Afganistan - the cartoons

Mr Fish on TruthDig.com

David Fitzsimmons, The Arizona Star

Richard Farmer puts his money on Mooney losing Herbert

I see that Richard Farmer - that warhorse of the left, noted drinker, long-time punter and PoliticalOwl has the Libs at a 69% probability to win Herbert in his Election Form Guide. 

In short The Owl's current advice is:

• Back Labor in these seats: Braddon, Brisbane, Lindsay, Dobell, Deakin, Forde, Bass, Corangamite, Hasluck, McEwen, Leichhardt, Swan, Dawson, La Trobe, Stirling and Sturt.
• Back the Coalition in: Eden Monaro, Bennelong, Longman, Macarthur, Hughes, Macquarie, Dickson, Herbert, Bowman, Canning, Paterson, Wright and Wentworth. 

Stuffed!

Great Election commentary #1

Perhaps the first in a series of posts about great Election articles and blog posts that take my fancy.

From David Burchell in The Oz discussing the political class (or is that the Murdoch press?)

"No demagogue, no matter how crass, ever made themselves nearly so ridiculous as do those clever folks who, purporting to lift themselves above the fray, pass arch judgment on the mortals below from their eyrie among the gods"

...more of a great read here

What should we expect from the Bully tomorrow?

... a bit more yoof bashing perhaps?  It will be fascinating to see how this story is reported and how the write-up compares to previous reports about arson in the town.  Expect the worst:

Breaking news

For election junkies

My favourite election sites (so far)

• The Tally Room's backgrounder on Herbert



• Crikey.com's Election Tracker - The Stunts and Bloopers section should be particularly fun to watch as the campaigns develop



• The Drum's Election Sledge YouTube page - work a check every week for new vids



• The ABC's Campaign Pulse page has provides some excellent tracking of the opinion polls and media, twitter, facebook etc



• Anthony Green's House of Reps Calculator.  Have a play - for instance, you'll see that Mooney loses Herbert if the nation swing to the Libs is as little at 0.1%



• Anthony's Greens Electoral Pendulum - notice where Herbert sits!!

Check back regularly - I'll keep adding to the list as I find them (and as you send them in).

The real reason Gillard is in Townsville today.....

...to re-shoot Tony Mooney's election pics - all the ones he had were with his mate and now ex-PM Kevin Rudd who of course got Mooney the gig.  Should he actually get elected to the big house he will find himself doing a very long apprenticeship on the back of the backbench.

While i think about it ... I wonder what it felt like to be Tony Mooney shaking the hand of a woman PM from the Left ?????

Understanding rate rises

Don't fully understand why Tyrell's Council keeps pushing up your rates? 

As the say, a picture is worth a 1,000 words:

Game on!

So, the election is on!  Some early recommended reading:

• I can see Tony Abbott but where is the Liberal Party? Via Peter Martin
• A really interesting prediction: Why the Liberals will collapse in the Federal election campaign from Politically Homeless - the site for Tony Abbott Skeptics
• One of the things we should be discussing this election but probably won't - One Soldier commits suicide every day via news.com.au

Mooney must be sweating

Tony Mooney must be wondering whether he's gonna repeat in Herbert what he did in Mundingburra:

• He's lost his apparent key supporter in Kevin Rudd who, if The Bulletin is to be believed, intervened personally to ensure his preselection



• Within days of her becoming PM, Gillard visited the next-door seat of Dawson  to announce her Super Profits Tax deal and give Mike Brunker plenty of head space in the evening news.



• The Libs or the LNP or whatever they are called are already out-spending the ALP in Herbert by 10:1



• The ALP's local troops in Herbert are still pissed that they were denied the right to select their own candidate

And today comes the news (via pollytics.com) that Betfair gives Herbert to whoever that guy is who's running against Mooney:

A bit of a worry for the boy - especially given that theoretically he starts with a 0.4% margin!

Mulrunji and the coppers - "The whole charade is totally offensive"

Tony Koch has consistently written the best pieces in the MSM on the outrage that is the death of Mulrunji Doomadgee and the charade that has followed ever since.  In today's Oz:

THE lawyers' picnic in the Queensland Supreme Court is masquerading as a titanic battle.

THE lawyers' picnic masquerading in the Queensland Supreme Court as a titanic battle between the Crime and Misconduct Commission and the Queensland Police Service is just another attempt to deny any blame for the disgraceful investigation into the death of Mulrunji Doomadgee.

The CMC, after years of ignoring its responsibilities to ensure that police acted properly, recommended that disciplinary action be taken against six officers involved to varying degrees in the sloppy cover up.

Last month, CMC chairman Martin Moynihan gave Police Commissioner Bob Atkinson a fortnight to report back on action the QPS intended to take against the officers.

The only body with more culpability is the Parliamentary Crime and Misconduct Committee, which has the responsibility to be the watchdog, but whose members have sat mute all this time.

So this week it was back to court with injunctions ensuring that justice for Palm Islanders is further delayed. The whole charade is totally offensive.

Commissioner Atkinson has not had just a fortnight to consider action against the police involved - he has had almost six years. He has a sworn responsibility to ensure the law is applied equally to all citizens, but he has a special duty when a situation involves the most vulnerable in our community.

His refusal to accept the responsibility of his office and to take the obvious action against his officers is reprehensible. His contract should not be renewed when it expires late this year.

The motto of the QPS is "With Honour We Serve".

The investigators of the 2004 death of Mulrunji, so enthusiastically supported by Atkinson, have defiled that noble claim.

Council charges - no wonder you're feeling more broke than usual

Councillor and Mayor-in-waiting Jemmy Hill is circulating some calculations on increases in Council charges since amalgamation.

Just in case you’re wondering why your household budget is getting tighter, the following might explain:

Just to be clear, between Feb-07 and Aug-10:

• Sewerage charges have risen by 66% and discounts for payment on-time have been removed.



• Water charges have increased by 125% (assuming usage of 772 kl pa). If in response you reduce your water usage by -68% to 250 kl pa, charges will still rise by 45%. Discounts for payment on-time have also been removed.

 You have to wonder whether King Les really understands numbers like these.

What exactually are they on down there at The Bulletin?

How is it that, for The Bully, the headline out of the announcement of Council's budget is their plan to lay artificial turf on medium strips?

Could it be that they figured that that was the headline that would generate the largest amount of text message outrage - enabling them to easily fill a page or two tomorrow?

What goes around, comes around

Further to this quick post yesterday - it seems that only the Anglo countries voted for Howard and every non-Anglo nation voted against him.  Now, I wonder why that may be?

If you spend your whole political life playing the race card, what do you expect the the peasants to do when they finally get some power?