willedoo

I only troll through youtube looking at aviation stuff as I can't be bothered with the overtly spun and dramatised political propaganda stuff as that piece obviously is. But it is also interesting to note, which is the reason I posted it. . . . . that virtually none of the marching crowd scenes and / or nasty bits have been shown on UK mainstream media for one reason or anotherPhil

It seems to be the way our media works these days, Phil. A lot of things that don't fit the plan appear to be omitted or sanitised. I'd guess that clip consists of a lot of different footage edited and spliced together, but I can see your point that the raw footage must have come from somewhere, and we haven't seen it on our screens.

Other cases of note - around the time of the Crimean re-unification, I remember seeing footage of the Odessa massacre. Neo Nazis dragging badly wounded people off stretchers and beating them to a pulp, despite the pleas of the police and ambulance crews. We can't see that on out TV's because the perpetrators are part of the side that we back.

The Occupy Wall Street protests - again I saw the video footage of the 86 year old lady who was pepper sprayed at point blank range by the police. The poor old dear was being helped on her feet by protesters - she was temporarily blinded with large amounts of drool coming out of her mouth and tears streaming from her eyes. No mention in our press.

Also no mention of the pregnant lady who was knocked to the ground and kicked in the stomach by three police officers. She lost the baby in hospital that day.

What happens is, people who have taken phone camera footage of these incidents find that their own media won't touch them with a ten foot pole. So they approach independant media outlets like RT, and they publish it straight away.

No wonder the administration doesn't want RT's US office to keep reporting in that country.

Another thing I've regularly noticed over the last two or three years. News items of note about domestic US or Australian issues, often break in Middle-Eastern or Russian news sources hours before we see it here. It's a sad state when you see our breaking news about Australia on Russian media, hours before we see it here. Sometimes Iran even reports our news before we do.

Cheers, Willie.

A well balanced and thoughtful answer, SDQDI. And you're right about the tendency of thread drift on this forum. Not sure if it's a rudder problem or just cross winds, but it happens. I've definitely been guilty of it at times. But I guess as long as we debate issues like adults, and play the issue and not the man, it's usually a healthy debate.

And who knows, the extra bit of mental stimulation might stop us from going senile.

Cheers, Willie.

and that's why the Laboral party loves free trade deals, cheap imported goods takes the pressure of the gov to fix housing affordability

Yes, and I guess that's where the catch is these days. All the things like food, beer and all the goodies and baubles we collect are proportionately much cheaper, but the other things like housing, electricity, fuel and service type fees etc. are climbing all the time.

I guess from a government point of view, they might think as long as we have a beer in the hand, food in the belly, and a big tv to look at, we'll be happy.

you old guys don't get it, stopping all the cheap cars and electronics coming in from overseas would make living in Australia unbearable, we would be stuck living a 1950s lifestyle. Imagine no internet, all the wonder drugs, no foreign travel. stuck buying obsolete copies of austins.

What you guys want is north korea but run by john howard

One spin-off of cheap Chinese imports is the massive availability and affordability of goods. Even a battler today can own all sorts of tools and gear we never could have afforded in the 70's and 80's. The start up cost of a lot of small businesses, eg a chippie, is a fraction of what it was thirty years ago. I wouldn't like to go back to paying five times the price for power tools and electronic equipment.

As an example, today someone might take home $800 pw in wages. You can buy an adequate power drill (not top shelf) for $40, or one 20/th. of your weekly wage. Wind the clock back to 1972, taking home $50 pw, there's no way you could buy a new drill for $2.50 back then.

I'm an old guy, by the way.

Cheers, Willie.

I think they look good when they're aged. Fully restored vehicles seem like a dime a dozen, but a mechnically sound, aged looking truck stands out in the crowd.

I guess in the coastal regions, the rusty bare metal would have to have some lanolin or similar coating applied, but with an inland climate, they seem to just get that surface rust and stay that way.

Cheers, Willie.

And that Chev truck is great.

Will you fully restore it, or leave it a bit rough and just drive it around like the Clampetts?

Nice photos, thanks.

I remember having an old Ariel, 500c single. I don't even remember the year model, but it had a ridgid rear end.

When I was in Indonesia in the mid 80's, there were a lot of 500cc single Enfields, more so in Sumatra. The most I ever saw were in a town in the northern half of Sumatra, can't remember the name of it. There were literally hundreds of them, every third house seemed to have one parked in the yard. The main local transport was the Enfields with a paying passenger in a sidecar, in the same fashion as rickshaws for hire. When we drove down the main street, there were at least a hundred parked the length of the street waiting for customers. There only seemed to be two models there, one ridgid rear end, the other sprung heel suspension, both 500cc thumpers. I've often wondered how many are left there these days.

Apologies for not having any photos of toys to post, all mine are aviation related.

Cheers, Willie.

The 110 is gutless but the Disco with its V6 Diesel is powerful. If you have plenty if coin, by a V8 diesel cruiser, I carry a load and tow heavy trailers at work with one. It is a great towing vehicle.

I'd agree there, Dazza, regarding the V8 Cruiser's towing ability. The ultimate toy would be the 7.3lt. diesel V8 F-250 for towing. Driven right, 15 mpg. solo or towing a fair size van, little difference in fuel consumption (6 speed manual, that is). I have known of them being bailed up out in the desert with electronic problems, though.

Cheers, Willie.

Well, I've had enough politics for a while. I'm going to talk about aeroplanes now; it's more interesting.

Cheers, Willie.

There's been a bit of confusing terminology on this thread regarding parties.

The Federal Government is a coalition of Liberal and National party members.

The LNP is a Queensland only party, formed from the merger of the two parties in Qld.. Federal LNP members from Qld. sit with either the Liberals or Nationals in Canberra, depending on the arrangement with their Federal counterparts. Basically, if it was a traditional Liberal seat, they sit with the Liberals, if it was a former National seat, they sit with the Nationals.

The CLP (Country Liberal Party) is not the National Party. It's an independant Northern Territory party, partly affiliated with both the Liberal and National parties.

I can understand that posters on this thread are using the name LNP just as a generic term for the federal Liberal/National coalition. It saves a bit of typing at least, but I thought I'd just point out the differences.

Cheers, Willie.

Sydney and Melbourne grammar schools, universities and the like need to take a deep look at themselves and realise the crap they repeatedly teach these morons and their spin doctors no longer cuts the mustard...the average person these days has enough intelligence to detect and rebuke spin doctors in a heartbeat, let alone a breath or sentence.

 

Malcolm gets the nod, because he so far does not conform to the spin doctrination of modern politics....Shorten is about to rapidly and abruptly get the flick, because he is too stupid to realise Rudd, Gillard and Abbot just got the flick because the public hates 3 phrase sloganeers that have been coached by Sydney bullshiv artists

The one that gets me is the noddies at press conferences - the robot or robots standing behind the speaker who's job it is to nod their head in agreement at everything the f**kwit being interviewed says. It's about as real and natural as 'talking points'.

It's only just starting to dawn on the pollies that if they keep treating the public like we're mentally handicapped, then there will be a change of government at every election.

You're quite right there, Kiwi303. Remember the Al Gore vs George Bush election. Gore won the majority of votes in the majority of states and still lost to Bush.

The tv is rarely on in my place....... Used to love listening to the "wireless" but now thats gone to the dogs.......

Robbo, you're not missing much by leaving that TV off.

The ABC radio is still not too bad. Good football coverage and the current affairs aren't as biased as the ABC TV.

No party, no pollie runs this country....... the media does, they have the power to make......and break, pollies fear them.News........is now 24hr TV......or even 1/2 hr "news breaks".........."news" is saturating our lives.

It's sad, really. The wheels fell off everything when news became entertainment with stations competing for viewers.

I noticed when our TV stations went from 1/2 hr. news at 6.00pm. to a full hour, the ambulance chasing and BS increased significantly.

Also with the 24 hour news cycle, the news people know that we have collective ADD, so they aren't too concerned with accuracy - we'll forget about it tomorrow and there'll be a new story. As a result, the standard of journalism is at it's lowest ebb ever.

As for international news, I don't even want to go there. Nowdays, the state security agency of a country can post a fake video on Youtube, and before you can blink, it's dished up on our TV screens as fact, as long as it fits the dominant narrative.

nick is a senator, you can't run the parliament from the senate. stuck with malcolm or billy

There's nothing to stop a senator from becoming PM, it just doesn't work in practice, so you're right, FT.

John Gorton was the only senator ever appointed as PM. He held the PM's job as a senator for almost a month before resigning from the senate to contest a lower house seat in a by election. In the 23 day period between resigning and the by election being held, we had a PM who held no seat at all.

Nick Xenophon is my favourite politician. Not sure you can have a PM without a party though.

Yes you can, Marty. There's nothing in the Constitution that prevents it. Most of our system works on convention, and it's only convention that the PM is the leader of the party with the majority of seats in the House of Reps.

It's totally allowable for the party with the majority to nominate an independant or someone from the opposition to the position as PM. Then all the GG has to do is accept it. The original Westminister system is parlimentary representation, but over time we've perverted it into a partisan party system.

We could have an independant like Nick Xenophon as PM, a bi-partisan LNP/Labor cabinet and every three years vote for a local candidate in our own electorate based on their merits. Not sure how it would work, but it would be closer to the original system.

DrZoos, I live in a rural area but am lucky to have the exchange 800 metres away, so have a good copper based broadband connection. The only problem I ever have with the copper is that of the 500 metre property line, about 150 metres is not encased in conduit and is vulnerable to lightning strike. Luckily it only happens every few years.

The original Labor Government NBN plan had me a bit concerned, as I thought it would be fibre down the street and wireless to the property. Wireless had me a bit worried because of a heavy tree canopy - often I have to walk around a bit to get good mobile reception. So I don't know whether I would have gone from a good connection on copper to an unreliable wireless one under the original NBN.

Cheers, Willie.

Keating ? Lol he is the joker who said " this is the recession we had to have", he had no idea imo. But each to their own.

Dazza, on that subject, I'd highly recommend journalist George Megalogenis's book 'The Longest Decade'.

The title is in reference to the breaking of Australia's traditional 10 year boom and bust cycle. It deals jointly with Paul Keating and John Howard in reference to the economy, and is very good reading.

Cheers, Willie.

Worst prime minister ever

That's a bold statement, Marty.

Not disputing what you're saying, but he's got a bit of competition for that title. I remember well Bill McMahon, as well as some more recent ones. I'd have to toss a coin.

I wouldn't vote for a conservative candidate in a one horse race, BUT I would be very happy to have Mr Turnbull represent the country as its Prime Minister. At least he comes across as more Statesmanlike than that lizard-faced, flap-eared egoist we've got now.

OME

It was interesting listening to the press statements on ABC radio earlier tonight.

Malcolm Turnbull actually made a bit of sense and said we need something a bit better than slogans. TA then came on with - you guessed it, the usual three word slogans and his idiotic habit of repeating everything twice so us simple minded plebs can understand it.

I think Peta Credlin, I think Peta Credlin has been getting in his ear, has been getting in his ear too much.

Are we that stupid?

Chad Morgan? Far too smart and caring a man to get involved in politics ... met him a few times around the campfire, nothing like the character he portrayed publicly.

Yes, you're quite right, Head in the clouds - I retract that statement.

I remember having a few beers with Chad a long time ago, and he is too good a bloke for politics.

Cheers, Willie.

Well I've got the idea:

End the age of politician's entitlement. Kick the lot of the bums out.

Install Chad Morgan as PM with the entire cast of the Footie Show as his cabinet. Surely they couldn't be worse than the clown show we've endured for several years now.

Cheers, Willie.

Gennady Padalka has set a new record for cumulative time in space of 879 days.

http://www.rt.com/news/315139-soyuz-landing-space-record/

Can you imagine your kids telling their kids that once upon a time, back in the olden days, the Government used to print out on paper millions of census forms, deliver them to every dwelling and Hotel room in Australia, have them filled in with a pen and then come back and collect them a few days later?

 

They'll think they are having their legs pulled.

A bit like telling them their Great-Grandfather rode on an animal to school.

There's been a few opinions voiced in this thread about some police being heavy handed and I guess the thread strayed a bit from the border force to police in general.

Bearing in mind that every democratic society needs to be vigilant against such excesses, overall in Australia, things are pretty good in that department compared to a lot of other countries.

As an example, these photos are from the demonstrations in Kiev yesterday. The first photo shows the demonstrators giving the police a bit of swish with the pepper spray.

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Second photo shows the police lines moments after the demonstrators lobbed a few grenades into the lines, killing one and seriously wounding about ten officers.

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I think Australia's still a pretty good place in regard to police and civil disturbance etc.. I hope it never gets like some of these countries.

Cheers, Willie.