h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I couldn't help noticing this morning that the grass is not greener, the sky is not bluer and there are still ferals living in a caravan on the nature strip outside our neighbour's estate. No doubt Kyoto remains unsigned and no-one has yet said sorry to the stolen generation.

I've seen it all before. Ke-vin Rudd. Beat-beat Beat. Things were only going to get better back then. And they didn't. We all ended up embroiled in an ugly war. The saving grace I suppose is that they could have become a lot worse.

John Howard has always seemed mean-spirited and stubborn. I can't believe it's true: he's a grandfather after all. But in politics, his success has relied on appealing to selfishness and xenophobia. It now looks like Howard will be a casualty of this election, losing his parliamentary seat of Bennelong to Maxine McKew, a sort of antipodean Kirsty Wark, who entered politics to take Howard's eye off the ball. She can't have imagined ending up in Canberra. Old Spice says "Poor John Howard". I say, "Good riddance, he was going to resign mid-term anyway. We've just saved ourselves the cost of a bi-election". Now the liberals will need to find a new leader and hopefully it won't be smug-u-like Peter Costello. Pop down the tab and put a dollar or two on Malcolm Turnbull.

Another casualty is Mal Brough. Decent liberals are few and far between. Mal Brough falls into that category. He's been passionate about his business in cabinet and has been good for our town. Not that we're in Longman anymore: we've been shunted northwards into Fisher, gerrymandered to prop up good-for-nothing Peter Slipper(y). Longman was supposed to be safe with Mal incumbent. It's a disappointment (probably moreso to the Liberal party than to me) and a loss for the nation that Mal has been dumped out of politics to save Slippery's skin.

Anyway, Australia has a new PrimeMinister, one who's less tough on asylum-seekers and the working man; a PrimeMinister who's fluent in Mandarin and who's been drunk in a strip show. Kevin Rudd's commitment to tackle climate change seems real (as opposed to Howard's tardy volte-face). Perhaps we'll see some real investment in alternative power. And we all of us can expect not to get a nuclear power station in our back paddock.

You enfranchised out there, then?

What a night I'm delighted to see the back of Howard... the children overboard thing was the straw that broke my back and things have only got worse since then.

No doubt we won't see much change for a while, as the ALP get used to being in power and the machinations (and limitations) of government, but I have high hopes for the future.

I agree about Brough. He was the Lib I felt most sympathy for last night. Also I reckon Turnbull might well give Costello a run for his money, but I still wouldn't bet on him.

The main thing about last night's TV coverage was that we saw the pollies speaking openly and off the cuff, in a way that they didn't during the campaign. Some of them were excellent orators and I would have had quite a different impression of a lot of them prior to voting, rather than afterwards. I know the reasons for the campaign management/control, but we lose the human side of a lot of our pollies which is to the detriment of democracy imho.

On a personal level, I kept up a lifetime Fb tradition and voted for people who didn't win However, I was part of the massive swing against Somlyay which must shake his confidence at least, as he heads back to Canberra.

I take that back... I would now put money on Turnbull, having heard that Costello's not standing for the leadership.

Who else is in the running? Downer? Abbot (oh please please.... guaranteed to give ALP a second term)?

'the children overboard thing' - go on Fb - give me a clue!

Refugees from somewhere (I'm sure somebody will remember) on a clapped out container ship, trying to seek asylum in Australia, left up in the tropics at sea, because JH said that they had been throwing their children overboard, to persuade Australian authorities to pick them all up and 'we don't want that kind of person in Australia' (I paraphrase).

Turned out they had threatened to do nothing of the kind...

"We will decide who comes to this country and the circumstances in which they come."

That was it. Thank you Trout.

How about the UK ? http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/brunel/F19585?thread=3140234&post=56948711#p56948711 Merry Christmas Doc.

Global Apartheid

Pure racism Doc.
You remember but for the unitiated.
An adaptation of Old English national humour. It began at school way back when with jokes that started:-
"An Englishman an Irishman and a Scotsman ..... "
The Irish bore the brunt of the attack on intelligence, the Scots on meanness. The English came out on top being faultless.
The Welsh were never in it, possibly because they had no sense of humour.
Geordies, Brummies, Aberdonians and Liverpudlians are an extension to give it a more local twist. The rest, Ausies,Yanks, Gerries and Froggies included, along with any other nation, clan or ethnic minority with specific national characteristics or traits are a natural follow on.
Lord forbid that religion and sexuality often play a part.

Howard is gone, Kyoto is signed and Sorry is said.

We've still got ferals living in a caravan on the nature strip outside the neighbour's acreage but citizenship finally feels like it might fit.

Agitating for the republic might be more easily done from the inside anyway.