As we are all very busy at the moment this will have to suffice for a new post.
GALAXY
When should Rudd make the trip and call the election
Will Labor or the Coalition win
![logo[1]](https://pbxmastragics.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/logo1.jpg){kind=logo}
Politics and life in general
Anything else you wish to discuss
And Last but not least
THE PUB 
I have an American mate who always uses smileys. He got me into the habit, at least when corresponding with him.
One email I forgot to add the smiley and he got all huffy about whatever it was I’d said, because there was no smiley to tell him it was a joke.
Instead of restarting the use of smileys, I insisted that he give them up too, at least for a trial period.
He kept it up permanently.
Now we have a better relationship. Neither of us can be quite sure if the other is having a dig, or just having some fun. It makes for a more interesting and lively exchange of ideas.
Leroy Lynch,
As you are around, may I ask you if it is, by your calculation, a Nielsen weekend?
And from the Land of the Free –
At least SOME judges over there have their heads screwed on.
http://thepoliticalcarnival.net/2013/08/01/federal-judge-extends-delay-for-third-time-on-wi-law-requiring-abortion-providers-to-have-hospital-admitting-privileges/
Some cartoons on Pope Francis’s recent statement.
http://thepoliticalcarnival.net/2013/08/01/cartoons-of-the-day-pope-francis-who-am-i-to-judge/
Is there anyone more damanging in the US than Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker?
http://thepoliticalcarnival.net/2013/07/31/wi-gov-scott-walker-suggests-stripping-police-and-firefighter-union-rights/
FoxNews’s Brian Kilmeade has to be the dumbest presenter on TV.
http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/david/kilmeade-almost-convinced-bigfoot-real-why-w
Senator Bernie Sanders takes apart a clown who is defending the retention of the $7.25/hour minimum wage.
http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/bernie-sanders-takes-apart-douglas-holtz-e
In BK’s link (thanks BK) link above, Gay Alcorn writes:
When George Megalogenis was a cub reporter at The Australian, running a fact-checking column was his first gig. I think it was called “Reality Check”.
And a good, informative column it was too.
Which is probably why they canned it.
Bushfire,
Don’t know if the same prescription would work on me. I have a well-earned reputation as one of these:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iay9gyLNdBw
People take me waaaay too seriously without annotation, so to speak. And, this is a public forum. Your e-mail conversation was private (except to the NSA in America I guess) (place where smiley would have been)…
Bob Watch
Another milestone.
Bob managed to get himself a drink of water, unassisted, this morning.
Perhaps after tasting Dog Gunk (NutriPet) he decided a little extra effort was worth it? How they can say that muck is palatable, I don’t know. The taste of the tiny bit of it that I sampled myself is still there, surviving a bottle of red and a takeaway Chinese dinner. It hangs around like a bad smell.
Still hasn’t eaten voluntarily, though. And still falling over on occasion, but a little steadier on his feet than yesterday.
Well, that’s a new one on me. ‘Fact-checking’ by journalists, and ‘testing the veracity of statements’ are two different things!
I guess, now that that cat has been belled by Gay Alcorn, we can know with confidence exactly what the Coalition mean when they proclaim, hand on heart, that they will have reputable organisations and State Treasuries (except for Labor ones), ‘check’ their Costings. That is, the ‘veracity’ of those figures will not be a part of their remit to check.
Bushfire Bill,
Raoul had better start getting worried again!
Smileys are sometimes used as a way of saying something inappropriate or offensive, and then chickening out of the consequences by plonking a smiley at the end of the line.
If people say what they mean, and think before they say it, there’s no need for smileys.
We got on fine without them for thousands of years of human intellectual and literary development.
Is there anyone as smarmy and disgusting as Matthias Cormann?
Answer: Plenty, but he rates highly.
BB
Did you see the pair on ABC24 get stuck into Boxhead Cormann this morning?
Good morning all. An encouraging Bob Report this morning BB which leaves me with a little sense of relief even though I am merely an onlooker in this. Go Bob.
Tim “Bucketloads of Extinguishment” Fischer on ABC-24 saying a 0-point-poufteenth% tax on bank deposits is the same as Cyprus.
Coalition spruiking is all sounding so anachronistic lately, like Fischer’s, like Cormann’s just now on ABC-24. I suspect the punters have woken up from their long sleep and aren’t copping the Coalition bullshit as readily as they once did.
In my opinion, the punter’s attitude has a lot to do with a guilty sense of shame at hounding Gillard from office for no reason other than they – completely irrationally – hated her. It was nothing less than Lynch Mob mentality. Mass hysteria. A national dummy-spit.
Bottom line: they wanted Rudd. They got him.
And now some signs of maturity (or perhaps Choice Supportive Bias – a refusal to admit the purchase was anything but good) are emerging, as they do what they cornered themselves into doing: listen.
It’s sad that the electorate is so fickle and shallow, but if they’re fickle in our favour for once, and it gets Labor over the line in the coming election, then I’ll take that for pragmatic reasons, in place of purity.
News Ltd newspapers nurtured this fickleness. They invented it. They spruiked for Rudd, thinking they could either do a deal with him, or – worse – they spruiked for him with only short term muck-making in mind, not really believing it would happen.
Now their dumbing-down has come back to haunt them, and they’re clearly panicking.
Ditto for the Opposition.
Neither of them – News or the Coalition – could help themselves. It was a tempting fruit, but maybe it was hanging from a poisonous tree.
Rudd, on his part, has done a lot of damage to Labor’s electoral prospects. He’s done it deliberately and systematically, wilfully. He set out to destroy Labor in order to save it. He may have left the “saving” part too late.
Glad to hear Bob is drinking on his own. I hope things are on the mend for him.
I never said Dog Gunk tasted nice. But it does work – maybe because the dog/cat decides getting well is better than being dosed up with that stuff.
PvO tries to be positive but it sounds like the Coalition are scared witless.
“…there are some worrying signs for the Coalition courtesy of “tighter margins” that “need to be watched closely”, a senior Liberal strategist indicated.”
Paywalled, but you know what to do.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/election-2013/marginals-not-part-of-pms-swing/story-fn9qr68y-1226689794739
[In my opinion, the punter’s attitude has a lot to do with a guilty sense of shame at hounding Gillard from office for no reason other than they – completely irrationally – hated her. It was nothing less than Lynch Mob mentality. Mass hysteria. A national dummy-spit.
Bottom line: they wanted Rudd. They got him.]
I think that opinion is spot on and would go even further and say that a few journalists share that attitude but would never admit it.
[Rudd, on his part, has done a lot of damage to Labor’s electoral prospects. He’s done it deliberately and systematically, wilfully. He set out to destroy Labor in order to save it. He may have left the “saving” part too late.]
He’s certainly got his work cut out trying to undo the damage he did and he’ll pay dearly if his repair job isn’t good enough.
Good morning fellow travellers….A little bit of observation.:
Of course, the outrageous exclamations of the Obied clan reflect the shallow depth of “criminal breeding” (in a financial sense) of the family. Being only one or at best two generations “from the hut”, they have not had inculcated in them from birth the exquisit nuance of “put your hands down..you’re sprung!” acceptance, indelibly branded into the mindset of certain Liberal business types, whenever one is discovered with one’s hand in the till.
Downer and co. even A. Bond (who was taught the “hard” way) know, along with their “old school tie” fraternity that in matters financial-criminal…youse pays your money and youse takes your chances…and IF you get sprung, you employ the best criminal lawyers (a bit of the loot is always put aside to cover such inevitabilities..-“We always put a little away each week for our habit!”) to get you..not off..but out of the media spotlight…and those lawyers not only have to be good, they ought to preferably sport “the old school tie” and even THEN..a tie MOST FAMILIAR to the presiding magistrate!
The one thing one doesn’t do if found irrefutably guilty is to “peach on a fellow”…..you just shut the f*ck up, do your penance and never peach on a fellow….and possibly come out a “better man” (in an experienced criminal sense) for it.
The Obied’s will get better…as A. Bond got better (see who he drinks with now?)…but unfortunately, the “getting of wisdom” in the swindling financial / honest businessman world is best learnt with a bit of ‘chokey’ !
Bushfire Bill,
Your argument against the use of smileys is based upon a false premise. A couple of them actually.
1. Inflexion. Yes, men and women may have been communicating for millions of years without smilies, however, that communication, except by letter, was face to face, or over the telephone, where voice inflexion is able to convey almost as much meaning to a sentence as the words used.
Yes, letters were also written, however, history is littered with examples of misinterpretation of the words, with sometimes fatal consequences. I think I might be right in adjudging that it was the cause of a big problem in the Mark Antony, Cleopatra, Julius Caesar relationship.
Nevertheless, I also believe that it was in letters that smiley faces came to prominence. Not only, but also, when they burst to worldwide fame during the psychedelic era and more recently, via the Trip Hop and Ecstacy sub-culture which arose in Britain and spread world-wide.
Which intersected with,
2. The Internet. Smilies became a crossover tool with that generation when texting took off but was combined with initially expensive data costs for sending texts. Nowadays, even though costs have come down, every phone these days has them as an included option on your keypad. They are here to stay because they convey an emotion, which communicating via the internet or phones still has as a hurdle to effective emotive communication. To get the point across without being misinterpreted, which voice inflexions generally serve the purpose of in face to face, or phone conversations.
So, Bushfire, may I ask, do you also speak to people without voice inflexion, thinking that the words alone will suffice?
Leone2, that sounds like my (sadly departed) brother-in-law.
When I was about 18, and a very callow youth, not long out of Mum making me breakfast and dinner, promptly, every day, I was applying for a casual wine waiter’s job.
He showed me the ropes: how to pour from the right hand side, how to drape the serviette over the arm, how to turn the bottle slightly to avoid dripping, when to say thank you, when to top up the glass.
I got the job and did pretty well, actually. Tips were good. After a few weeks I was pretty confident. My brother-in-law told me several times how chuffed he was that he had trained an obviously successful wine waiter. It’s easy when you know how etc.
This was in Port Moresby, PNG, and all sorts of no-goodniks used to come into our restaurant from the hills and swamps. It was regarded as one of the poshest in Port Moresby (a low base, admittedly, in 1971) Crocodile shooters, remittance men, wife dodgers, lechers and (the worst of all) ex-pat members of the New Guinea parliament, “Natives’ Friend” types who had been up-country for 20 years and had collected a dedicated following among the locals.
One of these was in the restaurant one night and he had a very attractive lady with him, easily 20 years his junior. He was plying her with champagne. They’d take one glass each, and he’d order a new bottle, saying he only drank the first drink out of a bottle (after that the champage was “no good”).
I took the barely touched bottles away, and couldn’t resist. I had a few of the discarded glasses, and they tasted pretty good to me. But he was the customer, so I kept bringing him his fresh bottles.
Eventually, a little heady from the wine, casting caution to one side, I sat down with them at their earnest request. While I was at their table the other waiters were walking around us smiling benignly.
Well, at least I thought they were benign smiles. Actually they were more the overly obsequious polite smiles that pissed off waiters use to show their extreme displeasure, at the customer, and at their colleague who’s lording it over them getting pissed with the punters while he should be helping clear the other tables.
After the restaurant closed I got sacked on the spot, for not only drinking with the customers, but for nearly causing a riot out in the kitchen among the other staff.
It was all above my head. In my defence I pointed out that Jack Savage (“The Natives’ Friend”) had bought $200 worth of champage, which was a fortune in those days, and that I’d plied him with it. I should be congratulated, not sacked.
When the chef came towards me, with a meat cleaver in his hand, I realized I’d misread the situation. I was lucky to be able to leave the place without being flattened by him. But for the owner-manager intervening, the chef would have decked me.
Next evening I fessed up to my sister and brother-in-law (with whom I was boarding) that I’d been sacked. They asked what I’d done, and listened with increasingly widening eyes.
“They do it in movies all the time,” I said, probably thinking of Rick in Casablanca sitting down with his patrons.
My sister informed me that Port Moresby wasn’t Casablanca (although there were similarities), and that the restaurant I had been working in wasn’t Rick’s (absolutely no similarities at all, I had to concede).
In my last ditch defence I accused my brother-in-law of being a lousy wine-waiting tutor. He never told me that you shouldn’t sit down with customers.
He looked incredulous. What was I talking about?
I said, “Well, YOU were the wine waiter, after all.”
He smiled and replied, “Who ever said I’d ever been a wine waiter? I pulled beers in pub, but I was never a wine waiter. You assumed I was a wine waiter.”
There were several lessons in that post-termination chat.
One was, “Always check the bona fides of people who lead you to think they’re experts.”
The other was “Movies aren’t real life.”
The third? “Never, ever sit down with the customers.”
I broadly broke all those rules last night:
I assumed Leone2 was an expert in Dog Gunk and that she had not been as revolted by it as I was.
I believed the label about it being “palatable” and “eagerly accepted” by dogs.
I tried it myself… about as dangerous as sitting down with the customers.
Perhaps Leone2 – and my brother-in-law – should have used smileys?
The FACTS on the Bank Guarantee Levy:
It will amount to $5 per year on a $100000 Bank Deposit.
Or, $125 per year on a $250000 Bank Deposit.
So, yet again, we have a case of the Liberals squawking like galahs for the big money sector of the economy.
The faux campaign is in full swing. Abbott is flat out.Frenetic. Rudd is careful not to over expose. He’s setting the agenda. I think he’ll announce this Sunday for Sept 7. No one in either campaign knows the result. Rudd can win, but Rupert will do everything,anything to ensure an Abbott win. Fairfax tabloids will flay to keep up: their relevance is on the line. This could be the election decided by social media. One thing is sure- it will descend into the pits.
From Texas of course!
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2009/03/20/creationist-heh-master-of-science-haha-degree-hahahahaha/
C@tmomma, your argument in favour of smileys sounds like over-intellectualization to me.
You almost make a case for compulsory use of smileys, as if people who don’t use them are misguided or somehow limited in this modern day and age of insta-communication.
Smileys take away the pleasure of creating and interpreting irony, in my view, as well as being sometimes misused to escape the consequences of things written that should be better left un-written.
I’d much rather indulge in irony and have to occasionally explain misinterpretations of things I’ve written, than to pepper my words with the little yellow circles, which effective accuse the reader of being too dumb to get the joke.
C@tmomma – last monthly Nielsen was released July 15, so no. The one before that was June 17.
I would expect the fortnightly Newspoll to come out this weekend, unless they shift it around. We had two in two weeks not that long ago, which seemed to avoid clashing with the last Nielsen. Most likely it will come out this weekend.
Having nursed someone who was having malnourishment problems because his body kept eating up his nutrition to ‘feed’ it’s cancer, and thus ended up giving him the human equivalent of Nutrigel, I already knew it probably tasted like regurgitated dog’s vomit combined with dissolved metal shavings.
My husband refused to eat his too. It also worked to bring back his appetite! You just have to get creative in the kitchen and be bold.
Just because a doctor tells you that a patient should have something by way of nutrition, doesn’t mean that’s all they can have. You can make up for the contents of the nutritional supplement by putting the required vitamins, minerals, proteins and fats, into a tasty soup or porridge. A vitamin or mineral, or whatever, is the same, no matter what it’s source. And, as for the argument that these nutritional supplements have everything in the correct proportions, well, there’s nothing right about them if they are refused!
Bushfire Bill,
‘Over intellectualisation’, or a good argument for their popularity and use? I’ll let others, who aren’t invested in the outcome of the argument as much as you and I are, be the judge of that.
However, I will make one concession. I won’t use them routinely. I will use them judiciously. (Place where smiley would be used to indicate a nice comment, not a nasty aside).
Al Palster,
I heard today they can’t have the election on September 7th if they want to include the Local Government Referendum. If it is to be held, it mandates an election after September 14th.
It’s real Gunk.
It tastes sort-of sweet, in a treacley sort of way, with aniseed or something similar in there somewhere, and a metallic aftertaste. And I only had a tiny bit on the end of my finger, not 15ccs of the stuff!
We also gave him some ham-and-chicken paste and some tasty chicken soup, but all through a syringe.
The lady at the Pet Barn cash register said she’d had to keep her dog on NutriPet for 9 days. Sheeeesh!
But I agree on tastiness. I strained some of my chicken and sweet corn Chinese soup from last night, so I could use it with a syringe, and I’ll try that today.
He’s still not interested in food this morning. This is a dog that would eat anything – including his own warm vomit (too much for HI, she always cleans it up, but OK by me, I let him eat it… and he eats it all) – going from that to indifference to food, overnight.
Then again, I’ve been indifferent to food too, since Bob got sick over Monday night. We’re fasting in sympathy with each other. Finally only got really hungry last night and had Chinese takeaway, but my heart wasn’t in it, tasty as it was, after a bare sufficiency had been eaten. Other than that I’ve had a couple of sausage rolls and two packets of corn chips. Oh well, I could do with losing a bit of weight. But Bob can’t. He’s pretty skinny as it is lately.
But he’s out on the deck now, exploring with his 3/4 blind eyes (the vet’s estimation). Still wobbly, still falling over, but not as badly as yesterday.
Baby steps.
P.S. Now he’s sitting as close to the heater as he can get without climbing into it. Smart dog.
Good morning all,
Interesting move by the Rudd government re the bank “levy” or whatever it is.
Details are few on the ground atm but the OM is already in full swing with the “big new tax” mantra.
Comments later on today by the financial/banking sector will be informative as to how the next few days will unwind politics wise.
What I am having trouble with atm is what appears to be conflicting reports as to what this new policy will actually do.
If, as some reports comment, the new charge is being introduced to protect the financial sector from future shocks how can it be used to bolster the budget bottom line at the same time as is also being reported?
If it is to be placed in a reserve fund for a future rainy day then it cannot be part of the budget revenue/expenditure bottom lines.
That is my understanding anyway and I am more than happy to be corrected.
The OM atm have no idea ( not unusual ) and are just on automatic.
Will have to wait for the offical announcement today by Bowen.
Have a great day all.
I remember back at PB when you hardly ever used smileys. It wasn’t that long ago, either.
C@t, you’re a feisty, engaging writer and are perfectly capable of expressing yourself without little yellow circles.
BB
I am sort of a Dog Gunk expert, although i’ve never felt the need to taste it. I have used it a few times – except it was Cat Gunk here. One cat loved it (he was very ill at the time and not in his right mind) and lapped it up. His sense of smell wasn’t working because he was so sick, that helped a lot. The vet and I reckon it got him through a really bad patch. The others gave me that ‘I know you are trying to poison me’ and or/ I’m not THAT sick’ look and refused to try it. The vet suggested putting it on a paw so the cat would lick it off. Cats aren’t that dumb, no matter how sick they might be. Ever tried washing icky gel off a fevered paw? Sick cats are cranky cats, they leave scars. I did have to resort to the syringe treatment with one cat. The stuff worked it’s yucky magic there too.
Seriously – could Bob’s illness have affected his sense of smell? I don’t know much about dog illnesses, but cats often lose their sense of smell when sick – they get it back again – and because they can’t smell their food they won’t eat it. That’s why I had to resort to Cat Gunk a few times.
The vet is pretty-well convinced he has a brain tumour. But the signs are “classic” for both conditions – one relatively benign and the other malignant.
In line with the “brain tumour” scenario, she says it could well have adversely affected the appetite centre in his head. She said that drinking water and eating solid food aren’t necessarily connected, and he can take water, but not want food.
We just don’t know.
I got all cocky with a vet once, who said one of our cats had inoperable cancer on his paw, that it would inevitably spread and kill him in short order.
I went for a second opinion to a cat specialist who suggested surgery. They got in the top cat surgeon in Sydney to do it, at half price, because the vets was also a veterinary teaching hospital (and they took pity on me, I guess).
The removal of two toes was a complete success, and for a while the old fella did well. The cat specialist pronounced him “cured”.
But he eventually died three months later. He also had a terminal kidney disease, and it could well have been that, or a combination.The vet who put him down was the original local vet who’d made the original diagnosis.
He’s also the same vet, who concurs with the lady vet I’m seeing, that Bob has a tumour.
So this time I’m not letting myself get my hopes up too high that the diagnosis is wrong. I’m operating as if I assume it is, but not letting myself get too excited.
The vets DO admit a not-insignificant chance that it is vestibular disease, which he should recover from (but perhaps not fully). Certainly the internet is full of people like me who’ve thought their companion animal had a stroke and were prepared for the worst, only to get them back a week, two, three weeks later, sometimes as good as gold, sometimes down a peg or two, but still functioning.
Problem is… Bob doesn’t have too many pegs to slip down.
He’s always been a fighter. He’s fighting for his life now. He’s trying to function, standing up, falling down, but getting back up again and trying, which is the main thing.
That he might take days to get back on his food (if that’s going to ever happen) means I’ll just have to look after him for that time.
But eventually, probably sooner rather than later, the resolution of the situation will become clear. If Bob gives up, I can only do that terrible thing we do to the ones we love, because we do love them.
I’m with BB on the smilies issue. I do occasionally use them when I’m communicating with someone I don’t know very well, and I don’t want my ‘joke’ to be misinterpreted. But will people I do know well, never.
I’m not against them, though. I just think they’re unsubtle, and strip some of the nuance away. There are times when you need to do that, and they’re effective tools at those times.
And now for something completely different. A sensible move by a government prepared to lead with rational policy, not be intimidated by America, or the world-wide Conservative movement:
http://www.alternet.org/drugs/uruguay-house-passes-historic-marijuana-legalization-bill?akid=10751.172728.Ey20Xa&rd=1&src=newsletter877111&t=5
Bushfire Bill,
Not meaning to be misinterpreted and so seem flippant, but do they have CAT Scans for dogs, so you could find out if Bob has a brain tumour or not?
They do it there, they do it here. Think jaw-boning down the economy. Think Joe ‘Ending the Age of Entitlement’ Hockey. Think of how it can give a Tea Partyesque government the cover they need to justify a reduction in the size of government and the services and pension levels they can justify providing. It’s why it was and is a virtually treasonous act for Andrew Robb to question the Ratings Agencies and their 3 Triple A Ratings for Australia, and ditto for Joe Hockey’s denigration of Treasury:
http://www.alternet.org/economy/illinois-pension-attack-collusion?page=0%2C2&paging=off
It’s not as bad here as it is in America, due to our super strong Superannuation Funds, however, there are parallels in the talking down of the economy for personal gain that the Coalition, and their mates in the big business community, engage in. And, as I said above, Robb’s questioning of the Ratings Agencies and Hockey’s questioning of Treasury’s bona fides.
They don’t do it because they have good reason to, they do it because they have an ulterior motive to weaken their political opponent’s economic credentials.
Which is absolutely despicable of them.
Abbott caves in and says “Mr Rudd and I are no different when it comes to education funding.” “It’s all about how the funds are managed”.
Now Prissy has a go.
Surely the banks make enough from our money to cover the bank insurance without a levy?
http://www.smh.com.au/business/banks-make-71-million-profit–a-day-20130623-2oqrw.html
Jaeger,
I would have thought so, but don’t forget it was a banker who said “Greed is good”.
Now Abbott renames rorted FBT as “Company Car Tax”.
A most unimpressive performance from Abbott followed by the usual snivelling truncation of questions.
Melissa Clarke immediately describes the statement as a “significant back down.”
Off now to Hall for a luncheon with Mr and Mrs Duck, Havachat and Mick from Kambah.
We’ll have to consult the smartphones to see what Bowen comes up with at 1230.
So, Victoria’s going to sign a ‘Better Schools’ deal today then?
A big question now for Abbott and Pyne is whether or not they would continue with the funding formulae. They did use the term “economic envelope” which reeks of wriggle room.
So, the Coalition strategy now is to just go out and say stuff, then go back and check the public reaction, and then say the opposite? This is a big switch from the say-the-same-stupid-thing-over-and-over strategy they’ve been using for the past three years. The message seems to be:
1. We were wrong all the time.
2. The ALP have done the hard yards and are implementing good things.
3. We now think that’s good.
4. Vote for us.
A really quick pop in, I’m not really able to follow anything full time at present, but have decided that (for the moment) pollbludger is not for me.
Follow the campaign I’m running via —
https://www.facebook.com/RobynWalsh4IndiALP
Finding it really interesting at present, particularly looking at how the other candidates are using social media.
This ranges from —
Sophie Mirabella – all the works, bells and whistles, but almost no local content whatsoever and no personal engagement, either on twitter or elsewhere.
Cathy McGowan (hot favoured independent) – lots of bells and whistles, but largely a vanity exercise. She ruled out having policy positions in favour of ‘consulting with the electorate’ but has now decided to bring out a series of ‘positions’ after her campaign launch on August 4. So her sites (multiple, beautifully designed) are mainly about what she’s doing.
Interestingly, she appears to be going for an approach based around a mix of social media/small group meetings. Very little msm, which is still essential up here.
My impression is that she’s basically interacting with the same people over and over again, which gives you a nice buzz when you’re a candidate but doesn’t win over undecideds.
Us – going for a more scatter gun approach – lots of media releases, lots of facebook updates, a little bit of twitter (but still more than the others, I think), and lots of the candidate getting out to do meet and greets across the electorate.
We’ve got another eight or so candidates – Greens, two other indies, PUP, Katter and the 21st Australia party. Oh, and Danny N’s whackos.
Neither the PUP or Katter candidates are based in the electorate.
Wish I had the money to spend that SM and Cathy Mc do! Certainly would make a lot better use of it!
You can support us by buying a badge – $3 posted!!!
I wouldn’t believe a word Abbott says on schools funding, especially not after seeing this bit –
“The Coalition would also remove what has been a key sticking point for Western Australia and Queensland, by dismantling the central control powers of the federal education minister.
It believes the states will contribute appropriately to their school systems, but they will not be compelled to do so.”
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/education/tony-abbott-to-match-labor-on-school-funding/story-fn59nlz9-1226690078031
It’s back to giving the states buckets of money and then letting them do whatever they want with it. If Fatty O’Barrell wants to invest his schools money in yet another casino at Darling Harbour then he can.
Zoomster,
Great to see you at The Pub – drop in this evening for a bit of frivolity too if you have time!
All the very best with the campaign. It would be too too delicious to see the charming Mrs Mirabella lose.
BK,
I have turned
Bon appetit to you all!