Two weeks to election day, and the polls are still a disaster for John Howard. Does this mean previously-unacceptable tactics now become legitimate? Howard has never been one to give up easily. In the fight to the finish, just how grubby could it get?
John Howard sees scary poll, reveals super powers
With his electoral hopes still looking decidedly problematic, Prime Minister John Howard has revealed his last-ditch plan to destroy all uncooperative voters using previously-unseen super-powers.
The latest face-to-face Morgan poll show Labor well ahead at 62% to 38% on a two-party-preferred (TPP) split. We can see what sort of parliament that would give us using Antony Green’s super-dooper calculator scooper: Labor with a vast majority of 134 seats in parliament versus a Coalition rump of just 14.
That’s the worst polling for the Coalition so far this year.
During a particularly chaotic shopping centre visit in western Sydney yesterday, voters called Howard a “scumbag” and a “disgrace”, while police were left to check this woman’s health as the aspirational nationalist Dear Leader strode manfully into the middle distance, smile fixed.
Is this, as Ambit Gambit suggests, the defining image of the campaign?
Hat tip: Possum’s Pollytics via the Snarky Platypus (sort of).
[Update 20 August 2010: I probably should have linked to Dave from Albury’s original blog post, rather than where I found this image. There. Fixed now.]
John Howard is an alien!
This sculpture of an alien, looking remarkably like John Howard, is currently on display at M.A.D. on Enmore Road.
Yes, it’s all about John Howard
Just in case you ever doubted that John Howard is the problem with the Coalition’s election hopes, check this analysis by Possums Pollytics.
How this ordinary aircraft will change my life
This Boeing 747-400, photographed at Sydney airport last Friday, belongs to Thai Airways International. If you happen to have decent eyesight, you can confirm this by the fact that it has “Thai” painted on the side. Ownership is not about paint, however.
If you paint “Thai” on my side, I do not then become the property of Thai Airways, not even if you’re employed by Thai Airways to do so. Paint is just paint, whereas ownership of property is an abstract concept. A concept which can be supported or asserted by paint or other physical signs, but still an abstract concept which can only be agreed upon by sentient beings.
But what about another concept: nationality?
Nationality is not about paint either. Paint “Thai” on my side if you like. If you use the right brush I might even enjoy it. But I won’t become even remotely Thai. However is nationality something which is just agreed upon? Or is there something essential — in the core meaning of the word, having to do with essence — which makes someone immutably Thai or Australian or Czech or Chinese?
And how does nationality relate to similar concepts, such as ethnicity or race or culture?
I usually don’t think about these categories. The variation within them outweighs the supposed differences. People of every nationality range from amiable to arsehole. However that aircraft — that specific aircraft — has brought it all into focus.
Continue reading “How this ordinary aircraft will change my life”
For fuck’s sake, can we vote yet?
In the first week of the campaign, I thought it was just me. Maybe I’d seen a few federal elections and knew the pattern. But no, now I’m sure. This really is the most boring election in the history of western civilisation. Which is why I’ve written far less about it than I thought I would. It’s depressing.
I blame John Howard.