onetrack

The actress Piper Laurie has died peacefully at 91 of old age. She had a long and illustrious acting career on both film and TV. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-10-15/piper-laurie-three-time-oscar-nominee-and-twin-peaks-actress-die/102978994

Well, I'm afraid I voted with the well over 60% of people who had serious doubts about the viability and effectiveness of this proposed Voice. 1. The Indigenes harp on constantly about the dreadful effects of "colonisation" on their peoples. They seem to forget that colonisation has improved their lifestyles, wealth, travel ability, gave them medicinal gains - and provided them with vast sums of money, as well as land. Indigenes are now the largest freehold landowners in Australia. The make up a reported 3.8% of the overall population (a reported 23% increase since 2016 apparently, so it looks like colonisation hasn't seriously affected their breeding ability). To the contrary, as it appears it took the Indigenes 60,000 years to get from maybe a few dozen original inhabitants to about a few hundred thousand inhabitants when the Europeans arrived (all population figures are wild guesses as to how many Indigenes were here in 1788). This 3.8% of the population own or control 17% of Australias land. Not a bad deal for people who "lost". 2. The umpteen hundred million spent on an unnecessary, unwanted, and poorly-discussed referendum vote would have been far better poured into alcohol-reduction damage programmes amongst Indigenes - poured into sexual-abuse and drug-use reduction programmes amongst Indigenes - poured into programmes designed to improve literacy and numeracy amongst Indigenes - poured into making more Indigenes useful as workers and employees. 3. I, like many others are sick of the constant demands from Indigenous activists. The list of demands is constant and never-ending. At what point will they be satisfied? Only when the whites are driven from Australia, it seems. Every day there's a new demand - for reparations, for treaties, for compensation, for land, for apologies, for Indigenous independent Statehood. There's no end to it. This is a people who are on the receiving end of the greatest level of social welfare largesse the nation has ever seen. They get vast amounts of royalties, compensation, and other income - yet they're still on the receiving end of specifically-tailored welfare programmes. Their cars break down and they get lost in the bush, and a couple of Indigenous die - so the Communities are immediately in line for new Toyota Landcruisers on a regular basis, all provided by Govt largesse - because we can't have the occasional Indigenous person dying in the bush, because their old car broke down, can we? I personally believe that nothing will change until the Indigenes start taking more personal responsibility for their failings. The current system of them getting newly-rebuilt houses and infrastructure repairs (at massive cost to taxpayers), around about every 4 years - with no responsibility on the part of the Indigenes for destroying the houses or infrastructure, has to change. An associate works out of Broome as a contractor. At one of the communities, while they were working, young Indigenes stole their $100,000 Landcruiser work ute and all the tools in it, and destroyed it. They burnt it. So the associate left the community and told them he wasn't going back. The community pleaded with them to come back, they needed him and his workers to fix things. So the associate agreed to go back on a new contract - with $150,000 added to pay for the destroyed Landcruiser and tools. The community paid it, after all, it's only Govt money, isn't it? Everyone needs to read the article below to understand how dysfunctional the Indigenous welfare/grant/support system is. No Voice in the Constitution would ever fix this dysfunctional mess, it would only lead to a 1000 more Canberra "fat cats" in the bureaucracy - and this is the reason why Canberrans were voting overwhelmingly in favour of the Voice. https://www.griffithreview.com/articles/kartiya-are-like-toyotas/

This is from a poster on another forum (from Wednesday 11/10).... "So I had a pretty positive experience with the referendum today... Up bright and early for a flight chartered by the AEC to pickup early ballots from a few spots in WA. Near as makes no difference 7hrs flight time, over a series of relatively short hops. Our charter ended up collecting not even 20 boxes of ballots. We landed with more ballast on board (that we took off with) than we collected ballots (by weight) That was just one plane out of a few we had flying, and will have flying between now and Sunday. Money well spent, and possibly my best day at work ever 😄 Can't wait to see how much dino-juice we burned in the process" And that is just in W.A. Imagine how much money was blown on AEC aircraft charter, overall? This from a political party that espouses Green credentials, tries to criminalise private aircraft use as obscenely polluting, and who has signed off on a global accord to minimalise emissions?

It's nothing less than I expected. The simple fact the Indigenes themselves were split on the referendum doomed the proposition to fail. There was inadequate consultation from the word go.

A German battery technology startup company, High Performance Battery (HPB), led by one Prof. Dr. Günther Hambitzer, is claiming a massive leap forward in technology with their solid state Lithium ion battery. If even half HPB's claims stack up, their new technology looks like a major increase in lifespan, safety levels, and energy density for Lithium batteries. There's a link to the HPB website at the bottom of the article. https://www.renewableenergymagazine.com/storage/german-startup-develops-the-world-s-first-20231011

In the current aura of highly-charged divisiveness, I think we all need to listen to this song and its words. https://en-gb.facebook.com/JasonWood.updates/videos/we-are-one-i-am-australian-the-seekers-farewell-performance/568739915267838/

You can check all the factory recalls, and also check for specific recall reasons. Below is a list of vehicles recalled due to the risk of fire causing by manufacturing faults. Perhaps surprisingly to some luxury brand lovers, Mercedes tops the list. Hyundai and Kia have also featured large in recalls that involved potential fires. https://www.vehiclerecalls.gov.au/recalls/browse-all-recalls?search=fire

I'm sorry Jerry, I can't be bothered watching that mouthy idiot prattle on endlessly, loving the sound of his own voice. He's full of **it. It doesn't really matter whether the vehicle was an EV, a hybrid, a diesel, or a petrol powered vehicle. They all burn, and once a fire takes hold, they're very hard to put out, unless you've got a big fire truck on the scene with substantial firefighting resources. The problem here was a slow firefighting response.

Spot on!

An Aussie rock icon of the 60's and '70's, she's 74 now, and her age is showing.

Shouldn't there still be a phone floating where the Kia disappeared?

The State of Israel is nothing more than a fabricated nation, founded on terrorism - founded on the bombing of the King David Hotel in 1946 by the Zionist terrorism organisation, the Irgun - which group was backed by the Haganah Jewish paramilitary leadership, based in Palestine. These groups intention - which succeeded - was to drive the British from Palestine to form the current State of Israel, in line with hardline Jewish beliefs that they are the "chosen people" as mentioned in the Old Testament, and that they will re-establish themselves in the region as Gods Chosen People, the Israelites, in the "latter days", as mentioned in Biblical texts. The problem is, the Israelis and the State of Israel today have little to no relationship to the Israelites of Biblical times. The people gathered under the current-day Nation of Israel are nothing more than a motley group of a multitude of nationalities, simply held together by a common belief in a petty, ritualistic religion, that has managed to survive to the 21st century. Todays Rabbinic Judaism is merely the extended development of the Pharisees of the time of Jesus Christ - and JC rebuked these people for their pettiness in rules, their love for money, and their token and selected choice of the parts of the teachings of God that suited them. Sort of like a lot of religions today. I firmly believe that any State or Nation founded on terrorism will fail to survive in the long term, as compared to a State or Nation founded on relatively peaceful terms. Of course, warring is part of humankinds history, but the descendants of Cain specialise in murderous attacks, and the region around Lebanon and Palestine is noted as the Land of the Canaanites. Recent DNA research determined that Canaanite DNA still resides in Gaza. But virtually all the Middle East now contains Canaanite descendants, the only difference today is which ritualistic God they worship. I personally feel that WW3 will be a nuclear war between Israel and the Arabic nations, and I have little doubt the current day Israelis will not flinch from using nukes on their eternal religious enemies, if it appears they are going to be overwhelmed.

I would have to opine the Building Inspectors in Gaza are few and far between, and the Building Standards laws in Gaza are extremely lax. We saw the result in the Turkish earthquake, they're slow learners in these countries. However, I'm not entirely convinced our own building standards here haven't become lax, too - as witnessed by the numerous apartment building failures and the regular balcony and wall collapses, as well. I'm amazed that so many varieties of cheap construction are now tolerated in new home construction. Fastwall bricks look like a recipe for quick collapse to me, and so many houses are now being built simply with lightweight steel stud framing and some cheap-looking cladding. A good earthquake here will soon sort out who was swimming without pants.

The vast majority of them have "No Entry" signage.

A Russian Lancet-3 drone has destroyed a Ukrainian Su-25 that was sitting in the open, about 70kms behind the front line. The Russians are crowing about this hit being the second Ukrainian Su-25 they have destroyed. There's a BS propaganda Russian video on YooToob which is full of unassociated "blow-ups" - but which does clearly show the hit on the Su-25 Either the Ukrainians have become complacent and they didn't think the Lancet-3 could reach that far - or it was a decoy Su-25. The latter scenario seems unlikely. It appears the Russians are improving their drone missiles range, so the Ukrainians had better become more adept at hiding valuable equipment, or moving it more often.

I'm wondering if Putin has assisted in engineering an attack on Israel, backed by Iran. What better thing for Putin to have happen, than another War in the Middle East involving Israel? - which will immediately make America rush more arms to the Israelis - thus depleting the supply of U.S arms available for the Ukraine? I can easily imagine Putin scheming up something like this. Iran has been supplying armaments such as drones to Russia, I can well imagine Putin stating to the Ayatollahs, "We're right here to back you with all the extra armaments you need, if you want to king-hit Israel!"

Ukraine has destroyed a reported 27 out of a reported total of 100 produced, of the newest Russian tank - the T-90M - and damaged another 18 of them. Called the "Breakthrough tank" by the Russians, it's no match for Anti-Tank Guided Missiles that the Ukrainians themselves have produced. The drone footage is clear and brutal. https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/russias-most-advanced-frontline-tank-absolutely-detonates-when-hit-by-missile?utm_source=spotim&utm_medium=spotim_recirculation&spot_im_redirect_source=pitc

Here's an update to the Fitzroy Bridge disaster. The W.A. Govt and Main Roads W.A., backed by some pretty competent and efficient contractors - and aided by a massive injection of funds - have almost completed the all-new Fitzroy River Bridge. It will be opened and fully operational well before Christmas. Here's a link to the MRWA site. There's a pile of photos, plus numerous YooToob videos (nearly all of them, aerial shots, from drones and choppers) on the site, to give you a grasp of the enormous damage caused by the biggest-ever flood of the Fitzroy River - and the speed and amazing work involved in the new bridge construction. It wasn't just the bridge either - kms and kms of embankments were washed away and had to be rebuilt, higher and stronger. The new bridge is wider, higher, and built to withstand a 1 in 200 year flood. The project has been completed more than 6 months ahead of schedule. https://www.mainroads.wa.gov.au/projects-initiatives/all-projects/regional/new-fitzroy-river-bridge/ https://www.mainroads.wa.gov.au/travel-information/driving-in-wa/kimberley-flood-response/ Scroll down to "Media Centre" at the bottom of the last page, and then click on "Photos" and "Videos". The videos show the original damage best, the photos show the repair and reconstruction. The new bridge is being built on the Westernmost bank and then incrementally launched across the River in sections, quite a unique style of bridge building for this region, although it has been done before in more heavily populated areas.

Here in Perth in some suburbs, you can built of lots of 200 sq metres or less. I've actually seen one house built on 120 sq m of land. My suburb is Heritage listed, and up until a few years ago, no subdivision into "battleaxe" blocks was allowed - but the developers won, and blocks can now be subdivided here into 200 sq m lots. But if the original house was built before 1960 (as most were), the original facade of the house must be kept in any redevelopment. This has led to some weird-looking new houses with an old front. We're on 594 sq m. and we could redevelop into 2 lots - but we won't do it, as we like a bit of room. However, the houses are gradually creeping in on us, we got a new house right on our back fence when they battle-axed the block behind us, about 12-15 years ago. Barney, my neighbour on our left is 92, and I fear that when he's gone (which will be within a couple of years, I suppose), there'll be a massive redevelopment of his block. That will mean his house redeveloped into a new house, and another new house in his backyard, and right on our side fence. The developers only leave enough room to walk between the houses and the fences. On the other side, an old couple moved in about 9 years ago, and I'm sure the old bloke has dementia - and angry dementia at that, too. We can't get on with them, he's threatened to kill me, and kill other neighbours as well, he's a right old prick with a territorial obsession that makes him abuse people the instant they step on his block. But I think he'll kick off soon, so who knows what will happen then. It's only a small (2 bedroom) house, so it's ripe for redevelopment.

They pay their Asian Learner Driver School instructors to fill in forms for them - and they've been known to bribe licence testers.

The vegetation setup is excellent and looks very natural, but the old building looks a bit suss, with bits stuck on that don't belong.

I went and voted today, along with SWMBO - at a big Catholic Church a few kms away. They've got a great setup for voting, I could've gone to church on the way to the Church Hall, and asked for Godly help in my decision-making! But I was worried they might come around with a plate, if I went inside the church. Besides, I'm not a Catholic. Doesn't mean I haven't been to Catholic Churches, and given them donations before. There were a staggering number of people voting, I would've thought it was polling day if I didn't know otherwise. About 8 AEC people taking down details - nearly all older people, and all making sure we understood everything properly. I apologised to the bloke for wearing sunglasses inside, saying, "I'm not being rude, I just had plastic surgery on my right eyelid, and I didn't want to shock you with my dreadful appearance!" He looked a bit relieved. There were two older people outside, one bloke with NO vote cards and one woman with YES vote cards. Neither was pushy, just normal voting enthusiasts presenting their side. I got inside the hall and it was well-organised with plenty of booths and 3 ballot boxes for our specific election seats. Some people seemed to be puzzled as to what seat their suburb was in, but the AEC helpers were right there, assisting. I know my election seat, so no problem. I'll tell you how I voted, and why, after the results are in.

The Ford F-150 is built in America, only the Australian Ford Ranger is built in Thailand. However, 50% of the parts and components in Fords F-150 come from anywhere but the U.S. - Canada, Mexico, South Africa, Brazil, Taiwan, China - and Thailand. The crankshafts, blocks and heads in the Ford Ranger engine are forged and cast in South Africa, and shipped to Europe, where they're assembled into engines. https://www.thedrive.com/news/heres-why-all-american-full-size-trucks-arent-entirely-made-in-the-us https://corporate.ford.com/operations/locations/global-plants/struandale-engine-plant.html

I can recall we used to drive all over Australia with 2WD Holden and Ford utes, and nary a 4WD was to be seen, unless it was a WW2 surplus Jeep. All those roads we drove on, would be marked today as "4WD Only" and dire warnings issued for you to turn back if you are running only 2WD. I can remember when the North-West Coastal Highway, the main route to the North of W.A., turned into 2 single wheeltracks through the countryside after you left the Barradale Roadhouse. Every few miles, there would be a massive hole in the "highway", where a NW-bound semi-trailer had got bogged to the makers name, and they'd rounded up a nearby Station grader to come and pull the bogged truck out - and then just left the hole! 99% of 4WD's today never use their 4WD capability, they carry around 150 extra fuel-hogging kgs of transfer case and front diff for nothing, 99% of the time.