Kevin Rudd in death spiral

Heh heh heh. Just wanted to see someone write that headline, even if it's only a John Howard tragic like me.

But seriously folks, I have always thought Newspoll had the greatest credibility. I also seem to recall it has been said over the years that a major party has to be looking at getting over 40% of primary vote to have any chance of winning an election.

On this basis, Newspoll's results from earlier this year showing the Coalition at 35% primary vote were bad, as even allowing for a margin of error meant they would still be well below the magical 40%.

As today's results are back to 39%, and the effects of the budget are still kicking in, there is reason for guarded optimism about the coalition's prospects. Headed in the right direction again, at least.

I am also finding it a little amusing to hear Labor complaining when Howard adopts the essence of some of their policies. It's happening today with the broadband issue.

This is one of the neat things about democracy; everyone is allowed to take policy ideas and run with them. The public will let you know if it is good idea of not. No use complaining that the government is only adopting a policy for electoral benefit, or some such. That's what all parties do, and let's face it, it's better than a government refusing to adopt a good idea just because someone else thought of it.

Cereal humour

An amusing post from Bryan Appleyard about breakfast cereal.

For those readers with an intense interest in the details of my private life (hello, anyone there?) I have been perfectly happy with Uncle Toby's Sports Plus for a number of years now. Strangely enough, the Uncle Toby's website seems to be just one page with an email address, probably related to the business being taken over by Nestle last year. (That explains the change in packaging, I guess.)

I am sure you all feel better for knowing this.

This is funny

Wastes of ink

This weekend's Australian press seems to have reached some craptacular heights in wastes of space in 3 columns:

* Phillip Adams in the Australian tries satire of Howard yet again. (You can really, really tell some weeks that he dictates columns while driving between the Hunter Valley and Sydney. At least I think that's his excuse.) Does anyone at all find this funny, or even vaguely witty?

* Alan Ramsey in the SMH does a cut and paste that must rival in word count some of his previous personal bests at how to write a weekly column with an absolute minimum of your own words or thoughts. Has he no shame as to how much effort one must put in to get paid?

* And over at The Age, Tracee Hutchison tries being clever, or satiric, or something, about how the Left isn't loved anymore, and fails spectacularly at whatever her aim was.

It's goal, goal, goal for self inflicted injury to reputation for all three. Congratulations!

When 42 inches just isn't enough

Samsung launches 70 inch LCD TV

In the Al Gore mould - literally

I am probably not the first person to say this, but isn't it somewhat ironic that Michael Moore, in taking the US health system to task, is himself setting an extremely poor example of how to make a bad system even worse (namely, by not taking his obesity seriously.) Maybe it is the unshaved face, but to me he is looking more blimp-like than ever.

Of course, he can afford to pay for his quadruple by-pass, and his diabetes medication, but the fact remains if the American public as a whole took their own weight problems seriously, they would greatly lighten the load (now there's a pun) on the existing medical services.

Al Gore has also packed the pounds on in the last few years too. I would like to know if he is a big beef eater, 'cos some of his greenie supporters might have an issue with that.

Pandas don't like it

Carbon trading is 'emission impossible', says WWF - earth - 14 June 2007 - New Scientist Environment

This very brief snippet indicated that even the WWF is sceptical of carbon trading as currently done by Europe.

But, but, those Europeans are so green, aren't they? (Actually, they just like exporting their problems elsewhere.)

The Gaza mess

Comment is free: The sorrow and the pity

This article from the Guardian is worth reading. She points out that the proposed British academic's boycott of Israel has no objective, and given the mess in Gaza, no possible point to the exercise exists.

Of course, this is a red flag to the bulls who read the Guardian. One writes:

the boycutt of Israel only lacks clear objectives in your mind. The objective is ENOUGH! enough, enough, enough.
Israel has spent the past 40 years screwing up the population it occupies. Now, Palestinian armed factions have finally turned against each other. It's a wonder it didn't happen before considering the mess they live in. ENOUGH! Israeli apartheid. Enough funding one group against another. Enough starving the population of Gaza. Enough bombing. Enough enough enough.
is that clear enough for you?

Err, no not at all.

Meanwhile, over at Tigerhawk he had this interesting discussion of why Arab countries, to put it mildly, don't seem all that good at governing themselves. One comment makes this point:

I would most enjoy seeing the Eypptian military roll into Gaza, decimate the Hamas fanatics and re-assume control of the territory. This would be politically acceptable around the globe and could lead to the most satisfying solution. It would also give the US something for its investment in Egyptian aid -- finally. Nothing would silence the antiZionist euro-brigade more than a Gaza under Egyptian control.

The solution to many of the problems we read about are very near at hand. Egypt to Gaza will quiet a lot of noise. The West Bank will be eminently more manageable.

Initially this sounds like a semi-plausible idea. But, I assume this would not go over well with the radicals in Egypt, and then that country may fall into chaos.

So, no clear end in sight.

UPDATE: a good article in Slate about this, which lists the following problems with all possible solutions:

It's no wonder that everyone involved in this issue is now madly seeking "new ideas." A state in the West Bank only, leaving Gaza to its fate? (Would that state be viable, and who would take care of Gaza?) A three-state solution? (Why give Hamas a base from which it could cause trouble?) A return to the Jordanian-Egyptian solution? (Let them deal with the Palestinians of the West Bank and Gaza, respectively. There's one problem: They aren't interested.) An international force? (Hamas promised to treat such a force as an "occupying power." Any volunteers?) Start talking to Hamas? (This won't solve the internal Palestinian problems.) Keep fighting for Gaza? (Fatah seems to be losing its appetite for conflict, and, even with the support it has received from the West, doesn't have enough muscle to stay in the fight.)

Inner city living worth that much?

Yesterday I was walking around the city along a route which took me past a few relatively new high rise apartment blocks. Some of these have "for sale" signs near the entrance, and thus I found myself considering the price of inner city living.

For example, in a year-old block, there was a two bedroom, one bathroom apartment (on the 13th floor, I think) for sale for $460,000. It had two car parking bays too. 87m2 size, I think. Other two bedroom units with ensuites (which are much more common) and on higher floors were for sale for about $600,000.

I know also that "off the plan" contracts for Vision, a very tall high rise planned to be finished in 2011, are selling one bedroom apartments of 67m2 for around $430,000.

I live about 18 km from the city in a pleasant suburb, and am certain that a price in the same range as these units would get you a four bedroom house with a main bathroom, ensuite, and second toilet or bathroom downstairs, probably on around 600 - 700 m2 of land. Sure, it might be 15 -20 years old, but houses of that age are often still of pleasing appearance. During the middle of the day, it takes me about 25 minutes to get to the heart of the city. A house owner also does not pay $2,500 - $3,000 in body corporate levies per year.

It seems to me that inner city living is overvalued, even in Brisbane.

What will Labor say about this?

Taxation take is helping Howard battlers | News | The Australian

Presents quite a conundrum for Labor in deciding how to question this.

Why Kevin Rudd should not be Prime Minister

A snippet from Matt Price's column:

Although it’s no secret the Labor leader is something of an expert at yin and yang, he’s not bad at ping and pong either. Bloody competitive, though: “Not that I was counting but we won 21-16,” he bragged.

Hmmm. Such a minor thing, but still noted in my little black book of likely character defects of the man who would be PM.

Update: yes, as my commenter indicates, my post did not make it clear he was playing aged pensioners. And keeping careful track. Couldn't he have let them win?

Hitchens on Paris (so to speak)

The creepy populism surrounding Paris Hilton and Scooter Libby. - By Christopher Hitchens - Slate Magazine

Christopher Hitchens opens this column as follows:

There is a huge trapdoor waiting to open under anyone who is critical of so-called "popular culture" or (to redefine this subject) anyone who is uneasy about the systematic, massified cretinization of the major media. If you denounce the excess coverage, you are yourself adding to the excess. If you show even a slight knowledge of the topic, you betray an interest in something that you wish to denounce as unimportant or irrelevant.

True.

Mr 22%

Sperm - Sleek, Fast and Focused: The Cells That Make Dad Dad - New York Times

This light-hearted look at sperm cells explains why men have to make so many of them:

...the majority of sperm couldn’t fertilize an ovum if it were plunked down in front of them. “Only a perfectly normal sperm can penetrate an egg,” said Dr. Harry Fisch, a urologist at Columbia University Medical Center, “and the majority of sperm are abnormally shaped.” Some may have pinheads, others have two heads, some lack tails, a third don’t move at all. As a rule, Dr. Fisch said, a man is lucky if 15 percent of his sperm are serviceable. “One guy I saw had 22 percent,” he said, “but that’s rare.”

I didn't realise the figure was so low, even for fertile guys. Still, even with, say, 10% being effective, the article points out that the average ejaculation presents 150 million in total. So that's 15,000,000 good quality, potentially egg breaking, sperm each time.

Still sounds like very inefficient design.

The truth about the 1960's

The hippies were wrong: money can buy you love-TimesOnline

David Finklestein's column is an interesting take on the 1960's and the most important thing about it (namely, it was the start of the post war era of abundance.)

I see that he doesn't mention specifically the start of the change in sexual mores, and the role that better contraception played in that. But it's a good read in any case.

The presumptuous Gittins

Back-scratching at a national level - Opinion - smh.com.au

I don't read Ross Gittins regularly, but in the SMH today he makes some very snide and questionable claims about Howard and immigration:

There's a saying among journalists that news is anything someone doesn't want you to know. So let me tell you all about John Howard's immigration program. It's a key part of the Government's economic policy, but one it rarely talks about.

Why? Because Howard wants his Battlers to think he shares their dislike and distrust of foreigners, especially boat people. And it wouldn't help his image for people to know he's running the biggest immigration program we've ever had.

Well, Howard has certainly made a repeated point about the size of the "official" refugee program. And after the Hanson fizzle, I just don't see that the Australian public has much interest in the level of Asian immigration, unless it has a strong Muslim flavour. (An understandable consequence of 9/11 and the West's increased interest in what that religion is about.) If anything, I suspect the concern about Muslim immigration has probably made most people see other Asian immigrants as benign.

In fact, Gittins provides another reason why "battlers" might not have the same concerns that they used to about immigration generally. He points out that:

The emphasis on skill means that permanent immigrants are a lot younger than the population they're joining. More than half are aged 15 to 34, compared with 28 per cent of our population. Only 2 per cent of permanent immigrants are 65 or older, compared with 13 per cent of our population.

Younger people from non-English speaking backgrounds are naturally going to assimilate faster than older, non-skilled migrants. Pauline Hanson used to complain about street signage in some areas being in foreign language only; skilled migrants who come here to work don't need that.

Gittins also claims this:

The Battlers' eternal objection to immigrants - which I believe was a big part of the strong public support for our shameful treatment of people on the Tampa - is that "these people will take our jobs".

I reckon the jobs issue had next to nothing to do with public attitudes about the Tampa. It was about the method by which a bunch of claimed refugees sought to get into Australia when they were in no danger at their last "staging post", and they were displacing other refugees who went through a long process of formal assessment.

Anyway, today, at current unemployment levels, even the "battlers" are unlikely to be concerned about that.

The fact is that the immigration issues have moved on from the 1980's and 1990's concerns, yet Gittins seems to think that the "battlers", having decided that they don't like immigrants of any kind, are still stuck on that position. I think this is treating people as unthinking dills.

As to whether Howard uses immigration cynically: I suppose it is easy to claim this if you don't live areas of Sydney where the question of Muslim attitude to women is not a matter of frequent real life concern. I don't agree with everything the government suggests about how to go about making sure all immigrants accept the social standards of their new country, but I don't feel that Howard's motives in wanting to deal with this should be seem as being purely cynical either.