Dressing as Putin for Halloween. Boo. Eeek.

Some scary facts to scare you for Halloween:

Russia's political leadership has undergone a total ideological transformation over the past decade. Long gone is its co-operation with the US and the EU. Instead, its leadership now emphasises its ideological hostility to the West. Somewhat like China, ultra-nationalism, suspicion of foreigners and a restoration of state power have become the regime ideology.

Russia has increased its military budget by almost 500% since 2000. Making it the second biggest military spender.

Just as scary: The biggest spender is China. (And who knows just how much they're bloody spending as they always lie about it. "Trick or treat?" Trick. Trick. Tricky.)

Still scary: Both Russia and China are spending these great wads of cash on modernising their nuclear weaponry. Modernising. Making dem a lot betta. So much so that they'll have a more superior, efficient and secure nuclear force than the US within the next decade. (Although this week the US saw it might need to start modernising... somehow... Uh. Can we do it without testing????)


And a couple of guys writing in the US journal The National Interest, also note that Russia is happily testing out their capabilities with large scale military exercises. (Practice makes perfect!). Of course China joins in on these too. So nice to see nations playing together.
Oh, and back onto what the guys have said: the US nuclear deterrent could lack credibility if Russia gets ahead of them... Such a weakening of US might would have terrible consequences for Japan and South Korea (and possibly us!) as they rely greatly on the US for their security.

Mind you... The same journal also says, "Russia’s present financial difficulties are likely to force Moscow to accelerate economic integration with the West, which will force the Kremlin to moderate its foreign policy." Their stock market as fallen by 70% since May, and the "ruble has lost two year’s worth of appreciation".
So, we may finally be able to say, 'Yay for the economic crisis!'
Unless it just levels us all out of course, and the West weakens just as much...

Um...

OK. Well let's just talk scary North Korea...!

(Fingers crossed Kim Jong-il will be garbed as a ghost this year!)

Musical Chairs

How much is Aussie politics like a game of musical chairs lately?
Goodbye Brendon, you move to that seat at the back there. Hello Malcolm, you take his chair and now choose who'll be in the front bench chairs next to you... no, hang on, wait for the music to stop!


In NSW the craziness has continued as a leader (of sorts) has gone too, along with some mates, and their chairs filled by a new lot (oh, but we've changed our mind about the guy dancing in his underwear and 'titty f**king' a female associate - after a mere three days he has no chair at all now... I'm sure he'll find something to dance to though... maybe next budget night... if there's a full moon...).

And there's been a cacophony of music about the place in WA. Carpenter's chair is now one at the back and scary Eric Ripper has taken the leader's seat along with some young newby at his side (after some 'deal' reached between factions... sneaky). And of course both parties have all swapped chairs after the music stopping for about a week whilst the Nationals' leader Grylls hummed quietly to himself, keeping everyone on the edge of whatever seats they could find after the hung parliament.



Back to national politics. Turnbull seems to be aiming at being known less as 'the fierce guy' and more as 'The Giggler' if the 7.30 Report last night was anything to go by.* His technique in interviews will obiously be to laugh at any questions he doesn't like and thereby avoid them entirely (kinda like the Dalai Lama).

(Heh. An obvious comparison, and quite common.)

Another guy having a wee chuckle lately is Peter Costello. Who's a happy chap then, eh? An earlier game of musical chairs had him quickly grabbing one far to the back. A much lesser seat than the big leadership chair, but does it bother him? No! He's never been more popular! By sitting back and grinning he's had the party begging him for months to save them and be leader! But even with this last game of musical chairs he hasn't budged. Instead he's cheerily yakking about his book at every opportunity, and dancing a shifty side-step whenever he's pushed as to whether he'll ever park his behind in The Big Chair... Ever... Never? Maybe? Kinda..? Well... He won't really say (ever, never, maybe...) but he's happy to sit back and see how badly the party does without him at the helm. Ha! They should have saved him a seat earlier on! This'll teach 'em!!!



* Although I think we can keep 'self obsessed' in there. Malcolm does love to hear himself ramble!

T'was the week of the long goodbye

"Yes I would dearly have loved more time," Mr Carpenter said. "But that is the nature of politics and life, you don't always get what you want."

I quite liked (our now ex-premier) Alan Carpenter.


But, if he wanted more time in the job, he probably shouldn't have called an early election...




Just sayin'.

Crisis!! C-c-cold!!!!

Brrr. It was 4.5 degrees overnight, our lowest yet in we-have-no-idea-what-real-cold-is, 'Mediterranean' Perth. And the next few nights will also be down to 4 degrees.

But we have a gas crisis! 30% of our gas supply gone due to that pesky explosion. So we are encouraged to save on power and gas usage as much as we can (even businesses are responding to this, that's how serious it is!). I've had the heater on for only a few minutes in the last couple of days, and this morning I was so cold I had to shower wearing my beanie!

Yes, this is very serious. The federal treasurer has even said the gas crisis will affect the economy.

It's so serious in fact that our state premier did the unprecedented thing of making an announcement on tv and radio last night.

Alan Carpenter said:

"Minimise use of heaters. Turn off lights when you're not using them, and reduce shower times. Just turning off appliances at the wall can save up to 10 per cent of household electricity use.

And you've heard that statistic of 10% before, yes? Well, as Matthew Parris discovered a couple of years ago, it's a great "example of how a dud fact can enter the national mind". He began with Gordon Brown's or someone-or-other's announcement that "up to 10% of the electricity supply" is being used up by appliances left on "standby". And then he - rather amusingly - tracked down the source of this widely believed statistic, searching through many studies and reports, only to find they were based on a 2000 report by Alan K Meier. Who said he'd only had 'inadequate' info to base this on.

Near the end of Meier’s report I spot this: “Estimates of standby power use and savings opportunities are based on just a few, scattered measurement studies . . . (they are) inadequate. More complete information is needed to answer these questions:
Meier is asking these questions! Everyone else is pointing to him as the man who answers them.

A darn good reason to query all stats you hear. Along with his other example:

At the start of the Iraq war, Jack Straw, then the Foreign Secretary, announced that Iraq was more than twice the size of France. Soon everyone was repeating this. Actually Iraq is smaller than France. But why fret? Journalists and politicians bring you the essential not the literal truth.

In my wee search I found it confirmed that 'exact figures on total losses to standby power are not available.' But that recent estimates suggest in 'the United States, 5% of electricity usage is due to standby power. In Europe, the numbers run slightly higher: France at 7% and Germany and the Netherlands at 10% each. Australia comes in at 11%, Japan at 12%.'

As Parris says:

The truth is plain. Nobody has the least idea. All we do know amounts simply to this: that some small energy savings are available from switching some appliances right off.

So the 'essential truth is that you must remember to unplug your mobile phone charger*... Iraq is awfully big' ...and it's best to shower wearing a beanie.




*I even unplugged my home phone. It's been very restful...

(Beautiful frost photo by Sarah Klockars-Clauser)