onetrack

I guess we all well know the power in a bolt of lightning, but a recent lightning strike on a Marri tree at my stepdaughters place in the hills of the Darling Range above Perth, has just reminded me about the power of lightning strikes. The lightning bolt hit this Marri tree that is about 20M high, and it struck an upper branch about 15M off the ground. It hit while she and her partner were at home in their house about 100M away, and the explosion made them both duck for cover. The lightning hit a big branch in the upper portion of this forked tree, and the strike force went down the inner side of one fork, then punched through the fork to come out the other side of the trunk, blowing huge shards of Marri timber up to 50M away! After the bolt hit the ground, it made its way to a nearby bore they have (also about 50M away), that supplies water to the house, and it completely fried their single-phase submersible pump. Luckily, their home insurance covers the repair cost. The lightning strike appears to have killed the tree, all the leaves have died off and are getting ready to drop. The lightning strike happened about a fortnight ago. The two photos below show the strike point in the upper branches (slightly left of centre, at the top of the first photo), and the second photo shows the damage to the lower trunk section that blew outwards. You can enlarge the photos by placing your mouse cursor on the photos, and left clicking on them twice.

I thought boaties only ever wore deck shoes? Don't tell me you don't own any deck shoes?

Yikes, what happened to the Commando, Willie? It looks like it got hit by a truck!

Yes, I believe we are blindly following the U.S. and making our Police look very threatening. Mind you, a lot of security service companies are pretty good at making their employees look very intimidating, too.

Read carefully what I wrote previously. It is NOT duress. You not being pressured into committing a crime, by presenting for National Service under a law brought in by a democratic Govt. https://www.ag.gov.au/crime/publications/commonwealth-criminal-code-guide-practitioners-draft/part-23-circumstances-which-there-no-criminal-responsibility/division-10-circumstances-involving-external-factors/102-duress I do agree that National Servicemen who did not serve overseas should receive more Govt benefits, to compensate for interruption to other plans you may have made during the conscription period, and to compensate for possibly lower earnings during your military service. Most National Servicemen I know who never served in a War Zone are unhappy people.

There's plenty of masked ICE thugs being videoed, beating the crap out of anyone who they select as "the enemy". Talk about 1934 Germany all over again. The ICE operatives are judge, jury and executioner all rolled into one - and J.D. Vance claims they have "absolute immunity" (from prosecution). At least some people are identifying the ICE murderers and calling for them to face punishment.

Fortunately, some lower level judges in the U.S. system (mostly State judges, it appears) have been kicking Trumps legal appointments out. In several cases now, Trump's legal appointees (always chosen by him to prosecute his lawsuits), who have been appointed only because they're Trump loyalists, rather than being appointed on the basis of their legal abilities, and through the normal appointing system - are being rejected as illegally-appointed, and therefore have no power to prosecute cases. So there's still some hope for the U.S. - but it lies in the States systems, not the Federal systems. All these Trump legal appointees were appointed without Senate confirmation, which is regarded as necessary by the vast majority of the legal fraternity. https://halifax.citynews.ca/2026/01/09/judge-again-rules-trump-era-prosecutor-unlawfully-serving-rejects-tax-return-bid/

You forgot the "totally corrupt" part of his character.

Muck over, Rye back kina, Saba lent car, Kova Chev vick, Naka sheen ahh.....

I hate cheap thongs, and only wear Slappas thongs during Summer. Cheap thongs nearly killed me once, I went sprawling over a rock embankment of the Ashburton River bridge, when I lost my footing as I started to climb down the rocks, taking a shortcut back to the caravan park. I was just lucky I landed on my side on a huge flat rock, not a big sharp-edged one, like all the rest were. I would have incurred very major injury, maybe even killed myself, if I'd landed anywhere else. I still did a lot of damage to my outer thigh muscle, I couldn't walk for a week afterwards, and I was in agony for most of that week. Dirt-cheap footwear is a mistake when you get older. Spend the money to get good foot support, it not only assists with balance, but you walk better in them. A lot of Chinese footwear puts you off-balance from the word go, because the soles are rubbishy design and they consist of crappy materials.

The definition of "duress" is being forced to commit a crime under a physical threat of some kind, that makes you feel you cannot avoid committing that crime without incurring physical injury, or by psychological pressure, which is the same as a threat of physical injury, but done with mind pressure. You can claim a defence to any crime committed, if you can show it was carried out under duress. But National Service is not duress, because no crime is being committed. You are obliged to carry out National Service as a obligation, as a citizen of your country, and where legislation authorising National Service has been enacted. If you had claimed conscientious objection to serving in the military, you could have avoided serving in Australia's military forces.

Day-dream bee-leaf-her!

Hey, Hey, we're the Monkees!

The worrying part is Trump has a visceral hatred of the EU and is intent on breaking it up. He sees the world as having only two main power blocs - America and China. All others that pose credible power blocs that might oppose his will, need to be dismantled, in his view. He doesn't even see Russia as a major power bloc, he's realised now that Putin is actually piss-weak.

This? .... from a bloke who is reputed to have Macca's burgers as his primary diet??

Going limp, and pretending to be dead, would work. 😄

Trump and the U.S. military NEED those NATO bases to be able to operate globally. Losing them would equate to a serious kick in the nuts for Trump, and the U.S. military.

Trump won't let Maduro go under any circumstances, for that to happen would be the greatest slap in the face he's ever endured. He'll appoint a "special prosecutor", a specific Trump loyalist, to carry out his bidding. This is a man who has no concern for legalities, conventions, or even Congress. He does what he likes. Next, it's going to be Greenland. But that will be a totally different kettle of fish that will come back to bite him, if he moves on the country. The Danish PM, Mette Fredrickson, has stated bluntly, (If Trump annexes Greenland) "that's the end of NATO". You can see what she means. It means all European bases owned and used by the U.S. military and air force will be reclaimed by their respective countries, and U.S. forces stationed at those bases, will be ejected from those countries. America could soon be running out of "friends". https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jan/05/trump-must-give-up-fantasies-about-annexation-says-greenland-pm

Barb-rah Eden. Adam and Eve must be American, they can't have any naughty bits uncovered. They should be stark naked if she's still handing him the apple to try.

Yes Siso, my apologies, S.A. was also formed as a free settler State.

Mega-billionaire and premium-grade Trump supporter, Paul Singer, has been identified as the primary beneficiary of the U.S. takeover of Venezuela. His investment company recently purchased all of the oil assets of Venezuela (oil refineries, terminals, and service stations) for$5.9B, in a "distressed sale", ordered by a Delaware court, after the State-owned Venezuelan oil company defaulted on loan repayments - all due to U.S. sanctions on Venezuelan oil. The Master of the Delaware court who ordered the sale of the Venezuelan oil assets, is also a major Trump supporter. https://asiatimes.com/2026/01/billionaire-trump-megadonor-set-to-make-killing-on-venezuela-oil/

Ahem .... convicts were first sent to Australia in 1788, not 1868. Back to the history books for you, Jerry! W.A. can lay claim to be the only State founded by free settlers (1826 for Albany, and 1829 for Perth), and W.A. only had convicts sent here between 1850 and 1868 - therefore only a small percentage of West Aussies, can claim convict ancestry. My parents arrived as "Ten-Pound Poms", Dad from England in 1925, and Mum from Scotland in 1929. Mum was fond of the old comment, "We arrived as 'Assisted Immigrants', not 'Insisted Immigrants'". 😄

It must have been some wild ride inside that "Sea-Bug", in that heavy sea!! (watch the 2nd YouTube clip). I'll wager they went through a few sick bags!! https://www.jalopnik.com/i-finally-found-what-the-ocean-going-vw-beetle-that-ins-1846145700/

NEWS FLASH! Melbourne, already known for being a bit of a hole, has shown what it can really do, by way of big holes! 😄

You forgot to mention the shocking VW handling at speed. They got the nickname "Turtle" because so many ended up on their back. If I had a dollar for every VW Beetle I've sighted on its roof, I'd have enough for a decent holiday. They would go from understeer to oversteer in a flash on bends, and catch out the unwary, inexperienced drivers. The only thing worse for handling than a Beetle, was the rear-engined Czech Tatra V8. The Tatra's killed quite a number of Nazi officers with their vicious handling - it was possibly one of the Allies greatest secret assets in WW2. The German High Command ended up banning all Nazi officers from owning or driving Tatra V8's .