Australian Politics Test

Results for skander …

Party preference | Political outlook | Economic policy
Social policy | Traditional values | Explanation

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Party preference

Greens	Australian Democrats	Labor Party	Family First	Liberal Party	National Party	One Nation
74.4%	79%	65.2%	44.3%	42.2%	37.6%	32.2%

The party with the highest score has the policy outlook that is most aligned with your views.

Identifying the party that best aligns with your views is not an exact science. You have more than one party within an error margin of 10 percentage points of the highest score. The higher scored parties are highlighted above. Any of these parties may be an acceptable alternative. Your political preferences may swing between these higher scored parties.

Notes: People choose to vote for a political party for many reasons, not just because their ideas and ideals align with those of their chosen party. In addition to a party’s philosophical position, many voters are also interested in the experience of the candidates, and the party’s leadership style and management capability. This tool did not test such factors.

Political outlook

Your broad political orientation score is -31.8%, which equates to a ‘Centre Left’ position

Economic policy

Your economic policy score score is -18.4%. This equates to a ‘Centre Left’ position

Social policy

Your social policy score is -14.7%. This equates to a ‘Centre Left’ position

Traditional values

Your traditional values score is -73.2%. This equates to a ‘Far Left’ position

Explanation

In terms of the left-right political spectrum, your broad political outlook score reports the extent to which your views could be described as ‘left-wing’ or ‘right-wing’ in the contemporary Australian context. These are largely arbitrary terms:

• Left-wing positions are associated with a more managed economy, multiculturalism, Aboriginal reconciliation, a strong focus on rights and state interventions to achieve just outcomes, and bigger government (higher taxing/higher spending). A negative score above equates to a ‘left-wing’ perspective.
• Right-wing positions are associated with ‘free-market’ economics, conservative moral values, a strong focus on individual freedom and choice, a balancing of rights and responsibilities, and a focus on fair procedures (equal opportunity). A positive score above equates to a ‘right-wing’ perspective.

Of course, it is entirely possible to have conflicting left and right views on economic policy and social policy. The final three charts tease out your views in terms of the state intervening on economic issues, social policy and traditional values. Traditional values and other social policy interventions have been separated as there are a number of people who, because of their faith or atheism, hold left-of-centre views on one dimension and right-of-centre views on the other.

Your economic policy score reports the extent to which you think the state should be regulating the economic aspects of our lives. A negative score means you believe the state should, on more issues than not, intervene in the economic lives of its citizens. A positive score means you believe the state should be less interventionist.

Your social policy score reports the extent to which you think the state should be providing services for its citizens and protecting its citizens from making decisions that could be harmful (in social policy areas other than those covered by the traditional values score below). A negative score means you believe the state should, on more issues than not, intervene in the social lives of its citizens as a force for good. A positive score means you believe we are responsible enough to provide for ourselves and run our own lives free from excessive government intervention.

Your traditional values score reports the extent to which you think the state should act to maintain conservative moral standards (for example in respect of abortion, divorce and drug use). A negative score means you believe the state should not overly intervene in the moral lives of its citizens. A positive score indicates you believe the state should intervene on more of these issues than not. A strongly positive score is consistent with the position adopted by the ‘Christian Right’ in Australia.

The traditional values dimension reverses the relationship between the political spectrum and state intervention. In the economic and social dimensions, being left wing equates with higher levels of state intervention. When it comes to traditional values, higher levels of state intervention are associated with right-wing politics.

Teehehee

Power struggle as US lights go out in Havana mission

Richard Luscombe in Miami
Wednesday June 14, 2006
The Guardian

An ongoing squabble between the Cuban government and American diplomats has escalated into a full-scale power struggle after Fidel Castro was accused of cutting off electricity to the US mission in Havana.

Officials in Washington accused the Cuban president of pulling the plug as part of a long-running campaign of harassment and intimidation of US staff. They cite other tactics including allegedly setting off car alarms outside diplomats' houses in the middle of the night and slowing the mission's water supply to a trickle."Bullying tactics of the Castro regime aren't going to work," said Sean McCormack, a state department spokesman

But Cuba denied deliberately cutting off power to the US mission, saying there were problems in the electrical grid feeding the building and that the US authorities "lie shamelessly".

"We categorically deny that there have been premeditated cuts in the electrical energy to disrupt the functioning of the interests section," the Communist party daily Granma said in a frontpage editorial. American authorities "lie shamelessly".

Tensions between the two countries heightened in January when Michael Parmly, the new chief of the US mission, unveiled a sign displaying messages critical of Castro's government. And last month, mission staff said they were forced to scrap a telephone number for visa applications after the system was swamped by half a million "suspicious" calls in one day. Cuban government agents were also accused of being behind an attempt to poison a US diplomat's dog in December.

I hate to quote wholesale (well, actually, no I don't), but when it's this good, I couldn't resist.

For Fuck's Sake

Will someone, anyone, please nominate and promptly evict one of these booooring arseholes? A whole heap of heavy petting and panting does not good telly make, no matter how well-endowed you are.

Swoon

I have a long-standing celebrity crush on Toby Stephens. Just so you know.

I may have to spend the evening naked in front of the ABC.

North and South

Despite being the title of a very campy 1985 miniseries starring Patrick Swayze and Leslie-Anne Down, the very title of this post is a dilemma for most Melbournians. I'm a north-sider. Grew up a south-sider, but as soon as I had a modicum of free will and the wherewithall to exercise it, I made haste to the oppposing side of our great and fresh river, to discover all that is outre and previously forbidden.
So, having lived north for a good 14 of the last 15 years of my charmed excistence, I am bidden to return to the south. Ostensibly, I am treating this as an anthropological exercise, "to see how the other half live" as it were, but actually I am quaking in my boots. How will my well worn cuban heels cope in the presence of all this RMWilliams business? How will my ever-expanding collection of free K-Mart polo shirts feel when surrounded by rivals from such high-falluting brands as Diesel and, I dunno, Givenchy? And what of drinking? Will I a) be able to find a pub? b) within stumbling distance? c) that actually serves the low-grade beer that is my preference? Or will I be stuck poncily waving Stella Artois or that bloody awful perfume of a beer they call Hoegaarden? The very thought fills me with trepidation.
But, the time has come. Walls will be demolished. Excavators will excavate. Labourers will drink milky mugs of Bushells with two sugars in. And some horrible excuse for an overgrown shrub that I have been trying to surrepticiously kill will be pulled out, screaming, from what it presumed was an indentured existence next to the outdoor dunny (good riddance to that too).
And all the while I will be living a life to which I am unaccustomed, furnished with such unfamiliar pleasures as central heating and a dishwashing machine. Huzzah! I will need these things as I closet myself away from the bright young things of Greville Street and Toorak Road.
Or perhaps I should simply hold my head high, stating loudly that "Mr Wolf is a pale imitation of Ladro"; or "What do you mean you have never been to Cinema Nova?" or "No, really, I don't think I need to carry on to The Vineyard."

And so, Tally-ho it is, as I sally forth, brave, into a new world...

This man scares the bejesus out of me

CREEEEEEEPY

'ken awesome

Junk

I am in media heaven. My favourite author releases a new book the same week my favourite band releases a new album. David Mitchell, I want to marry you. Would you mind? And the same goes for Snow Patrol. I want to marry you too, even if you're not particularly attractive, I very much heart your music. Well, at least for the meantime. If I get bored of you I reserve the right to throw either of you over some someone more fanciable. but right now there isn't anyone else. Just, you, David Mitchell, and you Snow Patrol. Oh, and you Big Brother. But I don't really want to marry you—I'd rather sneak around with you for some tawdry action in the broom closet, if you don't mind.

Add a touch of Martha Wainwright: Listen to "Set Fire to the Third Bar". RIGHT NOW.

HEAVEN

One of my besties called to tell me of his newborn son last night...

Is there any way to avoid TMI in a birth story?

Been a while between drinks

Contrary to rumours, I am still alive and kicking, just flat-out at the coalface. But working with a whole bunch of nerds and fanboys does give you the chance to experience some of the more wondrous sides of the dubdubdub. I didn't even know there were species of nerd this nerdy living deep in the labyrinth which is the information superhighway. And I pride myself with being up there with the latest in nerdity. Well, to an extent.

Otherwise, all these four-day weeks have been playing havoc with my liver; although, so far, it does seem to be holding up. And holding up these four-day weeks have been for a little project I have been devoting much of my spare time to over the last few months. Yes, that dreaded word R E N O V A T I O N. Now, along with all the other beaujolais-swilling*, ABC-watching, inner-city-living lefties of my generation, I decided a few months back that my digs were no longer satisfactory, and that I should exercise my exquisite taste by spending thousands upon thousands of dollars that I don't have to get them up to scratch. Florence Broadhurst, marimekko and the like have nothing on my plans—whihc primarily include demolishing an outdoor dunny and bringing the WC inside, reshaping the apricot-laminex kitchen, and adding a dining zone, coz I'm sick to the shit of eating off my knees in front of the telly (it plays havoc with my PS2 controllers).

Around Novemeber the local council approved my pans without so much as a whimper. And since then it's been the hard yards of getting the plans up to scratch and finding me a builder. It's taken quite some months, but I've found one, paid an exorbitant amount of money to "lock him in" and as of about 5 weeks ago, it was meant to be a quick dash down the home straight. All we had to do was get ourselves a building permit, which, I was advised my all involved—my good mate the architect, the builder and sundry other professionals—that this was really just a matter of process.

HA!

Since that fateful day, I have run into the biggest problem of the entire campaign—cue the creepy music— dum de dum dum—the nextdoor neighbour FROM HELL. Now this old cow is renowned around my 'hood as being on very good terms with the devil. She does not actually live in the house nextdoor to mine. She used to, but has now moved to the more genteel environs of Doncaster to grow her tomatoes and harass anything that can move. I was stunned, nay, mortified, to find that she had not objected to my bourgeois aspirations, but at the same time, heaved a very long sigh of relief.

Six months on since the granting of council approval for me to add value to my nest, the harridan has wised up. I need her approval to build over a drainage pipe that runs off her roof. I also need her approval to work on the wall that joins our properties. All pretty much procedural stuff—with the plans approved, there not fucking much she can do. But that hasn't bothered this karma-killer. I have had her round gesticualting madly at me and shouting unintelligible insults ina forrign tongue. I have had her on her hands and knees outside my place with her arm shoulder-deep in the drainage pipe in question. I have had her informing all and sundry that she is going to do her best to stop this "development", as she will be losing "light" [erm, if you bothered to look at the planning submission beeyatch, this aint true] and "air" [like, how is that possible?] and that she will do anything within her forthright, stout and dowdy powers to ensure this doesn't proceed.

HA!

Should've thought of that six months ago, stronza! An old saying comes to mind: "Too late, too late, she cried as she waved her wooden leg". Not that her leg is wooden (it certainly didn't seem so when she had her arse in the air and arm down a drainpipe, but there is something rather arboreal about her head. Even her son was shaking his head as he watched her.

And this crazywoman is just one of the myriad nightmares that crowd my waking life at the moment. Just wait for the one about wheelchair access. It's a cracker.

So, rather than dwell on such minutae, instead, I give another installment of the South American odyssey. Peace out.


*Beaujolais is just a red herring. The reality is more like pot-swilling, Big Brother-watching. Though I do have a thing for Teachers at the moment. Or any repeated series the ABC runs in the 11pm timeslot. Like Wild Side.

Let the games begin

And they did. The Festival of Skander kicked off on the weekend with, well, it wasn't hugely sumptuous or anything, but a veritable smørgasbord of delights, including fresh prawns and home-grown tomatoes with freshly picked basil, with a duck-breast in a sour cherry sauce, a delightful chilled rosé, with a creamy gorgonzola and a half wheel of jindi brie, all soft and gooey and delicious. There were cornichons and rye bread and organic sourdough for the fussy. And all there was to eat all this was la embarazada, my parents, a cripple and an old lady, otherwise known as my dear grandmother. "What did you say, dear?" seems to be her most common comment these days, but even when she does mishear you she comes out with some crackers. And I don't mean on a nice little floral saucer to go with the cheese.

Anyway, the weather was delightful, sunny but not too hot, with a lovely onshore breeze lowering the temperate just enough, and there was even home-made dessert of the ice-cream variety. Yes, just what the doctor ordered of a weekend in the country. Unfortunately, my folks ahve decided the lash the celebrations proper this year as they have found better things to do than take me out to dinner—so what am I to do with my booking for 8 people at Long Grain tomorrow night? Harrumph.

But more importantly, what do I want? What gifts will satsicfy me? Make my cheeks go red and heart skip a beat as I glimpse it through the wrapping paper? Or, like that electric razor they gave me at 18, will make me sullen and sulky for the rest of the day? Hmm, I have to avoid that one at all costs. Yes, just what is it I want this year?

A bigger picture

A bigger picture

Watch the video

Ok, so it's slightly lazy hitting up all these .mov I took while I was away, but man, everytime I look at them I am transported back to that idyll. Yes, it's more waterfalls, but this time you get to see how thay all fit together, from the Cascadas Escondidas to the biggest Mo'Fo in da world.

The Devil's Throat

The Devil's Throat

Watch the video

This is the top of "The World's largest waterfall".  It is mad.  You start to feel the spray a good 50-yards back from the edge, and by the time you reach this aquatic inferno, you are thoroughly drenched.

It rocks. 

Are we there yet?

Are we there yet?

Watch the video

I've managed to lose my template, and still haven't sussed whether I've got this video thang happening...

Market research

I don't like it. A bit of a bevel on the star brings it into the 21st century, but it's the typeface and the black I can't handle. I think the "customer-friendly" lower case looks patronising, with the black revealing the true nature of the beast.

And while I'm at it, how bad does the Channel 9 logo look?

Lyrics I love (volume 1)

Buenas Tardes Amigo / Hola, my good friend / Cinco de Mayo's on Tuesday / And I hoped we'd see each other again / You killed my brother last winter / You shot him three times in the back / In the night I still hear mama weeping / Oh mama, still dresses in black / I looked at every fiesta / For you I wanted to greet / Maybe I'd sell you a chicken / With poison interlaced with the meat / You...you look like my brother / Mama loved him the best / He was head honcho with the ladies / Mama always said he was blessed / The village all gathered around him / They couldn't believe what they saw / I said it was you that had killed him / And that I'd find you and upstand the law / The people of the village believed me / Mama...she wanted revenge / I told her that I'd see that she was honored / I'd find you and put you to death

So now...now that I've found you / On this such a joyous day / I tell you it was me who killed him / But the truth I'll never have to say / Buenas tardes amigo / Hola, my good friend / Cinco de Mayo's on Tuesday / And I hoped we'd see each other again / Yes, I hoped we'd see each other again

By the way, don't ever fool around with Speedy Gonzalez impersonations in Spanish-speaking countries. Despite the hours and hours of hilarity that can ensue from a simple «¡Andare, andare! ¡Arriba, arriba!», it doesn't always go down the right way. Years ago, when I was but a whipper-snapper, I took the overnight train from Paris to Madrid. Sharing my cabin were a middle-aged Japanese fellow who, as we whizzed through the countryside somewhere near the Loire in the early evening, decided to strip down to his Y-fronts and and lie on his bunk , and a chatty bloke from Stockport called Dave. So naturally we strike up a conversation, as one does over a few cans of Kronenbourg 1664. And so it goes. When the conductor came through to gather our passports and pull down the bunks (the Japanese guy was still fully clothed at this stage), we got onto the topic of Spanish. Know anything? Iasked. "Only dos cervesas por favor". "Yeah, nice one" I replied. "All I know is ¡Andare, andare! ¡Arriba, arriba!", and we both laughed. At which point the conductor turned and glared at me, harrumphed as only Europeans can, and stormed out of the cabin.

So we looked at each other and shrugged, like you do, had a few more cans, got freaked out by the Japanese guy, and turned in ourselves. In the morning, when said conductor dropped by to return our passports, he gave the Japanese man his, Dave his, and threw mine at me from the door, really hard. And I think it was just then that we realised that telling a petty European public servant to" Hurry, hurry! Quickly, quickly!" was not the most polite thing to do as he makes your bed. Nor to crack up laughing aftwards.

Wanna know what shits me?

Too bad.

It's the Australian Labor Party.

But why? I hear you ask.

First of all, Public Transport. I have always been and will always be, if not in practice, a devotee to public transport. A slut for it, even. Melbourne (and indeed Victoria's) public transport has been left to rot by the State Government since well before the Kennett Government hastily (and against the advice of its consultants KPMG—or was it Ernst and Young? I cannae remember) privatised our "public" transport system. Then the do-nothing Bracks Government decides we need faster rural rail services. Fuck yes we do. And so, after spending millions and millions of dollars, they speed the rural trains up by between one and seven minutes for THEIR TOTAL JOURNEYS to regional centres. Like, what, seven minutes faster on a four-hour rain journey is anything for ANYONE to write home about? And then they decide to the pinch the VFT name and attach it to these so-called "very (not) fast trains. These aint no TGVs or Shinkansen. They're not even fast, let alone very fast.

And so, now, I have it on first-class, reliable authority, that the Bracks Goverment has, as its main priority in its 2006 Traffic for Melbourne "blueprint" that the main initiative planned is a tunnel under the cemetary from the Eastern Freeway to Citylink. Aussie Goverment's love their tunnels. Big, fuck-off spends on engineering projects that falsely bolster their economic figures and placate the so-called "aspirational" voter in the outer suburbs. To where there is no public transport, because 10 years ago there were only cattle and sheep living there. So, I asked my source, in December when The Age was carrying on its hoo-hah about PT, "what initiatives have Mr Bachelor and his cronies, erm advisers, got in store for us public transport users? There have been heaps of great ideas in the paper." I said. And my source replied: "Oh, we won't be doing anything on trams or trains. There are no votes in it. And it would cost too much."
"And a fuck-off tunnel won't?"
"It will placate those voters who were pissed off with the eastlink tollway thing"
"But what about the future of the city and it's liveability and all that? You know, more tunnels, more cars, more petrol, higher petrol prices, more pollution, more people"
"Huh?"
CUNTS
Rio, Buenos Aires and Santiago all have better public transport than we do, and their standard of living is about half of ours at best. God this shits me.

And more, I concur with Shaun Carney, as ever, in his Saturday column. What is it that the ALP can't see? Stacking their numbers in the house with Union reps is a good thing? While less Australian workers join unions, more unionists join the ALP. And unionists are surely about as respected as real estate agents when it comes to honesty, integrity and good intentions. There's a reason no-one else wants join the ALP. It's because its a hotbed of skullduggery and backstabbing, where merit and ideas are thrown over for obsequiousness, backstabbing, and an idolisation of the nastiest and most devious political animal this nation has ever seen. No-one trusts this slimy, weaselly man, and yet Labor's Right can't see it. They revile him in public, but fawn over him and his "electoral success" (read: shrewd manipulation of a spineless media) behind headquarters' doors. Why else would they not run on his blatant and repeated lack of honesty—never ever a GST, I believe in Medicare, NON-CORE PROMISES, weapons of mass destruction, children thown overboard, PETER FUCKING REITH, no knowledge of the AWB Saddam kickbacks, the list goes on—at every moment they have? Why not? Because they're run by a pack of faceless "officials" wouldn't know a policy it it kicked them in the face. Who send their preferences to the rightist Family First instead of the leftist Greens, and in the process end up electing not just a Victorian fundo to the senate, but an extra Lib as well. Who care more about internal numbers than economic numbers.

CUNTS

And, while I'm at it, Kim who?

Errr....

I can't believe I wrote a post about Brazil and forgot the main thing: Caipirinhas. Man oh man, these things rock. After the first sip has acclimatised one's mouth to the cachaça that it. And that's definitely one of those sour-y squint-y too strong-y alcohol-y effects. But once you're past thhe first sip and the limejuice and the sugar are starting to mingle in your plastic cup, and the ice starts a-melting, yeah, that's the spirit. And the drink 'em everywhere. At the wedding, they had a dedicated caipirinha bar—lime, passionfruit or strawberry to choose from. But believe me, there's no reason whatsoever to pass up the lime. The sour acid masks the cachaça flavour in a way no strawberry ever can. And I'm aint no passionfruit man But, hey, you gotta try everything once (except murder and incest, that is). (oh, and ploughing into a group of rural teenagers in your car).

So, after a whirlwind tour of Hee-oh, we had to hot-tail it back to BA. As you all know too well, my kinda town. But it also meant a period of mad flight times, like a 7:30 Rio-BA departure, meaning we have to leave for the airport at oh, 4:45 am. Pitch black. And then spend a woozy day in a rainy BA, feeling fairly shite. But enjoying ourselves nonetheless. Even seeing some tango at the Armenian Social Club in Palermo Viejo. And following yesterday's early morning rise with anothery—this time the 8:15 to Lima.

And the Cuzco. The Andes. Cold. Wet. History. And some fo the best masonry I've ever seen. A city full of these min cars whose brnad I can't recall, all mini like their stoic, broad-faced drivers, these solid, stocky coffee-coloured people who look as though they have been chiselled from stones themselves.

What with altitude sickness, yes, it does exist, Cuzco was a place the put the feet up and relax. Snooze. Drink hot chocolate. Visit the odd cathedral. Snooze some more. Read a little. Plan our itinerary. Eat alpaca (yum!). Drink pisco sours. Peruse silver. Deny the hawkers. All jolly good, old fashioned fun.

A distant memory

I'm still tyring to figure out how to upload my quicktime movies, so in the meantime you shall all have to content yourselves with more stills.

Style icon Buenos Aires: the Peugeot 504


The view from our hotel:



Iguazu:

Brazil: The wedding

Rio:

How's that for a start?