willedoo

Time will tell as far as Khark Island goes. There's always the possibility they're hoping to get the job done while preserving Khark Island's infrastructure. If they had air superiority, it would be a simple matter of obliterating it with B-52s and cheap iron bombs, but no sign of that yet. Just as an edit: what the general said about Khark Island seemed to neglect the fact the US Navy could probably stop any Iranian tankers getting through the straits, so that would have the same economic effect I would think.

Last night I was listening to a retired US general speaking about the suicidal plan the Kurds over the border in Iraq have of launching a ground invasion of Iran. The general gave the obvious reasons why boots on the ground would be a disaster in Iran - sheer size, terrain, logistics and so on. He seems to think the better option would be to take out Khark Island in the northern gulf, where he said 80 to 90% of Iranian oil is exported from., and by doing so, starve them of funds. China gets around 12 or 13% of their oil from Iran, but that oil makes up 87% of Iran's oil sales.

I've always assumed our fuel would be shipped into Brisbane then distributed to SE Qld. from there. The thing I could never figure out was why Toowoomba always had much cheaper fuel than the Sunshine Coast when it had to be hauled up a 2,000' jump up compared to an easy flat run to truck it up the coast. Distance is about the same.

I would have had a lot more hair on my head and better teeth the last time I paid $1.60.

A bit of context: fuel has been cheap lately (1.80ish) and now diesel has gone up to not much above it's normal price. Most of the time I'd pay around $1.98 for diesel.

You're lucky over there onetrack with those regular prices. We haven't seen prices that low for many, many years. If it ever gets as low as $1.80 here, that's cheap.

I filled up today and it was a lot cheaper than I thought it would be. Diesel was $2/litre, up about 20c. Petrol was $2.05 and $2.10.

I've received my latest power bill and it's the first time in four or five years I've had to pay anything. I think all the government subsidies have run out except for the state government pension discount of about $90. With all the cost of living subsidies, my balance was always in the black for a few years there, but price increases have whittled the balance down so I'm now in the red by about $180. It was good while it lasted, but now back to the real world.

That whole area must be like one big sink. I remember when we worked around Lake Eyre in 1984, we were camped on the Macumba not far from where it heads into the lake. The north bank we were camped on was low but across the waterhole looking south, the high sand dune system had been cut vertical like a knife leaving a sheer sand cliff of about seventy or eighty feet height above the water line. At a later date I was up there and it was amazing to stand there among flood debris and look down on the camp so far below. It's hard to get your head around 80' floodwaters when you can't see it, but the evidence was scary enough. It was a similar thing when we took the chopper up the Warburton, huge vertical cuts in the sand dune system like a knife through butter. Where I live, the nearest town recorded 90" of rain for January in the late 1800's. Local history says the road was cut for five months that year.

I can also understand it from his point of view. Googling can at times bring up posts from this forum at the top of the list, and anti-Americanism on this forum is heavy to say the least. I'm surprised more Americans haven't come on here to put their point of view. It wouldn't be easy for them to bite their bottom lip and resist giving a spray.

Echo chambers are boring. I prefer reading diverse opinions. Echo chambers make those doing the echoing feel better about themselves, but that's about all it achieves.

The whole cost of land and housing now is just crazy. I'm so glad I did something about buying years ago and working hard to pay it off. I can't imagine what that would be like now; I'd be cut out of the market for sure, there's just crazy amounts of money involved these days.

That's right. The International law system is a toothless tiger. The ICC, the UN, all useless.

Jerry I was just wondering if you got around to using Floorp browser. I've been using it since you made the suggestion and am fairly happy with it. While Floorp is around, I'll certainly never go back to Firefox. The only issue I have with Floorp seems to be since they had a major upgrade last year. It's no big deal, just a bit frustrating. When I right click to bring up the right click menu, I'm most often going for the 'open link in new tab' option which is at the top of the menu. When I'm just about to click that option, the menu jumps up one notch so I end up clicking the next one down 'open link in new private window', so I end up with multiple windows. I don't know if other Floorp users have the same problem. There's a Floorp group on Reddit, maybe I should ask there.

I never visited the English countryside when I was in the UK in 1985, but I did get to see some rural life near Belfast and that was a bit like Dibley in a lot of ways. When I was in London, I went out with a local girl for a while and she took me down to her local pub in Chelsea. I walked in and it was a dead spit of the one in the TV show Coronation Street. Old men with Andy Capp hats on drinking big glasses of warm, flat beer. It was a bit surreal as I thought that sort of stuff was only on television.

Jerry, Dibley kept flashing through my mind reading that post.

I think only Noddy and Big Ears would believe the world could happily tick along without major power dominance. Back to what I said earlier, the three choices to be dominated by are Russia, China and the U.S. Every power has it's pros and cons, but I'd still prefer to be under the domination of the U.S. than the other two. The Americans have their faults, but Putin and Xi don't really demonstrate any sort of society I'd like to live under. The Europeans will never get their act together to compete with the top three for power, not in your dreams.

I read that the jets downed in the friendly fire incidents were two seater F-15E Strike Eagles and all six crewmembers ejected ok.

randomx, my place is one of the bigger size blocks in the area, excluding farms that is. Most blocks have been subdivided but I bought mine before a lot of that happened. It's not isolated though, one town is 8k's west and another 10k's to the east. The beach is about 12k by road. The population here has gone mad over the years but I'm lucky to have the topography that gives a lot of privacy. I've got thirteen neighbours on my boundary but from most of the block you can't see any of them, and a lot of them are fairly large blocks as well. I'm up high and even though some neighbours are probably only a couple of hundred metres away, they're down over a cliff so they might as well be a kilometre away. There's six rock cliffs on my property and it's covered in thick timber and jungle in places so it gives privacy. It's a rough block and not for the feint hearted, but I like it. It's a natural paradise, heaps of bird life and swamp wallabys. A lot of their environment has been destroyed by development over the years so they rely on blocks like mine for a home. I originally came from grain/sheep/cattle country, so it's a big difference now living in this coastal country. If I had a flat block the privacy wouldn't be there and it would probably drive me up the wall. The saving grace is the topography of my place and the size. When I'm at home, it's not much different than when I bought the place in 1988, but drive out the front gate and life gets hectic real quick. Best of both worlds I suppose. Peace and quiet on the block, or plenty of shops, people and noise when you venture out. The district is almost unrecognisable from what it was when I first moved here, but it's still nowhere near as bad as the Gold Coast.

Here's another thing. Have a real good look at where Iran sits on the map. In the real world, it will always be controlled by one of the three big powers, China, the US or Russia. You could say currently it's shared to a degree by Russia and China. So there's the choice. I know which one of the three I'd pick.

Whenever I hear the word Moomba, I think of a sandy place with big chimneys.

Just as it's not all about oil, it's also not all about Trump. He's a bit like smoke and mirrors. He has an incredible knack of getting under people's skin, particularly those on the left who get almost hysterical at the mere mention of his name. I think a lot of people think a madman just woke up one day and decided to blow up Iran on impulse, well, ok, dream on. While people focus on Trump, they forget the strategic interest the US military and security people (and some politicians) have had for decades in trying to bring Iran back into their fold. The situation now is that a president finally took the gamble to try to do it, and it is a big gamble. The desire has been there since the regime deposed the Shah.

The US and the Shah were quite close. When you look at a map you can easily see the strategic importance of Iran to the US and understand why they've always regretted it's loss to the Islamic regime. Resources aside, the biggest importance is it geographical location and it's boundaries. It controls the straights, acts as a huge buffer zone, shares a boundary with Turkey, a major US ally, and is just across the ditch from several of their Middle East allies. It also shares the Caspian Sea with Russia who has a naval force there, and while the regime runs Iran, Russia has free use of their airspace for launching cruise missiles from the Caspian Sea fleet. That's the path Russian missiles were taking during the Syrian conflict. It's not all about oil.

Forgot to mention, I never did make that decision to buy a bush block rather than a house in town. It just happened that way. I was still looking at both types and when my place came up for sale, I knew straight away it was a rare opportunity and I'd be crazy not to buy it. So the decision was kind of made for me in that way. It never even got advertised. I was just lucky to ring the agent on the same day as he listed it. He drove me there to have a look and I signed the contract the next morning. It was a rare find in the position it is.

randomx, if I dial the clock back to 1988, I was looking to buy my own place. I was divided between two different ways to go, buy a house in town or buy acreage and build. The acreage thing was a natural as I was born and bred on farms and not a town person. But at the time I was working away fifo style, and I thought a house in town would be a good option to fit that lifestyle. Low maintenance, just breeze in and out, hang your hat on the wall when you get home and just lock it up when you go back to work. At the time real estate was dirt cheap and I looked at one nice little two bedroom brick veneer I could have bought for $42,000. It was on the edge of town with all bush at the back and walking distance to the beach and shops. As it was, I ended up buying an acerage block, about 17 acres which I later extended to 20. It was totally undeveloped and real pioneering stuff in the beginning with an old Millard caravan, lighting from the car battery and a 60 gallon drum for a donkey hot water system. Almost 38 years later, I'm still here and glad I did buy the bush block. Facilities and infrastructure have improved a lot but I'll still be working on the place until I drop dead. That's probably a good thing and better than dying of boredom in a nursing home. In town I'd probably feel like a budgie in a cage. But it will always be in the back of my mind what life would have been like if I'd bought that house in town. Certainly a lot easier, but maybe not as interesting.