I’m most of the way through a thorough overhaul of BludgerTrack, which I’m commemorating here with a new post despite there having been no new national polls – although the latest state breakdowns from Newspoll are newly added to the mix. What’s different is that the Scott Morrison era trends are now being determined separately from the Malcolm Turnbull era. I haven’t yet brought the display on the sidebar up to speed, but follow the link below and you will observe separate, disconnected trend measures for the two periods (you may need to do a hard refresh to get it working properly). Where previously BludgerTrack was recording the post-coup period as an amorphous surge to Labor, now there is nuance within the Morrison-era polling – namely, a brief period of improvement for the Coalition after the post-coup landslip, followed by a shift back to Labor.
Other than that, the back end of BludgerTrack is now a lot more efficient, which means I will no longer have any excuse for not updating it immediately when a new poll is published. My next task is to get the leadership ratings back in action, as these have been pretty much in limbo since the leadership change, for a want of sufficient data on Scott Morrison to get a trend measure out of. There should also be further state-level data along soon-ish from Ipsos, which will be thrown in the mix whenever the company we must now call Nine Newspapers publishes it.
nath,
I was in the top classes at my Selective High School for Maths, all the Science subjects, English and Latin. I still consider my artistic talent as good as my knowledge and reasoning ability. Only thing was, when the Careers Adviser said that I could do anything, I couldn’t decide what to do!
I didn’t want to do Medicine because all I could see stretching ahead of me was blood, haemorrhoids and cases of depression.
I didn’t want to do Dentistry because I didn’t want to have to bend over people all day and cop their halitosis.
I didn’t want to do Law because you either became a Solicitor, which was boring, or a Barrister, who sometimes would have to defend a guilty person. Anyway, Law was where Malcolm Turnbull and Tony Abbott were, back in the day when I was at Sydney Uni and so I got the impression that’s what the rich wankers did. 😆
So I settled for Pharmacy and had a great time doing it, while I could still stand up all day behind a computer and also go out and talk to people.
What I decided too late was that I really would have been happiest being a political journo. 🙂
If I could have my life over I would have been a carpenter/builder. Now that I am older I can think of nothing more noble or rewarding than building my own house, and houses for others that are excellently made and where children are safe. The shoddy practitioners in the building industry endanger the lives of children and should be ashamed.
Our Parliamentary system is far less likely to get Palmer as PM than the US is to have similar people as president because of the PM being effectively chosen by the House of Reps (except in 11/11/75 style circumstances) rather than primaries, multi-party system rather than 2 party system, compulsory voting and better media landscape.
Almost a year ago I said problems with Sydney Trains will hurt the government of NSW but a few here have dismissed it. Yesterday and today’s fiasco is a PR disaster for a struggling government. When a government gets associated with public transport problems it is in trouble because it is not a problem with quick fixes and inevitable future problems will receive more media attention.
It seems each time Glady’s is in news it is over a fuck up whether it is trains, infighting, light rail or some other problem related to projects.
Reminds me a little bit of Brumby government of Victoria. Just swap light rail with desal plant and Sydney trains with Connex trains.
I’m also impressed with Daley so far. Seems to have an understanding where the public mood lies. His shift on pill testing is a good sign the man is pragmatic and willing to be bold, just like refusing taxpayer dollar for stadiums.
Poroti: “Victoria was 1000+ in 1969+1970”
Highest in the world per capita, apparently. A situation that led the Victorian Government to make seat-belts compulsory – a world first.
If I had my time again I would have been a stone mason, part-time. 2 days a week or 3. The rest of my life would have been devoted to my children, to music and to painting; and in the early morning I would have fished, though not every day. The mornings are fickle, sometimes limpid and gold or violet. And others they are grey or white and petulant. I would have fished instead of meditating, and written my biography while waiting for those dhuies to bite. I would have written a treatise on rockeries and fountains, on pools and lilies. On those mornings when I did not fish, I would tend my citrus grove and the chickens.
My mother fell yesterday. She is injured. I am filled with worry; her legs, the chance of infections, the pain she has. She fell down the brick stairs out the back, fell over a cactus in a concrete tub and speared herself, tore the little thin meat and papery skin away from her shins. Oh Fuck.
New Horizons spacecraft has just passed asteroid Ultima Thule located twice as far out as Pluto.
Being 6 billion kilometres from the sun, this will be the most distant world ever explored by a spacecraft.
Pictures travelling at the speed of light will take 9 hours to arrive and will be released by NASA on Wednesday or Thursday our time.
Typical. Briefly is on the hooch again and he doesn’t bring enough to share with everyone else.
Turned on tv abc ‘backroads’ with Heather Ewart. About Robinvale in nw Victoria. At unveiling of WWI memorial thought the opener looked familiar – then they showed the plaque ‘Andrew Broad member for Mallee’
If I had my life over I would do most of it just the way I did the first time. The some of the few things I would change would be skip my first two marriages (provided I still could have the same kids), Leave the pub or party a bit early on a number of occasions and meet my third wife a lot earlier. The rest was all learning and fun. From starting as a poor working class kid in from the bush to where I ended up was a ball. The secret of a happy life is to have fun, keep learning and never regret anything, it is just a waste of time.
Arrgh, Dan. I’m not drinking today. I’m resting my liver. It has been working more than usual lately and needs a night off. I’m affected by the heat and have been drinking the solitude. Instead of sharing booze I’ve been serving my prose, not diluted and no ice. I think it’s ok today. It’s got some fruit. Some colour. It could age a while and would profit from that.
Tonight I will meet up with my two sons and we will have greens and whatever else they prefer and they may have a beer, though usually I avoid it. We may have rice and chicken, neither of which I like. But I will suit them. I miss them as any parent misses his sons when they leave and will eat rice and chicken anytime they want. When they were small I would cuddle them and kiss them and tell them I loved them. And now they’re grown they cuddle and kiss me and tell me they love me. Their whiskered cheeks touch mine and their strong arms hold me tight. And we laugh. When they were very small I would take them to the beach and help them learn to surf, to develop their confidence and strength. And now when they visit, they take me to the beach. The call me and wait for me and look out for me and we surf together. And then they go.
Yabba
I have no doubt you can solve the little puzzles; the question is did you do anything with it?
People let their real identity leak through here at times and there a lot of very bright people that have done a lot interesting things with their lives.
To introduced my kids to the joys of education I encouraged their involvement in the science challenge at Monash. My sister has got hers involved in Robot building.
“Turned on tv abc ‘backroads’ with Heather Ewart. About Robinvale in nw Victoria. At unveiling of WWI memorial thought the opener looked familiar – then they showed the plaque ‘Andrew Broad member for Mallee’”
All around the country, on war memorials, public buildings, dams, parks and public pools, you see plaques adorned with the names of long-forgotten, eventually long-departed worthies. Ministers State and Federal, Mayors, MPs and Councillors.
I read these plaques, but I think most people don’t. Probably Broad’s only legacy that will last for any length of time.
Briefly,
My heart goes out to you and your mother! Tend those wounds with care. The circulation in the extremities becomes poorer as you age and those little white blood cells don’t get to where they should as easily. It’s often the secondary effects of accidents that do the most damage to the elderly.
Also it might be time to install a railing beside the steps and to move the cactus. 🙂
There’s surf in Perth!?! When did that happen!?! 😆
Cat,
First off, I want to point out that I have never suggested that any of these ancient texts “prove” anything about the existence or otherwise of Jesus of Nazareth. They only point to the possibility that statements suggesting he did not exist can be challenged.
Like most historical works there are no original copies. However,
this will provide a Greek version – dating from the 1500’s version of Josephus’s Antiquities.
https://ryanfb.github.io/loebolus-data/L242.pdf
Here is a link to the Latin library for Suetonious. http://www.thelatinlibrary.com/suetonius/suet.nero.html
And this one for Pliny the Younger – however, you might need to download software to read it off line.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Pline_le_Jeune_Lettres_I_Panckoucke_1826.djvu
But I’m sure you didn’t need me to find these – a quick google search turned them up.
The same search will come up with countless sights arguing for and against the historical “Jesus”.
The thing is Cat, what you don’t seem to grasp is that for me and I emphasise “for me”, none of this is as important to me as my personal experience of the divine in my life, today. It is in faith that I accept the reality of and endeavor to live my life according to the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, as recorded in the Gospels. I understand that the vast majority of humanity do not accept this.
But please do not think of me as some ignorant fool, who bases their life on some evidence-less “fairy tale”. The evidence I have for holding onto my faith cannot be found in a science laboratory, but it is nevertheless real for me.
I’ve been reading Hemingway’s A Moveable Feast. Briefly has written in a way that reminds me of it. I am very sorry to hear about your mother, Briefly.
Clive Palmer obviously thinks there is an election soon.
Liberals wanked on about fast trains.
Clive shows us a picture of a nice little MagLev model.
Labor is doing something about it.
Vile Tories
The Howard cabinet authorised the advance of significant taxpayer funds to Chris Corrigan, allowing the businessman to fund the mass sackings of 1400 union employees, thereby plunging the country into a polarising confrontation on the nation’s docks in 1998.
Two weeks after the then Patrick chief’s plan to train an alternative non-union workforce in Dubai was exposed in federal parliament, cabinet agreed on December 16, 1997, that funds should be made available to waterfront employers to pay for worker redundancies.
Newly released cabinet documents show the government agreed to make the funds available through a “repayable loan … at no expense to the taxpayer” from mid-February 1998.
Seven weeks after the funds became available, waves of security guards, some in balaclavas and accompanied by dogs, swarmed across Patrick terminals just before 11pm on April 7, 1998, locking out union employees.
Cabinet agreed funds would be made available to companies whose employees were made redundant “owing to restructuring and reform in the stevedoring and maritime industry”.
If I could live my life over I would get a handsome young builder full of his ability to make me an excellently built home just for the pleasure of it to fall in love with me.
Then I would criticise the building, finding new faults daily, including some I had created of my own. Just before sending the builder completely mad I would slit his throat and feed him to the chickens, claiming he left me because, understandably, he couldn’t take the criticism.
Eventually I would be be found out and deeply regret my actions. BK would rightly nominate me as PB arsehole of the week, none of us ever knowing how much more pleasant posts on pollbludgers could be.
Can’t complain about my life and career. Great parents and siblings. Great extended family. Loved my career once I realized finance and accounting rocks. Only regret was leaving school at 14 so was slow achieving what I was obviously meant to achieve.
That extra 10 years probably would have meant I’d be a rich capitalist to death rather than a leaner 🙂 in 10 years. Mind you I do have to last those 10 years yet:
Two lost works of Suetonius I would have loved to read are:
The Lives of Famous Whores
The Physical Defects of Mankind
C@tmomma says:
Tuesday, January 1, 2019 at 9:19 pm
There’s surf in Perth!?! When did that happen!?!
There was a day back in 1960 or 61. Every beach from City north was closed. There was a surf carnival on at Leighton. We were up from Bunbury to compete, I was a junior. The waves at Leighton were about 1 to 2 metres and breaking beautifully . It was the first time I won the surf race. I was not the fastest swimmer but I was one of the better surfers. One of those days that sticks in your mind.
Clive needs to advertise more in Townsville
TOWNSVILLE residents are doubtful mining magnate Clive Palmer will ever reopen his nickel refinery, according to a new survey.
About 65 per cent of the almost 800 respondents in the Townsville Bulletin’sannual State of the North survey said they did not believe Mr Palmer would reopen his Queensland Nickel refinery at Yabulu.
The lack of public confidence comes as Mr Palmer failed to meet his own estimated deadline of a “potential recommencement of production” by mid-December.
Mr Palmer first announced plans to reopen the refinery by processing nickel ore and tailings at the shuttered refinery in June.
Windhover
says:
Tuesday, January 1, 2019 at 9:30 pm
If I could live my life over I would get a handsome young builder full of his ability to make me an excellently built home just for the pleasure of it to fall in love with me.
Then I would criticise the building, finding new faults daily, including some I had created of my own. Just before sending the builder completely mad I would slit his throat and feed him to the chickens, claiming he left me because, understandably, he couldn’t take the criticism.
Eventually I would be be found out and deeply regret my actions. BK would rightly nominate me as PB arsehole of the week, none of us ever knowing how much more pleasant posts on pollbludgers could be.
_________________________
Very dark. I kinda like it.
Well if I had my life over I wouldn’t want to be a handsome young builder.
Upnorth says:
Tuesday, January 1, 2019 at 9:28 pm
Seven weeks after the funds became available, waves of security guards, some in balaclavas and accompanied by dogs, swarmed across Patrick terminals just before 11pm on April 7, 1998, locking out union employees.
My wife ran the kitchen at the Hamilton picket. In spent many hours on the picket line. It was hard to tell the scabs from the dogs until we worked out the dogs did not dribble as much as the scabs.
Howard was a rabid hater of the working class and has left that as a legacy that is apparent in the current Liberal party.
Peter Stanton, as someone close to the waterfront confrontation perhaps you can enlighten us on the corruption (if any) that occurred there.
I keep hearing things about the painters and dockers being corrupt, but wouldn’t really know.
What I do know is a company I worked for, lost a lot of stock in transit to Tasmania. Presumably pinched by dock workers.
C@t, yes, thank you….my S-I-L is on the case today and has washed and dressed the wounds….she’s shaken, which is uncommon. We will keep a close watch. I’ve been with my mother quite a lot lately. She has been asking for visits, and she’s slowed down. I’m becoming a detective.
N… thank you for the comparison, which is very kind to me, and for your thoughts about my mother.
The Liberals have always hated the working class.After all thats what unions are,working class people.Trouble is there are too many working class people who think they are CEOs of the company nowadays.I know,I’ve worked with enough of them.
It’s good that this stuff is reminding the electorate of the true colours of the despicable Tories right before the federal election. 🙂
My brother-in-law used to work for Patrick Stevedores before Chris Corrigan took over.
He went to work for a rival company after Chris Corrigan took over Patricks. 🙂
Howard started with a bang with the gun laws and it was all downhill after that.
The Howard cabinet authorised the advance of significant taxpayer funds to Chris Corrigan, allowing the businessman to fund the mass sackings of 1400 union employees, thereby plunging the country into a polarising confrontation on the nation’s docks in 1998.
Fucking Disgrace.Thats why working class people should never vote Liberal.
The Liberal bastards used the union employees own taxes to sack them. Scum!
frednk @ #1662 Tuesday, January 1st, 2019 – 9:12 pm
Fred, I have published on here, several times, the gist of what I have done with my life. To summarise, I started as a chem engineer in fertilizers, then chemicals, finished my MBA, got into corporate development with quarries and concrete, spent 8 months camper vanning in Europe with my wife and young son, joined Hill Samuel as a corporate advisor, and worked on its transformation into Macquarie Bank, then joined C&L Services as a Corporate Strategy Managing Consultant.
After a few years, started a strategy consultancy with another Coopers guy, which grew to 35 or so professionals. Finished a Masters in Ops Research, and we built a comprehensive financial modelling, and general mathematical modelling package, which we sold to Boeing, Defence, Power Companies, Banks, Ramsay Health Care and multiple Councils and Govt Depts. I specialised in Linear and Integer Programming, Simulated Annealing and time lapse and discrete event simulation, for many companies in many industries, including railways, port operations, container handling, milk prods, stock feeds, flour milling, coal washing and blending and on and on.
In 2007 we sold the business, and I went solo. Now working for fun, with a milk company and an industrial minerals company at present. Also do support counselling with the local Mental Health for Seniors agency (state govt), and give computer and phone classes at the local 55+ club.
I have four kids, aged from 19 to 40’s, and 7 grandkids. Kids all doing nicely. Grandkids likewise. Was lucky to ride the Sydney, and now Central Coast real estate escalator. We also have an unspoilt bush block about 45 mins west, with a mud brick house built by me and family. My 3 older kids are all involved in ecology/environmental areas. Youngest doing Arts/Science double degree at USyd in Music/Biology/Ecology.
Yabba
That is more impressive than being a member of mensa; just sayin
Sons, look after your mothers.
https://www.engadget.com/2018/12/30/more-popular-apps-are-sending-data-to-facebook-without-asking/
Brian May
New Horizons
https://youtu.be/j3Jm5POCAj8
Ronzy, I in no way wish to discourage the way you construct meaning in your life. It is seemingly valid for you and that is both necessary and sufficient reason for your beliefs.
Two matters.
First, you can’t have “evidence” for holding a faith. It is both an egregious misuse of the word evidence and a category error.
Secondly, when you say you seek to live your life according to the life, death and resurrection of Jesus as recorded in the Gospels, you make it sound as if there is/was something objective (not subjective to you) about the meaning you gain from the Gospels.
In fact your interpretation of the Gospels and the meaning they give to your life are entirely unique to you. Your interpretation is not nor could ever be even a close proximity to the interpretation intended by the scholars who wrote those texts 2000 years ago.
The experiences that informed their lives must necessarily be completely alien to you as yours would be to them.
@yabba
Nice job 🙂
One of the companies contracted by the government to charter ferries in the event of a no-deal Brexit does not own any ships, has not previously operated a ferry service and is not planning to do so until close to the UK’s scheduled departure date from the European Union, it has emerged.
Concerns have been raised about Seaborne Freight, which was awarded a £13.8m contract to operate freight ferries from Ramsgate to the Belgian port of Ostend if the UK leaves the EU without a deal, after a councillor for the Kent town queried whether it would be possible to set up the new service by the scheduled Brexit date.
The contract is one of three agreements worth a total of £107.7m signed by the government without a tendering process to help ease “severe congestion” at Dover by securing extra lorry capacity.
These are the countries best prepared for the Global Energy Revolution: https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2018/03/these-are-the-countries-best-prepared-for-the-global-energy-revolution
Seeing that we are writing our life stories:
Very well, where do I begin? My father was a relentlessly self-improving boulangerie owner from Belgium with low grade narcolepsy and a penchant for buggery. My mother was a fifteen year old French prostitute named Chloe with webbed feet.
My father would womanize, he would drink, he would make outrageous claims like he invented the question mark. Sometimes he would accuse chestnuts of being lazy, the sort of general malaise that only the genius possess and the insane lament. My childhood was typical, summers in Rangoon, luge lessons. In the spring we’d make meat helmets.
When I was insolent I was placed in a burlap bag and beaten with reeds, pretty standard really. At the age of 12 I received my first scribe. At the age of fourteen, a Zoroastrian named Vilma ritualistically shaved my testicles. There really is nothing like a shorn scrotum, it’s breathtaking, I suggest you try it.
I can figure out how to be a good person without a book and it’s attendant superstructure telling me how I should behave.
Cat
Your reasons for not doing medicine and law were similar to my own.
Poroti, frednk
Yes you are both correct to remark how much fatal crash rates have dropped in Australia since the 1970s. From then till the mid 2000s Australia was a world leader in road safety with seat belts, breath testing and safety campaigns to change behaviour. Safer cars helped a lot too. In recent years that had plateaued and other countries like Sweden and UK that have adoped the Vision Zero approach are now down to half our fatality rate. See:
https://bitre.gov.au/publications/ongoing/international_road_safety_comparisons.aspx
Victoria is now following the same policy. There are many elements to it, but using wire rope safety barrier on rural roads has been a key (and very successful) part. The Swedes have found unstalling median wire rope barriers is more effective at reducing crashes than duplicating roads (50% to 75% reduction in fatalities). Since it is also a lot cheaper than duplicating rural roads they can treat much longer lengths of road for the same budget. Hence they have made a lot of progress reducing their rural road toll. See
https://www.roadtraffic-technology.com/features/feature1952/
I think Labor should adopt it nationally as policy if elected. It would be great if we could become a road safety leader again, as we were in the Whitlam era.
If I had balls I would have already tried it, nath. 🙂
It was mildly amusing the first time Nath.
4th or 5th time not so much.
Barney in Go Dau
says:
Tuesday, January 1, 2019 at 10:33 pm
It was mildly amusing the first time Nath.
4th or 5th time not so much.
______________________
Yes, but still more interesting than Yabba’s earnest attempt.