In the spirit of all things New Year and as 2007 was one of the more memorable for both good and bad reasons for me personally, and because I've been very lazy and really need to provide some sort of blog fodder, I figure that some sort of 'wrap' item might be a good idea.

I've been trying to work out how best to do it - it's trickier than you think - you try it if you're going to be so freaking judgmental! Do I break into categories: travel; friends; sport; family? Or maybe into fun stuff and not-so-fun stuff? What about alphabetically (ok, that's just a stupid idea - or is it...). There's always boring old chronological order, but frankly, I don't think I can remember what order things actually occurred.

I know it sounds like I'm just trying to fill space, but I've genuinely been trying to work out how to do this for some time and I've finally decided to go with the categories and hang the expense (or something). As such and the like, I hearby present

Itemisation's

2007 Year in Review

So categories hey? Well, gotta start somewhere...

Friends

The year friend-wise started in fine form with a get together of last year's show peeps early in the New Year. After all the gushing I did at the time it will come as no surprise that I was entirely excited to see everyone on an afternoon that ended late at night in inappropriate behaviour and controversy.


A good kick off to 2007.

In March, two dear friends got hitched (H & T) - only my second 'friend' wedding ever. It was extremely ace, with the autumn colours of the Edinburgh Gardens setting it all off beautifully.

A week earlier I had ventured out into the wilds South of the River, with a bunch of your less intimidating lads, for an evening of structured buck's night debauchery. Despite our very best efforts to get beaten up at several different locales we actually escaped mostly violence free. (I must qualify that last sentence and point out that what violence there was had little, if anything, to do with our posse. I think the thought of actually getting into a fight probably terrified most of them as much as it terrified me).

Ironically the greatest danger of any of us getting involved in an actual fist fight came on the wedding day when we (the organising party) arrived at our pre-booked spot in the park, permit clutched in our little fists to find an enormous family party spread across the booked area, complete with four-wheel drives, trailers, trestle tables and a freaking jumping castle (!). Somewhat predictably the meathead who decided he was in charge of the family group decided to be a knob and argue that they didn't have to go anywhere. After some fairly frantic maneuvering and on-the-run diplomacy we managed to convince them to move their shit to allow a wedding to take place. Nice of them.


Despite that little hiccup, it was a truly fantastic event.

Meanwhile it just so happens that these two have decided to move to Paris next year, joining another dear friend, Helen, who's buggering off to the same God forsaken city in February. Seriously, what's with Paris all of a sudden?? And joining in the international fun are others from Sydney, M & I traveling to far-flung Vietnam. I mean really.

Other friends in 2007 have suddenly become all capitalist, got themselves into the property market and as one observed having signed his property contract not two hours previously: "Kevin Rudd's all very well, but now I've got a mortgage you know, I just don't think I can trust them". Quite.

Family

2007 saw my last living grandparent shuffle off this mortal coil. As I wrote at the time, it was very sad for a number of reasons but has had the effect of bringing us closer to our cousins and that's not a bad thing. One of the greatest shames was that she never got to see John Howard voted out of office - she hated the man with a passion.


We'll miss her.

Sport

The year in sporting items was certainly significant for various reasons. It started early in January with a trip to the Australian Open - always a pleasant distraction from having to be back at work.

But the really big stuff came with the start of the football season. The Mighty's made the finals for the first time in years and I was present at the record thrashing of Carlton on a freezing night at the Dome with the thickest fog I think I've ever seen. It also saw the emergence of Buddy Franklin, who's goal from outside 50 in the dying seconds of the first elimination final was one of the greatest moments in sport I've ever seen.


Still, the year in AFL belonged to the Cats - my adopted 'second' team. I say adopted because Snooze and many of my friends are devoted followers and I've just always had a soft spot for the pussies. Without my beloved Hawks making it all the way through (and let's face it - 2007 was never meant to be our year), the Cats were a very worthy substitute and the Grand Final win was just brilliant. There are few things I enjoy more than seeing Warren Tredrea crushed in humiliating defeat.


I also did a bit of sporting myself, playing 6-a-side soccer during lunchtimes at work (and continuing our tradition of being the worst team in the competition by some considerable margin). With the heavy snowfalls I also managed to get up for some skiing action as well.

Blogs

The rise and rise of Crackbook in 2007 unfortunately took it's toll on the blogging world with several beloved blogs disappearing from the interwebs. Among them the wondrous Jellyfish, Fluffy and Ausculture (Defamer's just not the same!). Glutbusters also went the way of Waverley Park. But some new gems were born or discovered including Possum's Pollyticks - the utterly indispensable guru of psephology - and both The Man Without Qualities and The Rant introducing some well-overdue new talent to the sphere o' blogs.

I'm reliably informed by various sources that Bookface is on the way out anyway (I'm sure this is the case), so clearly my decision to maintain a haughty distance is paying off handsomely and the fact that I keep missing out on party invites is just the price I have to pay for "keeping it real" as the kids would say.

Travel

Well look. If there was a moment in my life I would be happy to repeat until I died (Groundhog Day style) it would have to be this one. Five days into an eight day walk around the North East coast of Spain, the Costa Brava.


With all our expenses paid in advance, each days walk planned and presented to us in a neat little package, our bags taken for us from one village to the next and nothing to do but walk through beautiful countryside at our own pace, eat tapas, drink beer and cava, soak up the sun, become fit and tanned and sleep, it was unadulterated bliss. Here we are, looking over the Mediterranean, three more days to go. Just. Un. Real.

Spain was the culmination of four weeks of ace-ness.


Arriving in London I spent the first couple of days walking about, doing the sites and recovering from the flight then off to Rome to stay with a native. Rome just blew me away. Such an extraordinary place. I saw so much stuff including incredible works of art, including Raphael (among many others):


The Roman Forum


St Peter's Basilica


Then to Paris with Snooze where we sat on our balcony in the Marais and drank wine:


And then at last to Spain for the walking with dear friends Sophie and Virginia.



And among other things, the home of Salvador Dali, Cadaques:


And finally to Barcelona:

Health

Yeah, look - not a great year in the health area. Despite the fact that I got myself to a point where I was running 20kms a week for a while, stuff just kept happening to me.

My teeth were a disaster. I have to admit that was mostly my fault. Not actually seeing a dentist for over fifteen years and then not following though with further treatment when I finally broke the drought about five years ago (and then only because I had a tooth literally crumble into pieces). Somewhat predictably it was on the trip that my teeth decided to get one back for the years of neglect. An emergency trip to a hastily arranged dentists appointment in Rome with a dentist who barely spoke a word of English (and my Italian is extremely poor at best) revealed that I had a troublesome wisdom tooth that would need to be removed. With thoughts of having to leave early (and the miss the walking) I headed back to London despondent. Fortunately (and somewhat miraculously, the tooth managed to settle itself down enough for me to actually enjoy the rest of the time away.

When I got back to Melbourne I went to see my dentist man here. I think I probably returned 6 or 7 times in the period of about 2 months as he sorted out the mess I had been cultivating for so many years. Finally, just as I thought it had all settled down, back came that wisdom tooth and despite dentist man's best efforts, had to be removed. Without going into too much detail, let me just say that having a wisdom tooth removed under local anaesthetic in the chair is one of the weirder sensations I've ever experienced.

Then there was the drama with my troublesome mole which has been dealt with elsewhere.

All in all, I've entered 2008 several body parts lighter than this time last year.

Animals

Really this is just an excuse to show some pictures of dogs taken over the year.

The Pupwup at the start of the year (still smallish):


And at the end of the year (all growsed up):


And Dad's new whippet Henry

Culture ('n' shit)

Though our little theatre company couldn't be arsed didn't manage to get a show up and running in 2007, there was still plenty of fun to be had. I did two film-type items. The first was an appearance in The Audrey's film clip shot all over Melbourne and muchos funtos.


The second was for a mate who scored a sweet contract as part of the TAC's program aimed at getting young film makers involved in road safety awareness.



In March I went with a big bunch of mates to the Folkie where, among other things I got to actually play onstage - something I've always wanted to do.


It was a stunning weekend and the best way I can imagine to see in one's fourth decade.


I also saw (among other things), Exit the King with Geoffrey Rush at the Malthouse and was reminded of just how brilliant theatre can be.

Politics

2007 was the year of exits. Bracksy, Thwaitesy, Beattie-y and of course Fuckface.

Nothing else really needs to be said, other than if you had told me this time last year that we would now be rid of John Howard I would have hit you for being so flippant. Let me just leave you with these images (courtesy of others).




God bless democracy.

Randomness

There are always things that don't quite fit into categories in these sorts of things so here are a series of dot points from this blog and elsewhere in 2007 to sum up the stuff that doesn't fit above (and to get this increasingly tedious post done with).

• The final Harry Potter. Ever.
  
  

• Aishwaya Rai was married (Boo).
  
• David Attenborough (and Parkie!) retired.
  
• Our fish got eaten.
  
• My sister stacked my car.
  
• Book Cult began.
  
  

• I broke the frame on my bike (and now have a new one - woot!).
  
• I turned 30.
  

And with that, I bid farewell to 2007. An eventful year, if not entirely good. Here's hoping 2008 will be just as eventful, but with less of the crap. Thankyou for continuing to read my often sporadic postings and...well, yeah.

Happy 2008.

Hawt

I went and saw this bunch of dudes on Friday night, starring this man among a collection of very hot musician types. I haven't seen them before, but they're ace. Kind of part Bowie, part Pulp.

I took my camera.




I feel it's the first of many funs to be had in this pre-Christmas (POST HOWARD!!!!!) period and it kicked off the silly season beautifully.

Go and see some gigs in December. You'll enjoy it, I promise.

And so say all of us

Happy Birthday

Snooze

And so this is Christmas?

Well wow.

Just wow!

What an extraordinary weekend.

It still feels a little unreal. In fact so unreal that I keep remembering all over again, like a goldfish with a two second memory. And it's wonderful.

I go about my business, doing this and that and then something bubbles to the surface: VSU; Kyoto; Andrew Bolt; Kevin Andrews; Work Choices; Phillip Ruddock; AWB; Alexander Downer; Teh History Wars !1!!; Caroline Overington, Piers Ackerman and Dennis Shanahan; and the little devious prick himself, John Winston. Oh the wonderousness. I remember that they're gone, or silenced, or humiliated and a little beam of sunshine peeps into my life.

Sure it's uncharitable. I'm quite content to admit I'm not being particularly gracious. But quite frankly, fuck that. We've put up with it for eleven and a half LONG years. And with EVERY ONE of the conservatives' four consecutive victories, we of "The Left" have had to stay silent and absorb the gloating, accept the scorn, remain quiet as we are reminded that nobody (in fact) likes us, and that perhaps we should consider eating some worms.

So I'm going to enjoy it for at least a week. I think I'm entitled.

I've thought for some time that we had it in the bag and even on Saturday my deepest suspicions were that we'd get home comfortably, but that didn't stop the terror of those final polls.

And then for it to unfold the way it did - slowly at first with only narrow margins in Bass and Braddon, the smirk on Nick Minchin's face creeping back onto our screens once again in an echo of 2004, then with growing pace as the swing swept through Victoria delivering the seats we weren't supposed to win at all. Then NSW: Robertson, Page, Linsday. And then here comes Eden-Monaro the true-to-form bellwether and Bennelong! Sweet Bennelong.

Anthony Green was getting angsty as QLD lagged in the counting, and as we waited with bated breath, our confidence growing with the list of gains, in came Kingston and Wakefield in SA.

And then the final cavalcade. The Queensland booths began to roll in. First the smaller, more conservative rural polling places - something wonderful was happening. The wave grew. Nick Minchin began to look ashen. Eleven years I have waited to see that smirk wiped off his face! Oh joy!

A dash to a nearby election party, we squeezed into a heaving room packed with True Believers just in time to see Maxine McKew take to the stage. How astonishing.

And then as the minutes ticked on we heard the news. Howard had called Rudd to concede!!!!

I woke yesterday with a hangover that couldn't dint the happiness. And then went Costello. And today went Vaile. Mal Brough is gone already. Howard has lost not just the election but his own seat as well.

Even the fact that I'm currently sitting at home nursing a large hole in my head whence a wisdom tooth was ripped this morning cannot effect my mood. I am, as one might say, ebullient.

Congratulations Australia, or should I say Comrades. You have done the country proud!

And so we turn and watch and wait and hope that a new era is about to begin. But I'm in no rush. Who knows if Rudd will deliver what many of us hope for and quite frankly, at this point, who cares? Howard is gone and with him his deceitful, selfish, mean-spirited Government.

Woot!

UPDATE: And so it begins...

I love the smell of democracy etc.

I have ceased to enjoy it. Yesterday's polls spooked me. Now I just want it over and done with.

My ballot paper now nestles among it's friends in a ballot box at the North Fitzroy Primary School waiting patiently for the moment it cascades onto a table in the closed polling centre to be placed on a pile. 1 for the good guys.

Standing in the line waiting to vote we were surrounded by people of all shapes and sizes and all political bents. Snooze and I shared a laugh at the ludicrously type-cast Liberal staffers - girlfriend and boyfriend we hypothesised, both in their early twenties. She dressed in short shorts, blonde perky ponytail, big gold-adorned sunglasses and fake tan. He in iron-free tan chinos (FFS!), navy polo shirt (collar up) and the obligatory boat shoes.

The bechilded couple in front of us clutched two how-to-vote leaphlets: one for the Liberals, one for the Greens. Only in North Fitzroy.

As we stood there quietly in the sunshine, I was overcome with a sense of solidarity. I couldn't hate those people behind us voting Liberal. I may not agree with them, I think they're horribly wrong, but they're doing what they feel is right - just as we all do. The Family First woman handing out their how-to-vote cards is doing it because she feels as strongly about her view as we do ours.

There is something truly extraordinary about getting up in the morning with every one of your fellow countrymen, all around the continent, wandering down to the local primary school and voting out a Government before heading off for a bite of breakfast.

Regardless of the outcome this evening, the act of voting has, as it often does, restored my faith in the system. If John Howard is returned as Prime Minister I will be genuinely devastated, but I can't escape the fact that if it happens, it will be because more people disagree with me than not. It doesn't get much more representative than democracy.

And with that offering to the karma gods, let me now say this. Come on Australia. Don't lose your nerve. Not now. It's hard to kick out a Government, but you can do it. I have faith.

Vote the bastards out!

2 More Sleeps!!1!!!

This is actually fun.

I am actually enjoying myself.

However, for those of you not wishing to be complacent, take a walk down memory lane courtesy of Antony Green and the ABC Election website. Nothing will make you pull your head in faster than watching "highlights" from the last four election campaigns.

In other news, Jackie Kelly, are you for serious?!

CHRIS UHLMANN: Was your husband involved in the distribution of this pamphlet?

JACKIE KELLY: Well, I've read the alleged pamphlet and when I first read it I had to laugh because I think everyone who reads it has their first instinct is to laugh, pretty much everyone who's read chuckles in terms of the parody it does make of various things that have happened during the campaign.

So my view is that it's a bit of Chaser-style prank that an ALP goon squad, which I understand was is led by some unionists, have chased down and hunted down and tried to intimidate and I understand there was even a fight, so yes, I think it was all a very…

CHRIS UHLMANN: But just to establish it, your husband and two colleagues were handing out this pamphlet?

JACKIE KELLY: Well, my understanding is they were letterboxing…

CHRIS UHLMANN: This pamphlet?

JACKIE KELLY: Well, I don't know. Well, I don't know, allegedly. Allegedly.

CHRIS UHLMANN: And this pamphlet says it comes from an Islamic organisation that doesn't exist? It says the ALP wants the Bali bombers forgiven and supports the construction of a mosque in western Sydney. What's funny about that?

If you want to see this defence from Kelly getting the treatment it deserves, watch this reaction from Laurie Oakes on Channel 9 this morning (about half way through the video at the top). I couldn't agree more.

And how's this for a set of numbers?? Primary vote figures: Coalition 40% ALP 47% with TPP: Coalition 45% to ALP 55%. Blessed be the cheesemakers!!

And just cos I find him hi-larious, let me leave you with some beautiful election-summing-up cartoons from First Dog on The Moon. Click for bigger.

Oh boy... so close...

Alright kids, here we go.

Five sleeps to go and the Psephos are going to town.

Things are looking good. Very very good.

For those of my readers who remain unconvinced and keep muttering about marginals and the like, feast your eyes on this...

Possum's Big Prediction (Anthony Green in disguise?)

So how good is [my] model using previous elections?
In 1998, the model predicted an ALP TPP of 50.82 whereas the actual result was 50.91
In 2001 the model predicted an ALP TPP of 49.15 whereas the actual result was 49.07.
In 2004 the model predicted an ALP TPP of 47.23 whereas the actual result was 47.20.

So what is the forecast for the election?

An ALP two party preferred result of 55.15%

And again.

The message is clear - the game is over.

That is what makes it so dangerous.

The polls are consistent, the fantasy of “Liberal strategists” being able to hide under the petticoat of fictitious marginal seat polling because “they’re closer than the national polls suggest” now looks like the façade it actually always was. The media have picked their winner, Uncle Rupert has moved behind Rudd in The Oz to match what has in reality been happening with his Tabloids and the Smage for weeks. This very morning Centrebet blew out to $4.60 - reflecting that even the punters are starting to get it, punters which haven’t got very much at all over the last 5 months.

There is risk and plenty of it over the next 7 days to E-Day, but it’s not downside risk for the ALP vote, it’s the risk of a collapse in Coalition support.

Simon Jackman - Professor of Political Science at Stanford University

We’re looking at almost a 7% swing, in 2PP terms, which would make it one of the biggest “swing” elections in Australian political history as well (Labor got a 7.1pp swing in 1969, but failed to win office; Labor suffered a 7.4pp swing against it in 1975; Howard won office with 5.1pp swing in 1996).

...

We see evidence of a trend away from Labor from September 1 onwards, reaching its peak in the first week of the campaign, at which point Labor has shedding about 0.05pp of 2PP vote share, or about a percentage point every 3 weeks. It looks like that trend is continuing, but the evidence for it is weaker later in the campaign. And in any event, 1 percentage point every 3 weeks, or 2 percentage points over the course of the campaign isn’t enough to bring the election back for the government.

Barring something amazing in this last week, or a marginal seats miracle, Labor will win, and win comfortably.

And finally, Geoff Lambert - Medical researcher and statistical gun. [pdf]

History shows the polls don’t lie. That was a title of an article I wrote for the Australian Financial Review in the lead-up to the 1996 election, in which I predicted a50-seat majority for John Howard. After this duly occurred, the AFR asked me to explain how I did it and this duly appeared as Maligned opinion polls got it right.

...

The perception that the polls lie arises from a selective reading of immediate pre-election polls at past elections. Although the vagaries of sampling error are routinely acknowledged, they are often forgotten when pundits look at the polls which emerge on the Thursday before the election.

...

In the 24 elections from 1946-2004, projections made from the aggregated polls produced an average overestimate in predictions for the ALP TPP of 0.6% (graph below). In the worst case (1987), the error in the TPP was 3.8%. In half the elections, the error was less than 1%. There are differences among pollsters (the “house effect”), but these tend to cancel one another out, so that the average of all pollsters has nearly always proved to be the best estimator.

...

...“elections are won and lost in the marginals”. In theory this again is true but, in practice the average swing in the marginal seats rarely differs from the nation-wide swing. ... Thus, if campaign effort has been concentrated in the marginal seats over the years, then the efforts of both sides must have cancelled at almost every election. Only 1998 bucks this trend.

...

The bottom line is that the weighted national swing is likely to be about 8.2% and the final national TPP about 55.5%- this would give a most likely number of seats for the ALP of 97. The different methods contributing to the weighted results give projected TPPs of 53.8% to 57.3%, and seat numbers ranging from 94 to 102, which is not symmetric about 97 seats, mainly because the clustering of seats on this part of the pendulum is not homogenous. In this region of the pendulum, every 1% swing can produce a 14-seat majority change.

Monte Carlo simulations based on the weighted data show that about 19 out of 20 elections conducted under these conditions would produce a TPP of between 54.7% and 56.3% (55.5% is in the middle of this range) and a 95% confidence limit for the number of ALP seats of 87-104.

...

It would take a political sensation of biblical proportions for the Coalition to win from here or, as Antony Green has said, the greatest come-from-behind victory in history. The chance of the Coalition pulling the ALP TPP vote back to Tiger Territory in the region of 50.6% in the absence of such a sensation, or in the absence of the statistics going pear-shaped, is ridiculously small.

Come on Psephos! Don't let me down. I've come to love you all over the last few months and if you're wrong it will be utterly devastating. This isn't just the election you're predicting here - it's our relationship!!!!

The furry oracle

There are many things I like about Possums Pollytics, but probably the most impressive is the fact that he not only clearly knows what he's talking about, but that his predicitions seem to be uncannily accurate.

Have a look at this post about today's Newspoll.

Honestly, if you're not regularly reading this blog during the election, then you should take a good hard look at yourself.

Exactly who's in charge?

From this morning's AM. Chris Uhlmann interviewing Andrew Robb, Vocational Education Minister.

CHRIS UHLMANN: This argument on experience, this argument on experience, saying you can't replace experience with inexperience is a self-annihilating argument. If you argue that then you would never change governments, would you?

ANDREW ROBB: But people need to look long and hard at, you know, at what the circumstances, the economic circumstances are that are there.

Labor is promising to scrap our industrial relation laws which will only remove the checks and balances on inflation and risk an interest rate break-out.

Now, when, the thing is, when you look behind Labor's slogans, when you peek behind Labor's, there is nothing there. Nothing but what they've copied from us.

The rest of it, they have not done the policy work, they have not made a case for taking over government. And people do face a choice in an election.

Governments do change, but, but when they change the Opposition should have made a case. They should have established a set of policies, an alternative program and shown that they've got the ability to carry that through…

...

CHRIS UHLMANN: But again, you can't argue that they have copied you, and that things will be radically different under them, can you?

ANDREW ROBB: No, they have, they have just parroted our policy programs…

CHRIS UHLMANN: So if it's the same, then why should people worry?

ANDREW ROBB: But they do not understand how to structure those policies. They have never done the work which has put those policies together, haven't got the experience to deal with and manage the economy, to find that mix of policy responses in difficult international economic times.

We are confronting, we are confronting some serious issues across the United States. We are confronting a booming economy. We've got a drought of major consequence. Now all of these things, all of these things, make if extraordinarily difficult to maintain strong growth.

CHRIS UHLMANN: And all are beyond your control.

ANDREW ROBB: This could all be put in jeopardy, Chris, by a Labor government which is union-dominated, which is inexperienced, which is, with a prime minister that would have to be beholden to a union movement that's put $30-million on the table to buy government in this country.

CHRIS UHLMANN: Andrew Robb, thank you.

I do like Chris Uhlmann.

Now apart from a fairly ordinary performance by a second-rate Government minister, complete with foot-tangling and slogan-pushing, this got me thinking.

Chris Uhlmann was quite rightly calling Robb on the ludicrous Government line that you can't trust inexperience and hence the Government should, in effect, never change. Andrew Robb's weak response is predictable, but utterly nonsensical: "But they do not understand how to structure those policies. They have never done the work which has put those policies together, haven't got the experience to deal with and manage the economy, to find that mix of policy responses in difficult international economic times."

Ignoring the inconsistencies, why is it that on these matters, no one ever points out that the economy is actually run by bureaucrats? Does anyone for a moment believe that Peter Costello is personally responsible for the running of our economy and that he receives no assistance at all from the vast and complex network of public servants whose professional existence keeps this country operating?

Do you think that to be a Treasurer you really need to have any idea about fiscal policy, or do you, like me, suspect that Kyle Sandilands would probably do as good a job as long as he took the advice of those paid to actually know what they're doing?

Under the Howard Government, the Public Service has been turned into a kind of blame absorption device. The cavalcade of I-wasn't-tolds that tumble from the lips of Ministers when things start to go dodgy is a testament to this. Yet while they're perfectly willing to crucify a public servant when things go bad, never is a mention passed their way when things are going well.

Have you ever heard ANYONE say that the good management of a particular Government Department (let alone the economy) is thanks to the people who actually work there? No, it's always the Minister and only the Minister. There's a reason bureaucrats are often called faceless.

And yet what happens if the Labor Party wins the upcoming election?

Peter Costello, Dolly Downer, Kevin Andrews, John Howard (all our favourites!) will empty their desks, tuck their butchers paper under their arms, clutch their whiteboard markers and shuffle out to less dignified offices down the way and Julia Gillard, Wayne Swan, Peter Garrett, Linsday Tanner and Kevin Rudd will move in. The wallpaper will get changed, the unseen bits behind the filing cabinets dusted for the first time in eleven years, new pictures, new plants, maybe a new set of cubicles for the apparatchiks. A wave of change.

And in the meantime, thousands of Australian public servants, the same ones as before, will continue to show up every day, doing their thing, organising their bit of the country, actually ensuring it doesn't all fall apart and why? Because that's what they do. It's not Joe Hockey who runs Industrial Relations in this country, it's his Department - he's just the tip of an enormous iceberg, the puppet who stands up and says what he's told by people who know better.

Whether the policy is heinously racist, or staggeringly compassionate, it's the same people who write it. Sure they get their instructions from someone different and that's where that difference comes from, but it's still the same Department, the same staff that has always been working at the Department of Immigration.

I think you see my point (I've certainly laboured it enough).

Which brings me back to Chris Uhlmann and Andrew Robb.

The Government line seems to go thus:

a./ the Labor Party has copied our policy;
b./ this is bad because they didn't write it and consequently don't understand it;
c./ unless you understand it, you'll fuck everything up.

Even if this WAS the case, it's completely irrelevant because the people who wrote that policy in the first place, the people who actually deal with it's minutiae every single day, the ones who enact it's suggestions, who see it's programs through, will be exactly the same under a Rudd Labor Government. They are the same people! If the policy is the same, why would they suddenly forget how it works?

It's a stupid argument and I think the Government knows it.

Today's interest rate rise has boxed Howard and Co into a very awkward position and I expect we'll see a lot more of this ludicrous logic over the next few days.

I for one intend to just sit back and enjoy it and in the meantime, raise a glass to those wonderful Public Servants who actually do all the work.

Can we just get it over with

From today's Crikey.



Click to embiggen.

FRIV returns? Or just lazy blogging?

Here you go, a Friday present.

EVERYONE loves a cat video!!






Off to see the Sydney-siders for the weekend. Won't THAT be fun.

How I stopped worrying and learned to love the Polls

I am trying very hard at the moment not to be optimistic about the election. As I've mentioned previously, I'm convinced that if I get my hopes up they'll inevitably be crushed like a bug.

But I've been thinking a little about this approach and while the lid is not yet off, I think those of us who have suffered under John Howard for the past 11 years have every right to enjoy ourselves at the moment.

Look at it this way. If one stays pessimistic about the whole thing, convinced a disaster is on the horizon and the Libs win, well - it's not really going to make us feel any better about things. If it happens, it will be a disaster whether we prepared in advance or not.

On the other hand, things have been going so delightfully of late (Exhibit A: Tony Abbott's meltdown yesterday), that I think we should just enjoy the ride.

It's a bit like jumping out of a plane - once you're out you may as well enjoy yourself because either your parachute will open (in which case you're home and hosed), or it won't (in which case you're entirely screwed) and there's absolutely nothing you can do about it. So get into it kids!

Why so perky you may ask?

Well, there's just been a few things of late that have made me feel better about the way the election is heading, mainly to do with the wonderful Possum. Considering for a moment that today is the first of November and that before the month is out, the election will have come and gone, this post is enormously encouraging. A graphic representation of it can be found here on Antony Green's election calculator.

On top of that, a Possum comment from earlier in the week sent me scurrying to Wikipedia. He said that if Labor can score a primary vote of 46% they cannot lose. It was then pointed out that since Kevin Rudd came to lead the party, the ALP primary, despite the various fluctuations in the polls, has not dropped below 46%. Even the latest Newspoll that the hyenas at The Oz leapt upon has the ALP primary at 48% - business as usual (as Possum would say).

To put that into context have a look at some historical figures. These are the final primary votes for the last four elections (remembering that in 1998 Labor actually had over 50% of the vote and still lost):

2004
Coalition: 46.36%
ALP: 37.64%

2001
Coalition: 42.69%
ALP: 37.84%

1998
Coalition: 39.18%
ALP: 40.10%

1996
Coalition: 46.9%
ALP: 38.75%

So I'm going to remain content as long as the primary stays up there. Once it drops below 46% I'll start to get worried again...

"The Heart of the Nation"

Ooh, the Australian is really warming to it's election campaign task today.

In their rotating commentary headlines at the top of the page we have:

"The Rorts of Chairman Rudd" by "Jack the Insider". An Hil-AR-ious piece about Kevin Rudd being an admirer of China (hence a Communist).

Includes such pithy remarks as:

"The Kruddster spoke in Mandarin to Chinese Premier Hu Jintao but it’s never been clearly reported in the media what he actually said. The Kruddster was trying to welcome Premier Hu to Australia. The Kruddster got through that bit. It was only when he tried to wish Premier Hu a long and prosperous life that things went awry. If my Mandarin is anything to go by, the Kruddtser professed a deep admiration for Hu’s lower colon and wished that his children be covered in hair."

Oh stop it you wag! You're killing me with your wit! Kruddster! ROFLMAO!!


"Labor sees the light on next Kyoto phase" by that terribly well balanced Editor-at-Large Paul Kelly.

"Having spent 10 years of worship at the symbolic altar of Kyoto, Labor is suddenly selling a very different message. It is the opposite message: Kyoto has become conditional. Its sanctification is coming to an end."

"Activist Judiciary a looming menace" by the delightful Janet Albrechtson about how the female (!!) lawyers in the Labor Party threaten our future!!

"FRANKLY, there may be more to fear from Labor’s lady lawyers than from the union blokes who run the Labor Party. Astute Labor lawyers in a future Rudd government, women such as Julia Gillard, Nicola Roxon and Penny Wong, will surely have their eyes on the real prize: leaving a legacy that will outlast a term or two in government. That legacy may be an activist judiciary. A Rudd government may come and go, but the judges it appoints are there to stay."

FFS!

"Kevin feels the heat over Kyoto" by Dennis "Psepho" Shanahan. Seriously - another one? Do these guys think to compare notes at the start of the day?

"Labor’s attachment to the symbolism, and not the substance, of the Kyoto Protocol has been exposed, as has the party’s appreciation of where the international debate, and politics of, climate change is going."

What a disgraceful rag the Australian has become. If they barracked any harder or more obviously - well, I don't actually think they could.

Good on you guys. You keep pushing that barrow!

Last Friday night at about 8:30pm as Snooze and I sat watching the second season of The Wire and the thunder rumbled outside, my last remaining grandparent slipped quietly away in St Vincent's Hospital. She was 84.

Over the past five weeks she has been fighting a battle, harder than any of us expected, against a lifetime of three-packs-a-day smoking, plural plaque and mesothelioma in her lungs contracted by washing the asbestos out her husband's clothes every day after work. He died of mesothelioma in 1980 when I was three and she just 61. 13 years ago she lost her daughter, my mother. My Uncle is the last one of that family left and he's not yet 60.

Mercifully, she was was healthy up to the moment she was not. It was the flu that got her - attacked her lungs - the one part that simply couldn't fight back.

She was never a 'nice old lady'. She had an acid tongue and a particular flair for passive aggression, often beautifully pointed. But the grandkids loved her unconditionally and she loved us back, though sometimes it took a second visit to remember.

I saw her almost every day of the five weeks she was in hospital. It was a fascinating and humbling thing. There were peaks and troughs from week to week, but each time the troughs were longer and the peaks lower. Without her grandmotherly veneer, I was able to see her as a wonderful, strong but exhausted woman, terrified of what was coming, yet resigned to the inevitable.

We got SMS updates every morning from my Uncle letting us know how she'd slept. One morning she was being shown some photos and came across one of her husband. The message came through: "we looked at some some photos. She said "hello my beautiful man" to my dad". On another occasion she told us she already knew about Hawthorn winning the Semi-final by five points - she'd found out "yesterday".

The next time I saw her, I had been to a concert the night before. It was a choral thing in a church: "Songs of the Sea". I spent many years of my younger life around this music and the performance brought back the most extraordinarily powerful memories. Thinking my Grandmother might like to hear about it, I told her that my sisters and I had been. She looked at me and said: "Do you think, when I'm gone, I could be taken to things like that?" I was (as often happened) taken aback. "I think that's a great idea" I said. And then, to my dismay, her little face crumpled and she burst into tears. It was too hard, it hurt too much, she had nothing left.

As I left the hospital, the music and words of an anthem by Edgar Bainton resounded in my head. I had heard it for the first time in 15 years at the concert the night before and I had never felt it so intensely:

And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes;
and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying,
neither shall there be any more pain:
for the former things are passed away.

A Community Service Announcement

I've never been a big sun person. I mean, I love the beach and all, but I've never been one to bake myself brown with hours comatose on a towel, or with the use of *shudder* tanning oil.

Despite this, I've always been a bit anxious about skin cancer. I think this comes partly from a fairly (I think) healthy hypochondria. I'm sure it also has something to do with cancer not being a friend of my family.

A little while ago I noticed what I thought was a mole behaving badly. Well, not badly so much as oddly. It looked a bit unusual and seemed to hang around for quite a while (over a month).

Preferring to be on the safer side of sorry, I took myself along to my GP and asked her to have a look at the spot. She took one look and said "no, that ones fine". Phew, thought I. "But while I'm here I'll just have a look around".

So she poked and prodded and look at a few bits and pieces until she got to a spot right in the middle of my back.

"This one though...this one might be worth getting looked at".

Needless to say, this was not quite the reponse I was looking for. She explained that I had what's called a dysplastic mole on my back. Quite small, but a bit funny looking. A plastic surgeon was called and I was booked in to go and see the man (as opposed to The Man).

A couple of weeks later I went to see him, heart in mouth, expecting to be told that I had three weeks to live. He asked me stuff (as doctors do) and then had a look himself. He asked me some more stuff and then told me that there were two options. It looked a bit funny to him, but he didn't think it was melanoma (actual skin cancer). He said that we could do it the easy way (cutting it out asap and being rid of the thing), or he could measure it and I could return in 6 months to see if it had changed.

The second one sounded a little dicey to me, so I went for option A. He concurred.

I was back there in another couple of weeks for the 'procedure'. I wandered in and waited for a bit until I was called. His operating room was quite small - just a bed thing, a light and a few bits and pieces. Up I got, shirt off and he dosed me up with some local anaesthetic: "this is the worst bit". Then he did that thing that doctors do when anaesthetic's involved. "Can you feel this?", sharp stabbing pain, "ow!", "good" (bastard).

Despite the fact that he'd just stuck me with something that hurt, he then proceded to 'do stuff'. I couldn't tell what it was, but it sounded to me like there was snipping involved - I figured he was preparing scapels and needles and other sharp, unpleasant items. A minute (at the most) later, he said "right, all done". All done? WTF?

I don't know if he was just messing with me or what, but the anaesthetic had worked a treat. In barely two minutes from start to finish he had hacked a bit of my back out and stitched up the two centimentre incision with five stitches - and I didn't even think he'd started!

So for the last two weeks I've been getting about with stitches in the middle of my back. I've never had stitches before - it was surprisingly unpainful.

The spare bit of me was sent off to a Pathologist and I was booked in to have the stitches removed and to get back my results. That was last Friday.

Getting the stitches removed was considerably more painful than the initial procedure, but it was good to be rid of them.

And my results? Again, not quite what I'd hoped.

The doctor said that there was evidence of dysplasia. This essentially means that the cells were very (unusually) active. While it was not melanoma, dysplasia can often turn into cancerous cells. I asked him more about it. He told me that the difference between dysplasia and melanoma is what you see under a microscope and that's it's often very difficult to tell dysplasia from very early melanoma.

Ultimately, the verdict is that while no further treatment is required, I need to be particularly aware of the sun from now on and that if I see anything that looks remotely dodgey, I should have it looked at immediately and removed if there is any doubt.

Which is all a very long way around to saying that you should check out your skin. All of you. You need to look for unusual moles or freckles - particularly ones with dark centres - it's the dark centres that are the problem ones. Here are some examples of actual melanoma (these are not pretty, but you should look at them - you all need to know!), and these are "dysplastic nevi" (moles that are predisposed to melanoma), the ones that you should watch like a hawk or get checked out. You also need to have someone check your back - that's where most of them occur and where mine was so I didn't even know it was there. You should be doing this at least once every couple of months - particularly if you're a sun person (I'm looking at you Mingrid).

Seriously peoples, a melanoma the size of just 10mm can be fatal if not picked up early enough. The good news is that if it's found early and dealt with the chances of successful treatment are very good.

Do it today. Really.

Pell solves climate change, is brilliant

It's good to know that the Climate Change debate has been resolved thanks to the staggering scientific brilliance of Cardinal George Pell.

I think I read somewhere the temperature has gone up 0.5 of a degree on Mars. Well, the industrial-military complex up on Mars can't be blamed for that.

ZING!!

He then backed up that startingly insightful comment with this gem, demonstrating that not only is he in touch with the Big Fella Upstairs, but that he has "studied this a little bit" (!!!!):

I have studied this a little bit and there's a whole history of differing estimates. Thirty or 40 years ago, actually, some of the same scientists were warning us about the dangers of an ice age, so I take all these things with a little bit of a grain of salt. They're matters for science and, as a layman, I study the scientific evidence rather than the press releases.

Take THAT you filthy conspiracy theorists! Cower before him you so-called Climatologists! George Pell, as a layman (no less!), studies the scientific evidence rather than the press releases (?) !!! That's the last time you scare-mongering 'experts' will suggest we humans have something to do with global warming because you read it in a press release!!


Well done George Pell. Well done indeed. Muppet

Mitten

Helloes

So, this blog business is going pretty well right now hey?

Things are busy. Very busy.

I've had an odd sense of apprehension hanging over me for the past weeks. There are a number of things that may be responsible for it: the approach of the football finals and my team's dismal showing yesterday; the fact that I have to have a chunk of my skin cut out because it doesn't agree with my doctor*; the inexorable march towards the event that will shape ours as a nation of either fuckwits or comrades; my Grandmother being taken to emergency during the week, dangerously unwell with the flu attacking her already mesothelioma-filled lungs; an increasingly dark cloud hovering over my place of work; the brilliant yet oddly unsettling moods of the early samples from my sister's new album; my highly developed penchant for over-dramatisation; an unexplainably stubborn refusal to sign up to Facebook. Who knows, it could be anything.

A couple of things I am enjoying right now are the convincingly optimistic writings of this character, particularly his confident predictions that Howard won't just lose the election, but will be crushed like a bug in the process. The Wire is yet another astonishingly good TV series from the folks at HBO, and Flight of the Conchords continues to be hi-larious. I had an extremely pleasant weekend away recently with these people, and had a lovely dinner with this particular set of charming lads and lasses.

So here's hoping this sense of impending doom is nothing but late-winter weirdness and that the next couple of weeks brings nothing but ace-ness. Here's hoping...


LOL x heaps!



*don't worry Jelly, it's not as bad as it sounds

Sometimes it's not all bad

Good news day.







I should clarify that the news that Mary Kostakidis has stormed out on SBS is not good because she's left, but good because I entirely agree with her and I think she's hot unreal.

Some drugly thoughts

I haven't blogged about the Tour de France as much as I threatened to (highly amusing LOLcats aside). Not because I haven't been enthralled (that's right - enthralled), just because I haven't had time.

In my previous post I mentioned that despite the rumours of drugs, the Tour de France "remains one of the great bastions of sportsmanship". With the drug-related fall of three of the main contenders in short succession, including the yellow jersey holder, many are saying that the race is not worthy of attention - there have even been suggestions it be pulled off air. But I stand by my previous comment.

There has been an enormous (and justified) uproar over the revelations of drug use among the sports biggest names, but I don't think that gives a sports writer like Greg Baum, whose principal interest is AFL (FFS!), the right to dismiss the entire event. Dare I suggest it, but anyone who says that completing a Tour is any less of an achievement because some people use drugs, is an ignorant twit.

I don't intend to get into a who's tougher argument, but let's for a moment consider a comparison with your standard AFL player. It's interesting to note that during tomorrow night's game between Collingwood and Brisbane, the players will be fitted with radio transmitters that will tell exactly how far they've run, how high their heartrate and how many G's they encounter on impact during a game. The elite AFL players - your Buckleys, your Crawfords, your Judds - are known to cover extraordinary distances in a game, often nearing marathon distances and rarely dropping below a jog for the two hours they are on the field. They then have a week to recover, mend aching muscles and refocus for the following round.

Riders in the Tour de France this year will cover an average of over 175kms a day for three weeks. This is often considered the equivalent of running a marathon every day for 21 days straight. Many of them will be involved in serious accidents during this time - Tyler Hamilton broke his collarbone in the first stage of the race in 2003 and completed the entire Tour finishing fourth overall, Michael Rogers crashed and was forced out of the Tour this year with seven broken ribs. Many of the stages are so difficult that even the best riders in the world can't complete them within the allowable limits - Australia's great sprinting hope Robbie McEwen was disqualified after finishing outside the allowable time on the 8th stage this year.

It is not a controversial statement to suggest that the Tour is one of (if not the) toughest sporting events in the world.

There is no suggestion that all competitors are using drugs. Not only that, but the people who have been caught have been immediately dismissed from the Tour, heavily fined and banned from the sport. When was the last time an AFL footballer was banned from playing AFL for the use of performance enhancing drugs (and I don't for a moment believe that it doesn't go on)? Ever?

There are a large number of competitors in the Tour who don't use drugs and are disgusted by those who do. Yesterday's stage was held up for 10 minutes at the start, as riders protesting against their own colleagues sat at the start line motionless after the flag had been waved.

Australia's own Cadel Evans, perhaps the greatest road cycling champion we've had for decades now sits in second place (!) overall with the prospect of potentially winning the Tour outright. There is no suggestion he has done anything in the slightest bit wrong, yet Greg Baum and others feel the need to dismiss the entire race because a number of other riders have cheated.

How does this irreprably damage the Tour? How can people argue that it is anything less than an extraordinary achievement by the men who do it clean?

I genuinely believe that in Australia, the Tour de France is entirely misunderstood and grossly underestimated and the reason people like Baum feel content to shoot it down is because they don't get it. If anything, I think the recent rash of drug disqualifications strengthens the Tour and makes the clean riders all the more impressive.

/rant.

Woah!

No more Bracksy?

Didn't see that coming...

UPDATE: WTFBBQ!!??? Thwaites as well?? Are they from Syria?

Could this be Brumby's Steven Bradbury moment?

Cadel Evans recounts the mountain stage he just completed

Courtesy of Snooze.

Play among your selves

Apologies for the lack of entertainment of late (though I suspect I only have two readers left) I have been seriously under the hammer at work.

Just dropped by to say that this is a fucking disgrace. Sorry for the swears (I'm reliably informed I use too many naughty words on this here blog), but if anything deserves it, it's Kevin "I-know-better-than-the-magistrate" Andrews. Not to be outdone though, the freaking Labor Party has decided to support it. Seriously...

There's so much I don't have time to write about just now.

Le Tour - the drama, the agony - poor Michael Rogers, poor Stuart O'Grady, poor Robbie McEwen. Go Cadel!

The polls - Woot!

The Hawks (and grudgingly the Pussies) - Wow.

Freitag

Courtesy of the Jelly.

All my frendz r belong to bookface

WTF!?

I turn my back for one minute and the internets have been kidnapped by Myspaz for grown-ups. Honestly, the number of people who are suddenly facebooked up is growing with alarming speed.

Various people have tried to explain it to me - sounds like a cross between Myspace, Twitter and instant messaging with pictures - but I can't say I'm particularly drawn. But then maybe that's because I'm not someone who necessarily WANTS to find a long lost classmate from my high school days and can think of few things less appealing than having to decide if I really want to be someone's e-friend if invited.

To further my exasperation, Facebook is all secretly protected behind a members only screen. Maybe this is why people like it so much, it keeps the publics prying eyes away. But at the same time it means that anyone who's not completely sold on it can't just go and have a look. It's annoying, and simply adds to the whole feeling of exclusion.

Still, there seems to be plenty of hip folks leaping onto the bandwagon and raving about its wonderfulness so maybe it's not all a disaster (though I'm yet to be convinced).

So, Facebook: the dawn of a new age, or an irritating fad?

Discuss.

Recuts

A while ago someone showed me some unreal pieces of work by some Youtube dudes. They're called "re-cut" trailers and are pretty much film editors showing off, but the good ones can completely reverse the atmosphere of the film they depict.

Because it's a Friday afternoon and no one can be bothered you know, working and stuff, here are some of the better ones I've seen.

When Harry Met Sally




The Shining




Top Gun (brilliant!)





It's all about the music, but jeez they're clever...

I'm going skiing tomorrow. Woot!

Flight of the Ace-ness

OMGFWTFBBQROFLMAOETC!1!!!)!!!11m1ehi!!!111

The Most Amusing Men On Earth, Flight of the Conchords, the larrikins responsible for this piece of genius (seriously - I strongly recommend watching):



Have been given their own show on HBO!!

I may explode.

Watch their zany antics:



Thanks be to Zopsy for the heads-up.

Happy Birthday Berhinia!

Couldn't happen to a nicer person.

Brrrr

I would just like to point out that it is 11:30 in the morning and the temperature is currently 6.3 degrees.

Six. Degrees. Of centigrade...ness.

Brrr.

A month ago, I was here.


Now, I'm not.

:-(



Still. I loves me some cold weather. More I say!

A Question

Is it just me, or do internet service providers have each and every one of us firmly over a barrel?

As the world of the interwebs has grown increasingly complex, websites larger and larger, content displayed with snazzy graphics, the need to have a faster connection has continued to increase.

Originally we all had dial-up. The we moved to quicker dial-up. Then arrived the apparent broad-band revolution and our download speeds were going to go through the roof. Except that they didn't really. Sure the difference was noticeable at first, but then as the web became more complex, it started looking slow again.

Those with the cash just upgrade again - double the download speeds and triple the limits - those lucky enough to an interchange (whatever that is) nearby even have the luxury of being able to choose super-fast ADSL2. This is a pattern that has always irritated me.

Now on top of this, is the somewhat extraordinary fact that ISPs can sell you a new super-go-fast internet package, and yet have no genuine obligation to provide the service they have just sold you.


Precisely.

Take our current home intermaweb situation. Initially we were on your basic broadband 1MB 256k a month thing. Then having found this excruciatingly slow, we upgraded to 2MB 512k. At first it seemed uber-speedy and exciting, but it has slowly become less useful. Of late, it has seemed ridiculous - pretty much dial-up speed.

We are about a week into our monthly billing cycle and we haven't even got close to our limit so we can't have been 'shaped'. I (slowly) uploaded our ISPs website to look for FAQs about speed and found a very useful speed tester thing - much more accurate than the online testing websites it said - download the little program and away it goes.

The advice given on the website, is that for a customer on a 512kb plan, we should expect download speeds of around 50kB/s.

I've been testing.

We haven't yet got above 30kB/s and most usually the download speed hovers around the low 20s. I've tested during peak (6ish), later at night (11ish) and in the morning (8ish) and while the results vary a little, never once have they come CLOSE to the recommended speeds.

Now I understand the business about the network being busy and all, but how can I be paying for an internet connection that is consistently LESS THAN HALF the amount I signed up for?

How is it that ISPs can pretend to offer you something they simply have no hope (or worse, no intention) of honouring?

If I bought a litre of milk, took it home and discovered it was half full/empty I'd be pretty pissed off and I can imagine the shop people would be fairly sheepish if confronted.

In what universe is it acceptable to sign someone up to a contract to supply a good/service and then supply them with half of the promised product IF THAT!?

And it's not just this lot. This has been my experience with pretty much every ISP I've ever dealt with.

Can anyone make any recommendations for ISPs that at least actually ATTEMPT to offer you the speeds you have signed up for? Cos I'm buggered if I'm going to upgrade with this lot to something that is apparently double the speed just to get to where I should be now.

/rant.