onetrack

In todays world, you'd be worshipped by the banks board, given all the funding you required for any item of equipment you needed - and your annual salary would be a seven figure number.

The nicest bike I've ridden was a friends ex-W.A. Police Yamaha XJ750, in the early 1980's. It still had all the Police fitout, such as fairing and windscreen and panniers - and it was fun putting the wind up motorists! 😄 - especially if you wore a blue shirt, dark blue jeans, and black boots!! 😄

I can't speak for other countries, they have their own peculiar hazards, but riding a motorcycle on West Australian rural and remote highways, and sharing the road with hundreds of triple road trains daily, is not for the faint-hearted. Trucks throw up a lot of road debris, birds are a constant menace (saw a story once about a motorcycling bloke in the N.T. who became a paraplegic due to copping a parrot in the face at 110kmh). Never ride at night, the outback roads of Oz have enough roaming animals in daylight. Stations are largely unfenced, and cattle can be unpredictable. Roos are a constant menace, and even a darting rabbit can ruin your whole day. Road debris, especially animal carcasses, is a constant problem. Dusk and dawn are especially dangerous. Lots of stuff falls off trucks - gluts, chains and binders, load straps, even big bolts! I've even come across a complete spare tyre steel framework, lying on the road, as well as hay bales! The trucks have regular tyre blowouts, and you don't want to be anywhere near a tyre blowout on a truck with a motorbike. The flying tyre carcass pieces will make you come off. Roads in Australia are generally good, but that's not to say they're dead smooth, either. Potholes pop up and surprise you, sunken road sections create dips that can throw you off line. Summer heat must be avoided in the Northern areas of Australia, but Winter in the South can make for downright miserable riding. So you track weather like you're flying. Good body protection is vital, insects are a curse, and they get under most helmet visors, so goggles are advisable. Visibility is a major concern, many drivers fail to see motorbikes - especially in rural and outback areas, they don't expect to see them. So, plenty of high vis clothing, and lights on at all times. I've seen less and less motorbike travellers in recent years on long drives. Not to say these hardy members aren't still doing it, but the enthusiasm wanes for motorcycling as you age. There's quite a few outback motorcycling blogs on the 'net. The North of W.A. is full of amazing sights, but many are only reached via unsealed roads, so if you plan to visit them, you'll need a good cross-country bike. https://geoffjames.blogspot.com/2012/04/go-west-young-man-part-3-of-4.html

They're bloody useless, like all drill attachments. A toy attempting to do a job that only the proper tool does. I've got one and concluded within a short time that it's next to useless. I went and bought a proper old Chicago Pneumatic air-operated sheet metal shears, and there's no comparison. 1. The drill attachment nibbler is only good for the very lightest sheet metal, stuff you can just about tear with your hands, the stuff garden sheds are sheeted with. 2. It's impossible to accurately guide the drill attachment nibbler. Sheet metal is not the easiest stuff to work with.

NEWS: Trump fires Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. C. Q. Brown. From Raw Story - "President Trump's unprecedented decision to oust Gen. C.Q. Brown as chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff along with other top military leaders triggered a Trump-era “Friday night massacre” that sent an ominous message to the rest of the U.S. Armed Forces. That’s according to The Atlantic’s Tom Nichols, who wrote in an opinion piece published hours after the Pentagon shake-up that the military was “the last piece” President Donald Trump needed “to establish the foundations for authoritarian control of the U.S. government” after installing MAGA loyalists inside the Justice Department, FBI, and intelligence services. And that sobering connection left Nichols warning readers of the dangers the “remarkable move” presents to the country. 'President Trump tonight began a purge of the senior ranks of the United States armed forces in an apparent effort to intimidate the military and create an officer corps personally loyal to him,' the anti-Trump conservative wrote. 'None of this has anything to do with effectiveness, or ‘lethality,’ or promoting ‘warfighters,’ or any other buzzwords. It is praetorianism, plain and simple,' Nichols concluded. The Atlantic commentator subjected Trump’s latest round of high-level firings to intense criticism, noting that under normal circumstances, the chairman serves a four-year term. 'The position, like that of FBI director, is meant to bridge across administrations rather than change with each incoming president—specifically so that the chairman (again, like the head of the FBI) does not become a partisan political appointment.' The end result of Trump’s Pentagon purge is a stark message 'to the rest of the military' that 'could not be clearer,' Nichols wrote Friday. 'Trump loathed Brown’s predecessor, General Mark Milley, and has floated the idea that Milley should be executed for actions he took as Chairman,' Nichols wrote, adding that the president 'believes that every senior official in the United States should be a personal appointee of the president—so long as that president is him.' (end of article)" Here's the takeaway points of the above Trump move. 1. A powerful dictator requires the full support of the military forces of the country. The dictator ensures that support, by appointing loyalists to critical positions in the military leadership. 2. Gen. C. Q. Brown is an African-American. Trumps stated aim was to remove Gen. C. Q. Brown because he spends too much time supporting DEI, and not enough time supporting "true" military aims. 3. Tom Nichols is also African-American and claims that the Trump move to oust Gen. C. Q. Brown is all part of his attempts to remove black and coloured people from positions of power, and to overturn the Civil Rights Act. 4. The group "Blacks for Trump" appears to be having some buyer remorse. I predict a wave of African-American revolt later this year and next year as Trumps wholesale firing of Govt employees turns into many personal losses and setbacks for African-Americans. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/20/us/black-voters-trump.html

Not such a far-fetched possibility, and anything is possible in this age of Trump craziness and alternative reality. What gets me is America runs on War and manufacturing War machines and equipment. The Military-Industrial complex has a monstrous grip on the U.S. economy. If the Ukraine war is stopped, the American Military-Industrial complex is going to lose multiple billions and also lose a great testing ground for their hardware. I can't see that happening any time soon, perhaps the M-I complex head honchos are already plotting Trumps downfall, with his "stop all wars" stance. The problem with Trumps stance is, his anti-war rhetoric is not about being a peacemaker, it's all about Trump getting into the oligarchy, in warring nations.

....and whether he can get prime Ukrainian coastal land, for more Trump Hotels and golf courses .... Just watch him do a dog-begging trick when Putler offers him a swag of premium Crimean beachside land, in turn for making Ukraine give up everything it has fought for. I'll wager this much, if Putin "wins" this war without any input or negotiation by Ukraine, Russia will face 20 years of covert terrorism attacks by undercover Ukrainian resistance fighters, making life hell for the Russians.

Whitlam must have had a serious about turn to the Far Right, then - because he cancelled conscription, and gave GON the freedom from those Commo Govt decisions to conscript him against his will!? Oh hang on, wait a minute - conscription was introduced by the hard right wing Menzies Govt! - and continuing hard right wing Liberal Govts kept up conscription! I'm really getting confused here, over who is more likely to take my personal freedom away from me!? - a Leftie Govt, or a right wing Liberal Govt??

Clive doesn't need a Golden Lion blowing a Golden Trumpet, he can blow his own trumpet pretty loudly, on a regular, and nauseating basis. I'm hoping Gabriel blows a trumpet for Clive pretty soon, I don't know how such a grotesquely obese turd can live so long! He's certainly a Gold Worshipper, just like Trump! "More Gold for Clive", should be his Party motto!

I seem to recall Jerrys betting on football outcomes last year wasn't exactly the recipe for how to make a million quickly!

Yeah, and look up "Porsche aircraft engines problems" and get a handle on their track record there. Aircraft owners and Mooney couldn't get rid of them fast enough - horribly expensive, high maintenance, and they only sold 41 aircraft engines in total. Plus, the Texan aviation engineers told Porsche engineers they would have massive cooling problems and the Porsche engineers told the Texan engineers they had no idea what they were talking about. Talk about massive German arrogance.

The sheer complexity of the design is what will make it a commercial failure. Plus, Porsche has few engine laurels to rest on, they've built a lot of crap engines. If they were any good, they'd still be powering aircraft - and if you search out "Porsche engine problems", you'll find a raft of horror stories from Porsche owners.

That's right ... but then they start to whinge about how they need better schools, and better fire depts, and better rubbish collection, and better social services......

So, when he wrote the song, he was writing about enjoying 69 every Summer? 😄

We just need to impose a suitable "entry charge" for every American serviceman coming here to play war games, or for R&R.

No, not in the civilian style. They enter the country on a special Military visa. U.S. soldiers entering Australia have to; 1. Present an up-to-date military ID card 2. Present movement orders that specify travel to Australia as part of their duties 3. Provide a copy of their official orders and passport with SOFA stamp to the 337 ASUF/JA SOFA is a Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA), an agreement between countries that allows one country to station military forces in the other. 337 ASUF/JA is the 337th Air Support U.S. Flight base/Judge Advocate in Yokota, Japan, which is the support unit for U.S. troops entering Australia. There is a Special Purpose Travel Authority (SPTA) database set up by the Australian Govt to facilitate Allied troop movements into and out of Australia. https://www.yokota.af.mil/About-Us/Units/337th-Air-Support-Flight/ https://www.yokota.af.mil/About-Us/Units/337th-Air-Support-Flight/337-ASUF-Newcomers/Passport-SOFA-Requirements/

Yeah, we froze last night, too - it went down to 17.7°! 😄 In fact, the temps went down to 14° for two days this last week, I had to go find a shirt to put on! Our maximums are currently a very pleasant, low to mid 30's, I find 18° to 28° is my ideal temperature range. When I lived in the South Eastern Wheatbelt, I thought 11° to 22° was a nice temperature range - but out there, we often got multiple frosts every July and August. I've seen -7°C in the wheatbelt in the early 1970's, it was a bitterly cold morning. Now, I wouldn't know what a frost looks like. http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/dwo/IDCJDW6111.latest.shtml

The ABC News has a good article today about Trumps tariffs on Australian aluminium. Albo needs to grow some balls and stop trying to negotiate with Trump. There's no negotiating with an arsehole like Trump, Albo needs to take a leaf out of Crysta Freelands playbook - ""I have a message today for President Trump. If you force our hand, we will inflict the biggest trade blow that the United States has ever endured," Freeland said this week. Trump needs to learn, that if he wants to kick another countries arse, he'll get a retaliatory kick in the nuts, that will stop him from walking for months. "Play stupid games - Win stupid prizes" - ABC News Australia - https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-02-16/albanese-tariff-in-donald-trump-hands/104938868

Sounds like pure propaganda that he wrote himself. I love this piece of pure drivel in the article (below) .... he lives solely to keep garnering more and more wealth, at the expense of the average Joe. "The revelation underscores Musk’s belief in living frugally despite his current wealth. He has often emphasized that material possessions do not define success. Instead, he prioritizes investing in ideas that push the boundaries of human potential." He's quite happy to turn thousands of loyal Govt employees out onto the street, jobless, while he continues to increase his own wealth. He's just another version of Trump, they love having the power over millions of people by simply saying, "You're fired!!".

Well, Cyclone Zelia has come and gone and luckily it avoided Port Hedland and Karratha and came ashore around the mouth of the De Grey River about 80kms E of Port Hedland. Not a lot of damage in the above-mentioned cities, a fair few trees down and the odd fence leant over, but generally, minimal damage for a cyclone that was very intense at one point. Some of the station sheds copped a hiding, but that's pretty normal. Most station sheds wouldn't stand up for long in a big blow. Possibly the main factor in the limited damage was the cyclone was relatively small, as far as diameter goes. However, that didn't stop some of the stations and Aboriginal Communities near De Grey and a little further inland getting 500 and 600mm of rain. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-02-15/tropical-cyclone-zelia-live-blog-saturday/104940132

Never forget that Musk was a founding member of PayPal, and he merged his previous online banking operation, X.com, with another online banking startup, Confinity, to form PayPal. But Musk got kicked out of PayPal when he refused to address the level of fraud being conducted via PayPal. As always, Musk cares little about fraud or criminality, as long as he's making huge profits. The other techheads on the PayPal board could see that increasing fraud on PayPal would eventually destroy, so they successfully reduced the fraud levels to a minimal amount, and PayPal thrived. But Musk is a typical banking greed merchant, PayPal charges were excessive, and still are, and now Musk is now intent on getting back into banking transactional business again (along with crytpo), because he knows exactly how much money can be made from these systems.

No, the bot spoke for OME. 😄

Germ theory denialism is alive and well in the backwoods of America - and it's spread worldwide, because I came across a local bloke recently who believes that germs and bacteria and viruses, are all fabrications invented by Big Pharma, to keep their pill sales roaring along nicely. He even referred me to a NZ woman doctor, Dr Samantha Bailey, a prodigious social media video maker, who still promotes this rubbish. She was relieved of her NZ medical registration, but still keeps up the BS. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germ_theory_denialism https://www.researchgate.net/publication/354131199_Germs_Can_Not_Do_Not_Cause_Dis-ease_The_germ_theory_of_disease_causation_is_a_Fraud

Just wait until every Trump voter ends up with several jobless family members, thanks to Trumps Govt cost-cutting, there'll be a large degree of "buyer remorse".

Cyclone Zelia is a biggie, it's turned into a Category 5. There's a number of towns and a couple of cities in the Pilbara battening down for some massive winds. Pardoo has received 310mm of rain since 9:00AM yesterday morning. The problem is a lot of the Pilbara region river catchments are already soaked, and the rivers still running, from the last cyclone only a couple of weeks ago. http://www.bom.gov.au/cgi-bin/wrap_fwo.pl?IDW24200.html http://www.bom.gov.au/products/IDW60285.shtml Some truck driver donkey has lost his road train at a floodway on the Ripon Hills Road, East of Marble Bar. It looks like it's at Mount Creek, which runs into the Fortescue River just downstream a bit. This creek is raging now, imagine what it's going to be like in a couple of days after Cylone Zelia has dumped another 150mm or 200mm in the catchment! https://www.google.com/maps/@-21.2260964,120.4944031,3a,75y,111.72h,93.4t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sN8N2aNrTM11XjBAE2y0tfA!2e0!6shttps:%2F%2Fstreetviewpixels-pa.googleapis.com%2Fv1%2Fthumbnail%3Fcb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile%26w%3D900%26h%3D600%26pitch%3D-3.4032934612263546%26panoid%3DN8N2aNrTM11XjBAE2y0tfA%26yaw%3D111.72167461954302!7i16384!8i8192!5m1!1e4?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI1MDIxMC4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D https://www.perthnow.com.au/news/wa/severe-tropical-cyclone-zelia-18u-driver-rescued-after-truck-washed-off-bridge-submerged-in-water-c-17712448