What on earth happened over the last week? Not heavily packed, but packed none the less.
Monday, we had to get my server back online, and change systems around, and set up my partners machine. That task carried over through Tuesday with software setup.
The changeover was a smooth change, and turned out to be a good change for performance, at the same time leveraging energy savings.
Tuesday, was spent continuing on from the system software configuration on my partners machine.
Wednesday, I got my provisional licence. Fantastic news. Extremely happy with that result after only 6 weeks of building the training up. The test environment was made a little more complex with two examiners, but none the less, I came out the other side a licenced driver, and very happy with Central Coast Driving School as a result of the efforts they put in, to get the results we did.
Thursday, I was still continuing the excitement from the previous day, and extremely happy getting my licence.
Friday, I was continuing Thursday, but we did have an incident on Friday, we laid a little paint on a Land Cruiser in a carpark. The lady driver wasn’t annoyed much at all, and more thankful for my honesty than concerned with the paint she’d have to clean up.
Friday was also a telling time as to what we were going to do with election votes. Considering the problems associated with Labor, and the problems experienced with the Coalition government in several areas, and the good aspects of the Coalition government. A polling decision was very hard to come to conclusion. Throughout the campaign, I was in support and out of support for Kevin Rudd, but the same is true of the Coalition. I was what you might define a ‘swinging’ voter. Completely undecided, and simply favoured maintaining the current situation for three years until either side decided to seperate themselves.
Saturday, Election Day. I drove over to the nearest polling booth, and didn’t really make up my mind until the vote was committed to the ballot box. That afternoon, we took the car over to a friends place to get a vacuum (power accessibility isn’t great) here.
The way home resulted in me doing something I shouldn’t have done, which was drive into two lanes of traffic, with a blockout situation, without first driving forward and checking.
The situation was certainly done at a safe speed, because I identified the approaching vehicle and stopped the car before we came close to an impact, but none the less, a careful lesson is learnt, always look past a blockout situation before driving into it. It’s been a habit of mine to try and guess the situation on the left if a vehicle is blocking the left, crossing two lanes, and its not good. I’m keen to break that ASAP.
Saturday afternoon was spent at home, watching the Sky News coverage of the election to determine how the polls were stacking up. Our seat of Dobell looked really close for a fair bit of the counting, and they narrowed it down to a winner.
Later that night, Howard conceded defeat to the Labor party and accepted responsibility for the party loss- incorrect if you ask me. Howard should have conceded defeat to the marketing movements by the Labor party, the marketing done by the Unions, and the constant me-tooism that was happening throughout the campaigns.
The election most certainly wasn’t a loss to the Liberal party, but rather a win for big spending marketing. The Kevin 07 brand for example would have been a big attraction to people, not because they agree with policies perhaps, but rather, because the brand simply stuck to them. Then, the years before hand, the “your rights at work” scare campaigns did not do much in the way of good to keep the vote uninfluenced.
Howard lost to third party marketing, not to the Labor party. That’s very clear and very obvious after you read some stories of what happened at some polling booths – one incident claims the voter beside him asked “which one is Kevin Rudd” .. a clear indication that the person had no idea what party they were voting for, and wasn’t voting within the community, but rather simply trying to vote on the national level.
Run an election again, the same election, restricted solely to campaigning by each party, and ban any marketing or political advertising, or political persuasion by anyone other than a political party, and we might see a different picture develop.
Then again, restrict voting to those who can demonstrate they know WHAT they are voting for, and you’ll get a different result.
Off the Saturday topic, moving on.
Sunday, we see in the news the aftermath of the cyclone that is Election 2007, and the cleanup that must follow the blow out of the Liberal government collecting what remains. We then see news that Costello now refuses to accept any form of leadership from the Liberal party.
I take his move to be done simply out of losing what might be described as a true friend in his career, John Howard, who has publicly stated several times that Costello and Howard share a very close working relationship, and that would have been torn apart by the marketing of third parties, due to Howard losing the election.
So the new opposition leader isn’t going to be Costello, as I predicted might happen yesterday.
I now see Turnbull as the next leader of the party, but things might change again, in the lead up to the next election, depending on the performance of Kevin Rudd.
I should add now, I for one welcome our new Labor overlords.
The results of the Senate aren’t fully understood, but the predictions seem to suggest a tie between Labor and the Coalition of 37, and the final 2 seats going to IND and OTHER variety.
And tonight, going out for a trip to fetch a few items from our local supermarket saw some idiot on the roundabout not indicating doing a U-turn around the roundabout, which resulted in me incorrectly anticipating him going straight ahead – and this is why you should always indicate your intentions – so other road users can use those as a tool to anticipate your actions, instead of nearly kissing your passenger doors. Stupid people drive on our roads. Incredibly stupid.
I revise my comments made earlier, that suggest Speeding causes accidents. That’s not 100% true, Stupidity causes accidents.
The smarter of the two are generally those who avoid them, and take evasive action to ensure impact is avoided.
I was definitely slowing down and anticipating his move, but I saw no indicator, and was ready to go, but certainly slowed to allow for him being stupid. And a good thing I did. He drove round the roundabout, with his intentions showing he wanted to go straight ahead – I read no indicator into a roundabout a sign that you wish to continue straight ahead. If you TURN, you indicate.
Anyway, no point focusing on the stupid people this nation has on its roads, lets focus on the future.
What will Rudd acheive in the first year ?
I imagine a bit, he’ll have made adequate progress on Kyoto (he started today!), he’ll have his broadband guidelines made known, so that the nation can hopefully anticipate his moves on this issue, and whether we are going back to a Telstra monopoly, or will competition prevail and common sense win?
And we’ll hopefully gather some idea over how much power the party will have in the Senate, and that’ll give us some idea as to how much opposition he’ll face if he tries to pass something unacceptable.
The budget is what I’d be keen to keep a pulse on, if they over spend, the next Election they should certainly be outed, we need a surplus government to start setting the examples for the rest of the nation to get itself out of debt and maintain a good surplus.
The state governments need to have a strong shift to Liberal as well, we can see how good they are at cleaning up debt mess by looking at how the Howard government fixed the national debt.
Enjoy!