A whole heap of stuff about tomorrow's election in no particular order:
ChilOut (Children out of detention) have their election guide to policies on refugees. They are running a campaign to hand out 20,000 flowers of hope tomorrow.
A Just Australia (now RefugeeGuarantee.com.au) has rankings for candidates and whether they have signed AJA's Refugee Guarantee.
Rupert Murdoch's newspapers all advocate the re-election of the Howard government. Are you shocked?
Let's do the rounds of the editorials:
The Australian (News Ltd, national) - No convincing reason to kick out Coalition:
On the basis of what they have placed before us in this campaign, neither side of politics merits enthusiastic endorsement. But a choice must be made, and on that basis we should look to Mr Howard's record and Mr Latham's promise.... And we know that for all his policy failings, Australia has grown richer under his leadership....
October 7, 6:30 pm.
http://www.empirenotes.org/#07oct041
October 7, 6:30 pm. Today is the third anniversary of the war on Afghanistan. On the one-year anniversary, I wrote an article summing up the effects. Depressingly, every one of the major points is at least as true today as it was then. On Saturday, Afghanistan will have a "free" "election" for president ("president" -- the United States will still run those things it wants to run). Here's an exce ...
I believe that John Howard and his government have shown such impropriety, through their handling of "Children Overboard" and the war against Iraq, to make their return to office untenable. I believe that their standard of global citizenship has been not just bad, but poisonous. On the domestic front, I believe that the main issues can be subdivided into two categories:
Domestic issues:
I've seen "trust" and "truth in government" described as issues in Saturday's election. As I said yesterday, I think "propriety" is numero uno. John Howard and his government have a long track record of impropriety which, if you or I behaved like that, would have us sacked by our boss. Please remember on Saturday, that we are John Howard's boss. Sack him.
It almost seems like destiny for Michael Clarke to get a ton on Test debut, and that's how it panned out. Great knock from a player who really should have been in the Test team a year ago. He's a very mature 23 year-old, and congratulations to him.
I am sure we have seen the start of a fine Test career, and probably someone who will become Australian captain - I'll stick my neck out and say he will succeed Ponting in the role.
Congrats also to Anil Kumble on reaching 400 Test wickets. Now onto Warnie to make that world record his own!
