Do you know who I am?

I don´t know about you, but I am blessed with 20/20 hindsight. I can always see what could have been done better, after the fact of course.

However, just so there can be no doubt, let me put a few personal views out there.

1) Global Warming is a crock (I´ll let you decide what of) - maybe the earth is warming, maybe it isn´t, but I am extremely sceptical that atmospheric carbon dioxide (or if you prefer - carbon pollution) is the problem

2) Iraq was the right war to fight, we were justified in doing so and the only difference is that Australia should have done more. We should also be doing a lot more in Afghanistan.

3) The response to the global financial crisis, especially in the US and Australia, is stupid and irresponsible. We are rewarding people who fucked up by letting them continue to do the things they did before, giving them lots of government money and creating lots of debt for my and younger generations to pay off.

4) Kevin Rudd is a terrible Prime Minister, right up there with Gough and Malcom Fraser. Let me clarify. A TERRIBLE Prime Minister.

5) Obama is no great shakes as President, in fact he might even be a terrible President. He´s certainly no where near as good as George Bush (for all his failings). Trying to recreate a European welfare state in the US, after such a policy has obviously failed miserably and continues to fail in Europe seems to me to be nothing short of ideologically blinded stupidity.

And, if you´re still reading, here´s a link to a fantastic article in the Australian today, explaining in much clearer terms than I can manage why huge deficits and overspending are the wrong responses to the current financial problems.

cheers

Harry

don´t mock the power of the goat...

This may come as news to some people, but apparently John Howard is still running Australia.  Obviously he doesn´t have his actual ¨hands on the wheel¨ so to speak, but still, his ominous presence hovers menacingly above us all, kind of like the dead King in Macbeth.

Or at least that´s what Wayne Swan wants us to believe.  

Budget blowout is John Howard's fault - Wayne Swan   is the headline in the Herald Sun.  Apparently the Liberals relied upon the continuance of the mining boom so much that they overspent and now that the mining boom has ended we´ve gone from being in budget surplus to being in deficit.  $60 billion in deficit according to leaks which may or may not be accurate and probably $200 billion in deficit over the next couple of years.

But even though the Ruddster has been around for a while this massive problem is still Howard´s fault.  No mention of money given to people to spend on booze or pokies, or to insulate their ceilings or buy more holdens.  No mention of the idea of maybe sacking a few public servants.  No the Labor Government has been condemned by circumstance outside their control.  Hardly seems fair that we´re actually paying them if they can´t do anything does it?

cheers

Harry

Every cloud has a silver lining...

I believe that this is the funniest post about meat ever.

enjoy

Harry

Obamaaaaaa!!!!!!!!

I was going to talk about Obama in relation to some other post (which has slipped away from me now) but I found this post on a discussion forum about Obama's victory and the ramifications it has for politics in the US, in particular his mobilisation of direct support as opposed to support from the Democratic Party.

The other thing, that they didn't mention, is that a lot of Obama's money may have been dirty. There's very simple procedures in place when recieving internet payments to ensure that identity is correctly verified. Obama instead went with a system of "Oh, if a find a problem later down the line we'll return the contribution", which is all well and good but extremely unlikely to happen.

Anyway, a lot of the consequences for US politics may happen here in Australia as well, although we're a Prime Ministerial rather than Presidential system (and I don't need crap about the constitution thankyou, I mean that Australia has evolved to a system where the Prime Minister controls the power on the basis of control of the legislature). KRudd certainly attracted a great deal of support in the last election but I wonder how much of that was just anti-Howard? His ridiculously high poll numbers would suggest that people actually do like him for some reason though.

Anyway, here's a link to the discussion post I was talking about.

Interesting stuff.

Harry

Labor, Kevin, George and Obama

While watching Insiders on ABC this morning (the BEST show on politics in Australia and one of the best of TV full stop) Lindsay Tanner made a very interesting statement.

He was being interviewed regarding our man Kevin and his experiences in Washington. I'll give you the background first and then get back to Lindsay.

A little while ago, the editor of the Australian (the best paper in Australia) was having a dinner with Kevin Rudd and some other people. The Australian later published an article regarding a Kevin Rudd phone discussion with George W Bush. The most important part of the piece was this: apparently while talking about the global financial crisis Bush asked Rudd "what's the G20?" The article then went onto explain how Rudd was shocked at how stupid George W was. The big problem is this; George isn't an idiot and he was publically talking about the G20 only days before.

So somehow, details of a private phone conversation found their way into a newspaper article that made Kevin look really good and George look really stupid. Of course, the Whitehouse quickly denied this and ever since Kevin has been obfuscating, denying that George ever said a thing, while (very importantly) refusing to deny that the basis of the article was given to the Australian by him. The Australian have been keeping mum about this whole situation, because they know perfectly well where the blame lies, but aren't going to reveal their sources and they continue to back their article, saying that is was based upon impeccable sources (in this case, the Prime Minister of Australia!).

So anyway, after being ignored by most media outlets in Australia for a while, this has finally come to the forefront after Rudd was given the most perfunctory of hand shakes by George while in Washington for the G20. So the rest of the media has finally woken up and Labor is finally being asked.

Now, Lindsay Tanner was being interviewed on Insiders and asked about the article and he made the usual denials, saying that Kevin had denied everything already. Then, he suggested that a far greater gaffe was Julie Bishop, in Parliament, refusing to criticise John Howard for his assertion several years ago that if Barack Obama were elected than he would be the preferred President for Al Qaeda. He then suggested that this was a far greater insult in dealing with the United States.

But the problem is that Al Qaeda have already come out and said that the election of Barack is a good thing!

And of course, John Howard didn't make the point about Obama just because he thought all these radicals hiding in caves hated George Bush. He made the point because Obama at the time was advocating disengagement in Iraq, more importantly he was advocating running away from a conflict that had already been won (ongoing problems notwithstanding). Such following on of the US tradition of running away from everywhere with a hint of casualties for the last 25 years (think Lebanon and Somalia) such an disengagement would have given an enormous boost to Al Qaeda and their associates and once again portray the United States as nation unable to stay the course or follow through with it's own actions.

Say what you will about George (and lots of people say lots of not very nice things) he has turned around the perception of the US, particularly within the Middle East. It wouldn't take much to turn things around again, but right now, if George says he's going to do something, you know it's going to happen and you won't scare him away.

Obama has been very reticent about Iraq recently (because he knows that it's won) and the issue barely featured in the recent campaign, so we'll have to see what he chooses to do. Apparently, the cost of being in Iraq currently is very similar to the cost of stationing troops overseas anywhere else, as combat has dipped so dramatically!

So, if he drops the bundle and does something that encourage the groups who feed on US weaknesses, than it will turn out that John Howard was right. And just because Barack Obama is now the President of the United States still doesn't mean that John Howard was wrong. Of course it might be cause for some uncomfortable moments, but in the end Howard put forward opinion and he hasn't been proven wrong.

Sorry if this post was a bit convoluted!

Harry