onetrack

What a ripper of an outstanding, clever, and daring attack! As good as some of Britains finest commando efforts during WW2. Now, all it needs is a drone attack on where Putin is sitting or flying, to ensure the head of the Russian snake is fully decapitated

And I'd hazard a guess those names are pronounced something like "Sluffter". The same as the English can pronounce "Cholmondeley" as "Chum-lee", or "Rochester" as "Rosher".

Tonight is the best night for an Aurora Australis sighting, if you're in the Southern latitudes and have a fairly cloudless sky to the South, and minimal light pollution. There's a major solar storm taking place globally, and on a scale rating of 9, it's an 8. For Australian viewing of the AA, the scale rating for viewing is currently 6, out of 9. There are plenty of FB photos currently being posted of the AA. The best times for viewing are between 10:00PM and 2:00AM. https://www.sws.bom.gov.au/Aurora https://www.facebook.com/groups/SouthernHemisphereAuroraGroup/

What is worse, is the number of MAGA adherents who believe it's true, and have come out supporting Trumps baseless claim. What a sorry lot!

Is.

Ahhh, I make the Buick 67 yrs old, Nev, I don't know how you got 98 yrs old. He does have quite a number of early 1930's Fords in the factory unit, mostly roadster style, I'm not sure if they were repro's or original bodies. The Americans knock out a huge number of 1930's repro hot rod bodies. He did mention he had a stack of 1957 Chev parts as well. One of the interesting things he said was, he went to all the car show gatherings with a stall - and people would come up to him and say, "I've got an old car in the shed, would you be interested in buying it?" He claimed he scored a lot of vintage cars in that manner, and people would sell them to him, whereas they wouldn't sell the vehicle to a casual inquirer - because he was in that line of business. But I would think people would sell to him because he may have offered more money than a casual inquirer, and sellers would know he had the funds, rather than just being a tyre kicker, or someone scheming out a get-rich-quick scheme by acquiring a vintage car for a low figure. I used to score a lot of vintage cars for a song by contracting for farmers. I had access to every back paddock on farms once I was there, and found a lot of amazing vehicles. Two that come to mind are a 1932 Model B Ford V8 roadster (genuine original, not cut down into a ute), and a 1930 Model A Ford coupe, an Australian built model. The Australian-built 1930 Model A Ford coupe was different to the American-built ones as Ford didn't have the big presses here in 1930, that they had in America. The American coupe had an all steel roof and steel doors. The Australian coupe followed the older style of construction with a fixed roof made from wooden strips overlaid with canvas, that was painted with a bituminous paint. It had wooden-framed doors that were full height. The 1930 Model A coupe is so rare that the Ford collector bloke I acquired it for, who was in his 60's in the 1970's, said he had only ever seen one in his life, it belonged to a doctor when he was young bloke and it was fairly new. He was over the moon when I bought it for him, he owned 45 Ford cars, all between 1928 and 1935 and he had every body style for every year - except for the 1930 Model A coupe. I'm spewing now, that I sold the 1932 Ford Model B V8 for $600 about 1983, when I needed some money. I could nearly retire on what they bring today, even unrestored (if there's any left unrestored). When I was living and working in the W.A. Goldfields in the mid-1970's, there was an old bloke in Kalgoorlie who still drove into and around town in a 1932 Ford Model B roadster, completely original.

I bought a 13.5KVa 3 cyl Lister generator off a bloke in the Northern suburbs. When I went to pick it up, I found he was a hot rod parts specialist, a hot rod builder, a car importer and general wheeler-dealer in anything American and classic design. He said COVID kicked his business in the bum, it started to pick up again, then the shipping costs went ballistic, so he's winding the business down. He was in a large rented factory/warehouse (I think it was 2 units combined), and he tried to buy it off the old lady that owned it a number of years ago, but she wouldn't sell. Unbeknowns to him, there was a big family squabble over who was preparing to get what, after she died - so she sold everything and cashed in, and is just going to divvy up her estate in cash inheritances. So, the new owner of the factory/warehouse wants to move in, and he has to get out. The bloke says he's built a new factory unit of his own, not too far away, so he's not overly stressed out about the eviction. But he's having a cleanout as part of the move, and the winding down. One of his cars for sale is this 1958 Buick, a classic piece of American overindulgence. It looks like it's sold, and it was only advertised a couple of days ago. https://www.facebook.com/marketplace/item/1313503580780180

But where else could a ruthlessly ambitious person get their start in State or Federal politics, if it wasn't for the cut and thrust, backstabbing, ganging up, nepotism, and pettiness of local councils!?

They actually turned into your chickens. Chickens are ruthless destroyers from above, just ask any crawling bug.

There's no reason for anyone to possess a machete in urban Australia. Just look at the well-manicured lawns, and the amount of lawnmowers, brushcutters and whipper-snippers we own! Machetes were produced for just one reason, to cut your way through impenetrable jungle. We have no impenetrable jungle in Australia, except perhaps for a few small pockets of rainforest areas, which have no need of penetration, unless its by rescue teams looking for disaster survivors. In which case, machetes should only be owned by emergency rescuers and police.

Every Presidential decision is an emergency to Trump, that's how he operates, he loves to galvanise people with shocking demands. He wouldn't know what to do in a real emergency, though.

The Wall Street sharemarket traders have invented a new 4-letter reference for Donald Trump - "TACO". It stands for "Trump Always Chickens Out". What it means is that the traders know that Trumps announcements mean nothing, and he always backs down on them. So he announces a 145% tariff on say China, the sharemarket takes a dive, so the traders pile in and buy up big. Next moment, Trump has reversed the tariff decision and the sharemarket recovers, and the traders make a huge killing. Trump has been told about the use of the term, and he's livid about about it, calling it "nasty". He claims its just "negotiation" tactics. But he's dumb as a rock if he fails to understand what his on-again, off-again, decision-making is doing to the markets and business decisions. He specialises in chaos, and has zero skills in either business or negotiation. He's always "negotiated" from the bully angle.

B.

What size ride-on tyre can't you buy, Peter? A local bloke supplies a big range of small equipment tyres, but he's not easy to find initially, because he trades as Minidiggers, and deals in all types of minidigger parts. So if you go looking for "mower tyres", he doesn't show up. He says he'll ship Australia-wide. I found him on Gumtree. I got tyres for my ride-on mower for him. I've also got a stack of new mower tyres, can't recall the size at present, I will check tomorrow. Possibly the big problem is you can often buy a complete wheel with tyre and tube for the same price as just a tyre. https://www.minidiggerwa.com.au/

I like Jackie, rough as guts, but her heart's in the right place, and she comes out with some spot-on assessments.

My brothers 85 in September, and he's still going just fine. He's had a major prostate operation, and had a knee reconstruction, in the last 12-18 mths, and he reckons he's better now, than he was 15 years ago. Meantimes, I'm watching associates, former employees and former clients drop off the perch in their 60's and early 70's! I just turned 76, and I've still got 10 solid years of shed building and machinery restoration work in front of me! I can't possibly depart now, or anytime soon! 😄

Trump thrives on all the lightweight stuff, he's as shallow as a birdbath in midsummer. He's a BS-artist of the highest level, has zero credibility as regards anything he says or promises ("I will end the Ukraine War on Day One"), totally reverses decisions in breathtakingly rapid time, is totally consumed by his own opinions, and is easily influenced or changes direction merely by stroking his ego. But by far, the most frightening part of Trumps personality is the way he worships wealth and uses the Presidency as a simple extension of his business aims. His promotion of cryptocurrency (the favourite haunt of drug syndicates and global crime gangs) and his constant massaging of the uber-wealthy, should be ringing alarm bells all through the U.S. Govt and legal circles. Trump dinners with billionaires - https://www.wired.com/story/people-paying-millions-donald-trump-mar-a-lago/ But no-one does anything about it, because he also thrives on bullying, abuse and threatening behaviour that is exacerbated by the massive power he wields. His use of "executive orders" is frightening, he's found he can use "executive orders" to do anything he wants, and uses them to bypass all the normal Governmental controls. In times past, Presidential executive orders were rarely used, and only in extreme cases of urgent and critical decision-making. Roosevelt was the only other big user of executive orders, but Roosevelt was a humanitarian individual and did what was needed to assist his fellow Americans. Roosevelt only used the majority of his executive orders during the Great Depression and during WW2, periods that did require urgent and major decisions.

I was under the impression, Chump wanted Greenland for it's reputed reserves of rare earth minerals?? But here we have Europeans searching for anorthosite? Despite myself being a former miner and reasonably cluey on minerals, I've never heard of anorthosite - but a little Googling shows the Europeans regard it as the Holy Grail for a waste-free source of Alumina, Silica and Calcium Oxide - with all three minerals being in demand. The apparent beauty of anorthosite is its ability to supply a good amount of alumina with no environmentally-unfriendly waste product, as current bauxite mining for alumina does. We mine a lot of bauxite here in Western Australia for alumina, and the waste product from bauxite processing is a toxic red mud with corrosive high alkalinity, and containing dangerous levels of heavy metals. The red mud is currently stored in large tailings dams and no-one has found a use for it, nor can it be successfully re-processed to produce anything economically. In another twist, the Appalachian Mts contain large reserves of anorthosite!

The problem with the COVID lockdown in the Eastern States was the arbitrary and uncontrollable systems of selection and enforcement. The stories abound of unfairness and stupidity amongst the lockdowns rules and regulations. Myself and SWMBO were locked up 3 times for 14 days at a time between 2020 and 2022, each time for a fortnight, simply because we had been in the vicinity of COVID carriers. We never had any infection each time we were locked up. The worst was being locked up over Christmas and New Year 2021/22. It totally ruined our Christmas and NY. We'd gone to the Gold Coast in early Dec 2021 to have an early Christmas with SWMBO's son and wife. But a major outbreak that started in NSW and which was spreading to QLD alarmed us, and W.A. went into lockdown from Dec 20th. Our return flight for Dec 28th was cancelled due to the number of flight cancellations - so we rebooked on a flight on Dec 18th, and just made it home, as the State locked down. BUT - there were 2 travellers, 8 seats behind us on the aircraft, who DID have COVID - despite QLD supposedly being free of COVID at that time. Obviously, they carried it from NSW. Neither of us got COVID during the lockdowns, or during the main period of COVID - but we got COVID when we travelled to the Gold Coast in April 2023, to visit SWMBO's son and wife. This was well after lockdowns ended - and neither of us have any idea of where we contracted it from. It was obviously a public venue we attended, and we suspect it was Robina Shopping Centre.

I must be special, then, the site lets me read everything on there with no subscription. Perhaps they insist that Tasmanians be kept in the dark, information-wise? 🙂 You can sometimes get around paywalls by clicking on the "Site information" menu at the start of the URL and by disabling Java. Here is the full text, courtesy of WAToday. It's an opinion piece by Chris Masters, who I think you would know, and who possesses some level of respect amongst the journalist set. OPINION: Roberts-Smith’s rabid band of supporters has an outspoken new member – Gina Rinehart Chris Masters Investigative journalist May 25, 2025 — 3.00am “What went on over there, stays over there.” “You can’t judge combat from the comfort of an armchair.” “What right have you to tear down our heroes?” “It’s war, for god’s sake.” Since the first public challenges to Victoria Cross recipient Ben Roberts-Smith’s reputation in 2017, those words, this retaliatory refrain, has been unrelenting and unchanged. All in the face of profound evidence revealing Australia’s most decorated living soldier is a war criminal. After last week’s 245-page rejection of Roberts-Smith’s Federal Court appeal and Justice Anthony Besanko’s 726-page ruling in 2023, the keen eyes of four judges have now found to a civil court standard that Roberts-Smith murdered four captives in Afghanistan. Under the Geneva Convention and Australia’s own laws of armed conflict, executing detainees is unlawful. But there are rules and there are norms, and the norms according to the “it’s war” apologists are based on an insiders’ “take no prisoners” realpolitik. Within the Defence diaspora, online debate runs hot and loud. The “I stand with Ben” brigade is undeterred by the court rulings. Brigadier Adrian d’Hage, former head of Defence public relations who was awarded a Military Cross for his service in Vietnam, is taking them on. And he’s far from alone among soldiers with combat experience disavowing the so-called realists’ justification for murder. “That is not the way we fight. We have a long and hard-won reputation as being feared fighters, but fighters who engage according to the Geneva Convention,” d’Hage says. Given many critics’ apparent aversion to examining those pages, here is a distillation of key evidence. On April 13, 2009, Ben Roberts-Smith kicked an old man to his knees and instructed a junior soldier, in an exercise of “blooding”, to shoot him in the head. Soon after, he frogmarched a second Afghan man fitted with a prosthetic leg, threw him to the ground, and killed him with a burst of machine gun fire. On October 12, 2012, a third unarmed and detained man was executed by an Afghan partner force member upon Roberts-Smith’s instruction. And on November 11, 2012, Ali Jan, a father of three with no established links to the Taliban, was handcuffed and kicked over a small cliff by Roberts-Smith, who then ordered two comrades to drag him to cover, where he was shot dead. At numerous speaking events, Age investigative journalist Nick McKenzie and I have argued the following: It is morally wrong to kill or order the execution of captives. It is strategically wrong because it turns the population further against your mission. All those Australian soldiers bravely patrolling the fields of Uruzgan as a protective force against the Taliban were placed at greater risk. And it is wrong to force an act upon a fellow soldier so destructive of conscience and self-respect. Soldiers who have earned the Special Air Service Regiment’s sandy beret are rightly proud. When they returned to civilian life as psychological wrecks because of what they saw and did, as did occur, the damage was obvious. From my own observation, the self-harm to the regiment was the main reason for a brave group of Special Air Service Regiment soldiers to speak up. Nick and I both know they did so with extreme reluctance, all under subpoena, because of a view within the ranks that dobbing in your mate was a worse sin than exposing a war crime. That view was shared by members of the uber wealthy. Billionaire Kerry Stokes has spent millions on Roberts-Smith’s case. Multi-millionaire John Singleton funded a full-page newspaper advertisement describing attacks on the war hero as “disgraceful”. And now Australia’s richest person, Gina Rinehart, is quoted querying why this “brave and patriotic man” should be “under such attack”. I can only wonder what is in their minds. Do they believe that in their real world, ruthlessness is a necessity that should be honoured? Last December, my brother Roy and I spoke to a well-heeled audience of Aussie expats in Singapore. We were warned ahead of time that there would be a pro-Roberts-Smith sentiment and opposition expressed to our reporting. The day before, Roy and I had walked the grounds of the Alexandra Hospital. We found a small plaque commemorating the massacre of 250 patients and staff by Japanese forces on February 14, 1942. I spoke the next day of the shock that is still felt about those helpless victims being dragged into the garden and bayonetted to death. And I asked how we could condemn the Japanese while excusing our own. There was no answer. I am with Albert Camus, who said: “In such a world of conflict, a world of victims and executioners, it is the job of thinking people not to be on the side of the executioners.” Chris Masters is a Gold Walkley award-winning journalist and author. He was the first Australian journalist to be embedded with special forces in Afghanistan.

Although this thread is nearly 2 years old since the last post, the Ben Roberts-Smith saga continues, with Roberts-Smith continually protesting innocence against the legal findings against him - and his well-heeled billionaire supporters continuing to throw vast sums into his defence. Kerry Stokes is apparently up for a $13M bill for Roberts-Smith's last legal attack - which he lost. I guess Kerry won't miss $13M, it's loose change to him. Now Roberts-Smith is planning an appeal to the High Court against his last legal loss. But it appears an appeal is not something that can be done at will, he has to prove there are substantial reasons, such as new evidence, that exonerates him. It will be an uphill battle for him to get this appeal up, but I guess the lawyers with eyes on the golden casket that appears in front of them endlessly, will find a reason. The latest news is that BR-S has found another billionaire backer - in the form of Gina Rinehart. Talk about continually backing the wrong horse - Gina's choice of favourites (political and otherwise) would send her broke on a regular racetrack. But the article that caught my eye, is the one below. It strikes directly to the heart of Ben Roberts-Smiths problem, and is 100% correct in its summary, IMO. https://www.watoday.com.au/national/roberts-smith-s-rabid-band-of-supporters-has-an-outspoken-new-member-gina-rinehart-20250522-p5m1eb.html

Matt Golding has a great cartoon about Albo and the Nats in the Nine Entertainment Group media..... I love the "Nats ticket" seller who looks like a sheep. 😄

We actually got a little bit of rain in the Lower West over the last couple of days, but it never made it very far inland. In the City we got 11mm on Friday and another 17mm yesterday, up to 9:00AM this morning. But the Wheatbelt and even the Lower Great Southern didn't get anything worthwhile, a few mm at best in some of the coastal and near-coastal areas of the Lower Great Southern. I had to take a drive to just out of Albany yesterday to deliver some items to a buyer. I was surprised at how dry the Great Southern was. Many crops struggling to get out of the ground due to insufficient moisture and it was only when I got down near Mount Barker (W.A.) that the country had a green tinge to it, and early crops (canola especially) were looking quite good. The farmers must all be confident, the agricultural authorities are saying the area sown to crops this season in W.A. has increased by 2%, with an emphasis on canola sowings, and a pullback on the area sown to wheat and barley and oats. Canola has an advantage in dry start seasons, it will cope with a long dry spell better than wheat, which is surprising to me.

Peter, it's not the first time I've done that! My local Bunnings threw out a pile of unwanted poly pipe fittings in large sizes, for a giveaway price, about 15 years ago. I grabbed the lot, as I knew it was typical sizes farmers and hobby farmers used, not city buyers. I put them on eBay and made a huge killing out of them - selling them all to Eastern States buyers, believe it or not!

I picked up several "Eveready Dolphin" torch Chinese copies from The Reject Shop - for $5 each on special. They're $10 normally. They have 13 LED globes in the lens, instead of the old Dolphin single incandescent globe. I put in 4 "D" size "Heavy Duty" (Manganese dioxide style - NOT alkaline) batteries, they cost $2 each from the same shop. These torches are absolutely brilliant in every way, they throw a beam for 50 metres and are the cheapest and brightest torch for the money that I've found anywhere. Strangely enough, The Reject Shop website doesn't show them - but here they are on eBay for $20! Some crowds are charging $34 for them!! Talk about get-rich-quick merchants!! https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/286488703817