party of protest and enragement instead of presenting a credible alternative with workable policies. As far as the shadow treasurer goes, his evasiveness when asked direct questions on prickly subjects is not just him, but was right across the board with LNP candidates. I would say the order has come from above to not give a yes or no answer to those tricky questions, and to stick to the party line - "we have a plan" or "that's not part of our plan". It's been like a cracked record the last couple of weeks.

Telstra's 3G service shuts down tomorrow.

The only thing I had against the Queensland Labor government was taking on the Olympics when we have problems like an over stressed, under funded health system. The reality there is that both major parties would jump at the chance to host the Olympics, so my beef with the government on that issue wouldn't be solved by changing horses.

As much as I don't relish the thought of four years of LNP government, there's another aspect to it, and that is how complacent would the Labor government have been in another four year term? Maybe they'd be revitalised with a new premier in Steven Miles, or maybe just settle in to business as usual. David Crisafulli has said the LNP has learned from their mistakes and rebuilt, but that party doesn't have a very good record of learning by their mistakes. To be fair, the other side are not so good at learning either. Election defeats always bring about humble words like we'll take a hard look at ourselves and learn from mistakes, make some tough decisions and do better next time etc., but after the dust settles they all go back to their usual game.

Noddy's crapped in his own nest there. A lot can happen in four years with possible defections, retirements and by-elections. He might need the KAP one day.

We'll know the results in a few more days but I have an uncomfortable feeling it will be a Trump win. Possibly a rerun of Trump's first election, Harris narrowly wins the popular vote but Trump wins the electoral college vote. Some recent polls have shown the Harris lead pulling back to leave them neck and neck.