willedoo

who does?

How is frantically trying to push through near 40 bills in a day good government? I think it just tells us Albo is panicking and will call an early election with no resumption of parliament after this week. Trying to whack through that much legislation all of a sudden is just making them look like dickheads. Albo just can't seem to get a grip on the politicking part of his job.

Interesting comments from Lagarde; it sounds like she's got a sensible attitude to the situation and is looking for ways to make the best of it. This bit was noteworthy: [For Europe, the incoming Trump administration’s stance on trade and transatlantic co-operation were an “accelerator of a reset that we need”, Lagarde said.].

I found this one today, one of those random photos hoovered off the web that float around distant corners of the hard drive. I'm fairly sure it's a Kazakhstan Air Force Su-30SM.

I remember quite a few years ago when I had my MQ Patrol ute, I was heading home from town when a bloke going like a bat out of hell towards me lost it on a corner. His first slide was the obvious one and he corrected it but was sliding slightly the other way straight toward me. Once he realised he was heading for a head on he took the smarter option and wheeled his car straight over the bank on my side, just missing me by a few metres. He ended up in the sugar cane but avoided a bad accident. If he had not done that at the last moment he most likely would have died and I would have been fairly messed up. He was an idiot for driving that fast to get himself in that situation, but I had to admire (and be very thankful of) his driving skill to get out of it without a major impact. It all happened in seconds, but I can still remember his hands on that steering wheel working like a rally driver. It took me at least an hour for the heart rate to settle down when I got home.

They do accept that. Kids learn to drive on farms and when they are old enough to get a license they learn to drive on the road, simple as that. Some skills are transferable. Correcting a slide in dirt and correcting a slide on a bitumen road are not quite the same but involve some similar principles. A kid who's grown up learning to correct slides on dirt has that experience in the background if it's ever needed. Just one example of how a kid growing up driving has a slight advantage over a city kid who has to start from scratch. It doesn't mean they are better or worse drivers once they've both been publicly driving for some time, but it's certainly easier when the time comes to get a license.

ome I think you misunderstood my post or didn't interpret it properly. And bear in mind in the country public roads can often mean dirt or gravel roads. Basic driving skills, not bitumen road driving skills.. The point is they already know how to drive and are faced with the challenge of adapting and learning to drive on the road. City kids are starting right from scratch.

So do I. I was referring to the basic driving skills not basic road driving skills.

I can remember at primary school the education department ran a road rules awareness programme for us kids. I think is was all about pushbike safety rather than early learning for vehicle driving. They painted white lines all over the asphalt parade ground to simulate streets and intersections. Then they had us wandering around these marked laneways giving way to each other and stuff like that.

Kids on farms learn easily because they have the vehicles and the off road environment to do it but they also have purpose. The main reason for learning to drive a ute on the farm is not so much preparation for a later life as a licensed driver on the road, but more about being able to deliver a toolbox down the paddock so the old man can get the harvester going or something like that. They learn driving skills on dirt surfaces which comes in handy later on. When the time comes to get L plates there's a lot of adaptation to road rules and bitumen driving, but most farm kids have already developed the basic driving skills with a few years farm driving experience under the belt. For most kids on farms the deciding factor is height. If the feet can safely reach the pedals and the head can see over the dashboard it's all systems go. There's disadvantages to growing up on a farm regarding social isolation, but there's a lot of advantages as well, like being able to drive a truck and be a proficient welder at 12 yo..

It counts the pimples.

Here's an idea that could settle or create a few arguments. Come 20th. January, what say we start a Trump ledger thread to note over the next four years of his presidency the good achievements against the bad. And then count them up in 2028. By bad I don't mean if he's p*ssed someone off or said something stupid (otherwise the site could run out of bandwidth and there's other threads for that anyway) but just policy introduced, law changes, presidential decrees and vetos etc.. In 2028 he'll either be in the black or in the red.

I'm sure there's advanced biometrics that can distingush a kid who is 15 years and 11 months from one that's 16. 😀

I used to try to get the old Super 70 Chamberlain flying but it never quite took off. It used to go faster than the front end steering could handle. The later ones with the Perkins could go as well, I think it was all in the gearing.

I doubt the social media companies would spend the time and resources on constantly monitoring over 16 accounts in real time. Most have no restriction on the number of accounts you can have with different email addresses. The point I'm making is what's to stop the older brother creating a second account that the under 16 younger sibling uses. The companies will only police it at the account creation level. How they do that I have no idea. Will it just be a box to tick that you are over 16 or will everyone over 16 have to provide proof of age to open an account. Let's say any of us here want to open a facebook account, do we have to supply Mr. Zuckerturd with drivers license details or a birth certificate. If not what's to stop kids under 16 working around the restrictions. I don't quite understand how the bill will achieve what's intended.

In his first term Trump's nasty personality and abrasive ways were a big factor in the opposition to him. In other words, if he was a really nice bloke, he wouldn't have had anywhere near as hard a time based on his policies alone. The problem is things like Jerry mentioned, getting the Europeans off their bludging backsides to pay their fare share of GDP on defence instead of hanging off the American shirt tails, I doubt would have happened if he asked nicely. The US had been trying that approach for a long time and were constantly being taken for fools. Trump's threats and aggressive style worked in that instance. I think the Europeans will be keen to see what he's like this time round. They'll be wondering whether it will be good, bad, or somewhere in between. One of Trump's problems is that a lot of people hate him that much that they want him to fail. That's how polarising he is.

Different laws. I don't know about these days but in my day you could get your articulated license at 17 in Queensland. I suppose these days a semi trailer with P plates would look a bit odd. I had a full time job driving a semi up and own the highway carting general freight at age 18. I've never liked the concept of youth wages. When I started work it didn't matter if you were 16 or 17, if you did a man's work you got a man's pay. Even when I was 15 and working in the school holidays I always got an adult's pay. That was mainly farm work driving tractors and harvesters.

Pitt and Co. have a point about rushed legislation and inadequate time for scrutiny of the bill. A senate inquiry into the bill was set up last Thursday with public submissions closing Monday. Hardly good government if we rush legislation through where the public and MPs don't have time to be properly informed. Some bills have good intent but the devil is always in the detail which needs to be scrutinised and sometimes amended to make it a fair and effective piece of legislation. In that short time the senate inquiry got 15,000 submissions but I think the bulk of them were generic Musk enabled submissions.

The point is, blaming someone ie: the American voters is a coping mechanism that helps everyone get over the shock of his win but doesn't address the reasons that he won and certainly won't prevent more Trump-like leaders being elected in the future. Trump didn't win because all his voters are stupid. Only a certain amount of his voters are the dumb rednecks portrayed in the media. We think there's a lot of them because we see them in the media all the time and at his rallies. What the media doesn't show is the tens of millions of non newsworthy people at home who went out and voted in a Republican president. Let's say Trump scored 76.9 million votes to 74.4 for Harris, beating her by 2.5 million votes in the popular vote. It doesn't work this way but just theoretically, let's say that 2.5 million were dumb devotees of Trump and they got him over the line. It still doesn't account for why the other 74 million voted the way they did. For sure we can all say Trump only won because people are stupid, but it's classic denial.

You're might be right Marty but we've got four more years to make that judgement. It will either be progress or chaos. His track record is a bit chaotic. Most presidents in their last term try to achieve something to leave as a legacy but with Trump it will all depend on how much self discipline he can muster.

Blaming the American voters and shaming them as being dumb and ignorant for electing him is a head in the sand denial of the real reasons he got back in. If they want no more Trumps they have to change things.

Trump is only the symptom and not the cause. Even after he's gone the conditions that led to Trump being elected will still be there. It's happening all over the world where people have had a gut full of governments lording it over them. You only have to look at the rise of the right in Europe as an example. People see Trump as an anti-politician, a dismantler and de-regulator who will free things up and break down a lot of federal restrictions, so he's regarded as a big winner by the disgruntled. We can whinge all we like about Trump but unless governments worldwide change their ways, there will just be more Trumps. His supporters see him as the wild card needed to shake up the establishment and break down big brother government.

The only real test I had to get my driver's license at age 17 was to do a handbrake start in our old AA 160 International body truck. The only sloping ground around was the crossing over the railway line so the local copper got me to pull up on the approach to the railway line and then take off again. I had a Commer semi lined up to get my articulated license but he was happy enough with me verbally verifying I'd driven it. In those days the cops knew all us farm kids had been driving everything from the age our feet could reach the pedals. The drive in the truck got me a car, body truck, semi trailer, tractor and motorcycle license but he wouldn't give it to me until he saw me ride my old AJS 500. I went home and rode the bike back into town. He must have heard me coming as when I rode around the corner he was standing there with the license and handed it to me. Different days back then.

I had a full beard when I was in Alberta and the worst part of those sub zero temperatures was that as fast as ice forms on your mustache, the hot breath is melting it and it's like having a permanently runny nose. Clean shaven blokes don't have as much of an issue with that.

That would be the same one I mentioned in 1984 when I was near the Flinders Ranges. Also on an open cab dozer and the wind was freezing. Even with the clothes stuffed full of rags including one tied around the face, it was bitterly cold. In that same cold wind blast, my dad up in Queensland had a couple of inches of snow over the lawn. He was born there and only saw snow that one time in his 89 years.