Joining the bandwagon

Alright, after months of ignoring the upcoming US elections, I have decided to add my drivel to the collective political blogging pool, so I guess it’s time to pick a side.

For the past few months I have been concerned that the departure of George W. will hurt my website’s popularity, as the party faithful decide to ditch my beloved quote generator. However, John Sidney III has resolved this issue by selecting a VP candidate who is arguably worse at public speaking than the master himself.

If McCain/Palin get in, I can say hello to four more years of massive traffic! Of course, this generator is still in the early stages, so feel free to send me an email with anything that comes out of her mouth that you would like included. Add the generator to your website with this code:

<script type=”text/javascript” language=”javascript” src=”http://marsupialmusic.net/stu/scripts/palin-script.php”></script>

Or, add it to your Google home page:

Thanks to Daniel Kurtzman for the initial stock of quotes, and thanks as ever to Pascal Hakim for fortune. My Sarah Palin fortune module is freely available here if you are interested.

Finally, I would like to plug the greatest piece of political satire in living memory.

US election Centrebet analysis

Avid followers of this self-indulgent isochronal may recall that my Centrebet analysis accurately predicted the result of last year’s federal election - give or take a seat in NSW and Victoria, and 2 in Queensland (bloody banana benders) and WA.

Let us therefore apply the same analysis to the upcoming US presidential elections.

So there we have it; the Dems to take 30 states (including Washington D.C.), and the GOP to take the remaining 21. If we translate that into actual electoral college votes (apportioning Maine and Nebraska 2-2 and 2-3 respectively), then Obama storms home with a whopping 375 votes to 163!

The closest race will be in Indiana, with the Democrats at $1.70. Centrebet has Obama at $1.07 to be the next president, however by my calculations he needs to win all the states that are at $1.11 or better to get the required 270 votes.

Of course, Centrebet is an Australian company, and so the options don’t stop at who is going to win the election. Here is my personal favourite option, which I will be putting five bucks on.

George W. Bush; a tribute

Just 85 days remain in the second and final term of the 43rd president of the US of A. Love him or hate him, you have to admit it has been an interesting ride. Let us review.

When it comes to polls, Mr Bush has broken all the records. First of all, he knocked his pa off the highest approval rating, with a whopping 92% shortly after the world trade centre fireworks. He then went off to knock Truman off the lowest approval rating ladder, with a measley 19% during the Iraqi insurgency.

Bush also went on to break the record for higest disapproval rating, clocking in at 76% when the economy collapsed around him and Americans finally realised that they all would have been much better off if he had stuck to the golf course for the past 8 years.

As you know, I am a big fan of graphs, so let’s see one.

The 9/11 attacks delivered Bush the biggest poll boost in the history of the universe, and in two short years, he had squandered it all. Was it his total lack of charisma, his mind-numbing lack of public speaking ability, his crass nationalism or his haircut that made the rest of the world hate him? None of the above.

Attention to detail is the problem here. If you’re going to be the most powerful man in the world, you should know the difference between Australia and Austria; between APEC and OPEC. Can you imagine this guy in bed with his wife?

That was fantastic, Lauren. Lisa. Laura. Whatever.

(Yes, I do take pleasure in give people mental images of a post-coital Bush).

To conclude, let us all have a long hard think about what “democratic capitalism” has done to America. Is this really the socio-political system that we want to press forward with? Maybe once all of our parliaments are underwater, we will find the will to change.

Opposition frontbench

That’s right readers, it’s time for yet another half-finished post on politics. This week’s topic is “what do I think of the new opposition frontbench”.

The Hon Malcolm Turnbull MP

The member for Wentworth delivered a boost to the Coalition’s poll performance this morning, and a boost to the general entertainment value of Australian politics with his attacks on Rudd’s penchant for jetsetting. I like it.

The Hon Julie Bishop MP

Ms Bishop becomes the first women in Australia to have her fingers on the purse strings. She was also the first female deputy leader of the Libs, and I wouldn’t be surprised if she becomes the first female PM one day. In government, she championed performance-based pay for teachers (a reasonable idea, in my opinion) and was widely critical of the communist syllabuses espoused by the states. A worthy match for Swan.

Senator the Hon Helen Coonan

Hubcap Helen. She deadset looks like a corpse in that mugshot. She played a major role in destroying media diversity in the Howard Government, and now she’s pulling on the fishnets and stepping into the foreign affairs portfolio. God help us all.

The Hon Christopher Pyne MP

The member for Sturt has been around for 15 years, and managed to creep onto the front bench during the death throes of the Howard Government. Elected at the tender age of 26, surely he’s had enough of politics by now! He’s got the tricky job of pointing out that Rudd’s “education revolution” has been swept under the carpet since the election. Oh wait, maybe that policy is in a committee somewhere. Get digging, Mr Pyne!

The Hon Tony Abbott MP

Tony has retained families, community services, and Indigenous affairs. Once an insufferable c***, always an insufferable c***.

The Hon Andrew Robb AO, MP

Andrew Robb has captured an interesting portfolio that encompasses infrastructure, COAG and carbon trading. This should be one to watch, as by the time the ALP’s trading scheme gets off the ground, we’ll probably have booted them out of office, so anything Robb develops has a strong chance of being implemented. Let’s hope he has the balls to push for something greater than a 5% reduction in emissions.

The Hon Greg Hunt MP

The man from Frankston continues to face off against Peter Garrett, but he’s been given some more responsibility in the form of water, plus he’s got a new secretary in the form of Nationals Whip Fiona Nash. I don’t think I’ve heard a peek out of this guy since the last election, but I could say the same for Garrett, so I guess they’re a good match up.

Right, I’m done for now. I’m not going to promise more to come this time. If you want to know more, just set your dial to ABC Newsradio, and enjoy the circus.

Turnbull coup

In terms of excitement and general outrage, Australian politics has been pretty pathetic of late. The only real action we’ve had since the last election was the Cardboard Kev saga, and that was sadly cut short when the real Kev realised that “backbencher Fridays” were possibly the stupidest idea in the history of Australian politics.

Brendan Nelson did very little to entertain the general public during his stewardship of the Liberal party. With Turnbull in charge, I fell that we might see a change coming. The man is instantly recognisable as a toff: a Rhodes Scholar; a lawyer; a merchant banker; a republican. Despite this, he is somehow likeable, perhaps because he tends to tell it like it is. He appears to be fairly progressive on social issues, and also to care about the environment, but on the other hand has introduced crazy policies such as banning the incandescent light bulb, and also approved the Gunns pulp mill.

Interestingly, Rudd has taken Turnbull’s promotion as an opportunity to talk republic. Thankfully, instead of jumping into bed with Kev on this issue, Turnbull has used it as an opportunity to attack the PM, accusing him (rightly) of diverting attention away from actual issues such as the economy. In reality, the republic should be about priority number 497 at the moment - Rudd should be getting off his arse and developing roadmaps to a) save the Murray-Darling system and b) reduce our emissions by at least 20% by 2020.

Here’s hoping that Turnbull can bring some accountability to our all talk, no action government. Failing that, at least he’ll keep us entertained with his “rags to riches” life story.

Manly Council

There are 152 councils in the state. 104 of them are having a single paper at tomorrow’s ballot: the election of councillors.

43 councils are a bit more painful, and will either directly elect their mayor, or run a referendum or poll.

4 councils have gone a bit overboard, choosing to directly elect their mayor and hold a referendum or poll. Imagine all the extra work for the poor polling staff!

1 council - Manly Council - just has to be difficult, holding a referendum on whether to reduce the number of councillors, a poll on whether to introduce a 4.4% climate change levy, and directly electing their mayor. 4 bloody ballot papers!

Guess which council I have been roped in to working for tomorrow. For further information on what’s wrong with democracy, Manly Council, and politicians in general, please feel free to pay me a visit at All Saints Hall, Balgowlah between 8am and 6pm.

Rees cabinet

For some strange reason that I can’t put my finger on, I am optimistic about the new government. I think it’s still just the good vibes left by the departure of Iemma, Sartor, Meagher and Costa.

At the risk of being boring, let me have a quick look at the new lineup, starting at the top.

Nathan Rees MP

The new top man hasn’t received a friendly welcome from the media - all I learned from the weekend papers is that he is a former garbage collector. Maybe this is a good sign - could he clean up NSW? Hell, he can’t do a worse job than the last couple of blokes. I saw him talk at a PCA event when he first came into parliament - he didn’t seem to know what he was talking about, but came across as a committed kind of guy. As long as the factions give him a bit of free reign, he’s got a chance. I think it’s either going to be a spectacular turnaround, or a spectacular failure; either way, it should be an entertaining lead up to the next election.


Carmel Tebbutt MP

Pro: she has taken on the climate change and environment portfolio, so maybe some money might start finding its way back to DECC. Con: she’s married to Anthony Albanese. I guess it’s good to get some inner west pride back into Macquarie Street, but I don’t know how effective Carmel will be. She is most famous as the pollie who doesn’t know what Australia Day celebrates.


John Della Bosca MLC

Do we know who he is? Of course we do, Johnny! Maybe you can use some of your central coast charms to fix up the mess that Reba left you in health. Or preferably, you could decide to secede the central coast from NSW, tear down the F3 and free Sydney from you fuckers for good.


John Hatzistergos MLC

Hatzistergos did his time stuffing up health before handing the burning remnants to Reba Meagher. He seems to be handling the Attorney General’s job alright, and he’s one of the old crew who came through unscathed.


Eric Roozendaal MLC

Our new treasurer. In an ideal world, he would have been on the scrapheap alongside his old mate Costa, but I guess we’ll have to wait until he does the economy what he did to roads before he is given the boot.


David Campbell MP

Campbell seems like a nice guy, but it’s going to take more than a nice guy to sort out our transport woes. This has got to one of the hardest portfolios there is. I can’t see anything improving here without some major capital expenditure, and some major vision. These two items seem to be lacking in politics these days, so don’t hold your breath.


That’s enough for now. More to follow if I can be bothered.

The Iemma dilemma

Morris Iemma surely must go down as a case of political suicide, falling on his own sword after sacking the man who pulls all the strings in the NSW ALP.

Will Nathan Rees dare to kick “Climates Change” Costa off the front bench? Something tells me that he’ll still be treasurer by the end of the day. In the meantime, I can hear the jostling for frontbench positions all the way from Chatswood. Fingers crossed that at least Rees has the good sense to give Sartor his marching orders.

I think the best thing to come out of this turmoil is that it might keep voters away from Meredith Burgmann next weekend. Clover Moore might be crazy, but having her in charge is a much better idea than handing the city back to developers.

Meanwhile, the ALP are now at $2.10 to win the next state election. Given the overarching stupidity of both the NSW public and the shadowy figures pulling the strings at the NSW Liberal party, I don’t think it’s such a bad bet.

Google just got more evil

Google have launched their own browser, bringing them one step closer to world domination. Now they will (presumably) be able to track your every move on the internet, even if you reject their cookie.

Rather than launch into a full-blown technical review of the browser, let me outline the reasons why we should all surrender and hand over control of the world to Sergey and Larry.

Point 1: Inevitability. Why bother going through the show of resisting Google, when they are poised to wrench power from the people any day now? A struggle will only delay the inevitable, and make the transition to Googocracy that much more painful.

Point 2: Democracy didn’t work anyway. An unpopular viewpoint in the west, to be sure, but certainly one which I have been musing over the past few months. I believe that in light of the challenges now facing the world with regards to sustainability and climate change global warming, it has become quite apparent that democracies are simply not equipped to deal with long-term challenges.

Take Masdar, the zero-waste, zero-carbon city being built in Abu Dhabi. Sure, it may just be a giant show-pony, but the technology being developed for this city will have uses all around the world, and is sure to rake in the big dollars. Without the long-term vision of Sheik Khalifa bin Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, would this project ever have gotten off the drawing board? With an election looming in the next three years, would any sane democratic government ever commit to spending $22 billion on such a crazy idea?

Even on the issue of carbon trading we find our triumvirate of Rudd, Wong and Garrett banging their collective heads against the proverbial wall. Despite a strong green paper on the topic, I think we will find that by the time these monkeys come to implementation, the cap and trade will be so watered down by industry concessions, fuel rebates and Middle Australian tax offsets that the whole thing will be a debacle. After all, what is more important - leading the way in terms of environmental policy, or keeping the voters hip pockets insulated from the reality of trying to maintain a fundamentally unsustainable growth-based economy?

So, the solution then is simple. Hand over our entire political system to Google. Give them the keys to parliament house! Clean out the press gallery! Shut down the public service, remove taxes, and fund the entire shebang with Google AdSense revenue!

And just so that we can maintain some sense of our national pride, we should replace the G-G with an Australian monarchy to rubber stamp everything. Hold a meat raffle every 10 years, and the winner gets to serve their term as king or queen.

Democracy bites!

Iguana marketing

So, by now we are all familiar (and getting bored) with the Iguanagate story. Politician gets drunk, threatens staff, falsifies legal documents, and gets hounded by the press for weeks afterwards. Meanwhile, the Iguana Nightclub enjoys unprecedented levels of free publicity. The problem is, the story will soon blow over, and they will go back to relative obscurity.

What better time, therefore, to add to the hype and build up your business by introducing a new slogan?