still alive

Yeah, I'm still alive - just been insanely busy the last week or so. A random dumping of stuff:

Keep an eye out for a show called "30 Rock". Half-hour US comedy show, starring Tina Fey and Alec Baldwin. Funniest US comedy since Arrested Development stopped. Alec Baldwin is a comedy legend in it as the GE Vice President for Ovens and Northeast Television Development. It's had 5 episodes on US TV so far, and is rating pretty well, so it should make it here next year.

For those people who are watching Heroes already, NBC has webcomics that occur between each episode. They're very spoilerish, so don't read them if you've not seen the relevant episodes already. Also, read the PDF versions, not the flash version - the latter sucks arse.

On political matters - check out this long piece from the NYRB on the Suskind, Woodward and Risen books on the disaster of Iraq. And Matt Taibbi's latest piece is on the scumbag Putin and the sorry state of Russia's journalism. Finally, "Good-bye to All That" is a piece by someone who's recently left the hive mind of the american conservative movement (he was fired from the board of the pre-eminent US conservative publication National Review). It's really quite, quite damning.

And lastly - if you're in Victoria tomorrow, VOTE. It's 15 minutes of your time, every couple of years. Hardly a massive drain on your life. If you don't vote, you pretty much forfeit your right to complain about anything the government does. Seriously. No-one cares.

artbroken has put together a series of posts laying out more than you could ever want to know about voting in Victoria:
Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4.

more election stuff.

If you need to know where to vote, or who your candidates are, or the like:

http://13vote.com.au/ - you can enter your address and find out where your polling stations are.

(no subject)

dear exclusive brethren (and other cults):

Please fuck off and die. Thanks.

voting notes

So a number of people have pinged me with instant message queries about upper house voting. Here's a few comments:

Vote below the line. The only reason to vote above the line is if you've checked out how a particular party is distributing their preferences, and this is how you'd vote, anyway.

While you can stop numbering the upper house after 1-5, DON'T DO THIS. If your top 5 don't get elected, your vote will be exhausted, and won't count. While the thought of choosing between, say, the Liberals and Family First (or the ALP and the Greens if you're on the other side of politics) might be revolting, if you don't, everyone else's choices will overrule yours.

On a related note, in the lower house, you MUST number every single box. Yes, yes, again you have to choose the least worst.

In the lower house, the only thing that matters is your first preference, and the relative ordering of the ALP and Lib candidates (and the Green candidate, if you're in one of Melbourne, Northcote, or Richmond). The first preference matters because a party gets $1.40 for each vote, once they pass a threshold. I _believe_ it's about 4%. If the thought of giving a party money offends you, pick a first preference of a tiny party that's not going to crack the threshold.

In the upper house, the only thing that matters is the relative ordering of the big 4 parties - ALP, Lib, Green, Family First. Add Nationals if you're in an outer-suburban or country seat. (Again, your first preference counts for $, again assuming they meet a threshold.) How you number the minor parties does not matter if you're voting below the line, because none of them are likely to get in - and if you're voting below the line, it doesn't matter what preference deals the various parties have done - you're choosing for yourself how you want your vote to count.

Of course, I'm going to be voting below the line, and numbering the parties according to how much I hate them. For the first time since the GST, the Australian Democrats are not going to be getting my last preference. Family First gets that honour. I feel the destruction of the Democrats is more or less complete at this point. And I am glad.

As for how I'm voting - well, my ordering is going to be Green (I favour a third party that's likely to add some balance to politics), ALP, Lib, FF. (The Nationals aren't running in my area, but if they were, they'd go between the Libs and FF.) More importantly, for me, is that I'm pretty confident that the Greens are likely to stick to their announced policies. This is a big thing for me. If I vote for someone, I want to know what they stand for. This is also why I take joy from the destruction of the Democrats - a party whose sole principle is "let everyone have half of what they ask for" doesn't deserve to live.

Predictions

I'm guessing the Libs will pick up around 10 seats tomorrow in the lower house. They may get as low as 7, and as high as 13. 7 would be a dismal showing. After the last wipeout election in 2002 (when they lost 19 of their 36 MPs), if they can't regain at least 7 or 8 there will be Questions Asked about Teddy. In the Upper House, I'm pretty confident that neither the Libs or ALP will get an outright majority. More importantly, Family First are unlikely to have enough members to combine with either side to block or pass bills - instead you're going to need either ALP+Green or ALP+Lib to combine to pass bills.