October 2008
1 post
WatchThis is a neat little widget produced by Intrade that keeps track of the odds on the US presidential election. Note that 270 electoral votes are needed for a win. At the time of posting, Obama is ahead with 338 predicted votes.
Don’tcha just love technology?
September 2008
13 posts
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.
...
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.
WatchIt’s all over the internet, and now it’s here too. SNL’s take on Sarah Palin and Hillary Clinton.
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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,...
August 2008
19 posts
Breakup Letter, Dramatic Reading
You Make Me Touch Your Hands For Stupid Reasons turn your sound up and click.
Senate Question Time: No Longer F*cking Boring
Parliament’s back, hazza! Question time in the federal houes of Reps today was great viewing. Three MPs were thrown out, including Shrek. The speaker stepped in it by kicking Barry Haase out for called Swan a dud (and got a stern talking to by Bronwyn Bishop. Ooooooh, scary).
Question Time is aired on the ABC 2pm to 3pm every day parliament sits. It alternates between showing Q Time in...
Tim the Spectator, now with extra spectators
Through some nifty html experiments, Tim has added the ability to comment on his blog. He is also referring to himself in the third person. Yippee!
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Is Malcolm Turnbull a tosser? Yeah, probably
4 Corners tonight was a doozy.
“My Brilliant Career” A profile of Liberal leader-in-waiting, Malcolm Turnbull… his brilliance, his brashness and his baggage.
He is an interesting figure in Australian public life. Undoubtedly smart, ambitious, verbose, full of himself, rich, charming - but the question is, would people vote for him?
Personally I think Turnbull is a bit of a...
George Orwell examines slugs ...Karl Pilkington?
George Orwell is a legend of western political thought. Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four are required reading for anyone even vaguely interested in political theory.
If he was alive today, would he be a blogger? Well he is now.
In the New York Times today: Media Talk - What George Orwell Wrote, 70 Years Later to the Day.
The website for the Orwell Prize is posting entries from his diary...
I was published in Crikey! (sort of...)
The other day, Crikey.com put up their “If not Costello then what?” poll. Readers were able to give their suggestions for the next best leader of the Liberals.
I suggested an iPhone. What better way to gain votes than with the latest must have marvel from Apple.
My suggestion made the list, therefore I have been published in Crikey. Sadly it wasn’t one of the top contenders,...
Paul Keating Insults Archive
Don’t be a donkey and click here for a laugh.
Will we ever have a politician with such a gift for words again?
On Howard:
“For Mr Howard to get to the high moral ground, he would first need to climb out of the volcanic hole he had dug for himself over the last decade. It is like one of those diamond mine holes in South Africa. They are about a mile underground. He would have to come...
Thank God for Lateline
I’ve been bored lately. The Olympics has drowned out the daily media cycle. Parliament is on break. At least the political junky in me can get its fix from Lateline.
Can’t embed video from the Lateline website unfortunately, but you can watch the Liberal’s Joe Hockey and Labor’s Bill Shorten here.
Hockey is a brilliant performer in these interviews. He’s...
The Rabbits by John Marsden and Shaun Tan
Possibly my favorite book is The Rabbits by John Marsden and Shaun Tan. It is a picture book, but it can’t be dismissed as simply a book for children.
The Rabbits is an allagorical tale of colonisation as seen from the colonised’s point of view. One day the native animals, brown creatures with curly tails that carry spears, encounter the exploring rabbits. The first meeting is...
Isaac Hayes and Wikipedia
Shortly after Issac Hayes passed away, this happened to his wikipedia page.
If you are unfamiliar, pwned is a deliberate misspelling of owned.
Telemarketing: how you should respond
Telemarketers are a royal pain in the arse. I’m sure there can’t be much more annoying than being in the comfortable confines of your home, enjoying time away from the world, when an uninvited and definately unwelcome call from some bored loser breaks your reverie.
Well let me tell you, it isn’t so great for the bored loser either.
Telemarketing is an area with a high job...
Holy Science Batman!
I came across a fascinating website yesterday.
The Nasa Eclipse Website has a list of every solar and lunar eclipse that will happen until the year 2099.
You can see maps like this, showing the region of the planet from which you can witness a solar eclipse.
Do you have anything planned for November 12, 2012, at 6.40am? And can you make it to Cairns? If not, you can make do with 70% of the...
2 tags
Indistinguishable from Magic
Sir Arthur C. Clarke died in his home in Sri Lanka on Wednesday, 19 March this year. He was 90. This is not a comprehensive obituary. You can find an excellant one here: Arthur C. Clarke, Author Who Saw Science Fiction Become Real, Dies at 90.
Clarke was a personal hero of mine. His books filled me the awe for the world around us, and for the possibilities the future may bring. If...
July 2008
3 posts
Bummer of a few days for Nelson.
Ouch. Brendan Nelson has had a tough few days. In the Weekend Australian, and then this article in the Australian on Monday, it seemed pretty clear Nelson wanted his party to commit to a wait-and-see Carbon emissions trading policy – where Australia would not implement an emissions trading scheme before the big guys, China and India, did so. Here’s Nelson quoted in the Weekend Australian: “Our...
What I hope to get out of this blog...
A chance to be creative, and to see if I can get crazy interested in my studies again.
I intend to use this space to explore political issues and local activism.
And hopefully use some of what I learned in Photojournalism.