Fair Decision!

I thought it was going to be a story about the Sunbury Fair, alas it's not. Once again it's a story about our 2 Sunbury Councillors otherwise known as B1 and B2 showing their true colors.

I might be seen as a racist, redneck, vigilante man .... but we set ourselves up for a public flogging.

Cr B2 said. At least he is aware of his true personality traits, and by the sounds of it he is pretty proud of them as well.

The story relates to a grant being awarded to an organisation that assists people on Temporary Protection Visa's.

If Fairfax Community Newspapers ever update their websites, I could post the whole enlightening article for your enjoyment.

I think I leave the rest to Mallrat

Who is happier Sydney or Melbourne???

The New Deputy Lord Mayor who is gay, wants to make Melbourne the Gay Capital of Australia. I wish him luck, I can't see us overtaking Sydney with the Mardi Gra et al. John So's answer to it all is that we are all happy in Melbourne.

Those with more time on their hand than me may like to look at the Landover Baptist Church, my 45 seconds spent browsing the site make me feel that this is Jeremy's type of christianty.

Blue Screen of Death Part 2

My trusty laptop has finally died, it's been shipped off to Toshiba today for repairs. Even though I copied all of my Thunderbird profiles I can't manage to get my RSS feeds to work, grrrrrr. Seems I should manage my RSS feeds on the web so I don't have these problems. If anyone has any good suggestions please feed them though.

Looking forward to seeing the Local Papers this week, the leader should be doing a story on our Footy Club, we had pics taken on Saturday.

Sometime Elections really Suck!

I spent most of yesterday at the VLGA offices working in the Tally Room, this meant getting the results of the Council Elections in Victoria at most times ahead of the VEC and the press. Most of the results didn't really mean too much to me, but the most shocking result of all was Rae Perry's defeat in Darebin. Rae has been a tireless worker for social justice and has devoted much of her time to working toward making Baccau and Alieu in East Timor (Timor Leste) better places to live.

Rae was recently voted in as president of the Australian Local Government Association, sadly a post she will now have to vacate due to her defeat.

Another bad result was the defeat of Judith Voce in Boroondara, probably the worst part about it was, it seems that she was beaten by a RWDB. Judith was a true independant councillor, I always had the impression that she was conservative but she was beaten by a Lib. BLAAAHHH!

I can so relate to both Judith's and Rae's demise, being a Mayor going into an election is what I now consider bad karma. Been there done that!

The rest of the weekend kinda sucked big time, apart from the fact that we are the first house in the street to have our Xmas lights up and running.

Oh, and I must say congrats to Chris Pappas out in Melton who got re-elected, not too sure how the numbers are stacking up over there but hopefully he will finally have his time as a Mayor.

Brown Rice is good for you

Just finished watching the last episode of the Glass House. The classic line to come out of the whole series was "Brown Rice is good for you", Go Condaliza, just watching lateline with Heir Conroy and Latham

Rat rats on Sunbury Part II

I dunno where she/he gets his/her info but she/he has managed to dig up something very interesting that I didn't know before. One day I may meet Mallrat, maybe next week.

Take a look at Sara's Place

When will it end?

From Crikey's sealed section today:

"Is Mark Latham's leadership doomed?" we asked on October 19 when Lindsay Tanner became the sixth Labor frontbencher to quit and head to the backbench.

It took a month, but today The Bulletin has got hold of the story, with the mag's Canberra correspondent Paul Daley speculating on a leadership spill early next year, if not before Christmas.

The very cautious Louise Yaxley took the story of dissent within the ranks and ran with it on AM this morning, so we can assume it has legs - read the transcript here.

If Latham does suffer a pre-Christmas spill, who will stand? As we wrote a month back:

"With a solid first XI staring at him from the backbench, waiting for him to slip and offering him the kind of "support" he gave Kim Beazley, Mark Latham's leadership is facing its toughest - and potentially a terminal - test.

"The names of alternative leaders are now being openly canvassed in Labor ranks. Bob Carr, Kim Beazley, Kevin Rudd (OK, that's just Kevin and his mates). Even Peter Beattie's name has been mentioned."

Well, four weeks later and we can count out Carr and Beattie, who are discovering that running a large state holds challenges of its own. In Carr's case, it's getting the trains to run on time, as part of a wider infrastructure meltdown. While Beattie is in serious trouble over a railway line and the man from Energex who threw himself in front of it.

Which leaves Beazley and Rudd. The Bully's Paul Daley alluded to Beazley's health problems in his report, and word from our medical expert, Dr Strangelove, is that Big Kim's troubles with the debilitating Schaltenbrand's Syndrome are a long way from over. He reports:

"Beazley's doctors are telling him he has not fully recovered yet, and have advised him to avoid travel on pressurized aircraft for the next 12 months: ie: a standard jet which flies him from Perth to Parliament and back."

No wonder Beazley returned to the backbench after the election. He would appear to be incapable of fulfilling a frontbencher's role, let alone that of an Oposition Leader. On health grounds alone, he is out of the race for Latham's job, at least until 2006.

Which leaves Kevin Rudd. Despite being a thinker with an economics background (a former head of the Queensland Cabinet office), who's done over Alexander Downer on a range of issues (and won over many latte votes in the process), he remains unpopular in the party room.

Apparently there are jealous types who resent his relentles efforts at self-promotion. Well hello, hello. Isn't that what politicians do?

But there is a silver lining for Rudd. Ultimately, the Labor party room will decide who leads the ALP based on that sublime Darwinian instrument of preservation: self-interest.

Never mind the prospects of winning the election in 2007 or 2010. If MPs think that Kevin Rudd is better placed to shore up support in the electorate - and keep them in their jobs until they're at least eligible for a lifetime pension - they will switch horses in an instant. Not pausing to thank Latham for the thrilling roller-coaster ride of the past 10 months.

Mark Latham knows all about loyalty in politics. There is none. And if he doesn't snap out of his latest moody funk, he'll be reminded of this brutally, sooner rather than later.

Personally as a non alligned (not even in the non alligned faction) rank and file member of the ALP, I would be happy with Rudd, but I would counsel him to act himself in public as his personal persona v's his public persona is a lot more charismatic. He is an extremely witty man, which doesn't come over in the public sphere.

Secondly, this excerp from Crikey doesn't make any mention of Julia Gillard, I think that Julia is leadership material +++++, but maybe they don't want to put her out to wolves quite yet, but to wait until a later date may be TOO late to win the voters over. Just a word of advice to Jules, tone down the red in the hair.

Ultimatly, I don't care who leads the ALP as long as they have the capacity to beat Howard, Costello, Abbott and all of the other RWDB's.

Rat rats on Sunbury

Seems Mallrat doesn't quite get how the community of Sunbury feel about getting infiltrated by Chinese, nor how much better Hungry Jacks is than Macca's.

I have yet to meet the infamous Mallrat, nearly had a chance to the other night at the Bloggers meetup in Brunswick, but as I told Paul, the prodgeny were in need of company.

Well done Casey!

I posted last Sunday that I didn't really know who I wanted to win IDOL, deep down I wanted Casy to win but didn't think she had a chance.

Alas, Australia has made one right decision this year and voted Casey Donovan Australian Idol.

Don't get me wrong Anthony would have been a worthy winner, but I think Casey may be the more deserved winner. Either way, Anthony will go on to bigger and better things with his talent.

It's time to be Frank or poor Madalyn

Traditional Names are back in vogue, but I pity the poor kids (including my son) who are given names that can be spelt numerous ways. My son's name is Jarrod, which has about 13 differing ways to spell it (Jarrod, Jarrad, Jarred, Jarryd, Jarod, Jarad, Jared, Jaryd plus some other more obscure ways). It wasn't my choice to call him Jarrod, my ex husband was hell bent on this name. Growing up with my name (Ann) and always having it misspelt has always bugged me. SORRY JARROD!

For my 2nd born, I thought I would give her a name that shouldn't get misspelt, Riley, however to my horror on the same day she was born a birth notice was placed in the paper for Rylee, SORRY RILEY.

Blue screen of Death

I am sure many of you have experienced it by my favored Laptop is experiencing it big time at the moment. This is the machine all my email/rss feeds is on and now it has decided to die. All I need is one little file from an XP installation CD which of course I don't have at home, so I am downloading the entire 600+ MB installation from work, so am am posting from Mr 12.5's machine just to let you all know I am still alive, and taking great interest in the Tony Windsor affair.

Memories of the Ansett Collapse

Boy I'm on a roll tonight, and considering I have spent 5 hours at a Calastenthics Consert today, I'm full of energy!

Today's article in The Age, sure brought back memories, even though the article doesn't mention it, the collapse happened on 14th September 2001, 3 days after you know what. I was in my 2nd year on Council by then and knew immediately the implications that the collapse of Ansett would have on the City of Hume and Sunbury.

I addressed a Rally at the Airport and promised to do whatever I could to help those workers now faced with fact that their jobs were gone, however everyone lived in hope that the Airline could be resurected.

The Council did some beneficial things to help the local residents affected by the collapse, but stories like mentioned in The Age article were coming common place within a few weeks of the collapse, and moreso in the years after.

I went to Canberra on 13th March 2002 (I remember the date as it was my birthday) to plead with both Anderson and Abbott to provide some sort of regional relief, their reply was to follow the usual red-tape bureaucratic processes to apply for relief, a fat lot of good that would do as it takes months for this type of relief to come through.

Fundamentally though, it is still beyond my comprehension how the Federal Government could allow it to happen, but now the memories come flooding back, Ansett wasn't owned by Stanley Howard was it?

I don't really know who I want to win

Finally got home in time to watch IDOL, and wheras I was really behind Anthony winning, I have now become undecided. It seems watching Casey that she may have had a pretty rough time of it growing up and something she said about winning would make her feel better aobut herself struck me as kinda sad.

Anthony has been groomed for this having come from the Johnny Young Talent School, which I don't begrudge him for but somehow Casey's story seems a bit more interesting, as long as neither of the come from the Assemblies of God Church i.e Hillsong, I am happy. Funny that an earlier contestant, I think it was Daniel Belle came from Hillsong, so I still have faith in humanity as he was voted out early in the peace.

Melbournes Traffic woes!

Jeremy has pretty much summed up some of the issues involved with Bracks trying to get more of us to use Public Transport, this is fine for some, but the State Government still need to realise that some bottlenecks need an injection of funds.

The Tullamarine/Calder interchange is a disaster both morning and afternoon, and has been getting significantly worse since Citylink was opened. Quite frankly in the afternoon Citylink is just a quicker way to get to a traffic jam, it is still unforgivable that the Kennett government allowed Transurban to construct Citylink without providing the sufficent infrastructure works at the interchange, it is now up to the taxpayer to do it, and I have this argument with Peter Batchelor, amazingly a few years ago.

I would love to have to option of using Public Transport but the locality of the University v's Spencer St stations locality doesn't make it a time friendly option.

While they are at it they may like to take a look at the Green Gully section of the Calder freeway as well as the two feeder roads onto the Calder at Taylors Lakes.

Blogging taking a back seat

Life is a tad too busy at the moment to be blogging, in between running after the kids and trying to learn some new skills for work, life is hectic to say the least, and then my sister in law decides to get on the net, without having any windows updates, I'll let you guess what happened, well not much actually, it got infected within a minute of connecting, looks like a job for the guys on Monday.

I didn't even get a chance to grab a copy of The Age with the free bag that came with it today.

Arrrhhh well back to Blackboard.

Pandagate is getting a bit boring!

I had to try and explain "Pandagate" to a friend of mine, it would have taken me an hour, and when I tried to condense it into 5 minutes it was no way as entertaining as I have found it.

Chris Fryer has probably condensed it the best here.

But Rob Corrs revelations today are great as well.

But now it has reached Crikey.

Toooo Tired, but!!!!!!!!!

Day from hell today, trying to get a new system at work up and running and although I am a Guru, I am no database Guru so I am flying a bit blind. One of the first rules one learns when playing with this type of stuff is to work on a copy, cause if you stuff it up you can always revert to the original good copy, I did that and IT DIDN'T WORK. Seems some silly permission thingy wasn't set to replicate when the database was copied, and of course you think I would have known that. Well at least now I do!

Headed home to School Council Sub Committee, then to a Footy Committee Meeting.

Finally home, I try and resist the urge to check my RSS feeds but had to have a peek, glad I did as Rob has a corker up on line now!

Tipper, you may run but you can't hide!

Who is lying, not Tipper surely

MAB says

Following my conversation with Andrew Bolt earlier this week, Andrew’s column in the Sunday Herald Sun featured this article. However, since the Herald Sun deadline, we at Two Cents have discovered further evidence to suggest that the name ‘Marieke Hardy’ is a pseudonyn for Diana Elgar (see Alexander’s upcoming post).

But read the true story here, seems Tipper has never spoken to MAB, I wonder how would such a busy journalist get the inside on such a juicy story.

All roads lead to Bagdad

Decided to take the littlun's on an outing tonight, the Local Council Meeting. Well there is nothing better to do on a Monday night is there?

During general business B2, came out with a classic statement, something to the effect of the roads in Bagdad are in better condition than the roads in Sunbury. Pretty crass, but not unexpected.

Normally B1 and B2, don't enter the council chamber until after the prayer is said, but due to quite a few absences tonight, if they were to do that then the council meeting would have had to be cancelled. So they entered and in their typically ignorant manner sat down while the prayer was said.

How the newspapers can sway the vote!

Interesting to read todays Age where they went full on against the current Lord Mayor, John So, I don't really have an opinion on John So, so looking on as a neutral observer is interesting. It's obvious The Age don't want him there.

Rain, rain and more rain, I know I shouldn't complain, but it's getting a bit too much.

Can you believe that Tipper Bolt would resort to getting involved with a blogging war to defend some silly student from work that has been very stupid in her actions. I wonder if she will put an application for special consideration in????

I think someone is taking the piss!

Is this the real Miranda, somehow I don't think so, but it is pretty funny.

I just can't believe their attitude!

Sick People and this was my comment on their blog.

Posted by a "man"

I have never had an abortion but respect the right for a woman to have the right to choose. Even thought I would probably never go down that route.

A friend of mine had a choice a few years ago, have an abortion or die, she chose to have the abortion as she wanted to live for the 2 children she already had, what would have been your advice? Die?

Don't worry one of your horrible supporters (Bernie Finn) really screwed with her mind when he sent out an anti abortion pamphlet during the 1999 election, and he hearly got his wish as she was contemplating suicide due to the revolting images he portrayed in his anti-abortion propaganda.

Your views are pathetic and very very sad.

It's Exam time kiddies

Yep, exams at Melbourne Uni kick off this week, but that isn't stopping the Melbourne Uni Liberal Students from going off the rails in blogisphere.

Where do we start, probably with Alex who decided to have a little fun with the editor of Farrago a Ms Miranda Airey Branson who seems to now become quite famous on Google. Now Ms Branson didn't take too kindly to Alex's jibes and decided to hit back. On her now deleted blog she made numerous stupid statements such as "Andrew Bolt is a darling". Now that shows a troubled person.

Forgive me if I get the order of things wrong from now on, but the proverbial hit the fan with Ms Fits giving her a spray, then you can read Rob's take on the whole matter. Then Darp get in on the act, by now the poor (NOT!) MAB must be feeling like she wished she had never heard of handing out bogus How to Votes on Election Day.

So who is next, my mind is whirling on how many bloggers have taken up the war against MAB, so I think I will just list the ones I have found so far, if I am missing any please let me know.

Jess at Ausculture
sju-sjukskoterska
Melbourne Lefty - soon to be joined by Melbourne Righty I hear
Virulent Memmes
Psephite
Ari
Balmain Boys .....
Barista
Piss 'n' Vinegar
Hecho En Mexico

I think I will leave it there, you will get the general idea.

And in my search of google tonight, I came up with this classic, by Alex Lew MAB's boyfriend, Michael Danby's Email Blog I bet it will be taken down soon, so I just think I will save the code.

Well with all the elections finished I suppose it provides a bit of entertainment for nights like these when it's just too wet to venture out.

It wasn't that difficult to change

I have followed Jeremy's lead and changed my template to something that firstly doesn't resemble his and secondly doesn't resemble the Melbourne Uni RWDB's. More to follow on WW4 aka Melbourne Uni RWDB's v's Blogisphere..........

My answer to Banana II

His attitudes to Detention Centres is appaling, so this is what I wrote on SunburyOnline.

My father was born in Egypt of European origin, and in the 1950's a nationalisation regime came into force whereas all Europeans were told to get out. At the same time Australia was commencing the Snowy Mountains Scheme so he and my grandparents were readily accepted as immigrants as they were considered as good workers as opposed to the Australians who were not suited to work on the Snowy Mts Scheme as they didn't like the hard and dirty work.

I often wonder what would have happened to my father's family if Australia had not accepted them, the rest of his family scattered all over the world, (Canada, South Africa, England) and have built themselves successful lives.

Australia has many opportunities to offer those displaced due to horrible conflict in their homelands, however we have been brainwashed into being told that these people are criminals and should be locked up in Detention Centres.

As Sue said, until you have walked in the shoes of others don't judge them.

Imagine, you are born and bred in a certain country, which apart from the violence and political persecution you really love, why would you want to leave it, to live in a country where the culture and language is different, you would only do so if desperate, and for the sake of your family you will pay anything to get them to safety.

My grandparents had to flee Egypt because of racial persecution and I recall their stories vividly, it was a memory that my grandfather held up until the day he died, but he was happy that he could bring his family to Australia for a better life and Australia was the winner.

Today’s revelation of the Kosova refugees plight is very sad indeed, do these people really deserve to be deported? Surely we still have a heart

Surely we still have a heart!

Kosovo Refugees who arrived in Australia 6 years ago are now being told they have to go back to Kosovo. This is bloody disgusting, they have educated their children here and made a life that isn't hindered by violence and heartbreak and now we want to throw them back to a life that one could never imagine. I am sure that this will go down well with RWDB like Tipper Bolt, and Jack or is it Steve Medcraft, hey maybe we can lock them up in the new Detention Centre in Broadmeadows.

It's all too depressing!

GWB is there for another 4 years, I suppose there is one consolation that is that he will only be there for another 4 years at max. Then I think that they will bring in Hillary Clinton as the next Democrat Nominee.

That Cup!

Well Melbourne put on it's 4 seasons in one day trick today, we were over in the park kicking the footy when the storm hit.

And then there was a race to be watched, I had a big bet of $5 each way on the winner, but the hard luck story of the day was my trifecta, I took 5,1 and 13 and the placegetters were 5, 1 and 12. BUGGER!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Brendan Nelson - Tony Abbotts Lovechild

I have a poster on my door at work saying "our workplace rights are not for sale", its been there for about a year and I keep meaning to take it down but haven't bothered for want of having nothing to replace it with.

Now it definately won't be coming down, and it will probably be joined by numerous others over the ensuing months. The member for some safe blue ribbon liberal seat in Sydney now feels that as they will have control of the senate from next July, it is an opportune time to push his draconian Higher Education Package through.

This will be a long fight!

Who wants Brett for Brekkie?

Well I suppose it couldn't be worse that what I have now for Brekkie

One way to take out your anger

Well I felt good when I did it

I gotta work tomorrow

While the rest of Melbourne get a day off tomorrow for the Melbourne Cup, Universities continue to work. This stems from historical times when exams were held in this week, but due to the my University adopting the school holidays as semester breaks, we have no exams this week, but we still have to go to work. Everyone who has kids is taking them in for a Family Day, it was supposed to be a fitness day where we threw the kids out into the park with a bat and differing shaped balls let them run wild, unfortunately the weather is going to put a stop to that so it will be DVD's in the empty Lecture Theatres.

At least the traffic will be light tomorrow.

Pondering the After Effects

There has been much written since 9th October about the reasons behind the ALP not being to win the election. Most I haven't felt compelled to mentioned however one written today by Robert Manne seems worthy of a mention.

Guido over at Rank and Vile, has provided a good commentary on Mannes atticle. It leave me wondering about my idealism, and idealism that isn't matched by the majority of Australians and I ponder on who is right? Me or the majority.

I find it sad that the majority of Australians are self absorbed in their own situations and find it difficult to realise the greater picture, it will be a price we will pay in the decades to come I fear.

Bolters Fan Club!

Seems like B2 is a fan of the Bolter, it shouldn't really surprise me!

From Sunbury Online in the Party before Ratepayers thread

Maybe Andrew Bolt is right in more ways than one on this subject.

. Given that B2 is the face of People against Lenient Sentencing, a group that, I am sure if given the chance would love Capital Punishment brought back, his right wing views on Detention Centres shouldn't surpise anyone.

Maybe the Bolter will do a piece praising B2 on his stance after he finishes his rampade on John Butler.