Semi-retired farmer still keenly interested in all aspects of dry-land cropping
Minlaton, South Australia
Joined September 2014
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Bruce Cook retweeted
Since I did Big Bud, The Earthquake, and the big Steiger I would be remiss if I didnt do the Versatile 1080 “Big Roy.” The craziest tractor nobody’s ever heard of.
1977 was a horsepower war. Steiger was testing a 650 horse twin. Big Bud was building the 747. Up in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Versatile’s boss Roy Robinson told his engineers to build him a 600 horsepower monster when most tractors topped out around 350.
So they did. And then they flipped the whole thing backwards.
Engine in the back. Cab in the middle. Fuel tank out front. A Cummins KTA 1150 cubic inch making 600 horsepower, and eight-wheel drive on four axles.
With the engine behind you, you couldn’t see a thing back there. So in 1977, Versatile put a TV camera on the back and a screen in the cab. A backup camera, almost 50 years ago.
Field testing showed it packed the ground too hard, and Versatile only built one.
Today Big Roy sits restored in a museum in Manitoba, named after the man who said build it anyway. 🚜
Bruce Cook retweeted
A little history on the Big Bud 747. The biggest farm tractor ever built. Big Bud built plenty of tractors, but there’s only one 747.
Built in 1977 in Havre, Montana for a couple of cotton farmers in California. Price tag: $300,000.
Heres the best part:
Under the hood is a Detroit 16V92. Sixteen cylinders, 92 cubic inches each, basically two 8V92s joined into one engine. A 16 cylinder Screaming Jimmy. It started at 760 horsepower. Today it’s at 1,100.
27 feet long. 25 feet wide. 14 feet tall. A 1,000 gallon fuel tank. Over 135,000 pounds fully ballasted.
It pulls an 80 foot chisel plow and covers about an acre a minute.
After California, it went to Florida, then sat. In 1997 two brothers from Big Sandy, Montana bought it and brought it home, 60 miles from where it was built.
The company that made its 8 foot tires went out of business, and when one tire died, it ended up parked in a museum in Iowa.
Then in 2020 they put new tires on it, hauled it back to Montana, and put it right back to work.
A tractor built in Montana, powered by Detroit, still pulling dirt almost 50 years later. They don’t build them like this anymore. Mainly because nobody else could. 😏🚜
Hey @NBN_Australia , your contractors in Minlaton are leaving our footpaths in a horrible state!
Bruce Cook retweeted
Scraping the bottom of the barrel to find you're up Ship Creek. Johannes is on the money again.
Bruce Cook retweeted
I am confident in saying this, there is not a single leader of any nation that actually respects Trump. A few may fear the power of the US, but that isn't respect. Others, like Netanyahu & Putin, play him like a fiddle, that isn't respect. America's allies are disgusted by his antics, that isn't respect. All, see his stupidity, corruption & willful ignorance, perfectly called out by Mark Carney. There is no respect, don't fool yourselves MAGA, the world is shaking its head, or laughing at you & your worthless buffoon of a leader.
Bruce Cook retweeted
If only we’d built nuclear plants instead of Snowy Hydro 2.
Even in the worst case scenario where Bowen compares it to Hinkley C Nuclear Plant that will be an about a 3x cost increase, a lot better than a 12x blowout for a battery.
Hinkley C will produce 7% of the UK’s electricity from just 2 reactors for over 60 years.
At more realistic CSIRO prices you could have built 5 large nuclear reactors for the up to $50bn price tag of Snowy Hydro 2 (including transmission lines).
It’s worth reminding ourselves that the one reactor Australia did build recently, the OPAL research reactor, was basically on time and on budget.
Outlaw bikies involved in public building projects, the @AustralianLabor way! Learning from the Vics @PMalinauskasMP
Bruce Cook retweeted
What does this precedent mean for Australia's long term security?
It's not us impacted (this time), but this is a wake-up call for Australia outsourcing its own soveriegn communications and technology (including AI) to foreign private companies to save a few bucks.
Starlink is already running much of Australia's export sectors now, as Tesltra and the government sit around watching.
Bruce Cook retweeted
This was best answered as direct ‘No’ then let silence speak - or ‘Yes’ then owning your mistake which is what true leaders do. This illustrates why Australians are so disillusioned with (duplicitous) politics in our nation - it’s fuelling the rise of alternative political forces
Bruce Cook retweeted
🛑 RESIGN NOW ALBO
Australia doesn’t like bullies.
What Albanese’s office did to Helen Haines was unacceptable.
Helen Haines is one of the few politicians in Canberra widely respected across the aisle. A former nurse and midwife who came up through the Voices for Indi movement, she’s known for integrity work (including helping drive the National Anti-Corruption Commission), rural health, and representing her community without the usual party games. She’s the opposite of a political attack dog.
After she publicly criticised the $6 million grant to Marrickville Golf Club in Albanese’s own electorate calling the broader grants scheme “pork-barrelling by design” his office circulated a document to journalists.
Created on 10 September by his deputy director of communications, it catalogued her funding requests for projects in Indi and floated lines of inquiry about possible personal connections, gifts, business interests or undeclared benefits.
It offered no evidence of wrongdoing. Haines’ response when asked about it: “They are pretty desperate.” She stood by her public advocacy for regional projects.
That’s classic bullying: target the independent who calls out the grants process, try to plant doubts about her motives and integrity, then move on. It’s the same old political smear playbook.
Now, after the shocking apparent deliberate attack on her outside her Wangaratta office, the Prime Minister is (rightly) calling for the political temperature to be turned down and praising her decency and integrity. The contrast is stark. Circulating a baseless dirt file weeks earlier while now asking everyone else to be nicer is hypocrisy. Australians notice these things. We don’t like bullies in the schoolyard, the workplace, or politics especially when they preach respect after engaging in the opposite.
Helen Haines is in hospital in a critical condition. Focus should be on her recovery and the police investigation. The dirt-file episode is a separate, earlier matter, but it still matters. Politicians who talk about integrity should practice it. Smearing a respected independent for criticising a grant in your own seat is not that. Australia is better than that.
No one should support Labor at this point.
#auspol
F U @Telstra ! I can’t get a tax invoice at mytelstra, the password won’t work, the passkey won’t work. Why don’t you just email the bloody thing like you used to?
Bruce Cook retweeted
Here is a fact chain thats going to blow your mind, the Snowy Hydro project is looking like its going to cost somewhere between 40 to 100 billion AUD to finish.
The 3 gorges dam, the world largest hydro electricity dam, cost 52 billion AUD and paid for itself within 10 years.
Snowy Hydro will essentially NEVER pay for itself in its working lifetime. Its expected profit is $400 million a year, thats about 0.8% of the cost, well below interest charges - so we will all be paying for this white elephant for many years in interest charges and lost investment opportunities as we don't have the cash. Snowy Hydro would need to clear a profit of at least 2.5 billion a year to just cover interest charges, higher than what the 3 gorges makes in profit - which is impossible...
There really should be a fraud investigation into the decision making around Snowy Hydro.
Bruce Cook retweeted
Anthony Albanese’s own website just called him a liar.
On the 27th April 2025 his website anthonyalbanese.com.au. Posted the following:
“A re elected Albanese Labor Government will secure the future of the Marrickville Golf Club with a $6.05 million investment.”
His words, his site, his electorate, his club.
Now he’s spent a week pretending he barely knows the place, never goes in, didn’t even know he was an honorary member.
You don’t announce $6 million for a club on your own website and then act shocked when people ask questions.
This isn’t forgetfulness.
This is treating Australians like mugs.
Tell the truth for once and then immediately resign.
Bruce Cook retweeted
Just in case you don’t know:
If you want to see a global crisis, let Australia run out of fuel…
Did you know that Australia is the 22nd largest exporter on earth.
15th largest country by measure of GDP.
As far as minerals go, we are the 3rd largest exporter of minerals on earth but per capita, we are by far the largest.
We are the 3rd largest overall energy exporter on the planet, largest of the OECD countries.
We are the Largest exporter of iron ore #1
$87,700,000,000
87.7 billion dollars or 55.9% of the global total.
Largest lithium producer #1
61,000 tons
46.9% of global supply.
Largest exporter of zinc #1
$2,2100,000,000
2.21 billion dollars
Largest exporter for barley #1
$2,370,000,000
2.37 billion dollars
Largest exporter for Bauxite #1
110 million tonnes
Largest exporters of Liquid Natural Gas #1 in volume
#3 in revenue.
$27,400,000,000
27.4 billion dollars
Largest wheat exporter #1
$10,200,000,000
Largest exporter of sheep #1
49% of global supply
$1,500,000,000
Largest exporter of opals #1
90% of global supply.
Largest exporter of manganese #1
$1,390,000,000
2nd Largest beef exporter after Brazil. 12 billion dollars.
$12,200,000,000
2nd Largest gold exporter #2
310 tons annually
34.2 billion dollars
3rd Largest grain exporter #3
14% of global supply.
Large exporter of copper #3
$64,200,000,000 - 7.1%
2nd largest exporter of uranium. #2
4.1 billion tonnes
We have 30% of the known global uranium reserves.
5th Largest exporter of silver #5
Number 8 exporter of aluminium #8
$4.1 billion dollars
4.5% of global supply
26th Largest exporter of oil #26
$7,540,000,000
$7.54 billion dollars
Australia is the 4th Largest coal producer of coal on earth.
We are the Largest coal exporter on earth. 50% of worlds sea born coal comes from Australia.
150 million coming from the mighty Hunter which is the largest single coal export port on earth.
It is completely irresponsible to allow a country that feeds and powers the world to get into a situation where we may need to pull up trucks because we have a fuel shortage…
And you still have to work and get only 50% of your earnings?
You kidding me!
Where’s the money?
