onetrack

Here's what's going to help Ukraine, and Trump can do F-all about it. https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidhambling/2025/01/10/coalition-sends-30000-kamikaze-drones-to-ukraine/

Trump is the BS-artist to beat all BS-artists. Anyone with more than one working brain cell would know he has no ability to stop the Ukraine War in one day. He's full of it, someone must have swapped his rear orifice for his mouth. He's too thick to even grasp the fact that plenty of European nations are happy to keep providing weaponry to the Ukraine, while they still stand a chance of hammering the Russians to a standstill.

I think the photo of Barbara Eden has been "modified". She doesn't look that bad, and she is 94 this year.

Nope, a donkey in Esperance lost $3M to Nigerian scammers and the State Govt had to step in to stop him from sending other peoples money to the scammers as well. To top it all, he's a devout Christian and understood the scammers were good Christians, too. Talk about dumb!! 🙄 It sounds like Octave has come across a bunch of JW's, who continually fail to understand what "No", or "Not interested", means! https://thewest.com.au/news/australia/man-who-lost-3m-says-he-didnt-see-the-scam-ng-ya-103305

According to the Chaser, Boeing has made a New Years resolution to stop using Clag paste in the construction of their aircraft. 😄 https://chaser.com.au/business/boeing-announces-new-years-resolution-to-stop-using-clag-paste-in-airplane-construction/

Just a correction from Red's post above - Healthscope is not Canadian, it is owned by a North American private equity group, Brookfield. The row is all about BUPA and AHSA refusing to pay an extra hospital fee that Healthscope is demanding. All the other health insurers have already agreed to pay the fee. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-11-22/healthscope-ahsa-bupa-private-insurance-contracts/104633886

The simple fact remains that Musk is concentrating on the Rotherham grooming gangs to simply further his own right-wing, anti-immigration agenda. He doesn't give a rats rectum about the girl victims, and he would care even less that many of the girls weren't white. The Rotherham grooming gangs were in operation between 1997 and 2013, how come Musk didn't start on exposing them, back then? There were plenty of news articles written about the problem in the early 2000's. Musk is a particularly nasty toxic piece of work, and I'm quite amazed that Steve Bannon, one of the biggest right-wing leaders around, it's stating outright, that Musk is toxic, and Bannon is going to ensure Musk has little input into Trump decision-making. What I find even more amazing is that Bannon has pointed out that Musk has no other interest besides insuring he becomes a trillionaire, and that all his companies receive favoured treatment and make vastly bigger and better profits. In Bannons exact words, "He is truly evil"! https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/jan/12/the-right-is-trying-to-rewrite-history-with-its-toxic-rhetoric-on-britains-gangs https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jan/12/steve-bannon-calls-elon-musk-racist

The biggest red flags were the indications by the terrorists to the flight instructors, that they only wanted to learn how to take off, not to land the Boeings!! How dumb would you have to be to not pick up on that, straight up!! There were hundreds of red flags on the terrorists that were not picked up, and the Americans only have themselves to blame. https://govinfo.library.unt.edu/911/report/911Report_Ch7.htm

Incidentally, the "Hollywood" lettering on fire photo, is an AI-generated fake photo.

There's an interesting prediction about how the LA fires could contribute to a U.S. economic crisis, along the lines of the GFC in 2008, in the article linked to below. This holds true if the total size of the financial payout sends multiple insurers to the wall, and if property prices in highly-desirable areas crash back to low levels, sparking a mortgage crisis. The thing is, you can get insurance cover for nearly any event - but at what cost? When the premium becomes an unpayable level, there's not a lot of options left. Many people in the LA region will probably go without insurance if they rebuild. Stepdaughter lives in the Perth Hills, on a 5 acre (2Ha) bush block, where bushfire is an every-present major threat. She knows if a bushfire sweeps though her place, everything will probably go. We pay $1000 for home and contents insurance here in the city, she pays $9000 annual premium for her place, with a property value that is only a little more than our house in the city. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/fires-california-palisades-fire-homeowners-insurance-state-farm-fair-losses/

The American system of fire protection is all about the "I'm right Jack" system. Notice the billionaire with his private firefighting force, raging on about the public firefighting force funding being cut back. But note also, the number of people pointing out that this same billionaire was always trying to avoid property taxes - which pay for the public firefighting force!! Then there's Trump spouting more BS and misinformation, stating that the water mains supplies were restricted by the California Govt allocating more water to protect endangered species, rather than sending all the water to fight fires. As always, Trump's ranting has no basis in fact, it's all about him gaining more political point scoring utilising a disaster for personal ego gain. He's just a BS artist of the highest order. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-01-10/water-supplies-ran-dry-los-angeles-when-needed-most/104803994

Sorry, I don't have any sympathy for the "stars" and "celebrities" that are losing, or have lost, their mega-million dollar homes. 1. They are all vastly overpaid for what they do. Let them find a real job that means they have to work 70hrs a week for $10 an hr - as so many working class Americans have to do. 2. They would likely have to be advised which ONE of their mansions burnt down - because most of them have mansions in multiple countries, and multiple mansions in a number of States. 3. They would ALL be fully insured, and are not going to suffer huge financial losses, and have to start all over again from scratch. The people I DO feel great sympathy for, are the poor buggers in Vanuatu, who have bugger all at the best of times, but who managed to scrounge enough building materials, to put a roof over their head - then, the last earthquake reduced that "mansion" they built to rubble - and they have NO insurance, NO Govt assistance, and NO financial reserves - so they have to start again from scratch, to put a just a basic roof over their head again. THESE are the people who deserve our sympathy and support, not overpaid actors and "stars" who have ALL their petty 1st world pathetic problems, taking up reams of print and webpages every day.

On the subject of scams, here's a classic piece of corporate scamming that is typical of the deviousness that has infiltrated every major financial operation in the world. I trust that the influencers win their case, but of course, any major payout will mean little to a global corporation that is so rich, it can afford to pay out on lawsuits won by aggrieved parties, without batting an eyelid. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-01-09/paypal-sued-by-youtubers-over-honey-extension/104791528

DIY electrical work is listed as a dying occupation!

My very first thought about that electrical box with the circuit breakers, is that it's in Nigeria, and fully approved by the local witchdoctor.

Trumps first Presidency was described as "chaotic" - there's no reason to think his second Presidency will be any different. But a lot of people with agendas have now figured out how easily Trump can be manipulated to suit their agendas. Putin is the leading expert on how to manipulate Trump with flattery, and massaging his ego.

That's interesting, it's the first time I've seen that Peter Yarrow had been suffering from bladder cancer for four years. Nasty disease, and often caused by smoking, surprisingly.

Well Spacey, the answer "can't be done" should've been qualified with the reasons why. The reasons may have been your proposal was electrically unsound, it didn't meet electrical regulations, or it didn't meet council regulations. Any electrical installation that produces more than 24V must be installed by a licenced electrical contractor, even if it's not connected to the grid.

My apologies, I confused Adelaide Bank with BankSA, who were bought up by Westpac.

He's just an arrogant rich prick who thinks he's been elected to run the world by virtue of acquiring the title of the Richest Man in the World. Did you see him trying to arrange for the British politicians he doesn't like, to resign?? He makes Trump look tame by comparison.

Facebook - The Home of Scammers, and also owned by one of the worlds biggest scammers.

That's pretty clever, it caught me out. It's amazing how your brain and eye co-ordinate to readjust things as you expect them to be.

I'm a big user today of customer-owned banks. They are normally former Building Societies that have got a banking licence, and they are generally excellent. I use CFCU (now Community First Bank) and Defence Bank (formerly Defence Force Credit Union), and I do my daily banking with Bendigo, because I'm a shareholder in the local Bendigo Bank branch. Bendigo are generally slightly better overall than the Big Four banks. One of the things that really sh**** me, is the fact that the Big Four have bought up every second small bank around, and they'd buy the whole lot if they could. So people go to the "smaller" banks (such as the Bank of Melbourne or the Bank of Adelaide), thinking they're going to get away from the Big Four - with many not realising that the Big Four own the small bank they've moved to. SWMBO and I have a holiday savings account with ME Bank, which was established by the Australian Council of Trade Unions in 1994, and which started life as Super Member Home Loans. It changed its name to Members Equity Bank in 1999, before eventually shortening this to ME Bank in 2009, and it was fully owned by 26 industry super funds from 2002. However, the industry super funds sold ME Bank to the Bank of Queensland in 2021, saying it had never paid a dividend to shareholders in its entire life. But I'll wager they made good money in selling it to the Bank of Qld.

I've got a better story than that. I bought a good used lathe at a Grays auction in S.A. about 10 years ago. It was bought for my stepdaughters boyfriend, she paid me in cash, and I used my credit card to purchase it - because you need a credit card to buy anything from auction houses. Grays contacted me a week later and told me their operator had dropped the lathe in the process of loading it onto my arranged transport - and it was beyond repair, and they would refund the money. So they refunded my credit card. But I'd already paid the card down, and their refund put the card into credit. So I went to a teller to draw out the surplus cash to return it to my SD - and the bank (it was HSBC) charged me a "cash advance fee" of $25!! - to get my OWN cash out of the account!! I wasn't going into debit with the cash withdrawal, the balance was zero, after the cash withdrawal! So went into HSBC and tore a new one for the teller, and closed the credit card account, telling them I would NEVER deal with HSBC again, as long as I live! - and I haven't. She was quite apologetic and upset when I told her what had happened, and why I was closing the account - but made NO attempt to call any manager, nor did anyone ever offer to refund the (totally illegal) $25 charge. HSBC is the bank that got fined US$1.9B (plus US$665M in civil penalties) in the U.S. courts, for money laundering for Mexican drug cartels - Got fined 57.3 million POUNDS ($73M) for "serious failings" in customers deposit protection in the U.K. - Got fined 6.2 million POUNDS ($7.9M)over treatment of customers in financial difficulty in the U.K. - And, is currently being sued by ASIC for failing to stop Australian HSBC customers accounts being stripped by scammers. My conclusion is that HSBC is amongst the biggest scammers in the world.

Yes, a total lack of competition. I've got a little (6Kva) Kubota genset (GL6000 Lowboy) for single phase, and for running small tools. It's a little pearler, I paid $250 for it at auction, and $250 to get it back to Perth from Karratha. It was powering work caravans, it's a 2019 model, and has done 6,900 hrs. It's an analog model, no electronic interface, which is good, those electronic controls crap themselves regularly. It's just got a starter-heater switch, and the engine is protected by low water and low oil switches. It was sold as "non-operational". When I got it, it had an out-of-service tag on it, saying "possible blown head gasket". I tried starting it, and it kicked over compression and the starter kicked out of engagement. I tried it several more times, and it kept doing the same. So, I suspected a faulty solenoid, thinking it was lacking power to keep the starter pinion engaged. But I installed the new solenoid, and it still did the same thing. So I pulled the starter off and found the pinion fork ("lever" in the book) was made from cheap nylon, and it had worn out completely on one side, and was failing to keep the starter pinion in mesh. I went down to the local scrappers and rummaged though a big cut-open IBC of scrapped starters, and found a couple of likely-looking candidates as a donor for a good pinion lever. The scrapper wanted $20 for the 2 buggered starters, a bit of a ripoff, but I paid it. You can buy new starter levers off AliExpress for about $8, but I didn't want to wait. The starter is a Mitsubishi, and the basic starter fits about 50 models of cars and engines, they just modify the nose for different applications. I pulled apart the first scrapped starter, and the lever was buggered. I pulled apart the second scrap starter, and the lever was perfect - so I installed it in my Kubota starter. I reassembled it all, and the engine fired up second kick over compression, and ran like a dream, producing the full 240V without a problem. So much for their mechanics poor diagnosis. I changed the oil and filters (all supposed to have been done recently, but looked like they hadn't been done for at least 500 hours), pressure-washed the whole unit, and it looks a million dollars and performs faultlessly at all times. It only uses about 1.2 litres of diesel an hour. You can't beat genuine Japanese gensets - the Chinese ones are a real lucky dip, they're a dime a dozen, secondhand - usually suffering from blown engines or fried electrics. I'm looking for a good 3 phase genset now, about 15-20Kva, but they're in high demand, and all bringing good money, so I just have wait for the right one.