Good polls for Rudd

KEVIN Rudd has emerged from the days of the financial crisis as popular as he ever was and has overtaken Malcolm Turnbull on economic management.
The Government’s $10.4 billion emergency economic boost and the guarantee for all bank deposits has been enthusiastically endorsed.
Endorsed, I presume, by people happy with short term solutions. As in “He’s a good manager because he’s giving me a thousand per kid for zip” or pensioner couples getting a “couple of grand for Christmas” As I understand it, the guarantee for all bank deposits has occasioned a run on all non bank deposits that self funded retirees use to live on. As a consequence of this several non bank investment houses have frozen their assets to prevent people withdrawing their funds and transferring them to the guaranteed banks. I wonder if anyone canvassed the self funded retirees on Rudd’s economic credentials? I doubt whether it’s all sunk in yet but it won’t take many more stuff-ups like this; coupled with jobs disappearing and companies going to the wall before the punters start looking at Rudd without their rose coloured glasses.

I kid you not!

FORMER Sydney Olympic chief Sandy Hollway is Australia’s first whale envoy. Federal Environment Minister Peter Garrett announced the appointment today, fulfilling a Labor election commitment.
“Mr Hollway’s appointment builds on the intensive diplomatic engagement the Rudd Labor government has undertaken to date and will see Australia deepen our dialogue with leaders in Japan and other countries ahead of the southern summer,” Mr Garrett said.
I wait with baited breath for a raft of announcements pertaining to Kangaroo, wombat and shark envoys.

Obama and his friends

While the ABC, SBS and tabloid TV stations fall over themselves to report Sarah Palin had the temerity to suggest someone should be sacked for behaviour unbecoming an officer of the law; I thought, in the interests of balance, a consideration currently AWOL in the media’s coverage of the US Presidential elections, that I should link to the post below. Question: Does Barack Obama Have Any Friends Who AREN’T Communists? Good question and some answers here This week will be politics free for me as I go to Lamington NP to run a base camp for college boys studying Australian Environmental Studies. I have switched off moderation as I won’t be able to do so until Saturday morning. Go for it! Debate that is, not abuse.

Obama careless with the truth

Watching Lateline and caught a clip of Obama denying there was any substance to the story of his association with William Ayers, a Weatherman of the 60s and 70s.
“And the notion that somehow as a consequence of me knowing somebody who engaged in detestable acts 40 years ago, when I was 8 years old, somehow reflects on me and my values doesn’t make much sense…”
This is William Ayres Of the day he bombed the Pentagon, Ayers says, “Everything was absolutely ideal. … The sky was blue. The birds were singing. And the bastards were finally going to get what was coming to them.”
On another occasion, Ayers stated: “There’s something about a good bomb … Night after night, day after day, each majestic scene I witnessed was so terrible and so unexpected that no city would ever again stand innocently fixed in my mind. Big buildings and wide streets, cement and steel were no longer permanent. They, too, were fragile and destructible. A torch, a bomb, a strong enough wind, and they, too, would come undone or get knocked down.”
and this from a memoir of sorts released on 9/11
‘I don’t regret setting bombs,” Bill Ayers said. ”I feel we didn’t do enough.”
From Hillary Clinton;
Obama served on a board with former Weather Underground member William Ayers and “that relationship with Mr. Ayers on this board continued after 9/11.”
and this;
Deborah Harrington, president of the Woods Fund, a philanthropic organization in Chicago, said Obama was a director from 1994 through 2001. That overlaps Ayers’ time as a director by three years. It also means Obama served with Ayers for the final months of 2001, after Ayers made his comments to the New York Times.
So Senator, we’re not talking about something that happened 40 years ago but an ongoing association with an anarchist that does reflects on you and your values. You were working with Ayres when you were 40, not 40 years ago. Is that what you meant to say? If not, you lied! As far as I’m concerned there is no Statute of limitations on being an anarchist dedicated to a terrorist bombing campaign against your own countryman and even if Ayres now has an aura of respectability about him he is what he was and Obama sat down with him. Worse, he did it in full knowledge of what Ayers had done. Not that the ABC mentioned any of these details – just the denial, leaving viewers with the impression that it all happened when Obama was a just an eight year old. Amazing isn’t it that the US Democrats have a campaign HQ in Australia – ah…the ABC, ever reliable. UPDATE: An article by a victim of William Ayers UPDATE2: Dogfight at Bankstown has good coverage on the subject matter.

Howard not insane: Tanner

Lyndsay Tanner On the 18th of September Lyndsay Tanner attacks the “insane” Howard government for their procurement and renting procedures
…he outlined “crazy” wastage in property management, describing how the Australian Customs Service pays $380 per square metre a year for space in a Canberra office building, while the Department of the Attorney General pays $303 per square metre for space on the same floor of the same building.
Two weeks later he’s forced to retract (Permalink not working – scroll down)
FOLLOWING advice from my department, I told Matthew Franklin (“Tanner targets agency wastage”, 18/9) that the Attorney-General’s Department is paying $303 per square metre rent for space in a building at 2Constitution Avenue, Canberra, while Customs is paying $380 per square metre for similar space. I have since been advised that the $303 figure is incorrect, and that the Attorney-General’s Department is paying rent that is similar to Customs.
Oops! Too quick to play the blame game me thinks.

Turnbull new leader

TurnbullMALCOLM Turnbull is the new leader of the Liberal Party after beating Brendan Nelson in a ballot in Canberra this morning.
Mr Turnbull won the ballot by 45 votes to 41, Chief Opposition Whip Alex Somlyay said , with Julie Bishop to retain her job as deputy leader, which she was unopposed for.
With Costello out of the formula I guess we have to rebuild but I’m just as uneasy about Turnbull as I was about Nelsen. I guess I’ll just have to wait and see how he develops.

Obama’s 143 Days of Senate Experience

I have lifted this quote in it’s entirey from The Loft via Tim Blair
Just how much Senate experience does Barack Obama have in terms of actual work days? Not much. From the time Barack Obama was sworn in as a United State Senator, to the time he announced he was forming a Presidential exploratory committee, he logged 143 days of experience in the Senate. That’s how many days the Senate was actually in session and working. After 143 days of work experience, Obama believed he was ready to be Commander In Chief, Leader of the Free World, and fill the shoes of Abraham Lincoln, FDR, JFK and Ronald Reagan. 143 days — I keep leftovers in my refrigerator longer than that. In contrast, John McCain’s 26 years in Congress, 22 years of military service including 1,966 days in captivity as a POW in Hanoi now seem more impressive than ever. At 71, John McCain may just be hitting his stride.
Like our own Kevin Rudd, the US Messiah is all talk.

Good news back home

I come from West Australia so I’m more than pleased with the results of the weekend election. The ALP are ever hopeful but I think they’ve lost the battle. I just can’t image the new powerbroker Grylls doing a deal with Carpenter and if he does then it would surely be the first time in Australia when the Nats and the ALP have formed such a liaison. He says he doesn’t care who he deals with but I would expect the Libs to be the eventual winner.
Brendon Grylls, the powerbroker, is just 35, country to his bootstraps, has a three-legged dog named Kokoda and boasts an iron determination to put country people back on the political map.
He has a very clear strategy based on;
..seeking Royalties for Regions – a pledge to quarantine 25 per cent of the $2.7 billion in royalties received by the state government annually and inject it into regional areas. The concept was simple. If they won the balance of power, the Nationals would use that power to leverage $675 million a year to spend on regional projects over and above current and budgeted estimates.
Seems reasonable to me being a country lad myself.

New Chief Justice appointed

ROBERT French broke new ground yesterday with a tribute to the role of indigenous people in Australia’s history as he was sworn in as the nation’s 12th Chief Justice.
“The history of Australia’s indigenous people dwarfs, in its temporal sweep, the history that gave rise to the constitution under which this court was created,” he said. “Our awareness and recognition of that history is becoming, if it has not already become, part of our national identity.”
I just hope he remembers he is charged with interpreting the law for all 21 million Australians not just a few hundred thousand of them.
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