A couple of days ago I got a phone call from EMRS. They asked me which suburb i lived in and the poatcode. I told them and they said great. They wanted to do a poll on the seat of ryde for the NSW election. I told them I was not in Ryde but Epping. The man was insistent no you are in Ryde.
I told him where Ryse changed into Epping and how eastwood public school had booths for both Ryde and Epping. He wanted to go ahead nevertheless. This we di until the last question which was who I voted for in the last election and who i would vote for in the next election.
I again had to tell him I do not live in the Ryde electorate. now he relented and said he would tell his supervisor!
Kevin Bonham has often told us about how useless these poll seat surveys are. My experience simply confirms this.
We have two polls before the NSW election on the last saturday in March.
If history is any guide the ALP will win. They will either win in a landslide, win easily or be a minority government. An easy win is possibly the clearest option.
Firstly voters come back to the government when the campaign starts. Secondly campaigns rarely make a difference and in those rare circumstances only if it is very close.
Although the present government had made a fair go of governing there is a definite smell of its time about them. Infighting only exacerbates this. Chris Minns the ALP leader has rarely made a bad step although on gambling he does look all at sea.
Governor Phillip landed at botany Bay on January 19 but di not like it and then made his way to the magnificent sydney harbour.
Australia became Australia on January 1 1901. This is the only day we should celebrate Australia day on. Any other date is absurd. We do have an absurd history
It is like celebrating your birthday on the wrong day!!
He was a gifted musician but was 'difficult' to work ( like our own renee geyer) with. the Byrds flicked him and Graham Nash said at one stage he wanted nothing to do with him.
Here are two examples of him
Firstly the Byrds doing a song where the words come from the bible!
The Gas industry is attempting to say supply is drying up since the Federal government introduced its price freeze.
Hold on there is no differentiation between gas used domestically and gas exported. It comes from the same place.The Federal Government has export controls.
Tell them they can only export gas once the domestic market is satisfied. It will be amazing how much supply there is then. No gas producer wil give up their supernormal profits on gas they export.
Just remember they are still making a pretty penny on the gas they supply to the domestic market now. The gas producers simply want world prices to be paid by Australian consumers. They are that greedy
George Pell dies of heart complications after a hip operation. He was a polarising figure in the catholic denomination. He wasn't a likable man which perhaps hurt him when he was found guilty of pedophilia. I was always on the side that said on the basis of probability those two rapes could not have occurred. Luckily for Pell the high court found that way.
The royal commision into sexual institutional abuse found his conduct less than competent. Like most people in authority they interviewed they thought he tried to 'protect' the catholic denomination rather than addressing the issue of convicting paedophiles.
I remember Richard Glover who does that Afternoon program at 2BL and frequently had both Pell and Peter Jensen on his program noted ( and remember he is not a christian) the big difference between the two men was that Jensen knew his bible whilst Pell struggled with it. Perhaps it shows the difference between an evangelical and a catholic.
Barkley Rosser a professor of economics in the USA also died. He was a contributor at Econospeak. I frequently had his articles on Around the traps although they were mostly concerned with Asia rather than economics.
His articles were always interesting to read and thus thought provoking. Those people such as me who read Tyler Cowen's Marginal Revolution would also know Barkes (m as I called him) from his frequent comments. From the comments ar Marginal Revolution it seems he was a great lecturer.
The one certainty of life is that we all die.
Stop the Press
Jeff Beck wonder guitarist has died as well. quite easily the best of the guitarists with the Yardbirds he made some wonderful albums ( with Rod Stewart on vocals).
They both did a wonderful rendition of that old negro spiritual People get ready.
Noah has always been a Xi critic pointing out his many flaws and failures as leader that few wish to read about. I agree with him. Xi has suppressed all those things that gave China strong growth in previous times.
China's banks which were attempting to stop financing China's government enterprises and now back doing this again. The money and family connections from Taiwan that made the private sector rocket has fallen dramatically. The wolf warrior diplomacy has not only been a failure but also an embarrassment.
I was until recently advocating giving Ukraine enough weapons' to defeat Russia. however the eminent Paul Dibb has stated this is impossible as it is a nuclear power.
So this means we need another strategy as clearly the current one is not working with russia sending in missiles to destroy infrastructure including electricity stations, water facilities, schools, apartment blocks etc.
Perhaps a better strategy is to give Ukraine missiles that can do the same thing to Russia. They can then say to russia if you hit our facilities with missiles we will do the same.
This would increase the costs of the war to Russia a lot and bring home to russians what exactly is happening since they invaded. Putin will almost certainly be more interested in a peace treaty then. Maybe
I should also add Biden deserves praise for making NATO a unified force after the Trump chaos but he also needs to be criticised for being way too timid in giving Ukraine the weapons they need.
Wow, still doing a heap of work at home and I am sore but...
For the first time in over 100 years the majority party in the house of representatives in the USA cannot agree on whom should be speaker. As I write it has gone through 6 votes and still no speaker.
Joe Biden must be licking his lips in anticipation at what these hapless water buffaloes might come up with to oppose him.
Do republicans think people will take them seriously if they cannot even nominate a speaker? This is Trumpism gone mad.
Can I just say the sooner Trump realises he is a vote loser and withdraws from the next presidential race the better off the USA will be. Once Trump withdraws then surely the aging Biden will also.
It is an indictment on the USA that both Trump and biden are still leading candidates for the next presidential election.
