onetrack

That's simply careless driving on the truck drivers part. There's no excuse for rolling a loaded truck, truck drivers are supposed to be professionals. It also appears this hay truck in the rollover, is not part of the W.A. convoy.

Ahem ... the "100 cattle lost annually to crocs", is just from ONE station! The cattle losses are in the thousands across the nation. Here's a good Yahoo article about them. https://au.news.yahoo.com/aussie-fishermans-confronting-crocodile-photo-reflects-hundred-thousand-dollar-issue-074455723.html

One of the things that gets me, is I have yet to see a properly-instituted "cost VS benefit" study done on the principle of letting crocs breed uncontrolled. They eat a LOT of fish - and excellent eating quality fish, too, such as Barramundi - thus depriving the humans of a substantial amount of good quality, high value food product. Then there's the amount of valuable cattle taken by crocs - which is considerable, by all reports. That's more good quality food out of the humans food demand. There seems to be a generally increasing belief trend amongst Queenslanders (and some Territorians too, no doubt), that croc numbers are making life a lot more dangerous for humans, and seriously impacting on the humans enjoyment of the waterways and waterholes of the North, and impacting on recreational fishing. Against that, there's obviously some major value in harvesting wild crocodile eggs (which appears to have little effect on their ever-increasing numbers), and some tourism value in seeing crocs in the wild. However, the only document I can find is a very "pro-Croc" document, the NT "Wildlife Trade Management Plan for the Saltwater Crocodile", which effectively just outlines all the NT laws around the protection of crocs (both wild and farmed). https://www.dcceew.gov.au/sites/default/files/env/pages/e85c86ad-0af5-40ad-b07b-99a27eed17e6/files/nt-saltwater-crocodile-mgt-plan-2016-20.pdf Here is the Qld Parliaments Report on Katters "Crocodile Control and Conservation Bill 2025". I believe the Qld Parliaments Report and Katters Bill are both deficient - and substantially more wild crocodile research, producing "pro" and "con" views on culling, backed by all the evidence and factors involved, with regard to how significant the crocodile problem is, is required. Too much of the consideration today appears to hinge completely on how good we are at conserving wild crocodile numbers, and little consideration is given to the possible benefits of reducing their numbers. https://www.parliament.qld.gov.au/Work-of-Committees/Committees/Committee-Details?cid=274&id=4504

Jerry, I've seen her cross the road to drag a huge bouncer off a club patron, when the bouncer was pounding the (obviously drunk) patron to a pulp. She won't stand for any wrongs being carried out - and she was right - the bouncer was seriously in the wrong, and could have gone to jail if the patron had been seriously injured or even killed. Meantimes, myself and her son (an MMA Champion with a Karate Black Belt), just stood there open mouthed, as she ran across the road and grabbed this giant of a bouncer by the collar, sternly saying to him, "THAT'S ENOUGH!" 😱 Amazingly, the bouncer DID stop (possibly out of shocked surprise, more than anything else) - but she achieved her aim, which including checking on the drunken patrons condition (he was O.K., just a bit bloodied, and possibly having learnt his lesson, about taking on huge bouncers!) I'm sure she could deal very well with your errant builders, the minute she found something illegal, devious, or shonky going on! She's the ultimate "righter of injustices". And she's a big girl, she can virtually go eye to eye, with most big blokes. On top of that, she can spot or smell BS from 10 miles away, long before I pick it up.

I don't know how much this hay convoy has made the mainstream news - but to those who know nothing about it - a sizeable number of W.A. farmers have donated a huge amount of hay to drought-affected farmers in S.A. -and are delivering it, free, as well. This is a sterling and worthy effort, and it's good to see wealthy people helping out those who are battling major adversity. I actually know a number of these people personally, and the Lucchesi family are past clients of mine. The sheer effort in organising the collection and delivery is monumental, with a lot of bio-security roadblocks and bureaucratic hurdles to overcome. Full kudos to Samantha Starcevich for her organising and rallying ability. The Starcevichs are well known in the Eastern Wheatbelt, and a close mate (a local truckie) is one of them, too. He was born and raised in Merredin where a lot of the Starcevichs were originally located. Les ("Tom") Starcevich, the WW2 VC winner, is one of the Merredin area Starcevich mob. The sheer amount of driving to be done is colossal, and a number of individual truck drivers are driving the road trains for free, easing the burden on the farmers who have contributed the free hay and their trucks. I drove a truck from Echuca to the W.A. Wheatbelt in May 2024, and I can tell you, it's a BLOODY LONG WAY! - with a lot of endless road, and driving boredom to deal with. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-07-25/convoy-of-compassion-wa-farmers-hay-to-sa/105564054

I see where Bob Katter and his supporting MP's are again proposing a major crocodile cull and croc-shooting safaris, to put the bitey buggers back to the level where all the waterholes are safe. But his ideas have been knocked on the head, not only by the Qld Govt, but by wildlife warriors and croc lovers such as Terri Irwin. What say you? - do you think a decent croc cull is long overdue? https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-07-25/qld-katters-australian-party-crocodile-cull-plan-rejected-/105573960

There's a good "write up" in the Farming News article below about the "GREAT Beef DEAL". The last two paragraphs in the article are pretty telling. The DEAL is just more massive Trump BS. https://pulse.auctionsplus.com.au/news/australia-opens-door-to-canadian-beef-expands-us-access?utm_campaign=Market Pulse&utm_medium=email&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-_I_un3miFkIzq3BmaGFuIbQJq_PSD7ua5ogQNRZqqG0qf5K4Q9VfM1Um92KQSzKj4KSDXew49nO_hZylrgGzcwzwVPlQ&_hsmi=372938691&utm_content=372938691&utm_source=hs_email

I don't generally have any problems around talking about money. I can talk about it for hours, and about how it's artfully avoided me all my life! 😄 Cash is still king in my neck of the woods. All the food van vendors have signs saying they prefer cash, and give reasons why - such as not making rich banks richer, and making sure that cash never gets phased out. I like dealing in cash, it quite often gets me a better deal. If I do a deal, I lay out the money and make the seller count it, so there's no errors (on my part or theirs), and no comeback. I got my big Lotto payout in cash, the newsagent asked if that was how I wanted it, and I said yes. He had to open his safe, which had a time delay on it. I didn't have a problem with that. Most of the items I sell, I get paid in cash, although I'm happy to take bank direct debits if they want to do it that way. But that introduces a delay, which is generally undesirable for both buyer and seller. I sell stuff on eBay and I can only get paid via bank deposit. I don't have a problem with that, it's not like the amounts are in the tens of thousands. The good part is, eBay sales operate 24/7/365. I sold $250 worth of stuff on eBay while I was on holiday in Broome. The buyers are happy to wait until I get back, to package it up and send it off. The part that bugs me about sales transactions is the people who want to keep chiselling you down and down, I'm sure they practise it constantly on everyone. I just select a point where I won't sell below and stop at that. I've had buyers trying to chisel me down on cars, but I tell them my bottom line, and if they keep trying to get it for less, I just tell them to look elsewhere. A lot of people simply want a more expensive item than they have the money to buy. Then there's the "psychological block" numbers. A car salesman told me once, $10,000 is a critical figure for cars, it's a complete stumbling block. $9,999 sounds affordable, but $10,999 is just too much, so people won't pay it. It's the same at auctions, you see bidders stumble at the round figures - $2,000 - $5,000 - $10,000. They stop bidding because they see the bids keeping on going relentlessly if they go over the round figure. A sad part of our modern wealthy society is children are not taught about the value of money, how to deal in it, how to resist buying urges from enticing advertising, about how to save and invest. So many parents just hand over money to their children with no strings attached - $200, $300, $500, just to spend on some item the kid insists it reallys NEEDS. I got brought up in a family with no money. They say you've never known poverty until you've been a dairy farmer and developing a farm. I had hessian bags on my bed as a youngster because my parents couldn't afford good blankets or doonas. But they were warm enough and I didn't freeze to death. I found I had to work to get money, money didn't just land in your lap. I do regret I didn't get more professional training when I was younger, in how to deal with corporate scumbags and finance houses and banks, and how to keep their grubby hands off your assets. I've got to 76 with a lot of hard firm rules in place about money, and they were all from hard-learnt lessons. I advised SWMBO about 25 yrs ago to place some spare funds she had, with a mortgage broker I knew (we keep our finances separate, and we each just contribute to a household kitty. This system works fine, and has done for 35 years. No "coercive money control" in this house). She put $50,000 with this broker for a good percentage return (ISTR it was about 10%), and the money was backed with you holding a property title for security, provided by the mortgage broker - or so he said. The bloke had been in business for decades, I couldn't see any risk with him. However, after a fortnight and no sign of any property title for security forthcoming, I started to get uneasy - and so did SWMBO. So I told her to start really pressuring him - for the title - or for her money back! She ended up in his office, screaming at him in righteous rage - a frightening sight, I can assure you. She won. The $50,000 was returned, promptly - and we breathed a sigh of relief. It eventually turned out, the mortgage broker was in deep s*** with bad investments, and paying Peter from Pauls account, and defrauding hundreds of people. He ended up with such a massive mess, it took a liquidator about 10 years to sort it out. He'd invested in sandalwood plantations, and hundreds of properties all around the State, and given title to properties to more than one person! - it was a "total schemozzle" as Borat would say. The only good thing that came out of it, was that he repaid the money to SWMBO out of his personal bank account (in absolute and total fear I think - what you get, when confronted by a police superintendents daughter, in a righteous rage) - and a number of years passed before all his scheming came undone - so the time limit on transactions involved in bankrupt estates, that could be reversed, was well and truly over - so she got to keep her money. She actually put that money into a Telstra Super account (because she worked for Telstra for a while), and Telstra Super has paid far better than any mortgage broker ever would.

Yeah, well, it appears someone in City Beach ended up roofless, thanks to a pretty nasty looking mini-tornado. I'm sure they won't suffer too much financially, houses there are all multi-million dollar properties, and they can all afford the best insurance cover. Re the season, it appears we got just over 100mm of rain while we were away in Broome. It rained in Perth for 10 of the 12 days we were away - but both the July average rainfall and YTD are still wa-aayy down so far this year - a trend that is general throughout the State. But the crops are doing O.K., even though they're behind, and had a very dry start. However, if the rains are poor in August and cut off sharply at the end of August, it will be a less-than stellar cropping season. Here's hoping the rains continue. We came back to a freezing 0.3°C in Perth this morning, it was bitterly cold, the coldest day in Perth for 15 years - and there were frosts all through many suburbs, and throughout the SW of the State. Tomorrow isn't looking a lot better, the bitterly cold pool of air is hanging around, and the BOM forecasts 3°C for tomorrow morning - but they also forecast 3°C for this morning, too! https://perthisok.com/lifestyle/brrrr-perth-shivers-through-coldest-morning-in-15-years/

The American companies are free to use a wide range of chemicals, pesticides, food additives, colourings and preservatives, that are banned from use in Australia. That alone makes me wary of buying any American-produced food. And I don't see how American beef can be competitive in Australia, they are a high-input-cost nation, and the currency exchange rate is shocking. Add in international freight/shipping costs that have doubled since COVID, and I can see no reason why Americans could even imagine they could sell beef to us. Of course, in the Lewis Carroll world of Trumpianism, the Australians are crying out for American beef - because it's the best, right? https://betterlivingthroughbeowulf.com/lewis-carroll-has-trumps-number/

15°.

Well, we've had our "Virgin experience" this afternoon, and it reflects the current state of Virgins (and Qantas') planes. We were due to depart at 2:35PM for a 5:20PM arrival into Perth. However, as we were having lunch, a check showed the flight was delayed. Got to the airport, and found our aircraft had broken down and a replacement had to be sourced, so it was over half an hour late. That delay extended into a 3:05PM departure, with passengers dragging their feet, a bloke turning up late with 2 kids that he claimed were his (they bore no resemblance), and saying they all needed to be seated together, as that was the airline laws. But he'd booked the three of them at different times and from different places, as the steward pointed out. Nonetheless, the bloke claimed they were legit, so the steward, under great pressure, but acting with speed and professionalism, re-arranged seating in a virtually full aircraft, by extracting a Virgin employee from a rear seat and placing him in the sole empty business-class seat, and shifting a couple of other people around. With everything settled, we barrelled off into a gusty headwind (my God, it was windy in Broome today, never knew it could blow there like that, in the Dry season), and we rotated very rapidly, and got to great altitude very quickly it seemed. The flight was pretty smooth, a few bumps, lots and lots of cloud of all sorts and types, lots of haze, and difficult to see any terrain in detail. We got a nice feed of chicken with potatoes in business, nice comfy seat in a late-model (2013) B737-8FE (VH-YQR), which must be one of Virgins better aircraft - and we landed very smoothly in Perth at 5:48PM - to bitterly cold weather (13° and a promise of 2° tomorrow morning!) Oh, how we'd loved to have stayed another month in Broome! I was studying up on the history of VH-YQR, and discovered it featured in an ATSB incident report, where a similarity to Air India Flight 171 is logged. The incident was a major flight upset caused by an incorrect control selection! I'll post it in the Air India thread, just to add some thought to the AI crash considerations.

He was a Pole and his family fled the Nazis during WW2. He had a terribly rough, fractured upbringing - but he and his parents made good in Australia after the War, as "refo's". This article is 5 years old and needs updating, but it outlines the tough times he had, before he made good in acting. https://www.refugeecouncil.org.au/henris-story/#:~:text=Henri Szeps is one of,and separate from his family.

It's not going to be "rough quarters" ahead for Tesla, the Chinese are going to rip a new and much larger cloaca for Tesla, with their massive range of technically superior EV's - that are available in HUGE numbers. Within 6-8 years, Tesla will be an "also-ran" in the EV stakes. I can see parallels in the dockside crane industry. As a typical example, Esperance (W.A.) Port, about 10 years ago, wanted a number of new wharf cranes. They got a quote from established Western wharf crane manufacturers, and the quoted prices made the port operators eyes water, and they had to sit down - Oh, and there was only a 2 yr warranty at best from these suppliers. So the Esperance Port asked the Chinese to tender for the cranes. The Chinese cranes came in at under half the price of the other quotes - AND their price included DELIVERY to Esperance Port, with their dedicated crane-carrying ship. The Chinese ship has a flat deck, they sit the cranes on the ships deck, and when they get to the Port, they ballast the ship to the level of the wharf, and simply drive the cranes off, and they can put them straight to work. So then came the Esperance Port operators question. Do the Chinese cranes come with any kind of warranty? "Oh, certainly", says the Chinese. "We give TWENTY YEARS warranty on all our wharf cranes!! Is it any wonder that virtually every port now, runs Chinese wharf cranes? Musk is on a hiding to nothing, the Chinese play the long game, and they play hard ball.

I get porterhouse steak on special from Aldi for $22.50 a kg, and it's just as good as Colesworth porterhouse at $45 a kg. I wouldn't touch American beef, it's all lot-feed rubbish.

A.

Boat

Chump won't pull the plug on AUKUS, he's smart enough to see it means a lot of money being transferred to the U.S. from Australia - and I'm sure he's currently working out a way to personally benefit from that $368B we're going to apparently have to cough up - just to get a few nuclear subs that will be obsolete by the time we get them.

At risk of derailing the political trend of this thread, back to Lotto wins, the good news for today is ......... We've got our Business Class upgrade from Broome back to Perth, tomorrow! It cost us another $350 ($175 each, was my bid) - but because we'd already paid extra for exit-row seats with the additional legroom, Virgin have credited us the exit-row charge, so the upgrade only cost us $267 in total. The only downside is, we know we're going travelling on a tired old Virgin B737-800, so it's not exactly a class ride. However, we've found Virgin to be satisfactory to deal with, and the crew are normally cheerful, and the business seating is just fine. We stopped travelling on Qantas when the Leprechaun was running the operation like the miserable greedy turd he is. They regularly cancelled all my FF points because I never used them in the allotted time frame (which in itself, is a miserable, grubby corporate scam) - and Q fares were always much higher than Virgin, anytime we wanted to go anywhere. However, it seems Q has improved under its new CEO, because we flew up on Q, at a considerably reduced fare, compared to what Virgin wanted. However, to return to Perth, Virgin were much cheaper than Q - so figure that one out? The flight up with Q was very good, with Q crew cheerful and attentive, and the Airbus was only 21 yrs old! I looked up Q's fleet age and was staggered to see they're still running 32 yr old Fokkers!! Both Q and Virgin are in dire need of a heap of new aircraft, all their fleets are old and creaky, and run into the ground, and I see where Q has had to temporarily lease 4 "mid-life" B737's to fill in a delivery shortfall from Airbus. AB was supposed to deliver several new A321XLR aircraft to Q this year, but they're way behind schedule, and some of the planned 2025 deliveries will be pushed back into next year. https://australianaviation.com.au/2025/06/qantas-to-lease-4-midlife-737s-to-combat-delivery-delays/

Why aren't the women doing something to stop the robot! They're the most powerful weapon the blokes have on board!! 😄

Does it chuck a wobbly when it finds the replacement battery hasn't been charged, because the power went off, when the battery was supposed to be getting charged?

The greatest threat to America as regards Trumps idiotic decision-making, is his plans to hobble renewable energy and EV's, via the total removal of subsidies and grants, for both cheaper energy generation, and cheaper transportation. But while Trump does this, China forges ahead with massive renewable energy power generation and widespread adoption of EV's. The Chinese have installed more renewable energy generation in the last 12 mths, than the whole of the U.S. generates from all energy sources in the last 12 mths. So, the future for America is higher energy costs, as gas and other fossil fuels have to be used to generate power, due to a shortage of investment in renewable energy - while the Chinese economy is transitioning to a lower-cost model, thanks to cheaper renewable power sources. In effect, Trump has shot himself in the foot with his desire to turn the clock back to widespread fossil fuel use, as American industry will become uncompetitive with high energy costs in forthcoming years. This makes Trumps aims to revitalise American manufacturing and industry so much more difficult to achieve, and it means that China will continue to win the title as the worlds greatest manufacturing economy.

I think it'll be a long time before we see lottery winnings taxed or gambling losses made tax deductible. But I'll wager a few fraudsters have claimed their gambling losses via devious methods, the same as they stole their gambling funds via devious means. I must say, I'm staggered at the number of people who are caught stealing from employers - and the worst ones, AFAIC, are the public servants in management positions who get caught forging invoices and inventing schemes to defraud the Govt. What is even more galling, is that for every one of them caught and exposed, there must be at least twice that number again rorting their employers and the Govt. There's still one W.A. bloke wanted for ripping off Fremantle Ports for $5M. He realised they were closing in on him, so he skipped the country and is living it up in Europe, still managing to avoid being nailed. We need to set up squads to track these scumbags down, and to drag them back to face the music. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-08-03/three-men-jailed-over-corrupt-scheme-at-fremantle-ports/102152358

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1824