'tache two

'tache two, originally uploaded by jsteel.

11 days, and not an awful lot better, but starting to look more like a moustache, at least.

candidates

Jesse has been bugging me to put up a rundown of the candidates for the HoR seat we're voting in, Brisbane. So, here we go, in the order they appear on the ballot:

• Ewan Saunders (Socialist Alliance): The Socialist Alliance are left-wing crazies. They don't have much info on their house candidates, and I don't much care to read what they do have, because a brief foray into their policies just made me giggle.
• Ted O'Brien (Liberal): The liberals' policies, seem centred around throwing lots of cash at the buzzword of the election so far, "working families". There's also a good whack of pork barrelling for roads and sporting facilities in marginal seats (or so it seems to me). Their very mild tax break/reform has been largely offset by all this, as far as I'm concerned. The candidate, Ted O'Brien, seems to be some sort of itinerant businessman, which I find less than inspiring. He had a spot on ABC local radio about first-time candidates, with a Labor candidate from some other Brisbane seat, but Ted pulled out, apparently because the merits of appearing in the media were outweighed by the cost of having the ALP guy appearing in the media. I wasn't impressed.
  
• Arch Bevis (Australia Labor Party): There really isn't an awful lot of difference between the ALP and the Libs on policy. Lots of cash being thrown at "working families" and a good slab at roads, offsetting a mild tax break/reform. IR is an exception, and it will be interesting to see how much they strip away from "Workchoices". The candidate and sitting member, Arch Bevis, is a teacher by training, although he spent only a few years teaching, and the time since split between being a union rep and a politician proper. I don't hold being a union representative to be a demerit, and I do like that he has an identifiable "trade" (in a loose sense of the word), unlike O'Brien.
  
• Nick Contarino (Citizens Electoral Council): The CEC are protectionist crazies, and will go last on my ballot, as they should on just about every ballot (although the socialists are also pretty wacky).
  
• Elizabeth Guthrie (The Greens): The Greens are growing into a more credible party with a broader base of policies, but I still have real concerns that they are more activists than constructive policy- and lawmakers. This is particularly true for Bob Brown. Their candidate for Brisbane is an interior decorator, and seems a reasonable enough candidate.
  
• Mark White (Family First): Family First are a conservative "values" party, who do a reasonable job of keeping their religious base out of things, but basically push christian conservative policies on social liberty. They're also a party with a very narrow policy base. The candidate is alright, as far as christian conservatives go, I guess.
  
• Don Sinnamon (Democrats): The Dems are a sad affair, a party quite close to my political sympathies, but devastated by personal disruptions. Its hard to identify what their key policies are, but they include rolling back parts of workchoices, and much well-motivated gesturing on climate change without really worked-through policy. The same might be said for indigenous and asylum-seeker/immigration issues. They do seem to be strong on civil rights and parliamentary process, which are two things whose degradation has really annoyed me in the current government. The candidate, Don Sinnamon, seems a good soul, and certainly a much better candidate than they put forward in Ryan last time around.

This is all very cursory. Last time around, my reason for doing a run-down of candidates was to point out that some parties I would consider voting for had candidates that were basically unelectable. This time around it seems better. Arch Bevis strikes me as a good candidate. O'Brien is OK, although I'd be more comfortable if I knew what he did - he seems a bit like a faceless MBA-type. Sinnamon is similar, but a faceless advocate-type. Guthrie seems OK, and the others I can't consider because of their parties (7,6,5 will respectively go to CEC, SA and FF on my ballot, probably).

mo 1

mo 1, originally uploaded by jsteel.

A very pathetic looking first trim of the 'mo. Age 6 days, I'm afraid to confess. (I had couple of days' delay starting due to a job interview).

Meanwhile, Michael is powering ahead, and Jesse isn't doing too badly either.

Movember

During Movember (the month formerly known as November) I'll be growin a Mo. I'm not genetically the first guy you'd choose for such a task, and I'll probably end up with a Pedro rather than a Merv, but I believe in changing men's health and the fight against male depression and prostate cancer. Why...

• Depression affects 1 in 6 men...Most don't seek help. Untreated depression is a leading risk factor for suicide.


• Last year in Australia 18,700 men were diagnosed with prostate cancer and more than 2,900 died of prostate cancer - equivalent to the number of women who die from breast cancer annually.


• Men are far less healthy than women. The average life expectancy of males is 5 years less than females.

To sponsor my Mo please go to http://www.movember.com/au/donate, enter my registration number which is 168359 and your credit card details. Or you can sponsor me by cheque made payable to the "Movember Foundation" clearly marking the donation as being for my Registration Number: 168359. Please mail cheques to: PO Box 292, Prahran VIC 3181. All donations over $2 are tax deductible.

The money raised by Movember is donated to the Prostate Cancer Foundation of Australia and beyondblue - the national depression initiative, which will use the funds to create awareness, fund research and increase support networks for those men who suffer from prostate cancer and male depression.

For those that have supported Movember in previous years you can be very proud of the impact it has had and can check out the detail at: Fundraising Outcomes.

Movember culminates at the end of the month at the Gala Partés. These glamorous and groomed events will see Tom Selleck and Borat look-a-likes battle it out for their chance to take home the prestigious Man of Movember title. If you would like to be part of this great night you'll need to purchase a Gala Parté ticket .

More info is available at www.movember.com.

Movember is proudly grown by Commonwealth Bank, Holden, Schick and VB.

Movember is proud partners with the Prostate Cancer Foundation of Australia and beyondblue - the national depression initiative.

Oh but reader, heal thyself
Put the book back on the shelf

By the time the bus drops me off on the way home this evening, I will have closed the cover on the third and final installment of Neil Stephenson's Quicksilver trilogy. The cycle has taken me a number of years to complete, which I will put down to its considerable length (approaching 3000 pages, I would guess), and a few intervening activities generally incompatible with reading novels, most significantly the writing of a thesis.

I have enjoyed the series tremendously. I struggle to summarise it to people when they ask me what I'm reading. Its certainly an adventure story, with much buckling of swash to be found in exotic locations. Its also well and truly historical fiction, covering important periods of history in Europe, and movements such as the standardisation of currency and its trade, the development of organised science and engineering which eventually lead to the industrial revolution, and the slave trade from a European perspective. Although the setting is different, this mix is very much similar to the one he used in his previous book Cryptonomicon; indeed, he reuses character names (and associated archetypes) from that book, quite considerably.

The scope of the whole thing is quite improbable, and although Stephenson won't win any prizes for being prosaic, he tells a very good yarn, and has obviously done his research well and has a genuine affection for his subject matter.

Highly recommended.

weddings

I've had a steady stream of weddings over the last 7 or 8 years. Emma & Andy, Cav & Layla, Afe & Trish, Dan & Afro, Jesse & Alison, Jacques & Sophie, Sandy & Neil, and Manu & Erwan (the latter two being celebrations of marriage but not weddings in the strictest sense). This past Saturday, that company was joined by Dave & Maria-Luisa.

I really enjoy the whole spectacle of it: the getting dressed up, the making speeches, the gathering of friends & family, and the excuse to consume food and drink in high quanities and quality.

Having said that, one thing that Lach mentioned to me this week is that weddings are a poor way of meeting new people. Statistically speaking, this shouldn't have been the case on Saturday, as Maria's side featured no-one I knew, and outnumbered Dave's side by probably 2 to 1. Despite that, Lachlan's law prevailed and I really didn't meet many new people, instead spending most of my time talking to people I already knew.

Heinlein and libertarianism

How strange. John, who spends a lot of time pushing libertarianism, mentioned reading Heinlein a few days ago. Then, today, Kerry mentions Heinlein while expressing her skepticism about libertarianism. Small world!

I've only read a little Heinlein - Stranger in a strange land, and possibly Starship Troopers, although I'm not quite sure - and it was at a time when I wasn't really thinking about politics much.

election announced

The federal election was announced yesterday for the 24th of November. I followed the previous election reasonably closely, albeit from a great distance, and suspect I'll also be very interested throughout this one.

Some of my closest involvement has been through John and the party he has started, the Liberty and Democracy Party (LDP). They were previously known as the Liberal Democratic Party, but the AEC (effectively, as I understand it) ruled that the Liberal party had a monopoly on the term 'liberal', which is both ironic and wrong.

John has cast around at a couple of social gatherings recently for warm bodies to run in House races for the LDP, including asking me. I was pretty tempted, and haven't totally ruled out signing up for a run in Ryan, but I think I'm probably more interested in discussing policy than in a Quixotic candidature. I'm also not sure to what extent running lots of "token" candidates(with all due respect to those I know who are running) is a good idea for the LDP; they're up for $500 registration per candidate, with little likelihood in most cases of gathering enough votes to be reimbursed.

I have strange discussions with John about politics. I agree with most of the philosophies and principles of the LDP, but have trouble with some of their policies, in terms of where they have chosen to apply their principles (e.g. shooters' rights, smokers' rights) and the practicality of doing so (particularly regarding privatisation and deregulation). It certainly makes for interesting discussions, though.

I'd encourage anyone who is remotely interested in politics to seek out others who are or might be, and to engage them in discussions about what you think is important for this election. If you have been unimpressed by something your government or your representative has said or done, one of the reasons that happens is because people don't engage enough in the political process.

RWC07 - hardly knew ya

I hadn't gotten into the rugby world cup at all - no TV, and shocking timing with the bulk of it taking place during the much more important AFL finals.

At the urging of a french friend, I followed the online commentary of the Wallabies' loss to England, and it sounded to me like dour English "don't score a try at all costs" rugby defeating a Wallabies side that couldn't kick a penalty into the ocean if they were standing on the shore. Still, I don' t really feel any personal loss, as I was never invested.

No doubt my French friends are happy that they're through to a semi-finals devoid of the top 2 teams in world rugby. I didn't see the game, but looking at this, its hard to understand why more kiwis, in particular, aren't pointing out that the French will be there pretty much on false pretenses. I'm an AFL fan, so I like a forward pass as much as the next man, but that's a disgraceful no-call.

a bit of lip

I just pulled out my trumpet for a practice (that's not a metaphor, if you can believe it) for the first time in God knows how long. The usual debacle ensued, of remembering fairly quickly the keys, and being surprised at not having lost an awful lot of range (though range was never my strong point) until about 10 minutes in. I then decide to try a song and see that range completely disintegrate until after 20 minutes I'm doing long note warm-downs and conking out at a ridiculously low note.

get rent

Researchers once again prove common sense. Yes, young people prefer to live near stuff. Yes, renters hate the idea of a tight rental market run by bastard agents. Surprise, surprise.

weekend

Busy weekend.

Friday night was Julz' birthday, and a bunch of us hit the Bowery for cocktails, then wound up back at Abingdon playing a dancemat game around 3am.

Saturday was grand final day, and a bunch of us made a blokey afternoon of it around at Neil's place.

Following that, I popped over to Mick'n'Paul's place for dinner and a screening of Oldboy. I gave Julz her birthday present, a Neon Genesis Evangelion model (possibly this one), which we then spent a few hours assembling into the early hours. We also had a visit from some guy wearing a headband and obviously either crazy or crazy high, who hung around talking to himself and playing with Mick's car until we called the police, against the possibility that he'd do either himself or Mick's car some harm.

Finally, on Sunday, Mum and Dad came down with a set of drawers and a set of shelves. We also went for a look at sofabeds - didn't buy one, but not far away now.

passing thyme

A couple of things that have happened in my life since starting work:

I had a nice trip down to Canberra for work a few weeks ago. I flew down Monday night, was picked up by Lee, and stayed at her place after a nice dinner, which gave a good few hours for chatting and catching up. She has a really nice apartment down there. She dropped in to my workshop at ANU the next day, and when it finished early I had the opportunity to walk over to Liz & Mike's place, a few blocks away. It was really good to chat with Mike and Tom, although I had to leave before getting a chance to say more than "Hello/Goodbye" to Liz.

There have been a few good nights spent with Mick/Paul/Julz/Celia/Nené/Andy and that general crowd. One was Mick's birthday dinner at Garuva, after which we went back to Wynnum Rd and had white & black russians on the back deck. Another was Celia's birthday, for which we headed up to Keperra for some paintball, which was hella fun, and well worth the bruises that we all carried (and still carry, in my case) out of it.

new digs

About 3 weeks ago I moved into an apartment in Teneriffe. Its a one-bedroom place, but its pretty big with a nice balcony, and its in a pretty expensive suburb (the most expensive in Brisbane, I was told at the Capalaba Sports Club last week).

Over those three weeks I've slowly been going about filling it with stuff. Twice in the last 4 years I've been reasonably flush with furniture, appliances, and the sorts of things that one needs to feel at home in a place (as opposed to just camping there). Twice I've sold all that gear to move overseas, so I find myself once again looking at buying a fridge, washer, bed, table, couch, TV, etc. I'm going OK so far, having acquired a fridge and washer, paid for a bed and table/chairs for which I'll take delivery reasonably soon, and just about filled my kitchen with some nice gear (pots, pans, knives, etc). Thanks to a mission to Dan Murphy's with Lee, I also have a reasonably well-stocked cave. Nonetheless, until I get my few remaining items, I still feel a little bit temporary.

no news is ... ?

It hasn't been through any express decision or desire, but I seem to have stopped updating here about what I've been doing. On the off-chance that I still have anyone reading this blog, would you prefer to find here more regular accounts of what I've been doing, occasional flawed insights into politics and the way the world works, or a combination of both?