Here comes the sun

Before I rant up about moving house and Foxtel and stupid stupids, I think it’s appropriate, on this exhaustingly sunny, 43° Celsius day (109.4° Fahrenheit for those of you still living in the Imperial Past), to draw attention to our collective Governments’ (Federal and State and probably Local and let’s include Galactic, too) failure to tap into this nigh-inexhaustible power source. By which I mean the Sun, silly.

Just yesterday (when it was a meagre 38° Celsius) I read about my country’s lack of investment in and encouragement for renewable energy sources.

Oystein Oyehaug, renewables chief of Norwegian solar cell manufacturer UMOE, was reported to have said it was "amazing" that the Australian economy remained so reliant on old industry favourites such as coal and iron ore mining. "In the long term you should be doing more than mining for the Chinese.”

Great line.

The article goes on to point out that Australia “now risks being outshone even by the US, with new President Barack Obama declaring his aim of doubling renewable energy production in three years.”

The US?

Have we fallen that far?

Whilst on this (and I know I've made comments on this before, but it, like, hasn't been fixed, yet), late last year Tim Colebatch pointed out that the Rudd Government's emissions trading scheme will likely result in Australia pumping out more emissions in 2020 than we do now.

Good one, fellas (and lady).

So. Libs – duds. Labor – duds. Democrats – demoduds. Greens? Dare I hope?

Or should I just make a prediction that ends in “duds”?

Bye-bye, Bush

Don't let the door hit your ass on the way out - because Obama won't like ass-prints on his new door.
PS I moved house over the Exmas break, and I've been saving up all my rant juice for a big tirade about the horrendous experience soon, my pretties...

Now, back to the wa(r)ll

Had a little too much alkeehol last night, celebrating The Win. It was a glorious thing to watch. But now reality must once again stick its rude nose into our lives.

I've finished travelling around the country for work, at least for now, so it's good to be back home and rant a little. One thing which almost got by me was Paul Keating's comments regarding Gallipoli, which led to an outpouring of criticism of our beloved ex-PM (although I'll admit that I didn't truly belove him until he was an "ex"...). One of his most vociferous critics was not yet ex-PM Kevin Rudd, who also admitted that he didn't know exactly what Keating had said, but nevertheless disagreed with the gist of what he meant, no doubt.

While I understand what Keating was getting at - which I think was basically a rejection of the idea that Australia needed something like a Gallipoli to find its own identity - I still think visiting Gallipoli can be a profoundly moving experience.

Not to mention cheap.

I was fortunate enough to hit Gallipoli on Anzac Day in 2002, and waiting with thousands of Aussies and Kiwis in the cold pre-dawn during April on a Turkish beach, with the cliffs rising above and behind us, really drove home how forbidding and scary the whole situation must have been for our boys. And that was without being shot at which, I imagine, could only worsen the situation.

Yes, it's true that Winston Churchill, responsible for the Gallipoli plan, bollocksed it up and wasted many Australian lives in a conflict that had more to with Imperial ambitions than defence of Australian (or even British) lives, but that doesn't mean that visiting Gallipoli is a wasted exercise. Should we only visit war sites where the Australians won? Or perhaps sites where we achieved something like peace?

BORING!

Gallipoli is an excellent movie with a pre-anti-semitic Mel Gibson, and we should be proud of our links to it.

Plus, Turkey is a really cheap country to visit.

PS The title of this post is an homage to Moe Szyslak's famous line from "Krusty Gets Kancelled", as if you didn't already know.

I rant. You (if you're American) decide!

It's ironic that, whilst the US has so much influence over the rest of the world (and is likely to continue to do so for at least another year or so), that same rest of the world has no say over the US's leadership, YET the American people themselves can be fairly apathetic about voting, with voter turnout under 50% not being uncommon, and even those who do vote seem to know less about the issues than we foreigners do. As merely one example, and as George Monbiot pointed out on the weekend, two-thirds of young Americans can't find Iraq on a map, one adult in five believes the Sun revolves around the Earth, and only 26% accept that evolution takes place by natural selection. Exclamation point, exclamation point.

Nonetheless! Today's the day (at least, in Australia, being on the other side of the International Date Line) that America will finally decide on it's future. Change, or more of the same. Actually, as Nobel Prize winning economist and writer for the New York Times, Paul Krugman, wrote a little while ago:

"(N)ow the team that hopes to form the next administration is running a campaign that makes Bush-Cheney 2000 look like something out of a civics class. What does that say about how that team would run the country?

What it says, I’d argue, is that the Obama campaign is wrong to suggest that a McCain-Palin administration would just be a continuation of Bush-Cheney.

If the way John McCain and Sarah Palin are campaigning is any indication, it would be much, much worse. "

Yes, McCain used to be OK, and it's a real shame that he wasn't chosen over Dubya in 2000, but it's now 8 years later...and he's a clown.

It's now Obama O'Clock.

Barack, I kindly ask that you Bring It.

Do us proud, our Septic cousins!

The force is strong with this one…

Does anyone else think that "Barack Obama" could be a kick-arse Jedi name? If you disagree, add “Kenobi” to the end of it…
If this nomination process goes all the way to the Democratic Convention, Hilary and Barack should sort it out with a lightsaber duel (Hilary would have to be banned from zapping Barack with her electricity fingers).

Obama-rama

To quote Professor Farnsworth (at least in part): "Good news, everybody! Hilary Clinton has received some very bad news!"
Yes, last week, John Edwards, the working-people's millionaire, officially endorsed Barack Obama in the Democratic primary race. I was somewhat impressed by Edwards when he was campaigning for someone else to win the nomination (a certain John Edwards), even though the rest of the US appeared not to be.
An Edwards presidency was not to be, but his hold-out and eventual endorsement now raises the tantalising possibility of...an Obama/Edwards ticket - now that would be exciting (in the same way that, I don't know, combining red and white wine in the same glass is exciting)!
It's expected that the democratic nomination will be all but wrapped up by tomorrow, so when you read this blog, Mr Obama, consider this advice: like Clinton, Edwards is white and also aspires to to have an affinity with the working class, but he's got something that Clinton doesn't have: a penis!(1)
And if there's something American voters like, it's penises.
John Edwards could be that penis.
As for Mr and Mrs Clinton (I'm not really sure which is which any more), they put up a good (and dirty) fight, and Hilary would have been an equally historic president, but they should really now just accept defeat graciously, and instead focus their energies on the next stage of their dynastic succession: Chelsea!
By the time she's ready to assume the position, it's possible that America's penis-fixation may have waned enough that they will be prepared to vote for her vajayjay...
We can dare to dream.

(1) Note: Clinton may have a penis.