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I voted at the local public school this morning. In the queue I was wedged between what appeared to be baby-boomer Liberal voters ahead, and Generation X Liberal voters behind. My suspicions were based on the how-to-vote material they were holding.

Someone wearing a Labor T-shirt and handing out how-to-vote cards was laughing with 3 or 4 people near the queue.

“She shouldn’t be annoying those people. It’s not going to help get anyone to vote for Labor” loudly proclaimed a constituent ahead of me.

“I dunno,” I said. “They seem to be enjoying being annoyed.”

Icy glance. Cue crickets. Time passes…

“Who’re you voting for?” comes a friendly ice breaker from one of the Gen-X-ers behind.

“I’m voting for honesty and humility. How about you?”

“Same with us. We’re voting Green.”

So much hope.

Brimming with patriotic fervour and eager for discourse, 4 of us took off to Gladesville at lunchtime to sample the official dish of the electorate of Bennelong: Pad Thai.

We noticed that a truckload more “Vote 1 Andrew Wilkie” signs had fallen from the skies during the morning and were now littering all of the roadsides of the virgin highways and byways of Bennelong. As we drove, we noticed what looked like an ex-ONA employee sitting on a bench by the side of the road next to some lively looking constituents.

Cool, thought we. Lunch, thought we.

Outside a drab building sexed up by smiling John Howard posters on Victoria road we spotted and shook hands with the electorate’s official fauna. Sadly, Andrew Wilkie had escaped before we finished lunch.

“Vote 1 Andrew Wilkie!” said the rat.

Move your campaign to the lee of the stone, thought I.

Letters – www.smh.com.au – October 8th 2004

I think that I will never see, A PM as lovely as a tree.

— Garth Clarke, Kirribilli, October 7.

I’m sure Garth wanted everyone to complete the stanza themselves.

Perhaps unless the PM falls, I’ll never see a tree at all.

Very clever.

I find it very difficult to enthuse
Over the current news.
Just when you think that at least the outlook is so black that it can grow no blacker, it worsens,
And that is why I do not like the news, because there has never been an era when so many things were going so right for so many of the wrong persons.
– Everybody Tells Me Everything, Ogden Nash

Via The Road to Surfdom

Question without notice, Australian Senate March 1st, 2004 Senator Faulkner (Labor) to Senator Hill (Liberal Minister of Defense):

[...]to have a shred of credibility, a pre-emptive strike or pre-emptive action requires intelligence and intelligence analysis which is utterly reliable and accurate, something that the joint committee has found was certainly not the case in relation to the issue of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. We are entitled to expect that the Australian government, in making a decision to go to war, have not selectively misused intelligence material, have not removed qualifiers or cautionary notes and have not acted in a way that jerry-rigs political support for a secret decision that was made months before—and that is exactly what Mr Howard and his government did.

Mr Howard, in his television address to Australians on 20 March last year, said:

We are determined to join other countries to deprive Iraq of its weapons of mass destruction, its chemical and biological weapons, which even in minute quantities are capable of causing death and destruction on a mammoth scale.

That is what Mr Howard said then. In fact, on 13 March last year he told the National Press Club:

Well I would have to accept that if Iraq had genuinely disarmed, I couldn’t justify on its own a military invasion of Iraq to change the regime. I’ve never advocated that. Much in all as I despise the regime.

PM unapologetic despite Iraq weapons report October 7th, 2004

Today at the National Press Club, Mr Howard was unrepentant.

“It is true that on the basis of the work and the surveys carried out to date, stockpiles of WMD have not been discovered,” he said.

“But it is also true that Duelfer and many others have certified to both the capacity and intention of Iraq to resume its WMD ambitions, once the United Nations sanctions and the United Nations pressure had disappeared.”

Mr Howard says the Government made the decision to go to war partly based on intelligence that suggested a strong circumstantial case against Saddam.

He says the report, showing there were no weapons of mass destruction, does not make a difference.

“I don’t see that this report alters anything,” he said.

“I’m not in any way apologetic about the fact that we were involved in a campaign that removed Saddam Hussein.

“In dealing with the here and now the important challenge is to make sure that Iraq becomes a democratic country.”

It seems that by “if Iraq had genuinely disarmed, I couldn’t justify on its own a military invasion of Iraq to change the regime” he must have meant “if Iraq had genuinely disarmed, I will have to justify a military invasion of Iraq to change the regime”.

The Seattle Times: Scientists find coffee really is addictive

File this next to “Does a one-legged duck swim in circles?” and “Is the Pope a Catholic?”

One of the joys of going to Flemington Markets with kids is that you’re able buy loads of cheap cheap! toys for next to nothing that will last up to 2 weeks from purchase. One of the others is that for the same price you’re able to buy two bags of fruit and vegetables from Coles or Woolworths you can fill your car boot… an additional bonus is that you’ll see some fantastic new ways to apply English.

For balance, someone now needs to laugh at my mangling of the words and grammar for beer, rice, hello, don’t want, and don’t have when I attempt to use them in Mandarin, Cantonese … and English.

This is a little post about something my flat-mates and I developed when I was in share accommodation.

The problem was that the great people I shared houses with (and myself) were such good friends we would politely ignore little problems we had. Every now and then someone would crack. Someone would break down and dump a laundry list of every problem they’ve seen in the last 3 months into a conversation and war would break out. This resulted in long periods of conflict, long periods of working on resolution, very hurt feelings, and embarrassment over how trivial the problems were that triggered it all.

Because we were great friends, we needed to find a way to live together without damaging something permanently. We came up with a simple pact. It’s a pact that I have used since to help the interaction of teams, and my family.

Have you ever been to a performance review and been surprised when a problem is presented to you from the past that could have been resolved at the time?

Have you ever been confronted by someone you live with about something you always do that’s been building up as an issue without your knowledge?

Have you ever fumed with anger for months about how the dirty dishes sit for hours when they should be washed right away after every meal?

Did you ever have grave concerns with a project document when you reviewed it and decided to keep quiet until the project retrospective so you didn’t rock the boat?

Problems that accumulate become further evidence that the person you have the problem with will never change. Problems that accumulate have already escalated into giant conflicts by the time you get around to mentioning them. Problems that accumulate are great to just throw in there when you’re angry about something else and feel you might be about to lose a debating point. Strangely enough, problems that accumulate don’t seem to get resolved quickly.

The rules go like this:

1. If you have a problem with someone or something, you must express it at the moment it is a problem.
2. If you fail to raise a problem at the moment it was a problem – the problem no longer exists.
3. When a problem is raised it must be taken seriously and resolved to the satisfaction of the community, not the individual raising it.

If you want to get along with a team of people with different tolerances of cleanliness, fastidiousness, code style, personal hygiene, taste in music, religious outlook, and culture, then you must agree to be open, receptive, and immediate in your reaction to problems.

The “agree to” part is most important.

Entering a community where this kind of constructive criticism is encouraged may be confronting, and always requires careful preparation and understanding. I can’t see this working as an implicit part of a culture; it has to be an articulated policy. A pact to behave in this way is easier before conflict escalates than afterwards.

It doesn’t always work. You can’t always remember it. You can’t always apply it. It’s nice when it works. Take it as you will.

Lateline last night had one of the great moments of this election. On its own this exchange doesn’t amount to a hill of beans but reminding people of Abbott’s form in arranging “helpful” stunts will override any ground made from ecumenical press releases.

Judging by the expression on Abbott’s face when the interview ended it was a significant couple of minutes.

Lateline – 30/09/2004: Voters wont buy Medicare Gold, says Abbott

TONY JONES: Tony Abbott on another matter, have you met Archbishop Pell during the election campaign?

TONY ABBOTT: Not that I can recall.

TONY JONES: Not that you can recall, because we believe that you’ve had at least one meeting with him quite recently?

You don’t recall that?

TONY ABBOTT: Well, when?

Where?

TONY JONES: At the presbytery in Sydney.

TONY ABBOTT: Ah, actually now that you do mention it, I did met with Cardinal Pell.

So what?

Why shouldn’t I meet with Cardinal Pell?

TONY JONES: Why couldn’t you recall meeting him, I think, 10 days ago?

TONY ABBOTT: Look, whenever it was, so what?

Why shouldn’t I meet Cardinal Pell.

Cardinal Pell is a fine man.

He made a very good statement the other day about the Labor Party’s policy, why shouldn’t I meet with him?

TONY JONES: Well, the reason we’re asking about this, obviously, because your behind-the-scenes activities in the ’98 election were quite renowned and I’m wondering is there any possibility that in your discussions with Cardinal Pell which you couldn’t recall a moment ago – in those discussions did you actually bring up the issue of private schools?

TONY ABBOTT: Nup.

TONY JONES: Not at all?

TONY ABBOTT: Nup.

TONY JONES: What issues were discussed?

TONY ABBOTT: Well, Tony, I may well have been going to confession to Cardinal Pell, I may well have been seeking pastoral counselling from Cardinal Pell.

What’s so sinister about that?

Cardinal Pell is one of the greatest churchmen that Australia has seen.

I am a very imperfect Catholic.

Why shouldn’t I go and seek counsel?

Why shouldn’t I go and trespass on the time occasionally of someone like Cardinal Pell.

If you spent more time with Cardinal Pell, your life might be more interesting.

TONY JONES: I haven’t spent any time at all with Cardinal Pell as it turns out, but that’s beside the point.

You’re a political operative and the question is not whether he gave you counselling but whether you gave him counselling because only a short time after your visit out came this letter signed by two Archbishops condemning Labor’s education policy?

TONY ABBOTT: So you think that I put words into the mouth not only of Cardinal Pell but of Archbishop Jensen?

TONY JONES: I’m simply asking whether that was a matter of your conversations which a moment ago you didn’t recall?

TONY ABBOTT: That’s a bizarre suggestion.

TONY JONES: Tony Abbott, we’ll have to leave it there, thank you very much for joining us tonight.

* Update: Who needs grammar? I do!