GRIPES

[Old Koreelah]

On 08/03/2023 at 8:25 AM, old man emu said:

When will they have an Anglo-Celtic Heterosexual Robust Men's Week? 

That’s every week and has always been.

[old man emu]

"Kurrajong" sound Korean.

[Bruce Tuncks]

I'd live with Bennelong,  but  I don't care if Kurrajong sounds Korean. Sydney is a bit gay I reckon, but that is what the place is called now and will be in our times I guess. 

[octave]

My first house was in Kurrajong Heights,  named after the tree Brachychiton populneus, commonly known as the kurrajong

[onetrack]

Sydney should be re-named Guang-Hou-Nee to represent the majority of the current owners of the run-down, overpriced, place.

[facthunter]

Yes Howard's electorate, wasn't it. Too many Black armbands? Sinney's overcapitalised and politicised. There's the East (Coastal and some of the harbourside) and the neglected rest in the west and southwest.   Some of the best geography in the world and becoming unfit for Human habitation Fast .    Nev

Edited March 9, 2023 by facthunter
spelling

[red750]

You talk about renaming Sydney.

 

Get a load of this map of Melbourne and have a laugh. How many suburbs can you pick?

 

[Bruce Tuncks]

Some of them are quite good! I especially liked broadghettos and slanderingham

[Bruce Tuncks]

But here's my very real gripe...  A very good mate and top bloke, plus his wife, were killed by a 24 y/o truck driver on the way from Edenhope to Bendigo. I want to know what the driver's IQ is.  If he is a moron, I still want to see him punished, but I also want to see all those who gave him a license punished too.

Yes this was very recent and the truck was completely on the wrong side of the road when it hit the poor little Alfa head on.

[onetrack]

My oldest brother was killed by a drunk in a 1952 Ford truck in 1964. It was 10:00PM on a lonely country road, and the brother was just coming home from visiting friends in a nearby town, with his newlywed wife and 6 mth old baby girl in his near new EH Holden ute.

 

The truck driver was so far over on the brothers side of the road, the local policeman measured that the trucks LHF wheel was 18" (500mm) to the right of the centreline of the highway, at the point of impact. 

The brother was killed instantly, his wife was grievously injured, and scarred for life - yet their little baby girl escaped unhurt, because the brother and his wife had tucked her in the gap between the seat back, and the rear window of the ute.

 

After being charged with manslaughter, the trucks driver, a shearer and farmer, engaged the States highest standing QC to defend him. The QC rolled up to the country court in an aeroplane, something very rare in those days. He got the truck driver off, scot free - because the QC argued there were no witnesses to the accident, so there was a lot of doubt.

 

I don't know how you'd expect witnesses to be hanging around a lonely country, miles from town, at 10:00PM on a cold and wet, early Spring night. Evidence was presented by pub witnesses that the truck driver had consumed at least 14 schooners prior to driving out of town - where he was having a tryst with another blokes wife.

 

It was reported the defence by the QC cost the truck driver £5000 ($10,000), a staggering sum in the days when a new Holden car only cost £1000 ($2000.)

I have often wondered what kind of conscience that truck driver had, and I can only presume, very little. I'd like to think he lived a miserable existence for the rest of his life, but I doubt he did.

 

I've often wondered what kind of life and success the brother would have had. He was a successful businessman at 25 with a good carpentry business, carrying out Govt construction projects, and I have no doubt he would have gone on to operate and own a substantial building business.

 

His wife remarried after many years to a fine man who was like a father to my brothers little girl. They had a son together, and my niece has had a successful and varied career as well.

It's just a crying shame she never knew her real Dad, he's just nothing more than a photo, to her.

 

Edited March 12, 2023 by onetrack

[Jerry_Atrick]

Sadly, state prosecutors are usually not as gifted as the higher paid barristers for that reason - money draws "talent". Without knowing the case nor WA law at the time, the forensic evidence should have been enough to remove reasonable doubt. 

[Old Koreelah]

No matter how impressive the defence, the final decision is made by the judge or jury; don’t they have a brain?

[old man emu]

I'd say that back in 1964, the charge was manslaughter. Back then, accident reconstruction skills were not as developed as they are now. Also it was a time when driving after 14 schooners wasn't frowned upon as it is now. A very different world than the one we inhabit now.

 

The jury is made up of one's peers. The implication of the barrister flying in, is that the trial was held in the accused home town. Anyone who has lived in a country town knows that who you are and who yo are related to matters very, very much.That would have introduced bias into the jury. Also they would have come from a hard working, hard drinking society. There but for teh grace of God ....

[Bruce Tuncks]

Thanks guys. The locals at Murtoa were very nice to relatives of the dead couple , I don't think that the truck driver will be whitewashed. Also, unlike Onetrack's brother's killer, this driver had not been drinking.

I still think it's relevant to know if this could have been prevented by a harder truck-driving test, one which required the ability to think. I have read that 90% of road deaths are caused by the stupidest 10% of drivers. This would make an unthinking reaction more likely and I reckon that is what happened here.

The truck was ( apparently ) tail-gating a car which was trying to overtake a farm machine. The story then goes that the car tried to overtake the farm machine and then tried to pull back in, but the truck had advanced .

Then the truck suddenly swung out to the wrong side of the road.

[spacesailor]

Sorry BUT !.

I can't see an ' academic ' ( nerd  ) , making a better driver , of any vehicle. Let-alone a heavy truck.

YES

 They pass those test with ease,  as ' academics ' write them ,Just to keep ' high school ' dropouts in low paid manual work .

Conspiracy maybe , practically ' every-time ' .

Example

A ' female ' bus driver in Wellington NZ , Always crashed at the same corner, of the same street, on the same hill , ( very steep & sharp corner  ) . University educated with top honors. 

BUT

Couldn't get it through her head , " slow down Before " the corner! ! .

Not hit the brakes in the apex when engine revs are needed for ' power steering ' & brake assist. 

Couldn't be sacked , and will kill someone,  someday. 

spacesailor

R

 

[Jerry_Atrick]

Smart and dumb drivers aren't defined by their academic education...

[Jerry_Atrick]

Gripe of the week... Lack of solid crystal balls.. .Yesterday, when Credit Suisse was taking the stoick market down with it, I was going to put a buy trade on. Today, up 20%. I didn't have the solid crystal balls to do it.

[red750]

I've said this before, and I guess I'll keep saying it. I am sick to death of advertisements on the TV.

 

I am sure there are ten or more advertisements in each ad break, often with the same ad repeated in the same ad break. You only get 40 minutes of actual program in a 1 hour timeslot.

[Jerry_Atrick]

7 minutes ago, red750 said:

I've said this before, and I guess I'll keep saying it. I

Stop watching TV... YouTube and others have better programming, although the ads on Youtube are starting to peeve me off a little.

[willedoo]

When they have a movie on, some channels are smart enough to know you will switch off if hammered by ads too early. When the movie starts, it goes quite a while without an ad break to get you sucked into the plot of the movie. Then after that, they lower the boom. Almost equal movie/ad time and as said, multiple ads with some repeating. I can remember times past when there would be only about three ads in one break, but now too many to count.

[spacesailor]

And yet not too many on " netflix " .

spacesailor

[red750]

Another thing that annoys me is that when we watch some of the apps, like Nine, Two, etc., we can fast forward through the program, but not the ads. We have to endure them.

[Jerry_Atrick]

That's a bit poop!

[onetrack]

I rarely watch TV and haven't done so for many years. Too much pure garbage, excessive verbal dribble, constant padding of news items with information that is half guesswork, constant pounding about how great the TV network is that you're watching, and utterly puerile subjects and shows. 

 

Add in the excessive levels of ads (I'm staggered when I walk in on SWMBO - who watches TV relentessly - and I see the level of ads), and the inability to refute what is being said or promoted, with a strictly one-way communication structure - and TV has long ago outlived its usefulness.

 

I prefer to get my new articles and information from a wide variety of sources on the internet - ad-free, thanks to AdBlock, AdBlock Plus, and Ghostery, which smack down excessive levels of ads and tracking and promotions. I can usually converse with the sources via comments, forums and reviews. I can honestly say I could almost live without TV - except I'd miss Shaun the Sheep and the odd nature documentary.

 

The ownership of TV networks today is all centred around the uber-rich peddling their slanted views, and attempts to gain even more wealth - and no longer is any attention paid to providing the public with news or shows of useful and creditable value.

[facthunter]

Another great technology ruined by the distortions promoted by  GREED. It's pure endless PROPAGANDA. Not NEWS.  Look at  the people who run these outfits and what their aims are. Utterly self serving.  Nev