NSW is done for. Tax hikes, plummeting growth, the prospect of a crappy credit rating and two and a half more years of Nathan Rees mean that it’s time to get out. Let’s have a look at the other states and territories, in no particular order.

Australian Capital Territory

Pros: Decriminalised mull, cheap fireworks and sex stores that make Bunnings look like a shoebox.
Cons: Politicians, public servants and zero night life.

The nation’s capital isn’t really an attractive option. More a country town than a city, it suffers from the dual ignominy of firstly being completely surrounded by NSW, and secondly having its best suburb (Quenbeyan) in NSW. Cold in winter, too far from the beach in summer, the only advantage to be obtained from moving here is that Central Coast bogans won’t often be motoring down the highway for a visit.

Rating: One titanic

Victoria

Pros: Trams, cafes, bars and music.
Cons: Having to admit that Melbourne is better than Sydney, realising that Melbourne is a lot uglier than Sydney.

South of the border, down Mexico way offers the most obvious choice for a disgruntled New South Welshman. Of course, you’ll have to start supporting Collingwood and drinking Carlton Draught, but Victoria’s economy is strong, and Melbourne will soon once again be Australia’s biggest city. Sydneysiders will fit right in with the fast-paced lifestyle, but be warned; no one is ever on time here. You can also enjoy paying exorbitant tolls for the privilege of sitting in traffic. It’s like you never left home!

Rating: Three titanics

Queensland

Pros: Relaxed lifestyle, great steak and the best devonshire tea in the country (thanks Flo!).
Cons: The heat, the bogans and the cane toads.

Beautiful one day, stinking hot and humid the next. Sunny Brisbane is situated on the bank of the Brisbane River, however it seems to be immune to any form of breeze and so summer days are long and sweaty. Thanks to the relaxed Brisbane lifestyle, you can beat the heat by having a couple of XXXX Golds at lunch, followed by a XXXX Gold at afternoon tea, and a couple of quick XXX Golds after work. People are friendly, the girls are good looking and thanks to the mining boom, business is on the up. If city life in Brisbane is still too hectic for you, you can always head up the coast to unwind. Plus, if you’re a political type, you’ve got a great chance of reaching the dizzying heights from up here - you would be alongside the PM, the treasurer and the G-G.

Rating: Four titanics

South Australia

Pros: Coopers, fine wines, amusing palindromes.
Cons: Abundance of upper class twits, sharks.

Second only to Canberra in terms of boringness, I haven’t spent any time in Adelaide so can’t really comment too far. The climate is mild, they seem to produce some good bevoirs, and if you want to have a good time you just need to don a pair of fishnets and hit the town. Give it a whirl, if you’re that way inclined.

Rating: Two titanics

Western Australia

Pros: Mining boom, great pubs, nice city.
Cons: Distance.

The final frontier, Perth is the most isolated city in the entire world. If you want to leave, it’s at least a five hour flight to anywhere decent. That said, the city is picking up as more and more money flows in thanks to the mining boom, and they seem to know how to have a good time. The pace is slow, and they are 2 hours behind, so if you’re dealing with the rest of the country you can knock off at 3pm every day. Better still, you’re a really *really* long way from the Central Coast, so you’ll almost never see a sub-human from Umina driving around your city. Speaking of the city, it is quite pretty, especially along the Swan.

Rating: Four titanics

Northern Territory

Pros: Beer.
Cons: Heat.

This is the only capital I haven’t visited, so I really don’t have much to say at all. They drink a lot of beer (twice the national average), but it’s also bloody hot. You also have a very high chance of being eaten by a crocodile while performing such everyday tasks as crossing the road. Only for the very adventurous.

Rating: Two titanics

Tasmania

Pros: Cool climate, beautiful city, excellent seafood.
Cons: No jobs.

Hobart is a fantastic city. Relaxed, friendly, no traffic, and best of all, you can’t even drive there from the Central Coast without catching a ferry. It could be a bit chilly in the winter, but the energy is mostly sourced from the hydro scheme, so turn those heaters up! If you can find a job down here, it’s definitely the place to be - especially as climate change kicks in and it gets a couple of degrees warmer. The locals all seem to exhibit mild signs of inbreeding; if you’re planning on procreating, send your kids to the mainland so they can meet someone from outside the family.

Rating: Three titanics

New Zealand

Pros: Russell Crowe
Cons: Russell Crowe

The seventh and final state, New Zealand is still maintaining a façade of independence by retaining its own currency and stamping passports whenever mainlanders visit. Importantly, if you do decide to move to New Zealand, your national cricket captain won’t be Ricky Ponting. The snow is great, the beers are cold, and the accents are hilarious. What more could you want?

Rating: Three titanics

That’s all from me. Good luck with your decision.

Around a year ago, I stopped reading the Sydney Morning Herald’s online service, due to plummeting language standards in their content, and their general all-round slovenly attitude to journalism.

I switched over to the ABC, and since then have noticed a substantial decline in the quality of this publication as well. I have stuck with it for a year and tried to ignore the occasional typo, grammatical error, unsubstaniated information and blatant bias. Now however, I think we are reaching the end.

Senator Obama is expected to win, with pollsters giving him an average lead of seven points.

If omens are anything to go by he might look to the small New Hampshire town of Dixville Notch.

Voting has already finished there with residents casting 15 ballots for Barack Obama and six for John McCain.

Votes have already been counted in the small New Hampshire town of Dixville Notch.

The remote town traditionally opens its polls at midnight on election day, hours before the rest of the east coast heads to the polls.

For the record, voters in the town cast 15 ballots for Barack Obama and six for John McCain.

Did I mention that Barack Obama received 15 ballots in Dixville Notch? Time to stop laying off those subeditors, Aunty.

Maybe it’s time I switched to Al Jazeera permanently.

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.

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.

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.

Bush commits US$700b to emergency environment rescue package

K-Rudd flies to New York for emergency environment summit with G20 leaders

Economic rescue on hold while major polluters reduce emissions

Man from the Central Coast scores an IQ above 85

Is this really that difficult to understand?

Economy ∈ Environment.

I have plotted my sanity over time for a typical work week. Is it coincidence that I did this during a mid-morning sanity trough?

Sink your teeth into this tasty story!

A virgin shark from Virginia has given birth to a pup. No sign as yet of three wise sharks on their way to present the mother with gifts, however I’m predicting that it won’t be long before the baby is healing the sick and turning water into wine. The interesting part will be if he tries to feed the masses with just five loaves of bread and two humans.

The whole concept of asexual reproduction in an animal as complicated as a shark is quite fascinating. We should be very worried; imagine if scientists managed to discover the trigger for parthenogensis and apply it to human females. The entire male species could become obsolete!

Oh wait, but then there would be noone to open all those tricky jam jars. We’re safe for now, boys.

Every three years, we are presented with the chance to cast a meaningless vote for a chump who will mismanage our country for the next little while. We could all do without this pointless exercise.

And yet, when we really need the right man for the job, he is appointed by a faceless committee, with no public consultation process! Usually, they get it right, but when they don’t, the results can be disastrous.

The following people were better captains than Ricky Ponting:

• DW Gregory
• WL Murdoch
• TP Horan
• HH Massie
• JM Blackham
• HJH Scott
• PS McDonnell
• G Giffen
• GHS Trott
• J Darling
• H Trumble
• MA Noble
• C Hill
• SE Gregory
• WW Armstrong
• HL Collins
• W Bardsley
• J Ryder
• WM Woodfull
• VY Richardson
• DG Bradman
• WA Brown
• AL Hassett
• AR Morris
• IWG Johnson
• RR Lindwall
• ID Craig
• R Benaud
• RN Harvey
• RB Simpson
• BC Booth
• WM Lawry
• BN Jarman
• IM Chappell
• GS Chappell
• GN Yallop
• KJ Hughes
• AR Border
• MA Taylor
• SR Waugh
• AC Gilchrist