onetrack

No-one's even remotely interested in wailing Bluegrass, and finding out about the cunning tricks of video?

Nev, it was a sweet white, a Late Harvest Riesling, so I guess the sugars have preserved it well. Haven't the salvage teams found drinkable wine that's 200 or 300 years old, in historic shipwrecks?

Chubby isn't the right word for his build. More like "walking heart attack".

I've got a few bottles of S.W. W.A. riesling from the early 1990's that I never drank, because we virtually stopped drinking wines many years ago. I opened one recently and was quite surprised to find it had turned into a very nice port-type, syrupy alcohol.

I don't know where to post this one - under music or Funnies. See how many of the glaring comedic video errors you can pick up in this rendition of a vintage Bluegrass wailer.

BYD is displayed as "Build Your Dreams" on Australian models, but that is soon going to disappear, for more subtle badging. https://www.carexpert.com.au/car-news/dreams-dashed-as-byd-makes-key-change-to-its-vehicles-rears The BYD name was originally the Pinyin initials for the companys Chinese company name Biyadi - which was created from the companys former name, Yadi Electronics. The Bi was added later to gain an alphabetical advantage at trade shows. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BYD_Company#:~:text=However%2C the company later back,fit the "BYD" name.

If they are that old, the rubber has lost its flexibility, and they will crack and big chunks of rubber will fall off the casing as soon as you put them under some hard work. Your brother must have originally bought locally-made Hardie tyres. The Hardie tyres were absolute crap - the rubber was so soft, everyone recommended when you bought a set of Hardies, to throw them up in the loft of the shed for at least two years, to give them a chance to harden up, to produce a reasonable level of wear.

Does this mean we really should be referring to them as Tasmaniacs?

Any builder carrying out more than $20,000 worth of work in W.A. must be registered as a builder and carry Home Indemnity Insurance to cover losses if they fail financially, die, or disappear. https://www.commerce.wa.gov.au/publications/home-indemnity-insurance However, as always, the system is run by insurance companies, and along with devious builders who plan to fail, the system is less than perfect, and has been criticised at length in the past. https://www.hiainsurance.com.au/products/home-warranty-insurance/home-indemnity-wa

I prefer this one on Catch.com.au - but I don't think they made the mouth big enough. https://www.catch.com.au/product/donald-trump-hand-puppet-4933811?sid=trump&sp=6&st=32&srtrev=sj-sxsnqfqj0l77d0b95yyngm.click&pid=4933811&oid=32170565

Of course it's an INDIAN!! It's made in INDIA, isn't it??

Someone has to pay for road maintenance and road rebuilding - and the income from the Federal fuel excise is simply enormous. But the big factor is - the fuel excise was originally initiated to pay for roads upkeep and replacement, and nothing else. But over the decades, the fuel excise income has simply soared to levels the pollies could only dream about, in their original plans and calculations - and now, a BIG percentage of the fuel excise goes into Consolidated Revenue - which pays for a whole lot more, than just road maintenance and road rebuilding projects. So, the bottom line is, the overall tax take is going to take a major hit when fuel sales slow to a trickle. I trust a lot of pollies are currently working on a solution to this problem - because the alternative of cutting welfare, pensions, education grants, and the myriad of other monies that people rely on, will only cause a massive revolt amongst the population, if introduced in response to a major reduction in fuel excise income.

I think Allah has very little to do with earthquakes and houses falling down in Afghanistan. It's called the Forces of Nature. Build a mud-brick house in a known seismic zone, and no matter what God you worship, they won't be able to help you. There's an old saying about people being so heavenly-minded, they're no earthly good.

My stepfather (who married my mother when she was 80, a couple of years after my Father died of cancer), was a Pommy plumber from Nottingham. He told me he'd owned a Brough Superior when he was a young bloke, and he was stunned when I told him I had no idea what a Brough Superior was! He waxed lyrical about the machine, and I had to go research it! They're worth a fortune now, apparently.

I can't believe you flew over Paradise, and missed it! Everyone is dying to go there!

Ukrainian sappers have so far uncovered over 700,000 items of unexploded ordnance and mines in the Ukraine. No doubt, a lot are still just simply marked, and haven't been neutralised yet. Something like 30% of the cropping land in the Ukraine is unusable due to mines and UXO, or is in the possession or reach of Russian troops. https://kyivindependent.com/over-700-000-explosives-discovered-by-ukraines-sappers/

Designing and producing an ammonia engine in this day and age is on a par with designing and producing an airbag for a bicycle. Talk about engineering dinosaurs, they will do anything to ensure that IC engines don't die a natural death. Toyota are rapidly becoming the biggest disappointment of the automotive world, they will have to be dragged kicking and screaming, and resisting like a 2 yr old, into the EV era.

I wonder how they started it? That open bevel gear set looks like it's ready to drag in and chew up whatever item of clothing gets near it. Obviously, safety guards were not something anyone ever thought of, in that era.

I was one of the fortunate ones - my parents were "old school", and my Mother taught me to read and write, before I even went to school. The teachers were astonished. But a succession of poor teachers in high school left me totally disenchanted with schooling and further education and I turned my back on it. I often wonder what the result would have been, if I'd had better teachers, and took a different path in life. The greatest failure in my education was not learning how to deal effectively with rapacious financial institutions, who will destroy your lifes work in an instant, with their intransigent decision-making.

I can just see Facthunter doing a Trans-Australia rally on it, right now!

Something only the eccentric British could think up!! It looks like the result of a night-time mating attempt, from adjoining car and tank factories!!

The problem is, in the last 40 or so years, there was a major drop in teaching of the very basics of literacy and numeracy. From the 80's onwards, "enlightened attitudes" prevailed all through the schooling system, so that kids could be promoted to higher levels without even attaining basic literacy and numeracy. It was believed that this didn't matter. So we end up with teachers who can't spell, who can't write properly, who need others correcting their output constantly. We get people leaving the education system totally reliant on calculators because they can't even do basic maths. We get kids who can't add up the required change in monetary transactions mentally, they need to revert to a device - and even then, they're totally confused. We need a revised education system that ensures children aren't promoted without the basic levels of literacy and numeracy. Perhaps that means individual tutoring and different tutoring methods. Everyone learns in a different manner - some people are really fast at picking esoteric principles, or complex laws of physics and science. If the basic education levels remain fixed, any other levels of education can then be allowed to be flexible.

The Indigenous communities have houses built for them in any locations they choose, and in whatever quantities they require. Then they trash them to unliveable levels, and then claim there's a major housing shortage in Indigenous communities. And the simple fact remains, many Indigenous don't like living in buildings, they prefer a swag or stretcher under a handy tree or bush. I've seen Indigenous hospital patients placed on the floor of hospitals when they came in from outlying areas for medical treatment, because they were spooked lying in a hospital bed. Lying in a raised bed frightened them.

The actress Suzanne Somers has died a day before her 77th birthday, from breast cancer. She had been fighting cancer for a long time. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-10-16/suzanne-somers-dies-aged-76/102980616

Well, thank God for that.