Kang vs Kodos

It doesn't really matter who we vote for tomorrow.
Call me overly cynical but do you see sunshine and rainbows if the Coalition is elected? Everything isn't going to become affordable all of a sudden, the boats (the biggest non-issue I've ever seen in an election campaign) aren't just going to stop and the economy isn't going to boom and interest rates aren't going to suddenly drop.
Same goes if the Government is re-elected.
Politicians are all the same - the party's self interest comes first, the people come last. That's why they get hundreds of thousands in pensions when they retire or are booted from parliament and everyone else gets pittance.
Any politician who says that it wrong should speak up and donate their pension to public works or reducing national debt or something else useful.
I bet you none of them do, though.
So in this election it's pretty much like the Simpsons episode where Kang and Kodos take over the bodies of Clinton and Dole and run for president. It doesn't matter who you vote for, you're screwed either way.

Same horse, different jockey

The best way to describe what happened today, i.e. our new Prime Minister, is simple.
It's the same horse but a different jockey. I don't see how it affects me at all at this point or changes anything.
But it sure made for an easy news day.

Donkey voting

Until about four days ago I wasn't aware there were local government elections.
I've lived in my current LGA for around eight years or thereabouts and have never had any interaction with the council or any prospective councillor.
So that made it a bit hard to know who I was voting for today.
My vote was effectively a donkey vote, which made it a bit pointless.
The one thing I will say about council elections is that they shouldn't be partisan, it is bad enough that politics gets in the way at state level we don't need it on councils.

Bland Games come to an end

I'm one of those people who loves the Olympics.
For a couple of weeks you become deeply interested in sports you pay absolutely no attention to for four years. I love watching the cycling, both road and track, the diving, the rowing, swimming, selected track and field events and beach volleyball.
I was also engrossed in the Australia vs Japan softball match that went into five extra innings.
Perhaps it is a patriotic thing, though I don't go around draped in the Aussie flag, but the Olympics is almost compulsory viewing.
This is something that our broadcaster, channel 7, is probably counting on. Their telecast was woeful at very best. Too many delayed events portrayed as live, too many cutting between the event and the studio as if to justify the host's job.
I got really sick of the Stephanie Rice/Eamon Sullivan `are they really broken up' thing. Didn't particularly care before the Games and don't care now.
As for his comment about his private life not being private anymore, that's the price you pay when you excel at anything in the year 2008 (particularly in sport if you are an Aussie) - and if he was so concerned about his private life he shouldn't have stripped to his underwear for that advertising campaign.
The one thing I regret about the Games happened last night.
I started watching the men's 10m platform final and when Matthew Mitcham went so-so in his first dive I decided to go to bed. I get up this morning and he's won the gold and broke the Olympic record for a dive score.
Damn. I found the coverage of his win in the news very interesting given his life circumstances. Regardless it was an amazing effort and I'm sorry I missed it.
So the blandest Games of my memory, and certainly the most staged, is over and the Olympic movement can go back to normal in 2012. There won't be lip-synching nine year olds, fake fireworks and tanks patrolling the streets.
It didn't help that channel 7 contributed to the feeling that it was very stale and controlled.
China did better than I think most people thought they would but they still managed to suck the spirit out of a celebration of freedom and sport, at least from an outsider's point of view.

Labor wins

Looks like we have a new champion (so Homer Simpson would say).
Labor has won the election much easier than I thought and the PM appears to have been a prized scalp in his own seat (of which I am a part). Though that result is still not completely confirmed, but the computer has been calling it a Labor win since about 8pm.
Now it's up to our new government and prime minister to deliver what they promised _ or they will be duly booted out come 2010.
Over to you, Kevin....

It is done

I have voted.
Oh happy day!

Silly season begins

After weeks and weeks of a faux election campaign the real one has begun.
So we have six weeks of politicians telling us what they promise to do IF elected. After what we've been through with the NSW Government and its debacle after debacle it makes it hard to want to swallow anything these guys throw at us.
One of them will win and very little will change, most likely.
My mind for the election was made up five seconds after I voted in the previous election. Actually, as I was voting for the previous election. So unless someone can guarantee to make me a millionaire or have a superpower, or something like that, my vote ain't changing.
Bring on November 24, if for no other reason that we can have fewer politicians misleading us to our faces.

New leadership

The ALP unveiled its election strategy today as the PM began his backpedalling on what he said during the week about retiring mid-term if the government is re-elected.
My feeling about this election, whenever it will be in the next couple of months, is not so much whether the government can win it but whether the opposition can lose it. They lost the unlosable GST election a decade ago so it can be done.
I don't comment much on politics, in fact I really prefer to ignore it, but I thought this warranted a mention.