I have no idea how to live life. I seem to be unable to co-exist with other people.

Hey all!

So, yesterday I looked like this.


But then I subtracted this (in a process you can see here):



And now I look like this!


Yes, folks, I'm doing Movember, and I need your support! My goal is to break one-thousand smackeroonies, and while I'm off to an OK start, I will definitely need a lot more help to get there. So please, if you can afford anything, please sponsor me for Movember. It's for a good cause (men's physical and mental health) and I really want to hit my goal. So, my LJ friends, give me a boost! You can donate via PayPal or credit card, and all donations for the Australians amongst you is tax deductible.

I'll be posting new pictures of my mo every day on my MoSpace, but I'll try to keep you informed here too.

Donate!

Regular readers of my journal will know I generally don't like Tarantino's films.

But y'know what? I watched Death Proof. And I HAD A BLAST. This is great stuff -- It is mindless, pure pop entertainment of the highest order. Tarantino writes great dialogue for his characters, all of them, and they kill the material. Sure, they're one note characters, each and every one. That's fine, y'know, it doesn't need to make them deep to make them mean something to you. You just need to like 'em, and I did, I liked all of them. I even liked Stuntman Mike, but GOD it felt good when he got what was coming to him.

It occurs to me that the main complaint I have made about Tarantino's films, twice on LJ alone, is that they don't know what they want to be. They're too cluttered, determined to somehow be big and important while wallowing in genre trash.

Well, this is a film that is pure genre trash. It knows what it goddamn wants to be, and it's exactly that. And it is a blast. I love it. 

Peter Hartcher:

But Wilkie conceded that the North Star guiding his decision was the underlying reality that his seat is fundamentally a Labor one. "It is clear to me that the majority of voters in Denison would prefer a Labor federal government."

If the three rural independents do the same and follow the basic DNA of their seats, they will all support an Abbott government.

Peter Hartcher knows his politics. I agree with this, and have said similar things in the past. My prediction: Libs take all three rural independents, Libs 76, Labor 74.

Abbott doesn't want to reach a deal, he wants another election

Lenore Taylor

August 27, 2010

OK, short answer is no.

But there is a view in parts of the Coalition - depending on how the final seats fall - that it might be in the interests of conservative politics to play a longer game, either by manoeuvring to return to the polls immediately or allowing Julia Gillard to form a shaky minority government with ''the extreme Greens'' and the ''flaky'' independents that would fall apart, preferably just in time for the federal poll re-run to get caught up in next year's NSW state election Labor bloodbath.

That's not a bad strategy. Risky, but it has a potential payoff and it makes sense. But still, let's face the facts here: There is no way we will go to another election very soon, barring something disastrous in the negotiations.

Why? Because Labor have first crack at forming a new government. They're the incumbents, so they get to go to the Governor General first and say, "Check it out, we have the support to govern." And it's manifestly in Labor's interests to get that support: There's precious little reason to believe another election will do anything but finish the deal and put Abbott in as PM. So Labour will offer the independents the moon to get back in.

Furthermore, why would the independents want another election? They got elected, and some by thin margins with a thin margin for Wilke. There's no reason they'll like the idea of another election, and they'll be keen to make a deal to form a government now.

I understand why the Libs want another election now; they'd probably make out like bandits. But politically, it's simply not feasible to do very unlikely to happen. There are three parties in this negotiation, and two out of three of them want a deal.  If Abbott wants to be PM soon, he'd better come to the negotiating table.

Edited because, on checking, most of the independents are secure, so they might be willing to risk another election. But Wilkie sure as hell won't, and besides which, in a new election Labor are the ones likely to retake his seat. If the Libs retain Brisbane, then they have a shot, but it's slender. Labor retain the upper hand here, if the contest is between "Labor make a government" and "new election". And if Brisbane falls to Labor, it's done and dusted: No new election.

Oh, heck. Angus is a Paolo. A very well developed, very well put together Paolo, but a Paolo none the less. It's been done so well that I can't believe I didn't see this coming.

It's too soon to tell, but Australia looks destined for a hung parliament, and I admit it: I'm ecstatic with the result. Both of the parties this time around were pathetically unappealing, with Tony Abbott willfully giving up planks of his own true beliefs (like Workchoices) to become more palatable, while the Labor party continued their headlong rush into trying to win the Australian right wing by giving up on their left wing base. Mencken once said that democracy is a system in which two people do their best to convince the public that the other is not fit to lead, and they inevitably both succeed, and are right. Well, that was never more apparent in Australian politics than yesterday.

So.... I have to confess, I'm ecstatic.

My wishes for this election were:

1. Labor loses more seats to the Greens than the Libs.  Didn't happen, but the Greens did win Melbourne, and SHOULD have won a seat in the ACT. Would've if it weren't for rat-bastards (whom I am a member of... won't be after tomorrow) the Democrats. While ashamed that I ever thought the Dems would be a good force in Aussie politics anymore, the fact remains: The Green's swing broke Labor hard. This wish more or less came true in spirit.

2. Australian Sex Party get a seat. Didn't happen, but hey. Was always a bit of a pipe dream.

3. Labor, with its horribifuckus Internet Filter, would not be able to retain enough power to pass it. And that happened.
I admit to being a bit confused: My twitter is full of people horrified that Labor lost so much power, and yeah, I know that I run in a Labor leaning crowd. But was this Labor party truly worth being upset over? Even when Rudd got in, we were mostly happy to get rid of Howard, and deservedly so.

But overall? We won yesterday, guys. If you count yourself as politically left, we somehow threaded the eye of the needle. We denied giving control of the government to Tony Fucking Abbott, while simultaneously sending a message to the Labor party that was loud and clear: You need us, you bastards. Without us, you don't even scrape into government. You lose.

If this current result does anything, and I hope this it's true, it's that it encourages both sides to actually attempt debate. Not just to take issues that poll politically well (Like my beloved Boat People Issue) and instead, actually engage that rarest of beasts: A coherent political philosophy.