Tim the Spectator

Go tickle a Possum - on my favorite blog

My favorite political blog is Possum Pollytics.  It’s an independent source of reflection and analysis of politics and polling, run by the alarmingly smart Possum (who is really 34 year old Brisbanite Scott Steel).

This blog is amazing because it offers in-depth and insightful poll analysis for free (FOR FREE!), when the major parties and newspapers pay thousands of dollars to get it.

Possum doesn’t bullshit, doesn’t have an agenda in presenting his take on things, and because he’s a marsupial you know he knows what he’s talking about.  The man is a self-confessed econometrics nerd, and seems to have started the blog to simply revel in his love for the numbers.

Possum describes himself as an accidental poll analyst, and for the last few years he’s been keeping up an interesting discussion on his own wordpress blog in his own time.  The blog caught Crikey’s eye and his stuff starting getting into the Crikey daily email (where I discovered it).

Recently he made the big move from the notable small time to the internets bigtime.  Pollytics now lives within the Crikey Blogs page.  The content is just as interesting as before, the posts just as regular, and thankfully the man is now being supported by advertising (surely every blogger’s dream).

What makes the blog so bloody interesting is graphs like this:

The polls decide who is winning and losing the political game.  And for spectators such as myself, these graphs are the scoreboard.

The blog has been particularly useful lately in my efforts to follow the US presidential election.  Possum keeps track of all the polling data, betting odds and electoral college vote projections to give us spiffy little graphs like this:

Obama is in the lead after the economy has gone down the dunny, while you can look back a little and see a Sarah Palin shaped dip from the last few weeks.  Great stuff.

Possum is independent.  He has delved into the results of  major polsters to show us all that at least one of them is wrong (or even both of them): Analysing the Poll Bias: Morgan vs. Newspoll Part I

Last year during the Kevin07 election, Possum took on The Australian for their interpretation of a particular set of poll results.

In this story – Rudd ‘relaxed’ about Howard’s poll comeback, The Australian’s political editor Dennis Shanahan saw a small rise in John Howard’s preferred prime minister rating in the Newspoll and wrote this headline: Newspoll: Howard checks Rudd’s march (which was later changed to the ‘Rudd relaxed’ story).  In the story and in Shanahan’s personal blog he declared that this result was the first sign of a Howard comeback.

Possum, god love him, tore into this shonky interpretation.  In this post: Poll Wars: Episode 1 - The Phantom Metrics, he started a huge stir by ripping into Shanahan’s hypothesis, that the preferred PM rating was an indicator of the election result.  There was no proof that Shanahan’s conclusion was supported by the facts.  A number of other great blogs, including Crikey and Larvatus Prodeo, jumped to Possum’s defense as the Oz decided to fight back.  Unfortunately it’s hard to fight back against pure mathematical analysis.

Possum’s blog is what the new media should be.  It challenges the established media and keeps it accountable, just as the established media is meant to keep the powerful accountable.

I love this blog because it provides something that I can’t get anywhere else.  While the blogosphere in Australia is nowhere near as important as that in the US, this blog is on the way to building it up.

Now that the blog is an incorporated part of the Crikey network, I’m worried it isn’t as indpendent as it once was.  Will the man feel tempted to defend Crikey from criticism?  Lets hope not.

Design wise, the new layout is an improvement over the old site.  The small font and dull layout made the original site a bit of an eyesore.  The new design is clearer without being radically different, with plenty of colourful maps on the right hand side to stare at.

Possum also runs the occasional competition, and you can win nifty stuff.  So do yourself a favor and bookmark Pollytics.com.

Welcome Mr Turnbull, our new conservative overlord

Malcolm Turnbull has won the leadership of the liberal party, by a narrow vote of 45 - 41.

Guess the odds were off.  And I was right (phew).

Question time today will be interesting.  If he’s as smart as he thinks he is, he will ask all ten of the opposition’s questions, just as Rudd did the day he took over.

Exciting times.

Leadership spill - the odds

Sportingbet Australia has odds on who will win the Liberals vote tomorrow.

And as of 11.55pm, Brendan Nelson is out in front at $1.70.

Turnbull will give you $2.05.  Huh?

Maybe Nelson’s move really is a masterstroke.

Joe Hockey gives you $17 - might be worth it.  The big guy is loveable.

Nelson has balls, who would have thought

He’s done it.  Brendan Nelson has gone all in and soon we will know his fate.

My prediction - Turnbull will be the federal opposition leader by lunchtime.

I applaud Nelson for his timing.  Now that the Costello Memoirs are out and it seems the Smirk has decided he doesn’t want the leadership (at least for now), Brendan no longer has the excuse that his leadership was being undermined.  There’s nothing else he can blame the poor polling on.  If he hadn’t moved, the next few weeks would have been drawn-out torture until Malcolm Turnbull was handed the crown.  Taking a stand now, Nelson has a chance to win the vote of his comrades before Turnbull gets the numbers.  If he wins this, Nelson will have renewed authority, and hopefully won’t flash his dopey looking smile as much.

Too bad it won’t work.  I’m certain Turnbull will win tomorrow, despite being rushed into this contest.  Getting 16% support as preferred prime minister is a ridiculously low number, considering PM Kevin Rudd hasn’t done much more than keep the ship steady since taking office.

Tomorrow should be a good day for spectating.  Especially question time, oh boy.

Three graphic novels you should read

This is the start of what I intend will be a regular feature on Tim the Spectator - 3 things you should read/watch/do, as recommended by Tim.

Today we start with three of my favorite graphic novels.

Don’t roll your eyes, ‘graphic novel’ is not just a fancy way of saying comic book.  Writers and artists using the comic form have produced intricate works of art, that can only be described as novels that happen to have pictures.

Here’s three a recomend.  Read them curled up on a couch, preferably by a flickering fire.

BATMAN: THE LONG HALLOWEEN
by Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale

If you saw The Dark Knight then you’ll enjoy The Long Halloween.  Ths story had a massive influence on the writers of the movie.  For instance the entire scene where Batman meets District Attorney Harvey Dent for the first time was lifted from the pages of this book.  The Long Halloween follows Batman through a year of his career, as he battles all of the major villains of his rogues gallery, while a mysterious murderer kills off the major figures of Gotham’s criminal underworld.  It’s a tense thriller with surprising emotional depth.  Heroic characters turn villainous, and Batman/Bruce Wayne struggles with the legacy of his murdered parents.  And the ending hides a plot twist so cunning you’ll never see coming.

STAR WARS: LEGACY 1
by John Ostrander and Jan Duusema

Do you remember when Star Wars used to be good?  Before Lucas and Co decided CGI was more important than a coherent plot?  I do, and that’s why I love Star Wars: Legacy.  This new ongoing series from Dark Horse comics resets the Star Wars story about 150 years after the end of Return of the Jedi.  The Sith have returned and retaken control of the galaxy, while what remains of the Democratic Alliance forces and the original Empire (now led by a benevolent emperor) attempt to overcome their mutual distrust to free the galaxy from evil.  The main character is Cade, a decendant of Luke Skywalker who has become a drug addict, and wants nothing to do with his Jedi heritage.  Legacy is sophisicated, full of plot twists, and much more adult than typical Star Wars fare.  But it is also heaps and fun, and retains that element of adventure that made the original movies classics.

WATCHMEN
by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons

Watchmen is the graphic novel that redefined the graphic novel.  Set in an alternate 1980s in a world where Richard Nixon is still president, the Vietnam War was won, and heroes in costumes are a real life occurence, this is a novel that challenges and explores the idea of what it means to be a super hero with super-hero responsibilities.  And it’s probably a good idea to read it before the movie adaptation comes out.  I’m anxious about the movie, as the book is so full of little details and genre-bending story telling techniques that I can’t see how it could be put on screen without losing something.  But then again I used to think the Lord of the Rings couldn’t work on screen either.

Memo to Police: go find some real criminals

In an article in the Sydney Morning Herald weekend edition 6-7 September it was revealed student activists and Greenpeace members made up a third of a list of 61 poeple the NSW police banned from public areas during the APEC summit last year.

Due to a successful FOI request, you can follow this link and actually read the police document.  Unfortunately all the names have been removed, but it is still facsinating to read the police assessments.

What struck me was this assessment in one Mutiny member’s profile: “A1 intelligence indicates that on 27 March 2007 [name redacted] was part of a small group of Mutiny members who attempted to maliciously damge the ASIS/Defence stall at the UTS by deploying ‘stink bombs’ and red dye.  Due to a proactive operaton their efforts were thwarted.”

…really?  The police devoted time and resources to stopping student activsts with too much time on their hands from “deploying” stink bombs and red dye?  And they were so concerned they launched a “proactive operation” to stop them?

What a complete waste of energy.  Let me put it bluntly, while I sometimes agree with their stand on issues, the student activists/anarchists that make up Mutiny are nobodys.  They have no capacity to cause real harm to anyone.  During APEC the police were granted powers far beyond what was needed, in order to stop anyone from causing embarrassment to the government.  Not that it worked.

Here’s a link to the Black Rose Anarchist Library and Bookshop webpage, where members of Mutiny meet.  Their e-zine is also available.

The police described Mutiny as “an anarchist group consisting of a number of layers of trust and information management” that meets “at a covert location” to plan and prepare for violence.  Every student activist I’ve ever met has either been a rich kid flirting with rebelling against the machine until they finish their law degee, or is a serial compaigner (read: loser) with nothing better to do.  Devoting scarce police resources to monitoring their activities and stopping ther stink bombs is absolutely ridiculous.

Michael Kennedy, a former police officer and now an academic at the University of Western Sydney, said it best in the SMH article:  “You can’t make an international terrorist out of a Sydney Uni dickhead.”

The Nationals - where do we go now but nowhere…

A rollercoaster of a weekend in politics has left the National Party of Australia with tough dicisions to make.

In Western Australia, Brendon Grylls’ commitment to keep his party seperate from either side of the Labor/Liberal divide has paid off, with a hung parliament effectively in his control.  A good thing for the Nationals surely.

But in the federal arena, high-profile independant candidate Rob Oakshott has stolen the once-nationals strongehold seat of Lyne, and left the Nats with a palty nine seats in the Lower house (too bad, Rob Drew, nice try though).

And this is all ontop of the merger of the Nats and the Liberals in Queensland.

What can the nationals do?  They’re not the power they once were, and it doesn’t look like that will change anytime soon.

The Nats in the west have made progress by differentiating themselves from the Liberals.  But would this work federally?  If the Nats and the Libs seperate, we are much more likely to see a Liberal and a National candidate running against each other in every seat.  The Nats just don’t have the base or the resources to compete with the Libs in campaigns.  Leaving the coalition gives rural conservative voters two parties to choose from - and people like to back a winner.

Should they merge on the federal level?  This has it’s advantages for the Nats, in that it forever removes the competition between the two major conservative parties, and brings the full potential of the Liberal party machine into holding their seats.

But it has its downsides as well.  The Liberal Party understands that it needs the votes of your average aspirational suburbanite Australian to win government.  John Howard recognised this with his broad appeal and middle-class welfare.  A federal merger means the Libs become permanently associated with the concerns of rural voters, a minority, which could turn suburban and city dwellers off them.

But a merger could also leave a vacuum in rural electorates.  A large part of the Nats appeal is their connection to the identity of rural Australia.  Becoming one with the Libs means rural electorates have lost the illusion of a party that only cares for them.  And this is where determined, local candidate steps in, independant of all parties.  Hell, we could even see a new rural party.  A Nats merger could be equivalent to a Nats death.

It’s far too soon to say RIP the Nationals, but it’s hard to see how they can come back.  (Although they may have a messiah waiting in the wings).

Statistics are fun - watch the population grow

If you ever find yourself staring at your computer screen with absolutely nothing to do, and nothing else in your life is happening, you can watch this:

The Australian Bureau of Statistics Population clock.

Taking into account the rate of births, deaths, and the arrival of international migrants, the population of Australia increases by 1 person every 1 minute and 33 seconds.

It’s like watching paint dry, except it also means that every 1 minute and 55 seconds, at least two people in Australia are having sex.  Good to know.

21,415,785 at the time of posting.

Are you Racist? Click here and find out

While perusing one of my favorite sources of political analysis, I came across a link to a very interesting Implicit Association Test.

Click here to take the test.

The test is part of continuing research into the attitudes of Australians, being undertaken by ANU’s Andrew Leigh and Alison Booth.

I got a ‘moderate automatic preference’ for Anglo-Saxon names.  Am I harbouring unconscious racist thoughts?  How awful.

Sarah Palin, Oh My God

Sarah Palin is conservative.  Really, really conservative.  Moose shooting, oil drilling, polar bear not-protecting, snow machine driving, down syndrome child having, abortion not-having conservative.  And to top the conservative image off she’s about to become a grandmother.

I’m struggling to understand McCain’s thinking on this decision.  It’s risky, it’s ballsy, but it also completely undermines his main line of attack against Barak Obama’s lack of experience.

Maybe he wants disaffected Hillary voters — but if so, there must have been a better choice than this super ultra conservative.  Her politics are repellant to the majority of Hilary supporters.

If he wanted to shore up his evangelical christian base, then he didn’t have to look very far - Mike Huckabee could have done that.

It’s particularly her stand on abortion that appalls me.  She doesn’t support abortion for victims of rape.  If she’s raped and then wants to keep the baby, I’m fine with that, but why would you want to stop another woman from having the choice?  Theres something about a woman not supporting the rights of women that galls me.

And she doesn’t want to protect these little guys.

“Please save me, pleeease.”

According to poll analyst god Possum, while it’s close, Obama is still in the lead.  McCain needs votes from the middle ground.  Will Palin bring them?  My gut says no.

Breakup Letter, Dramatic Reading

You Make Me Touch Your Hands For Stupid Reasons turn your sound up and click.