Gnarly Gnu

These are not subsidies at all but legitimate work expense claims which I also use (except for aviation fuel). Fuel excise is for road construction and maintenance, equipment that never uses a public road doesn't have to pay it. These items don't 'cost' the government anything as the government had no cost or claim to that income to start with, they are legitimate expenses to business. If you claim work expenses when you prepare your income tax return you are doing the same.

What are these subsidies and what is this clever accounting? Is the latter illegal and if so have you notified the ATO? Or is it instead perfectly legal tax minimisation that all Australian income earning individuals and businesses do (i.e. claim deductions)?

No, YOU are going to bear some pain in YOUR hip pocket. I don't ascribe to your warmy religion therefore I don't wish to contribute cash to it.

Not to drift further off topic but the SA power network privatisation is a disaster* - thanks to the imbecile Liberals at the time**. The purchaser has a contract with taxpayer guaranteed him a min 10% ROI going forward - far out, who wouldn't sign up for a deal like that? So we now have amongst the worlds most expensive electricity*** due to a combination of this fact and huge subsidies to windfarms / Green RET scams. * And I'm very much pro-privatisation - but clearly it needs to be a competitive privatisation format with a number of private players competing. Would seem obvious to most. Well orgaised privatisation is great, always better than gov run. ** We have the Evil party and the Stupid party (and yes folk that jump between the two) in reality it doesn't matter which you end up with. One receives more votes but we still get the other, no big deal as they are both equal hopeless. *** In SA up to 50c kW/H. For comparison in the USA around 10c, in Canada around 7c.... guess where business isn't growing.

Perhaps I didn't make that point clear; SA with the highest proportion of wind turbines in the country also has the highest electricity prices, in fact on the edge of being the highest in the world. Not the consumer and not the environment.... exactly who is benefiting here? Why aren't they viable without taxpayer subsidies? Anyway, back on topic yes watch the downwind turbulence, probably don't aim at getting that close if you have the option.

If you are interested then do some research and get educated. The rainfall decrease is due to thermal mixing (the turbulence issue - same as the thread topic) of the lower layers and only relates to tall turbines, the result is a small but measurable localised decrease. As always the info is out there but sometimes it is more fun to remain mystified so you can continue to chuckle at others.

What? Oz has vast areas of them - way more of them than most western countries. Sometimes they produce electricity but irregularly and not in any consistent manner and generally require long transmission lengths to areas of power demand. SA has the greatest number, you can see the effect on electricity prices here (great, no?). More info here. Wind turbines do consistently kill countless thousands of birds each year. And they mess with local weather patterns reducing localized rainfall immediately downstream (typically in the next farm). But hey for some unknown reason Greenies love them.

Here you go Bruce - post #2. Everyone without an ASIC (& no desire to buy one) should read this.

Racist against what - pigs? As a member of the porcine adoring public I agree we need to protect our pigs, don't want anything that might even slightly diminish their flavour.

Yep already at that stage: We Can Now Build Autonomous Killing Machines. And That’s a Very, Very Bad Idea and The Air Force wants a futuristic swarm of exploding autonomous warbirds

Yes, I can't figure what is wrong with Jabiru - this whole affair is crying out for an immediate multi-million dollar claim against CASA. If Jabiru were smart they would hold out a can for contributions. You can laugh at the tort-happy Yanks (and they are crazy in that way) but this sort of stunt - which really amounts to an open-ended ban on one company based on a vague opinion - would have resulted in a hefty lawsuit within days, and entirely justified from what I can see. This is the only way to get a recreant government departments to take notice. Of course even better would be to sue the individual responsible persons within CASA.

I'm confident Dazza will be able to answer this dilemma for us.

Haha, you can also wash berries in that stuff.

Can we move on from this stuff? Whilst many of your complaints may well be legitimate I'm not sure why they are on this thread. Not to be rude but general advice is if you hate your job look for another. If you (or your union) don't like the way the company is run buy a controlling interest and have a say, or start your own well run company.

Terrific Cosmick! Beautiful area too. May need a roo-bar to avoid a jumpy landing. You do have a wrist strap on that camera right?

It won't embed here but well worth the two minutes to click and view.

Welcome Sinnef (sinner?). Can you explain what you mean by the regular Jabiru check flights requested by CASA? I'm a bit beyond the solo student stage (although in a sense we all still are students) so not aware of this requirement. The CASA assault on Jabiru seems not too popular in the industry - except perhaps at the Rotax sales office (hmm, not sure how close this is to the CASA office). The correct response would be for the industry to put CASA on notice to lift their game & comply with all aspects of the Forsyth report within 3 months or be folded.

The science is settled. Study: Men who take selfies may be psychopaths

A store that sells new husbands has just opened in New York City, where a woman may go to choose a husband. Among the instructions at the entrance is a description of how the store operates: You may visit this store ONLY ONCE! There are six floors and the attributes of the men increase as the shopper ascends the flights. There is, however, a catch: you may choose any man from a particular floor, or you may choose to go up a floor, but you cannot go back down except to exit the building! So, a woman goes to the Husband Store to find a husband… On each floor the signs on the doors read: Floor 1 – These men have jobs. Floor 2 – These men have jobs and love kids. Floor 3 – These men have jobs, love kids, and are very handsome. “Wow,” she thinks, but feels compelled to keep going. She goes to the fourth floor and sign reads: Floor 4 – These men have jobs, love kids, are very handsome and help with the housework. “Oh, mercy me!” she exclaims, “I can hardly stand it!” Still, she goes to the fifth floor and sign reads: Floor 5 – These men have jobs, love kids, are very handsome, help with the housework and have a strong romantic streak. She is so tempted to stay, but instead she goes to the sixth floor and the sign reads: Floor 6 – You are visitor 3,261,496,012 to this floor. There are no men on this floor. This floor exists solely as proof that women are impossible to please. Thank you for shopping at the Husband Store.

Keep them apart or they'll breed!

That'd be holy water. It's a sacred site (to the tour operators).

Even better in NSW where EPA inspectors that don't respect property rights are, well dismissed. Councils have no regard for the law and will trample on citizens whenever they feel like it. Legally they don't even have the authority to charge rates but that never stopped them. Always record every conversation with these authorities.

Taking selfies is a sign of mental disorder, so should have been getting treatment instead of flying.