willedoo

I had a successful day today with two major achievements. I got a chainsaw going that hasn't had a run for two years and I tracked down where the termites were getting into the shed. In the search for the termites, I ended up in a deep dark room of the shed that hadn't been entered for a long, long time. In there I found a stack of T & G hardwood flooring offcuts. Surprisingly, they looked brand new as if straight from the sawmill, even though they date back to 1996. I guess the lack of light has preserved the natural colour of the timber.

It's strange how whenever putler is anywhere near the war zone, his chin recedes and his forehead flattens out. It's happened again when he visited Rostov on Don, the Russian logistical hub for the war machine. In the photo below, normal putin (normal for him anyway) is on the left. On the right is the Rostov pinhead. It's the same pinhead who visited Crimea and Mariupol last year for the usual photo ops.

It goes cold enough to cool beer down if mixed with water. How cool is a matter of opinion. Definitely cooler than hot beer.

My gripe is really bad business websites that tell you absolutely no usable information about their products or services offered. It's as if they are purposely designed to drive potential customers away. They must think all they need is irritating flashy roll-over graphics to rope the suckers in, and very little else. Customers want websites that look like they're designed by adults of at least average intelligence.

I can remember a few years back seeing the Incitec urea plant in Brisbane. It had a big tall enclosed tower, something to do with the way they make it.

That large vacant block reminds me of one that was in Toowoomba, Qld., until recent times. It was right in the middle of a normal city suburb and had an old Queenslander, a shed, cattle yards and a few cows. It must have been originally an outlying farm that was swallowed up by urban expansion. I guess it was down to about 3/4 acre in size. The old bloke must have eventually died or sold out as it's been cut up and built on in the last few years.

If you pee on the grass, it's just applying nitrogen fertiliser in the form of urea. A little bit here and there greens thing up; too much in the one spot causes fertiliser burn and eventually kills the plants. If my horticulture memory serves me well, the excess fertiliser around the plant roots sucks the water content out of the plant and causes the plant cells to collapse. It tries to dilute the fertiliser with it's own moisture and dies of dehydration in the process. A bloke I knew used to pee in a perimeter around his permanent bush camp. He said it was supposed to keep snakes away. I don't know where he got that theory from or whether there's any merit to it.

It would be good if we could economically shop more with those small retailers. One problem is the small retailers who can trade in cash in a digital outing are getting smaller and smaller. One of the local health food stores I go to has signs up actively promoting the use of cash. Their theory is if we don't use it, we'll lose it.

With winter coming on and the summer offensive delivering very little net gain of territory, my guess is that a lot more attacks like these against Russia infrastructure and logistical hubs will happen as the missiles become available. About all Ukraine can do for the foreseeable future is to hold the line and continue to degrade Russian logistics and equipment. Neither side has the capability of a major offensive at the present time and maybe never will. General Zaluzhny had a good point recently when he basically said that if the equipment needed to win the war is not provided in time, Ukraine will eventually run out of enough troops to do the job. That's one problem as Russia has an almost unlimited pool of cannon fodder to draw on. They can outlast Ukraine in manpower, and all they have to do is continue to sow seeds of doubt among the Western backers of Ukraine to slow down Ukraine's military capability. The slow drip feed of foreign aid and equipment is slowly bleeding Ukraine to death. Another problem is that the Russians are not completely stupid. They have done, and continue to do dumb things, but they are learning from the Ukrainians as they go and improving outcomes accordingly. A third problem is one for the future. The longer it drags on, the more time Russia has to fortify the line. No matter what happens, the Russian excavators keep digging, fortifications keep on being constructed and the mines keep getting laid. While Western backers were umming and ahhing in the second half of last year about which equipment could be supplied without provoking putin, the Russians were gifted huge breathing space to build the Surovikin line of fortifications. The legacy of western dithering was the failure of the Ukrainians to break through that line in more than five months of hard fighting. By the time the fighting season starts next year, that line will most likely be even stronger. I can understand the reasoning of the U.S. and it's allies playing a geopolitical game at Ukraine's expense, but the longer the war drags on, the more likely Biden is falling into putin's trap of a long war degrading the West's will and support. putler's only strategy now is to outlast the west. Basically ride it out and get whatever territory you can. His regime is now addicted to war and they know it's the only means of their survival. They need a win to survive, no matter how many years it takes. If the Kremlin accepts a defeat, they're gone. War also helps them consolidate power domestically. It's a good excuse to bring in even more Draconian laws without question, and most of the punters get filled with patriotism which is a big plus for the Kremlin. The government and media never let up with comparisons to the Soviet Union's 1941 to 1945 Great Patriotic War and the suckers fall for it.

Ukraine is claiming they hit a couple of Black Sea Fleet landing craft with sea drones. Video circulating appears to back the claim. They are only a small craft so most likely sunk or completely destroyed. The fleet only had three small landing craft; one was destroyed by an aerial drone at Snake Island last year and now these two if confirmed. The Russians had been placing air defence launchers on them, but it was said they were carrying an armoured vehicle and troops when hit.

This is an example of Russia's imperial aspirations: photo #1. - how you join the EU. photo #2. - how you join Russia.

Back in the 80's when I used to do some work in the Kimberleys, I heard stories of unscrupulous shopkeepers ripping off the tribal people. A lot of people knew nothing of denominations; money was just money at their level of education. If they handed over a $50 note and got 50 cents change for a packet of chips, they didn't know any different. A bloke I worked with sprung a shopkeeper doing it one day and roused on him. The shopkeeper very sheepishly then gave the Aboriginal person the right change. Back then I thought that in another generation's time their education would be better. I thought the lack of any English language and basic counting skills was a dying thing. Unfortunately not so. There's still young people in their 20's who can barely speak English and their knowledge of mathematics consists of 'maybe one, maybe two', meaning any number.

To evict a member would need the unanimous vote of all 27 member countries. You would have to be pretty bad to have them all vote against you. Same in reverse, you need the vote of all members to join. That's why Ukraine will never be able to join the EU while putin's butt plug Viktor Orban, PM of Hungary, is still in power and can veto. putin also now has a second mole in the EU with the pro Russia mob winning power in Slovakia.

It's a scientific fact that thunderstorm rain and hail is high in nitrogen.

Possibly due to their treatment of the Kurds.

I'm not very familiar with Turkey's application but I would make a guess that EU human rights standards would be an issue there.

It would be hard to get rid of it completely, but they've made good inroads into it. This week the European Commission gave the go-ahead to start negotiations on Ukraine joining the EU. They said that Ukraine has complied with 90% of the EU requirements for membership. A lot of the requirements are involved with political and government reform, and the cleaning up of corruption. Not a bad effort when compared to Turkey who applied for EU membership in 1987 and are still not accepted thirty six years later .

There's been times in my life where I've been flat broke, and I'll admit I've enjoyed them. A caveat to that is as long as the bills are paid. Having pressing bills and no way to pay them can be stressful. But if they are paid, the rest of it is fairly easy and can be an enjoyable challenge. It can become an art form trying to make a good meal from what's available. Certainly a few new oddball recipes get invented. It helps if you always have something growing in the garden. Life is more real when you're broke and it gets the brain cells working on solutions. The satisfaction comes from being presented with a challenge and (hopefully) dealing with it successfully. It's an exercise in compromise, innovation, adaptation and discipline. There's also ways to help future proof against lean times. In the days when I carried cash and used it a lot, when I got home from shopping or whatever, the left over gold coins would always go in a jar. The $2 coins would fairly quickly grow to a few hundred dollars. I can remember raiding the piggy bank on more than one occasion. These days, cash is almost gone and I rarely see a coin. Another big advantage is not being a smoker. In impoverished times there's no expensive addiction to feed. It must be hard for a heavy smoker who suddenly hasn't got the money for a packet of smokes.

It's almost surreal how crazy that country must be for Trump to be the leading GOP candidate. Even the fact that a total peanut like Vivek Ramaswamy has gained the support he has beggars belief. It must be something in the water.

They also talked about the ethnicity of a lot of service station operators these days. It must be political correctness but on the ABC radio they never mention the words India or Indian when they are speaking generally. It's always south Asia or some other non specific term. Those people are very hard working and inclined toward starting small businesses to get ahead. So here's a thought. Wind the clock back in time and if they were here then, a lot would have gone into operating those small corner stores. But in real time now, they're running the replacements of the corner store.

I was listening to an interview on the wireless tonight where a couple of service station owners were talking about their businesses. The main emphasis was on the shop component where they sell convenience store type items, fast food, grocery items and some fresh produce. One of them was saying shop sales are at a point where they don't have to rely on the fuel sales anymore to keep them afloat. The point was also made that due to the diversification of products offered, service stations are now taking on the role of the corner store of old, and that there's so many service stations now that for a lot of people, it's the closest store to them. I can see what they're on about, as the traditional corner stores are dying out in a lot of areas. So that's it in a changing world - the small corner stores are dying off and being replaced by service stations.

They always refer to Matt Taylor as a blues musician, but he doesn't really fit into any category. Rhythm and Blues maybe. He's got one thing going for him - he sings in his natural broad Aussie accent, no wannabe Yank stuff. I don't follow a lot of blues music, mainly hill country blues. It's more upbeat, glass half full type of stuff, as opposed to a lot of blues music where the glass is totally empty and your wife has run off with your best mate and taken the dog. Hill country blues originated in southern juke joints for people to party and dance to. It has a couple of styles - Delta Drone and Hypnotic Boogie. A lot of one chord songs. They adhere to the K.I.S.S. principle. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juke_joint

I've seen a lot of bad pollution in Asia, but the worst by a long way was in Medan, capital of North Sumatra. At street level, you could hardly see through it. The cause was thousands of piss-ant little underpowered mopeds with worn out rings pulling rickshaws for public transport.

A very interesting article. So for overseas trips as PM in the first year of office, we have: - Kevin 747, eleven trips - All around the world Abbott, eleven trips - Don't bother unpacking your bags Scotty, twelve trips - Airbus Albo, eleven trips So what's the big deal with Albo's trips? I guess for a conservative, Wingnut and Scotty's combined 23 trips were important trips in the national interest. But as for those other two bludgers - how dare they! Damn Lefties. But the country needs them. Without all those dreaded Lefties lurking around every corner, all those idiotic chain emails wouldn't have a home to go to. And Sky would go broke.

Looks like the original Wonder Woman, Lynda Carter.