but of course I forgot...

Preferences. So my interest in Australian politics wanes.

a funny thing happened on the way from the beach...

...I have become slightly interested in Australian politics. Who would have thought?

As I drove home with Harriette (aside: fuck off spell check, I know how to spell my daughter's name!) from our semi-regular whale watching session at the North Bilgola Lookout I passed an advertising hoarding for the Palmer United Party, the political party of Clive Palmer, mining magnate, Titanic replica builder (yes, he actually wants to build a replica of the Titanic) and wannabe Australian PM. He's a big bloke and thinks Greenpeace are funded by the CIA, which is one of many reasons he is unlikely to get my vote.

Anyway, it did get me thinking about the upcoming election in which I believed, until this morning, that the Labor Party (that's how they spell Labour Party in Australia, without the 'u') would kop an utter hiding in the upcoming election. But as I drove home I started thinking that Labor might have a slim chance. Yes, last week knifed their supposedly vote-losing leader in the back and replaced her with the previous supposedly vote-losing leader - who they'd knifed in the back three years earlier. There is no doubting that the disunity in the Labor party has been laid bare and played out in public over the past few years.

However. Australia has retained its tripe-A credit rating, is regarded as a success story among developed economies for the way it steered a course through the GFC and is doing pretty well, despite the doomsaying of the opposition Liberal party. Yes, we are helped in no small measure because we are made of a large chunk of minerals that China wants to buy, and yes, as China's demand slows we may be in for some lean times - but to date, we've done pretty well. Gillard, the latest knifed-leader never endeared herself to the Australian people and the messy leadership challenges that lead to Rudd taking his second stint at the helm have not been good PR.

Australian press ownership is among, if not the, most concentrated in the western world. What is not owned by Murdoch is mostly owned by Gina Rinehart, another mining magnate. So the past three years of main stream media have been full of stories of division within the Labor party and very light on policy success, of which there has been some. Added to that, the right-leaning media have give the Liberal-National Party an extraordinarily easy ride; plenty of column inches devoted to attacks on Labor and, even when it looks like the Libs will form the next government, hardly any focus on what their polices are. But the Australian people, for all the talk, know what life is actually like in the land downunder.

Abbott, the leader of the Liberals is not a widely popular leader. There are many people who will not vote for him despite the fact they are actually voting for the party he leads. And on the Labor side there are people who would not have voted for her who may now vote Labor with Rudd back in the hot seat.  I'd not be surprised if Rudd moved the election date away from Yom Kippur, which would be a canny move. And he will definitely stick it to Abbott in a way that will be better received than Gillard's jabs (I'll not go into the sexism in Australia bit...) And the smaller parties may play a decisive roll.

Labor now may regain some ground. Right-leaning voters who are uncomfortable with Abbott are unlikely to flip to Labor but they might vote for Palmer. Or Katter's Australian Party (another party named after its leader; as if that isn't worrying enough.) Disciplined right leaning voters will vote Liberal regardless, but the more bogan (if I may be so politically incorrect) might split the blue vote...so there is potential for a split blue vote and a strengthened red vote...

So maybe this election will be more interesting than I thought, and despite not moving far in my opinion that the Labor party is a party of fucktards who could not organise a piss up in a brewery, the election just might not be a forgone conclusion.

we're all going to die

So, US$930million to save energy here while in the US US$5-7bn to prop up the motor industry.

Grants from the $1.4 billion fund could be used for such simple energy saving measures as insulation, more efficient lighting and energy-efficient hot water systems and other equipment.

Top executives from General Motors, Chrysler and Ford were this weekend locked in talks with White House officials over a much-reduced $5bn-$7bn rescue package in an eleventh-hour effort to save the American car industry and a swath of suppliers from collapse.

So, we have our energy efficient light globes and and our efficient hot water systems, so hooray for us! Of course, the bohemeth that is the US car industry will be bailed out by a government more concerned with votes than the ultimate survival of humankind. As, it seems, are all governments. Protect jobs, at the cost of the climate, throw up a few windmills and hope for the best.

We're fucked.

quality politician

So, James Bidgood (lab, Qld) thinks the financial crisis is an act of God and we are in the End of Times. I was going to embed a few quotes from the article, but you should really read it all.

But wait, there's more! Jimbo has taken pictures of a guy threatening to set himself , as a protest, in Canberra. The bloke seemed serious; he doused himself in petrol and had a lighter...But wait there's a bit more! He tried to sell pictures to the press!

Hold on, he was doing it for a good cause!

I later passed those photographs on to a news organisation in return for a donation to a charity connected to disabilities.

Of course you did Jimmy. Fuckwit. Mind you, desperate though he was, human-torch-bloke is hardly likely to get decisions to go his way by torching himself.

Who votes for these people?

separated at birth..?

he does sound kinda presidential

Whereas the other mob really don't look like leadership material to me. If I were an American citizen I think I'd vote for the fag-loving-over-educated-under-experienced-negro-communist-arab-terrorist.

But then again I'm not a gun-toting ignorant redneck moron.

one step from one step from the Presidency

OK, I'll get to the bit where I add my bytes to the blogsphere about what an utter fucking redneck muppet Sarah Palin comes across as, but first...

A criticism often levelled at the US Democratic Party is that they are “elitist”. The Democrats present as a more socially aware party than the Republicans so I assume the “elitist” tag is for their politicians.

So, while they are happy to support their elite athletes, many in the US would rather have a more average team running the country, finger poised over the Big Red Button.

Weird huh?

Anyway, Palin. I am going to have to stop reading about her, because the more I read the more my blood pressure rises and the more inclined I become to level the accusation of utter cretinous stupidity against all US citizens which, I know, is unfair. So, please, Please, PLEASE don't vote the Republicans in.

Check this out...

• a supporter of the teaching of Creationism in schools
• an opponent of abortion – even in cases of rape or incest
• a lifetime member of the National Rifle Association

She really is on a mission from God...

• Troops in Iraq - “a task that is from God”
• Thirty billion dollar pipeline across Alaska - “I think God’s will has to be done in unifying people and companies to get that gas line built,”

Since the Civil War, or the War of Independence (my US history is not great) and unless you are a native American, there has not been a war on US soil. For Americans war is something that is experienced on TV, or for those fighting, it is abroad. At least here in Australia us mimgrants have imported a distatse for war. Americans have no collective memory of what war is actually like. War is Hollywood. Soldiers are heros. The one devestating attack on US soil, 9/11, is now part religion, part Hollywood. It is no longer a real event, it is a legend. Behind 9/11 the greatest contemporary loss of life on US soil is attributable to home-grown nutters gone bad. Many exercising their God given right to bear arms, or their God given right to speak for God.

Americans have no disincentive to vote for a belicose, war-mongering, gun-toting redneck moron. After all, none of their grandads had their legs blown off in their own homes. And as for the home-grown morons with guns...well, what better way to combat them than letting everyone have guns! And besides, the End of Days Rapture (look it up, real out there bonkers stuff...) is going to happen overseas...

itchy

If I have an itch I will try not to scratch it until it really bugs me and I crack. I'll have a scratch and hope it goes away, but if it comes back I know I'll scratch it again. Same deal with teenagers and raging hormones. I don't mean I'll scratch them; allow me to explain.

Abstinence. The idea that the best way to have kids learn about sex is to say just don't do it, or don't do it because God says it's naughty. For the love of...well, God...on what planet is that going to work? If I have an itch I'll scratch it sooner or later. If I'm 16 and I have a boner I'm going to want to do something about it, and I'm sorry, wait a decade is simply not an option.

Abstinence will only work for the ugly, the stupid and the distracted. Don' get me wrong, it does have a place. For the ugly and the stupid it provides a way to boost self esteem. You can say you chose abstinence, rather than it chose you, and you'll feel a lot better about yourself. At least you will when you talk to your abstaining mates. The rest of us will simply think you're ugly or stupid.

I guess it would be somewhat harsh to point out the ugly, stupidity of religion? And it would take me a long, long time, what with all the evidence available, so I'll skip that.

Good luck then to Governor Palin, one step away from one step away from US President.

Governor Palin herself has said she opposes funding sexual-education programmes in Alaska and has supported abstinence programmes in schools.

Of course it didn't work with her own daughter, but hey, she may do better with all of America. And her boss will love her for it, according to AP

In 2005, presidential candidate John McCain, who picked Mrs Palin as his running mate, opposed a Senate Democratic proposal that would have spent tens of millions of dollars to pay for pregnancy prevention programmes other than abstinence-only education, including education on emergency contraception such as the morning-after pill

For the record, the US has the one of the "worst" rates of teen pregnancy in the Western World. According to a report by Population Action International, published at the end of last year, there were 44 births per 1,000 women aged 15-19 in the US for 2000-2005. Ho hum. My quotes come from this article on the BBC website.