onetrack

Because it's entrancing, watching a show unfold, and you don't know how all the twists and turns of the story are going to pan out?? We're all just hoping the baddie gets his comeuppance, the heroine gets saved, and the goodies come back in force, and take over the town, and restore civil order from lawlessness!!

Pinch me, I must be dreaming.

The most interesting development is in Texas, where a sizeable number of Democrats left the State to avoid voting in a rigged Congressional electoral boundaries redistribution, that is going to greatly favour Republicans in the next Federal Govt voting round. Now the Texas Governor and House speaker are trying to arrest or remove the Democrats who left the State and who failed to vote on the redistribution. This is a whole new ball game. https://edition.cnn.com/politics/live-news/texas-democrats-redistricting-quorum-08-04-25

Putin is more likely to be moving the bombers to try and get them out of reach of constant Ukraine attacks on his aircraft. Russia hasn't been faring too well lately as regards Ukrainian successes on wiping out Russian aircraft. Operation "Spider Web" in early June was absolutely devastating for the Russians, and the latest hit on the Russian air base in Crimea was also quite successful. https://www.skynews.com.au/world-news/global-affairs/ukraine-wipes-out-dozens-of-russian-doomsday-nuclear-bombers-in-massive-surprise-attack-on-air-bases-kyiv-says-russian-pearl-harbor/news-story/5cb84fc515f7bc8c263ec8e136a2a34c

Dancing for ..... but the last word has me absolutely beat. Even with SWMBO's help, neither of us can get it.

No question about it.

There is bugger-all chance of us seeing U.S. beef on our grocery shelves. The U.S. cattle industry has a major beef shortfall, their national cattle herd is at its lowest level since 1951 - but demand hasn't dropped, it's actually still increasing - despite U.S. beef being at an all-time high price. The Americans love meat and they love beef as much as they love pork. The U.S. farmers have had to deal with drought, labour shortages, a lack of breeding stock (because they bumped off a large number of cows in the last couple of years, trying to meet demand), inflation, fears of a recession, high input costs, and corporate sell-outs in cattle ranching (making quick profits at the expense of longer-term good planning). The only thing that is going to happen is that the Americans are going to import more of our beef - despite the increased tariffs. They NEED our top-quality lean beef to make their hamburgers, and there has been a major rise in cattle prices here, following the tariff announcement. Prime steers are now bringing $2500 a head, I can't recall pricing like that since the big cattle price boom days of 1973 and 1980.

Here's an interesting news item that's starting to show the cracks in Trumps tariffs irrationality. A bunch of Montana farmers are joining in with the Blackfeet tribe to oppose Trumps tariffs, on the basis he's exceeded his executive and statutory powers, and he's created major forward planning uncertainty for the farmers, that is costing them dearly. The Blackfeet are suing over a 1794 treaty that gives them exemption from taxes and duties over trade with Canada. The U.S. Govt lawyers are stalling and saying the argument need to be transferred to the Court of International Trade in NY, saying U.S. District courts have no power to rule on the case. The farmers lawyers say otherwise, saying it's an important action to determine the constitutionality of executive orders. It's not the first time Trump has paid out big-time to U.S. farmers to compensate them for losses as regards his decision-making. Under his previous Presidency, he compensated U.S. farmers in huge amounts, over lost trade with China. He paid out US$16B in that deal. https://www.rawstory.com/montana-farmers-sue-trump-cant-afford-any-more-uncertainty/?utm_source=microsoft_global https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump_administration_farmer_bailouts

He'll never pardon her, there's too much at stake, he really just wants her to vanish, so he can finish sweeping the whole Epstein thing under the carpet.

There's constant talk about how Russian money bailed Trump out of threatened bankruptcy in the 1990's. He owes Putin and his cronies, big-time, that's why he's so soft on Russia and Putin. https://secure.avaaz.org/campaign/en/shocking_truth_about_trump/?webhylb

We braved the rain, the squalls, and the bitterly cold wind to go and have Sunday Roast at Johnny Fox's Irish Bar in the City. We even got a free parking spot out front! (no parking fees on Sundays). SMWBO had the Pork Roast, and I had the Beef Roast. They were both excellent! - and we walked out completely full! But we decided we'd like a coffee and dessert, so we went to Sinamons in Victoria Park, and had coffees and a Blueberry Danish and a Fruit Danish! Talk about great desserts, this place stands head and shoulders above any other dessert cafe. Called into Spotlight on the way home and grabbed a couple of items we wanted (a new pedal bin for the bathroom and some vacuum storage bags), and then went home, and now I'm kicking back in front of the heater for the rest of the afternoon, watching the storm blow itself out! The only problem now, is what to have for tea! It just might be a 'fridge raid to see what we can quickly knock up, for a light evening meal. We no longer eat big meals at tea time, a big meal then wrecks your sleep when you're older. https://sinamon.com.au/gallery

My middle nephew has married a Thai woman (second marriage, the first was an Australian girl) and he is quite happy with her. They live in Northam, W.A., and his wife has a large number of Thai girlfriends that all keep together in a big support group. His wife operates a Thai food, mobile food van, that goes to major events, and she appears to be doing quite well. They managed to acquire the food van for a very good price at auction, which helped. The nephew really likes Thai people in general, to the extent that his wife encouraged him to buy a small farm (about 30 acres or 12 hectares, as I understand) in Thailand, to keep her family employed. He goes there regularly to see how the farm is going. He hasn't spoken about any problems with Thai officialdom, but I understand corruption amongst officials there, is rampant.

Here on the Left Coast, we are enduring a weekend of of heavy rain, thunderstorms, hail, wind and generally Winter weather. 36mm of rain since it started raining early yesterday (Sat.) morning, it's now 10:00AM on a dreary Sunday. The power has flickered a few times, but it hasn't gone off yet. It's actually pretty rare that we have power outages, maybe once a year. At least we haven't got the foot of snow that the Northern Tablelands of NSW are enduring. The season here is now making up for the long dry spell over Summer.

Coles el-cheapo fast-manufactured bread, does it for me! 😞

Yeah, right! - I bet their surname originally was McEnfarter, and they had to alter it, because it was an embarrassment to them!!

Get ready for some dirty weather that will cramp your bike riding, Marty! We're in the middle of a serious Winter-level cold front right now! We've just had nearly a week of snow on the Stirling Ranges, haven't seen that for a decade or two! The snow was down to 500 metres, too!

OME - Well, I suppose there could be a level of risk in that situation - but ammonium nitrate can explode without diesel being added, it just needs to be heated and confined, and maybe even have an initial minor detonation. Just a diesel spill from the fuel tanks of the truck transporting can be enough to set it off. There have been a few bad AN explosions on the highways from trucks transporting bulk AN, but a low number in comparison to the amount being hauled. The important thing is if you see a crashed truck carrying AN, and it's on fire, get at least 500 metres away from it! There was a ripper in the NT a couple of years ago, fortunately the police cordoned off the burning wreck and got everyone well back from it. When it blew up, the crater was huge.

Here's a FB video, taken from a dash cam of a road train driver, running the Great Northern Hwy in the Pilbara region of W.A. (I think the clip is from around Karinjini). It's not until you travel the Gt Northern Hwy that you start to get an understanding of the multiple hundreds of billions that comes out of the mining, oil and gas and chemical industries of the North of W.A. I only travel the lower 100 kms N of Perth on the GNH, where the maximum truck size is a B-triple (triple and quad road trains are only allowed to operate N of Wubin), 272 NNE of Perth on the GNH. However, every day I travel the GNH, I pass probably around 200-300 double road trains, and oversize loads, all hauling equipment, supplies, vehicles and consumables for the industries in the North. Ammonium Nitrate is trucked N in huge tonnages, diesel fuel the same, and the amount of mining machinery and vehicles (new going N, and well-used, coming S) is just mind boggling. The oversize loads keep getting bigger and bigger. One time, they would dismantle the dump trucks and other earthmovers, now they carry them completely assembled on platform (multi-wheel - up to 164 wheels) low-loaders. The dump trucks in this footage are just average size dump trucks. Some of the oversize equipment is 10 metres wide, and takes up the entire sealed road width (standard hwy width is 8 metres for 2 lanes). The GNH has been widened to a minimum of 8M and many passing lanes installed. The bigger oversize has 3 escort vehicles out front and 1 behind. One of the leading escorts is a "Traffic Warden", a W.A. Police initiative, where they train these Wardens via mostly retired police officers, in how to handle traffic control. The Traffic Warden is the 2nd escort and drives down the wrong side of the hwy and forces all oncoming traffic to stop and get off onto the shoulder. If there's a decent hill along the route, the traffic is stopped at top or bottom of the hill to allow the oversize loads to transit the hill safely. This can be annoying, as sometimes it holds you up for 20 mins, as the oversize trucks crawl up or down the hill. You can see the Traffic Warden vehicle at the 3:43 section of the video, as he blocks the oncoming traffic for the oversize loads. It's not unusual to come across 2 or even 3 massive oversize rigs travelling in convoy. https://www.facebook.com/watch?v=1298602058939721

Of course, no-one has asked whether Natn is a man or a woman. It would make a big difference if Natn was a woman. Thai girls can always start up a massage parlor in Australia, to earn good money. Then she could find out all about corruption and crime in Australia.

The internet is full of this kind of time-wasting, vacuous BS, that has exactly zero value.

Trump is in full dictator mode now. He gets information that disagrees with his manipulated economic story, and he promptly shoots the messenger. He's just organised the sacking of the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Erika McEntarfer, after data showed weaker than expected employment growth in July, and massive downward revisions to the prior two months’ job counts. The Orange boofhead claims McEntarfer is manipulating the stats to make him look bad, because she was a Biden appointee. The problem is, the stats are estimated for the month ahead, then revised accordingly after that period has passed, and the companies actual employment figures come in. The U.S. BLS provides preliminary, second preliminary, and final estimates before annual benchmarking, which further refines the data. The Orange boofhead is upset because the employment stats just released, don't show the massive increase in U.S. employment that the Orange boofhead is looking for, to match all his MAGA BS. Next in line is Jerome Powell, the Federal Reserve chairman. Official U.S. interest rates are currently at 4.33%, a figure set by Powell. He won't change the official rate because he says all the economic indicators don't support any change to the official rate. Trump wants the official interest rate at 1%, and he's scheming how to get rid of Powell, so he can appoint a MAGA loyalist who will do exactly as Trump says. The problem is, it's not so simple to sack Powell, because he's not a political appointee. The Federal Reserve is a stand-alone institution with no political alignment, it was designed that way from Day One. Accordingly, Trump is scheming up a plan to sack Powell for some illegality, such as spending more on the Federal Reserve building improvements in Washington, than what had been approved. Meantimes, Trump is spending an outrageous $200M on a Trump ballroom on the White House grounds. So much for DOGE cutbacks. If Trump sacks Powell, the economic fallout for the U.S. economy (and the global economy) would be huge, as external investors see increased financial risk to the U.S. economy with politicisation of the Federal Reserve - and price in the financial risk, accordingly. It's rare that I link to SBS news articles, but the SBS has this Trump news article right. https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/what-would-the-global-economic-impact-be-if-trump-tries-to-fire-jerome-powell/3f9w6fcqf

If you've wondered how the old-timers managed to build massive structures, here's an interesting outline of the movement of a 50 ton manufactured girder, produced for the Swanston St (Melb.) railway bridge in 1908. The girder was fabricated in the Dorman Long factory (count the rivets! - no welding back then! Arc welding didn't appear until 1923), and it was dragged by a team of around 60 horses to the site. The horses needed frequent rests, and it took nearly 12 hrs to move it, starting on a Saturday afternoon and going into late Saturday night. A special low-loader trolley was fabricated by Dorman Long for transport, it had multiple steel wheels of around 3 feet diameter (915mm). The front of the girder appears to be resting on two drays. At every rest stop, hydraulic jacks were installed at the rear to hold the girder from rolling away. Unfortunately, the photos don't show how they got the girder off the drays and the trolley - but it does describe how the girder was positioned with multiple numbers of 70 ton jacks - which is a technique still used today, but with electric-hydraulic jacks, instead of manually-pumped ones. The other interesting part of the story is the mention of "Wells flares" for worksite lighting. Remember, very little electricity, or electric lighting in 1908! I'd never heard of Wells flares before, but a quick search produces "Wells Light", which is basically, a kerosene fuelled blowtorch that was used to produce light for industrial sites back then. Click on the arrows up top to advance the pages. https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-300629325/view?partId=nla.obj-300646414#page/n39/mode/1up https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wells_light

Between the couch cushions.

Interesting cast of characters.

I never even felt it! I was sleeping the sleep of the just, warm and comfortable.