willedoo

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.

Soft fingetips due to not enough practice + over ambitious sliding on the B string. It would make a good garrotte. Forgot to mention another contributing factor, electric guitar with light gauge strings. I hadn't played it for a fair while and forgot how sharp those strings could be. One of those irritating bloodless cuts like a paper cut, just enough to sting when you put pressure on it, like clicking the mouse button and stuff like that.

I wonder if old keyboard players have a similar issue with scrawny fingertips.

Also the older you get, the less body there seems to be in the fingertips. I think that saggy fingertip effect make them more prone to an injury like that.

Soft fingetips due to not enough practice + over ambitious sliding on the B string. It would make a good garrotte.

Cut my finger on a guitar string for the first time ever. The new technique wasn't such a success after all.

The best way is to keep whittling them down until they fall apart in a mess, but does Israel and the US have enough readily available stockpiles of munitions to see the distance. The pace of things might depend on who runs out first.

The post regime plan put up by the crown prince would be the most workable in my opinion, except for one thing. It could only work if what's left of the military swung behind it. The people are diverse but most just want to live in peace. The problem will be the hard liners and how much control over the arms they have. They've had a lot of power for a long time and won't want to give it up.

I saw some footage of one rescued pilot being looked after by Kuwaitis. It said he was in an F-15 but don't know if that was accurate or not. If they are Airforce they would be F-15s, F-18s Marine Corps or Navy. Martin Baker seats in the F-18s, ACES II in the F-15.

I think most Iranians would say it's justified. The problem with these things is that we all know how well appeasement works. A lot of people are calling for the whole thing to stop and just go back to more of the same appeasement. If it's ever going to change, at some stage someone has to bite the bullet and have the courage to get rid of the regime. It's good that they've set a goal of regime change instead of the usual half baked adventures kicking the can down the road.

It's a mixed up place, the Middle East. Just one example - in Saudi Arabia they don't watch The Flintstones, but the people in Abu Dhabi do.

Having said the above, I'm probably not the best person to be giving advice. I'm retired, own my own acerage property debt free, on my own these days and can live comfortable enough on the age pension. I live in a little slice of paradise and don't have any factors pushing me one way or another. For someone still in the workforce with a career, there would be a lot more things to consider than what I have to.

I'm no expert, but I think sometimes when it's really hard to decide, it's better to do nothing immediately and see how the thinking is later on. A lot of people sell up and regret it at a later date. I was nearly one of them. In 2021, I was selling up and moving interstate. I was at the stage of dealing with agents and almost ready to list the place when some medical issues came along and changed the whole plan. Now a bit over four years later, I'm still here and there's nowhere in the world I'd rather be, so I'm glad I didn't go through with the original plan. I'll never be rich living here but what it has to offer regarding lifestyle is worth it many times over. On the other side of the coin, a mate of mine sold up that same year and moved to a small country town in NSW and he's as happy as a pig in a poke. He doesn't miss his former home of 40+ years at all.

They still have old Tomcats and Phantoms left over from the days of the Shah. I wonder how many of them will be left after this is all over. Iran was the only foreign nation that received Tomcats. Their variant had the same engines as our F-111s. A big part of the reason none of our civilian air museums were allowed to have F-111 engines for display. The Amberley air force museum has a cut-away display engine, but that's under air force control.

It surprised me, I would have guessed half that. It must have big city populations.

Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince has authorised a full military response from Saudi armed forces if Iran attacks them again.

I only ever rode an old Bonneville once and only for a few k's down the road. I remember the vibration was very noticeable after being used to the isolastic setup on the Commando. I also had a ride on a Norton SS and it was a beautiful handling bike. The only issue was that it had a very annoying vibration that kicked in around 55 to 60mph, right where you would want to sit on the speed limit. To have a comfortable ride, you had to slow down or go over the speed limit.

Not in the footage I saw, there were heaps of women and very few wearing head coverings. But that was footage taken by citizens and posted on social media, so it might have been from a prodominately anti-government suburb and maybe not representative of what you see in other areas.