willedoo

I've given up thinking about the extra $1.50 above normal price for diesel after getting the list of vehicle repairs needed from the local mechanic. Apart from a couple of tyres, I'm up for a full set of shocks, spring shackle bushes, front disc rotors and pads, control arm bushes, steering arm rods and ball joints, cv drive shafts, and that's just the urgent stuff. Makes fuel look cheap.

You don't have to be a rocket scientist to see how the post appears when each quote is precededed by 'willedoo said'. That's the problem with the way quotes work. You would have been better off just cut and pasting the relevant section, that way the quote would not attribute the words to me. I'd be happy if the mods kept the post up but removed the sections attributing the quotes to me. As said, it's in context to anyone who has read and understood my preceding post, but some people don't do that, and to them the post appears to be attributing those words to me which is not acceptable.

I'll know to just post a link next time. Or stay off the politics thread so there's no next time. What a fukwit thing to do Jerry.

Jerry, your posts have the appearance of quoting me as saying those things and I find that a bit offensive and would ask the mods to remove your post. For everybodys information, those are not my words and the appearance of the post is a misrepresention. Marty asked GON if he knew what One Nation's policies were and I quoted their immigration policy from the One Nation website to help clarify the debate. As a neutral observer of the ongoing sparring with GON, I must add. Jesus Jerry, that's a shitful way to misrepresent someone. I know you didn't intend it that way, but just look at how that looks to anyone who didn't read the background of my post. If you can't delete, I'll see if the mods can do it.

According to their website, this is what they have as immigration policy: Deport 75,000 illegal migrants because Australia’s immigration laws must be enforced, not ignored. Visa overstayers, illegal workers, and unlawful non-residents undermine national security, drive down wages, and take advantage of public services meant for Australians. Cut immigration by over 570,000 people from current Labor levels by capping visas at 130,000 per year to ease pressure on housing, wages, and infrastructure. Stop the skilled visa rorting that allows cheap foreign labour to undercut Australian workers. End the student visa loopholes that turn study into a backdoor to permanent residency or low-wage labour. Stop the Administrative Review Tribunal being abused with endless, weaponised appeals that clog the system and delay rightful deportations. Immigration enforcement must not be held hostage by legal loopholes. Reintroduce Temporary Protection Visas a proven, effective policy that prevents permanent residency through the back door and deters illegal arrivals. Deport any visa holder who breaks the law. Weak law enforcement policies have put Australians in danger for too long. If you commit a crime, you lose your visa and the right to stay. Introduce an eight-year waiting period for citizenship and welfare, ensuring new arrivals contribute before they take. Refuse entry to migrants from nations known to foster extremist ideologies that are incompatible with Australian values and way of life. Withdraw from the UN Refugee Convention because Australia will not be dictated to by foreign organisations when deciding who we accept into our nation on humanitarian grounds Marty, I think you could look it up yourself but sparring with GON wouldn't be the same if you did.

I've worked wth a lot of traditional owners over the years. They vary a lot depending on the location of the traditional land. In areas where their ancestors were relocated, generally very few if any were living on traditional lands. All were mixed race and a lot born and bred in the cities. They used to come out to their traditional land to work with us as cultural heritage monitors. Very few had any experience or knowledge of it but they were put through training induction courses to teach them what was what. At times I sensed a bit of embarrassment on their part, particularly the city people who had to learn some of the most basic things like how to boil a billy. They were all generally good people but that sense of disconnect to their traditional land weighed heavy on them. On the other side of the coin, we sometimes worked with traditional full blood people who had never left their land. Some could barely speak English, but those that you could converse with were very knowledgeable about their country and the ways of their part of the world. I must admit, when I first worked with full blood traditional people in the early 80's, I got a bit of a surprise to see young men with big thick tribal cicatrices on their bodies. I thought at that stage in history it might have been a dying practice and only found on the older men, but not so. Tribal customs are still solid in some of those areas.

The stone axes are usually very easy to identify. They used to put a lot of time into smoothing them down to a sharp edge. Left fairly rough around the back end but the blade sides are usually very smooth and visually very obviously worked.

Sorry Jerry, I never thought to take any at the time. He's sold a couple but said it works out to about $1 per hour for the work that goes into it.

The old mate mentioned in the previous post who is building guitars showed me a reject. It was the back and sides (no top) of an acoustic guitar. He'd built it in humid weather and when it dried, the timber back section shrank and the wood grain separated in a lot of areas. You could hold it up to the light and see light through it. A hard way to learn a lesson; a lot of work had gone into it.

Sometimes the anthropologists on projects can be a problem, more so the inexperienced young ones fresh out of uni and on their first job in the real world. I remember in 1983 when the pilot survey line for the Moonie/Jackson pipeline was going through and it got held up at Cunnamulla. The job ground to a halt for four days because the young anthropologists has found some axe cuts on some tree roots where the pipeline was to cross the Warrego River. They were metal axe cuts and generations of local whites had camped and fished there as well as the local aboriginals, so it was anyone's guess whether a white or black person had used the axe. The anthropologists thought they were doing the right thing by checking with their bosses in the city but it was in the days before mobile phones and email, and head office had closed up on Friday afternoon for the long weekend. Eventually when their office opened the following Tuesday and contact was made they approved the crossing. It cost some companies a lot of down time money, but the anthropologists thought they were doing the right thing. Their inexperience was a bit of a problem in that area. The issue with a metal axe is that any object made by non aboriginals that aboriginals use is deemed to be a post contact artifact. That's where the grey area comes in. A shard of a broken beer bottle that some ringers left on the ground can be taken to be a possible knife used by aboriginals. The archaeologists I've worked with have generally been a fair bit more sensible than some of the anthropologists, probably because their field is more defined and direct and less guesswork involved.

It would be good if we could turn canola into urea as well. That way we could grow canola to make urea and diesel to grow canola.

I remember a few years ago the Americans were trialling alternative jet fuels. From memory it was coal gasified and then they would convert that gas to jet fuel. They successfully test ran a B-52 running four of it's eight engines on the fuel. The problem at the time was they said oil had to hit $80/barrel to gain any saving from the alternate fuel. At the time it was a fair bit below that.

Had an interesting morning this morning. I was at a funeral recently and bumped into an old mate I hadn't seen for many years. In the time since I last saw him, he's retired and has been making acoustic guitars for a hobby. Today I went around and he showed me a few of the guitars and where he makes them in his shed. He's a carpenter/builder by trade so already had quite a lot of the tools and some of the required woodworking skills. They're nice guitars, mostly all dreadnaughts, and all Australian timbers. He uses a lot of silky oak on the bodies and grey gum for necks and other parts. I seem to remember the Australian brand Maton using Australian timbers.

I'd better read back through the thread and see where it went from the Hungarian prime Minister to pubs and beer.

I calculate that at a bit over thirteen and a half stubbies or cans. That's enough to put a grin on anyone's face. The most I ever consumed in one session was twenty cans of full strength VB (Very Bad) one night at the Sand Bar at Kingfisher Bay. It's funny how it affects different people. The mate I was with had the same amount and on the night he played up like a second hand lawnmower, the full bit, thrown out by the bouncers and all that. I was well behaved on the night and was still able to drive back to the old Z Force camp where we camped the night. The next morning he got up bright as a button and I was the sickest I've ever been. That was in the mid 90's and was the last time I ever drank full strength beer. Maybe craft beer would have been a better life choice.

We've got plenty of gas and existing gas pipelines going to Gladstone, but oil might have some challenges. Small marginal fields at the moment. Jackson is done and dusted, Moonie not what it used to be and Ballera is gas. Bits of oil here and there, but making it economically feasable is the big issue.

The premier announced today that the government is in talks with some private companies regarding building a new fuel refinery, most likely in the Gladstone area. A push toward fuel sovereignty is the plan.

There was someone on the ABC radio a couple of days ago saying the high fuel prices might be here for most of the year. I think he was some type of energy consultant.

Don't worry ome, there's a reason the presenter asks the question at 0:47 in the video. They've been wrong about El Nino for the last couple of years. They told us El Nino would produce a drier than normal summer and we had one of the wettest on record, so there's hope at your place yet.

A few named English. The only French I've known of was one of our local lads in my dad's Batallion, got a posthumous VC at Milne Bay.

Had a bit of a reality check at the servo today. The last fill was early in the war at $2.20/litre, today was $3.25. The litres dial was moving very slow and the dollars dial moving very fast at the pump. $130 for 40 litres. There must be a lot of prawn trawlers tied up. A lot of money at today's fuel prices to fork out with no guarantee of a catch.

On the ABC radio yesterday there was a representative of a company speakng about their trailer auxillary drive product they are marketing. It drives the front axle of the trailer tri (or bogey) and increases the truck horsepower by about 400, so roughly doubles the total horsepower. Depending on battery size, it can weigh up to three tonnes, so that much payload is lost. He was saying it's a good or even better alternative to a full electric truck which has certain problems having that extra weight of the propulsion system on the drive of the prime mover. I'm assuming it would be easy to shut off at any time from the driver's position. I don't know what it has in the way of safety overrides, like switching off in a heavy braking situation. Having driven semis and road trains at times throughout life, I'm trying to visualise what it would be like to drive. I'd say it's best application would be on a straight uphill pull, second to that, long flat straights. I can see some road situations where it would have to be switched off. It sounds like a good concept, but would all depend on initial setup cost and permanent loss of payload vs savings in running costs. Theoretically it should extend engine life as well, so long term overhaul or engine replacement costs would be reduced.

Marty, there's also a certain connection sequence for safety that ends with a connection to the vehicle earth. Normally connect dead vehicle positive to live vehicle positive, then live vehicle negative to a non battery earth on the dead vehicle. That way if there's a spark when the circuit completes, it's further away from any possible battery gas emmissions. I wish I'd remembered that about twenty years ago when I blew a battery up. It went off like a shotgun blast, split the seams from top to bottom.

Pete, the ones I carry in the vehicle are nice and heavy. You could start a D9 with them no problems. I would have bought them about 30 years ago and am glad I did back then. I nearly had a heart attack when I saw the current price of them, hundreds of dollars.

Still paying $3.20 for diesel where I am. Petrol is a fair bit cheaper.