For reasons similar to those given by Tim Dunlop, Jason Soon and John Quiggin, I'll be voting Labor in the election today. Not that it makes a difference, since I live in Kingsford Smith, a safe Labor seat.
I hope that I'm wrong, but I don't think that Labor will manage to win the election. I expect that there will be a small swing against the government, but that their vote will hold up in the marginal seats where the government has been raining money down, and they will hold onto to enough seats to stay in power.
Update: Howard has been returned, as I expected. There was even a small swing to the government, which I didn't expect. This is bad news for Australian gun owners.
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One of the options that came with my new car (I bought one that they had on the lot) was an "Eight-Way Power Driver's Seat." As a physicist, I thought this sounded pretty exciting, because, you know, we appear to live in a three-dimensional world, and to get eight directions of adjustability woul
Falling under the broad category of "papers I never thought I'd see written" comes this article by Hammad Siddiqi about the social norm of leaving the toilet seat down and whether or not it represents a Nash Equilibrium.
Quiz: Who are the only Democrats that will "lose" their seats in the Senate?? What? Nobody wants to guess????
These are the races I'm watching. And live blogging (by the way, Biden won his seat in the Senate in Delaware)
The election is going to be close. It is quite possible that the Republicans will take the Senate. There is no way the Democratic caucus will obtain a super majority. I am especially embarrassed by Wisconsin. Here are the details ...
"This is bad news for Australian gun owners."
I'd say the rest of us also have reason to be worried, especially if Howard manages to clean up the Senate too...
Well, as a gun owner I was disappointed that John Howard didn't get turfed. However as a responsible person I was cheered that the government was not turned over to the irresponsibles and politically correct drones who appear to write the left's policies!
And best of all, the Australian Democrats took a caning. This party typifies what the whole gun debate is about - moral posturing as a way of life.
Come off it, Chris. You think that Howard's promises to spend even more than Labor on bribes was responsible?
Hell no! You are right - the pork-barrelling was utterly nauseating.
But my perception is that people saw Howard's pork as a straight-out, whatever-it-takes bribe, mentally separate to the overall expectation of Liberal performance.
It started months ago with the baby bonus. Puke, but damn that money came in handy!
Maybe the difference was that we had some of Howard's bribe in hand, whereas Latham's was just promises so far. But IMNVHO, Labor sent a clear message that their emphasis would be on victim and mates politics, opportunities for those who trendies care for, and maybe unions, rather than for all. I really had to hold my nose to consider Labor, but I think thats where my vote ended up.
Excellent news! Howard is back!
What a great day. Hope the noisy left-wing rabble finally get the clue that their views are not representative for Australia.
"The noisy left-wing rabble" are representative of at least 48% of Australia. If the "noisy left-wing rabble" had gotten slightly over 2% more of the vote and won the election would you conclude that all your political and oscial views were worthless, irrelevant and out-of-touch with most Australians?
But surely, Shirley, with Howard controlling the HoRs and, likely, the Senate, "responsibility" is pretty far from what we can expect?
Nobody --- except the odd partisan shill --- is truly represented wholly by one party or another. It is bad news for everyone if a single party gets complete control of the government. Even our political friends require some oversight, Chris!