One Year and broken promises.

The Federal Opposition says the Government's first year in office has been marked by broken promises and unfinished business.

The Federal opposition is stating that the Rudd government is doing poorly because it was "broken" several promises. Fuelwatch failed (a result of the Senate not letting it pass). The education revolution is an "utter failure" and the national broadband is a "fundamental failure

The thing is, the Rudd government has tried to deliver on these promises. and while the national broadband agenda is behind schedule, it is still on going.

Lets look at Howard's first year:-

“In Government, we will ask the Auditor-General to draw up new guidelines on what
is an appropriate use of taxpayers’ money in this area. There is clearly a massive
difference between necessary Government information for the community and
blatant Government electoral propaganda. Propaganda should be paid for by
political parties.”
John Howard, Press Release, 5 September 1995

The truth is:

The Auditor-General recommended guidelines in 1998 – which were endorsed by
the Joint Public Accounts and Audit Committee – but were rejected by the Howard
Government.
Since 1996 the Government has spent almost $2 billion on taxpayer funded
Government Advertising.

“The Coalition will seek to invest the Speaker of the next parliament with greater
independence, similar to his or her counterpart at Westminster . . .”
John Howard, Headland Speech 1 – the role of government, 6 June 1995

Never happened. In the entire 11 years he was in power.

I mean this was the party who had core and non-core promises.

The subprime market

For those of you who were wondering how the subprime market worked.

Want to be like Bush?

From a news article in the Australian.

French President Sarkozy has leaked details about his negations with Putin to end the Russian invasion of Georgia earlier this year. (How will other world leaders trust the French President now Mr Turnbull?)

He leaked them because Georgia has been a strong critic of the peace plan and have stated:

Mr Saakashvili denounced Mr Sarkozy for that, saying Europe's acquiescence over Georgia was identical to its appeasement of Adolf Hitler in Munich in 1938 after the German occupation of Czechoslovakia. "I never imagined that I would be saying such things but unfortunately those are the facts," he said.

Sakozy's team hopes the details will show how close Georgia came to a Russian overthrow of their government.

During the negations Putin had compared the Russian involvement with the US invasion of Iraq. The French president then made a brilliant argument that completely won over Putin:-

Yes but do you want to end up like (President) Bush?

The Imperial presidency

An interesting article from the New York times on the shift of power from the congress to the executive branch.

For those interested in these sort of things.

The true matrix

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

The spirit of '84

One of my favourite books of all time is 1984. It is a brilliant story about a bleak and desolate world of tyranny and conformity. That said there are parts of the book I disagree with.

I do not believe that the party could attain such a level of domination, such a degree of thought control or the mindless loyalty it demands in the mere thirty or years as is depicted in the book. Don't get me wrong the degree of surveillance could be achieved. The fear to speak out against the party, the thought police could arise over night, Nazi Germany and McCarthyism are prime examples. I'm talking about the degree of doublethink, to use a term from the book (As I'm writing I'm noting that the spell check doesn't have a problem with doublethink but has problems with "favourite"). Most people seem to accept it but Winston only accepts the doctrine after an considerable time being tortured and even then only fully after the events in room 101. (Of course the book is written from Winston's perspective so it might not be so ingrained in the population as Winston believes.)

I also disagree with O'Brien, both in his book he wrote as "Goldstein" towards the end of part II or during his conversation with Winston in the Ministry of Love in part III. I find O'Brien's assertion that they have made it so the party would live forever a little presumptuous. The fact that child are taught to mistrust everyone else and only have loyalty towards Big Brother would be the downfall of the party as it's future generations will not be able to work cohesively together as everyone tries to court favour with the non-existent Big Brother.

The level of conformity and discouragement of creativity in Oceania would also contribute to it's inevitable downfall. Conformity and lack of creativity would stagnate the society. There would be a lack of technological advancement. You would need to have all three power blocs, Oceania, Eurasia and Eastasia to develop a similar social policy at the same time!

So, what was the point of this post? It is because of 1984 that stories like this fill me with both a spine chilling dread and hope for the future of humanity. China is like the party in 1984. Communist, totalitarian, has a stranglehold on the past and huge pictures of the party leader everywhere (though in this case Mao was a real person where as Big Brother is like Ronald MacDonald.). They are utilising classic control elements from 1984 - surveillance, thought police, random arrests, rewritten history. The Tibetans are afraid to talk out. They fear the Chinese.

But still they resist. They might not be taking to the streets. Bombs aren't being set off. Chinese police can walk the streets without being stoned. And yet the Tibetans still resist. In their minds they resist.

The one thing the Chinese government can't stop, is their thinking!

And that is fantastic!

Surprising twists in Amercian elections.

That Obama won the presidential election is no surprise nor a twist.

But Americans voted for many things on November 4th. Might have something to do with the difficultly of getting Americans to vote, so they do it all in one big hit.

This includes referendums, such as Prop 8. Prop 8 is a proposal that would ban gay marriage. It was run in three states, one of which was California.

I have to admit I did not think it would pass in California. After all, they have San Fransisco for crying out loud. But it appears that it may just pass, but it is still too close to tell. However it has not achieved the majority of the vote many believed it would. In 2000 a similar bill, prop 22 was passed (it was defeated in supreme court and thus the recent gay marriages) with over 60% of the vote. This time it just holding at 52%.

California is being seen as a test case for the tolerance of gay marriage. Proponents of Prop 8 feared that if it fail that gay love would overrun the world. And while the gay community may feel disheartened by its loss, I would like to point out that while California is not ready for gay marriage now, try again in 2012.

Another surprising twist for all is Ted Stevens. Longest serving republican senator and recent convicted felon. He's just holding onto his seat. It may take weeks before it can be decided. For those who oppose him they're surprise because he's the first convicted felon to win a seat. Ted Stevens and his supporters are surprised because Ted Stevens has always won by a comfortable majority. Of course it may prove futile in a democrat controlled senate, with an ethics committee and all.

The Sarah Palin Ballads

These are just brilliant.

Good political ads

Wish political ads were really like this.

It's funny but it's true

Don't normally like Leno, but I suppose statistically he has to hit the right note once in a while.

This is from his monologue on NBC Thursday night:-

Insiders of the McCain campaign say that Sarah Palin has gone rogue. Republicans are complaining that she’s not listening to their advice, she’s not taking their notes, and she’s going off on her own and saying whatever she wants. And then when the campaign is asked what they like best about her, “She’s a maverick!”

And there's this one from O'Brien, another I usually detest:-

Joe the plumber was supposed to appear at a John McCain rally today, but didn’t show up. Yeah. So, apparently, the guy really is a plumber.