Jerry_Atrick

Do you know what makes me larf.. Many here are pilots.. and yeah.. OK many are RAAus pilots.. But how much do we spend on a vehicle that most spend less than 50 hours a year using, and how inefficient is it (really at the GA level anyway), yet we worry about a battery in an EV.. Fair diddly dinkum.

Dude.. you need a reality check.

Money (or more accurately, monetary valuation) is the medium humanity has accepted as the measure of economic resources that are controlled and the more one has of it, the more economic resource one can control. In normal times, this provides security of being able to meet the needs of life without being dependent on anyone else. The more control of economic resources one has compared to the rest of the population, the more power one has. And of course, it satisfies human's insatiable desires of wealth and all the trappings that comes with it. Most people would want economic independence; others want control of economic resources for other reasons.. nominally security and/or power. And to preserve the tribe.. as well as, and let's face it, attracting, or in many cases, more accurately, acquiring the services of the fairer sex. Just look at Chump, Bernie Ecclestone, and many others.. I think even Dr. Eddlestone managed to "attract" those of the fairer sex/gender.. Ecclestone, Eddlestone, let's call the whole thing off. The other thing, is when you have money (or more accurately, when people think you have money), they suck up to you, and they seek advice from you regardless. Would anyone here go to Chump for business advice? Maybe some would, but to earn a small fortune, you would have to start with a big one taking his advice. Although, for con-artistry, he is the consummate. Yet, when he acquired power through the presidency, a sort of default control of economic resources, look at those who previously despised him fawned over him. That adulation, too, is a great motivator. But generally, these people want the control of economic resources and the resultant power because you can drive the agenda - and also provide for your future generations. I think I have mentioned this before. .In my extended family, there are some fabulously wealthy people.. in the BRW top 200 on the odd occasion.. No sadly, that Midas touch didn't rub off on my family.. All their relationships are driven by whats in it for them.. When the patriarch of the branch of the family died, the surviving limb/branch of that family tree imploded.. all driven by money. I haven't spoken to any of them for, well, 20 years.. But when I last bumped into two of them - I think second cousins - in a park in Melbourne, I asked if they had been in contact with their cousin.. when we were kids,. they were extremely close. These two looked right through me as if I wasn't there.. point taken.

Stress testing the buttons

That was definitely imformative - thanks OT!

If I recall correctly, in her early years, she was a Big M Girl. As a journo, she was one of the better ones. Although I wouldn't have recognised her, she looks very good for.. and a bit younger than 69.

Has been a while since we have heard from Bruce. Does anyone know how he is going?

Sadly, who knew about this ceremony? I doubt there would be too many people in the street you meet that would know, let alone give a rat's posterior. While I would wager they got in touch with as many vets as possible, sometimes the healing starts from wider recognition. Why was this not really picked up by the MSM?

In the UK it is estimated there are more pemanently empty dwellings than homeless people. Of course, if you are an owner of one of the empty dwellings, you pay double the council tax (rates). And, you may be liable for CGT as well, when you sell, although a quirk of the law here, which exempts you from CGT if yoo lived 5 years or more in the house as a priomary residence means sometimes families flip between their houses. And of course, you may not want anyone living in you hose, especially on a social housing basis due to the fact they are stereotyped to have a higher probability of not taking reasonable care of it. In Australia, it is not quite as easy to work out. The best I could come up with is this: https://www.ahuri.edu.au/analysis/brief/are-there-1-million-empty-homes-and-13-million-unused-bedrooms I get that there is a macro-lens on thiks; a lot of the more permanently empty dwellings should be forced onto the rental market/take in social housing tenants. But, when we bought this house, which has a 2br self-contained cottage on site, the state it was in after the council tenants were removed was parlous, and I will be buggered if I put it up for social housing after the effort I put in to put it back to a reasonable standard. And, no offence, but a couple of spare bedrooms is there for a reason and not to have some nutter I don't know move in.

C

Looks like the Greens have got themselves a seat after all, according to the ABC, but the SMH is still reporting in doubt. Have found the SMH/Age is usually a little behind the ABC. The ABC is also calling Kooying to Monique Ryan, but it still has to be too close to call with 9.4% of the vote to count and only aan 885 vote (0.8%) lead.

Hmm.. Just proves Scotland is a little backward in domestic heating fuel and the SNP are largely incompetent. Their own study concluded that coal and other high sulphur emitting fuels should be prohibited back in 2023 https://www.gov.scot/publications/impacts-sale-house-coal-polluting-manufactured-solid-fuels-scotland-final-report-report-commissioned-scottish-government/pages/5/

Blimey.. it is 2 weeks since the election and we still have 9 seats in doubt. Geez, this preferential voting thing takes time 😉 To be honest, if you asked me before the election who was going to win, I would have probably said Labor, but in a minority government. How wrong was I? This appears to be a strong mandate from the community that it endorses Labor.. . Or is it? The Liberal Party has a real issue around its disconnect with Australia - whether they like it or not, the bulk of the Aussie population either can't remember life up to and including the 80s, ot they prefer to forget it. They certainly don't want to be stuck in it. Also, Australians seem to be waking up to the fact that corporate sponsorship and raiding of the public finances doesn't trickle down as suspected, and that things like action on the environment and social justice is important. Sort of, anyway. But, was this election a solid endorsement of Albo and the ALP? On the basis the preferential system allows you to specify who you would like to get into power, and if they don't succeed, who else you would want, let's look at the primary vote numbers first: ALP: 34.69% up by 2.11% LNP Coalition: 32.2% down by 3.49% (that was more or less attributable to the Libs) Greens: 11.8% down 0.45% Independents: 7.43% up by 2.14% One Nation: 6.29% up by 1.33% Trump of Patriots: 1.87% up by 1.48% (I have no idea where this came from) Other parties (no idea who they are): 5.71% up by 3.32% There is still about 17% of the ballots to count, so the numbers can and probably will change, but let's assume they remain proportional. Noticeably, the Greens have no seats in the lower house anymore - lost all four of them despite maintaining roughly the same primary vote. Does this mean that most people fill out ther 2nd.. nth preference based on the instructions from the party the primarily vote for? Can the rusted on voters of any party put second the party they have vehemently opposed over the journey? Well, the numbers would say yes, I guess. Certainly that is the excuse the Greens are using, and it may be correct. What is interesting is the marginal increase in the vote to each of the above. This is percent increase compated to the percent of the vote previously held. On that basis: ALP's marginal gain is 6.48% LNP's marginal loss is 9.78% Greens marginal loss is 3.67% Independents marginal gain is 40.45% One Nation's marginal gain is 26.81% Trump of Patriots' marginal gain is 379.49% Other Parties' (Centre alliance and Katters) marginal gain is 138.91% First it shows the pwoer of money.. Why is Chumpettes of Patriots reported separately to other minor parties when they clearly have less absolute share of the vote as at least one of the other parties, of not both? But itself it doesn't show much, but it would be interesting to see what the maginal changes to these parties have been over successive elections. It would be good to get the numbers of Libs/LNP versus NP, because the marginal drop would have been potentially much higher. Of course, for the parties with a small percentage of the absolute vote, marginal changes will be much wilder on smaller absolute increases. Look at Chumpettes of Patriarchs. I am not sure where their previous numbers came from as I was under the impression they were formed to contest this election. I guess they may have contested a by-election and used that. So, we should probably discount this as an outlier. But th fact is 1.5% of the population voted for them. All parties must be asking what on earth they are doign wrong to allow Chumpettes to gain that number of people - 267,402 at current count - to vote for a crazy party. The independents have increased their share of the vote by 40% in this election despite Zoe Daniels losing her seat and Monique Ryan's in the balance. I am not sure about Goldstein, but the Kooyong (Monique Ryan) electroate was expanded to take in a chunk of Toorak, which has a high percentage of one-eyed Liberal voters, so this was not unexpected. If the Libs fielded a half-decent candidate, they may well have taken the choccies by now. This would seem to be a solid performance, but since independents as a force only came out in the last election, it is too early to tell if this will continue. One Nation put in a solid performance increasing their share of the vote by almost 27%. They have been around for a while, so it is fair to say, they are gaining in popularity at a higher rate than movement of the major parties. So, like 'em or not, if it continues at that rate, they will be a force in politics in years to come, if they are not already. Interestingly, the Other Parties (Centre Alliance and Katters) significantly increased theit sdhare of the vote relative to the last election. I am not sure how long they have been around, but between then, they scored 817k votes and have 2 seats in parliament. In this sitting, it weill not mean much, but that is a heft gain for incument minor parties. So, what does this say? To me, it is not a ringing endorsement of the ALP.. It is more a defacto vote because of the major parties, the others are either losing, or no longer relevant. The greens are blaming the tactical preferences of Labor and Libs for their losses. That may well be the case. The small drop in the primary vote and marginal vote would suggest that their core base wasn't terribly phased by the Greens' position on Gaza nor housing and other issues. But either voters are sheep when it comes to allocating preferences or those that would have second preferenced them would be turned off a bit.. I can't see a rusted on Lib voter putting ALP second just by following the Lib's how to vote card. The Greens would have, in their eyes, be so unpalatable to vote ALP number 2. Though I have been suprised by less, I guess. I have to admit, I would have easily voted Greens last election, but not so much this election.. And it's not their dtand on Gaza.. It is their lack of governance, their blocking progress on housing, even if it didn't meet their demands, at least allow the ball to get rolling, and general behaviour, for me, led to a lack of confidence in their ability to be anything but a protest party blocking stuff, rather than fiunding practical compromises to move forward. To the ALP.. No doubt, the 92 seats thus far was a completely unexpected win, even by the best modelling of the ALP. It is reported this was bigger than the 1983 Hawke win. However, what does it mean. Is it a ringing positive endorsement of the policies and performance of the ALP in government, or is it a flight to safety in the face of an unstable opposition that offered not much policy (and what it did, it often flip-flopped), culture/identity politics, and taking to the electorate increased taxes of the middle classes (the vote you need to win) and a bigger election deficit? The Greens look to be holding the balance of power in the senate. It is going to be an interesting 3 years.

Not wuite history,but using a classic car in a Bathurst race,,, Great vision:

We live in an age of a privatised democracy.

Yes.. and some never progress beyind the furst curve peak...

Labor's seat count has climbed to 91.. Flip.. I think even the most pessimistic ALP members must have a beaming smile. On the indies, for Goldstein, they are calling a loss to Zoe Daniels and a win to Tim Wilson (Lib), but I can't see, on the numbers here, how it is not too close to call at the moment, unless these numbers severly lag the vote count: In Kooyong, AEC officials noticed a counting error, which increases Monique Ryan's lead over Wendy Hamer: If we look at Goldstein, around 7% less of the vote is counted, and the margin is the same as Kooyong, yet, they have called Goldstein, but still hve Kooyong in doubt.. Seems they both are still in doubt... unless the & count is lagging well behind the actual percent count in Goldstein..

The Dunning-Krueger (sp?) effect.. Cut a long story short (very unusual for me), inherited a team where one of the members seems to acutely and chronically suffer from this effect. What an absolute pain to deal with and a huge time-waster. Yet, this team member thinks they are the best on my team. F! Sometimes the US system of at-will employees (i.e can leave or be fired at will) has its advantages.

Assuming it is a real story..

Ever wondered why there is a mental health pandemic?

Ultimately, neither Bin Laden nor Hussein were hiding behind civilians.. How is Afghanistan today? That may be the case after October 7, but before? All evidence points to the opposite Don't forget he has continually stated he will withdraw troops on two conditions.. 1) return of the hostages and 2) disarmament of Hamas. Why doesn't the world exert the same pressure to Hamas to rest Netanyahu?

Whilst I don't agree with the jail bit, I am of the same opinion as @pmccarthy that Bandt, or the Greens official position seems anti-semetic or at least out of context. For reference, here is the Green's policy: https://greens.org.au/campaigns/palestine It places a hell of a lot of long term demands on the Israelis, and rigorous international enforcement. Yet it only requires the Palestinians to return the hostages and there be a trial of the "perpetrators" of the October 7 attack. So, let's unpack that.. First, there is only accountability of the foot soldiers of Hamas, and not the leadership.. nor the call for an internationally recognised terrorist organisation to be dismantled. Or it is an admission that Hamas is Palestine and vice versa.. in other words the authoritative representative of the people. Hmmm... And then there is the demand to return lands since the '67 war. They don't recognise there was a major war perpetrated against Israel in 1978 and then many skirmishes since.. If you perpetrate violence on another country, you run the risk of losing, and losing territory. And, in this case Israel gave back a lot of territory they won in the 67 war, only to have it all happen again, so they took the land and subsequent and after 78 and subsequent skirmishes.. And apparently Arafat was offered 95% of the West Bank back in a peace deal, but refused - according to Jimmy Carter, I think. If you look at Israel's reaction to the attacks, they have maintained from a very early stage.. release the hostages and disarm/dismantle Hamas, and they will walk away. They are going for their hostages - As a country at war, under the Geneva convention, the only duty of care they owe an enemy's citizens (in the enemy's territory) is to not specifically target them.. The Geneva convention acknowledges under a military pursuit, there will be civilian casualties but does not put an onus on either side to minimise them. Then ask yourself, which of the two targeted civilians against an enemy that clearly delineates its citizens, and which of the two know that the other would (has an obligation to) retaliate and recover hostages and choose to hide behind its own citizens? Yet there is no mention of Palestine having to commit to peace, either? So, as a policy, it does seem a little ignorant of many facts, and either pro Palestinian or anti-semetic.. you choose. So, yeah, Jews definitely are not happy with Netanyahu and Israel.. Most because of many things prior to October 7 revolving around corruption, the failures leasing up to it, and the initial response. No doubt many are critical of his strategy and apparent overreach, but few would be critical of him going to get the hostages.

That top frame is literally million dollar views these days

I was going to scoff at this, but on reflection, GON has a point. Of course, the scale is different, and his conscription and subsequent life problems are on a different scale to that of the first nations peoples, but it doesn't alter the facts that: It was a systematic dispossession of an intrinsic part of his being. It was applied to a population It has had devastating ongoing effects For some, if not many, it is alleged conscription was illegally performed (there was an article about a Nash taking the Aussie government to court as he was conscripted despite his birth date never been selected): https://www.smh.com.au/national/his-birthday-wasn-t-picked-from-the-barrel-he-was-conscripted-anyway-20250321-p5lldq.html At least for some time, there was discrimination and vilification of Nashos. I don't recall GON blaming Albo or his immediate PM predecessors of both stripes.. but he was laying blame in the Aussie government. I don't think too many first nations peoples today blame the current government, or Rudd, or even his immediate predecessors.. but it would be a nice gesture if the Aussie government did apologise, without prejudice, for any transgressions and for disrupting or ruining their lives.... GON, OT, my uncle Daryl, and all of them, I salute your sacrifice!

That is a common thread in Melbourne, esp, the east and south east. Or they knock the house down and build units on it. In theory, supply should increase relative to demand, but it doesn't work that way.