Serving Justice
David Hicks has pled guilty to the only remaining charge (revised) against him. He faces a potential term of life imprisonment, but it’s possible he’s entered this plea under some arrangement based on the 5 years he’s already spent in Guantanamo. Arrangements are already in place for him to be returned to Australia to serve out any additional time locally.

I’m pretty much on board with Democrats Senator Bob Brown here: we’ll never know what Hicks did or didn’t do, but we’ll always remember that John Howard let him rot for 5 years, never saying a word, until the political pressure became too much and his government’s hold on power, just a few months out from the next election, started to slip. When Tony Blair got his people out, Howard was happy to let Hicks be labelled and judged and condemned, blaming Hicks himself for the length of his stay, due to the challenges he and other prisoners made against the Bush administration’s illegal detention and illegal military commissions. So, yes, I’m with Nationals Senator Barnaby Joyce, too, in that the system itself is guilty, as guilty as John Howard. As for Foreign Minister Alexander Downer, his statement, that he was one of those taking the middle view of Hicks’ guilt or innocence, “really,” is not to be believed. He sat idly by, smugly smirking, happy to let Bush do whatever he pleased, however long it took, also frequently blaming Hicks’ appeals for the duration of his illegal incarceration.

I’m glad for David Hicks’ family, that their son will now be allowed to return to Australia, but reserved in my relief for them and for Hicks himself, until it’s known under what conditions his return will take place. Certainly, ASIO will have him declared a “person of interest,” like the last released Australian detainee (again, with no help from this government), Mamdou Habib, and place him under perpetual surveillance. He’ll never have a job, never be free to go where he likes when he likes, without knowing at all times, he’s being watched. Unlike any other properly tried offender, David Hicks will get out of prison, but he’ll never get out of jail.

Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics
We've heard a lot about WorkChoices, the pet project John Howard rammed through Parliament last year, once he'd achieved a majority in both Houses. We've heard it's working great, we've heard it's hurting women, we've heard what it does and what it doesn't do. From all the descriptions I've read, not to mention the number of instances of employers using it to attempt to do the wrong thing by their employees, both individually and collectively, regardless of the tribunal outcomes, I regard this legislation as a very serious setback for all working people, especially those working in large corporate environments, which employers the legislation is meant to benefit, for all the government's touting it on behalf of small business owners. But now the government is desperately trying to work the numbers to their benefit, and claiming the statistics cited by the opposition are being "spun." The numbers are the numbers, boys, so fudging them now isn't going to do you much good. Well, except for the people who still believe only what they hear from Mr. Howard himself. But they're poor lost souls already.

Monsters
It's been a long time since I've seen a monster movie - as distinct from the overall horror genre, where the monsters is us - as good as The Host. The monster itself doesn't occupy nearly as much screen time as we've been led to expect over the years, so, like the Alien franchise, we get more of what makes a monster movie so good: pure tension, of course, but also, the characterizations, the why, why we ever battle against even things we cannot hope to overcome. The tension is unrelenting, even though there are many light moments. I found myself gripping the arms of my chair, and having to consciously relax, poised with a forward lean and searching the screen for a clue of what might come next. Yes, there were the usual shocks, though only one or two, but more often the most affecting moments were the ones you didn't see, but had to come to grips with afterwards, especially at the end. I've been an afficiando of the genre for many years now, and this is the kind of movie that reminds you of why the genre exists. I've also espoused the idea that this was a format that America did better than anyone else, but having long ago ceded the horror ground to slasher flicks and the like, The Host takes on Hollywood and wins.

Transitions
And there you have it: ballot cast. The NSW election results will be interesting, but at the moment, I don't have a television, so it'll have to wait until the papers come out in the morning, before I know what's happened. I'm not completely sure I figured it out: two sheets of paper: one massive, one very small - handbill-size. The former the State ballot, the latter the city ballot, I guess. I should have asked, but instead just followed the basic directions for assigning preferences and threw them in.

Preferences: now that's an interesting thing. After the 2000 debacle in the U.S. there was a lot of talk about Electoral College reform, and often the idea of voting preferences came into it. I like the idea, and, especially in my Sydney vote, saw it as a way of registering a positive vote both for my preferred candidate and for a better result if my first choice didn't win. On the State ballot, however, I was flummoxed: vote the party or vote around them? In the end, I elected to assign my full vote to one party, as I expect many others will have done.

In the end, I marked it down as "practice" towards the next Federal election.

(Meanwhile, I've also largely finished packing, and the move happens next Saturday. It's all more chaotic than it ought to be, and unpacking will be a trial to last several weeks, especially as it will require a trip to Ikea as soon as, in order to achieve sufficient bookcase capacity. Really, I ought to have an estate sale pre-estate, at least of the LP's, even if they are, many of them, Held in Trust, for brother T.)

Edwards
It’s almost awe-inspiring, that John Edwards will continue his Presidential campaign in the face of his wife’s diagnosis, mostly for the determination exhibited by Mrs. Edwards, as well as the dedication of Mr. Edwards himself, both to his wife and to his goal. (Some would say “ambition,” but I actually believe he means his campaign to be about policy, about making the country a better place, rather than just some desire for power, and I see the changes he proposes as positive and progressive, rather than the regressive Reaganomic revisionism of the man he’d replace.) I tagged Mr. Edwards as a “twitterer” to follow before I heard the news, just because his take-up of new internet communications strategies struck me as appealing, and I suppose now it can be a method of personal support. The health dramas of last year in my household leave me more than a little sympathetic to what they’ll be going through.

Citizenship in Action
Tomorrow I get to cast my first Australian ballot. Labor looks headed for a landslide, and they’d be my preferred party, but pretty nearly everyone’s saying don’t do it. What’s most remarkable about the editorials I’ve read is that they don’t make much of a point of actively advocating a Coalition vote. And, of course, none of them endorse the Greens or Democrats. I’ve met the Labor candidate and read her literature, and there’s not much there there, and I’ve had dealings with the Greens candidate, who now, due to redistricting, finds himself head-to-head with Clover Moore (whom I’ve also met – she swore me in as an Australian; we fed each other lamingtons at the after-party. O.k., not that last part), and I like him. But he is going up against Clover, so he doesn’t have much of a chance, unless the new district puts more people into the electorate opposed to her having two seats, one in State Parliament and one in City Hall, where she also serves, as Lord Mayor. I have no idea who the Liberal candidate is, and don’t much care. While the Herald advocates change for change’s sake, I still have an ideology of my own. I’ll go into the booth juggling my preferences: Chris Harris or Clover Moore. That's if I can figure out the ballot.

Black Sox Redux?
There were rumors immediately, and now it’s been confirmed: Pakistan cricket coach, Paul Woolmer was murdered at the cricket World Cup, now underway in Jamaica. Rumors persist that it has something to do with match-fixing, apparently a perennial allegation regarding Pakistani cricket, but with the team’s early departure from the Cup, there’d seem to be a whole lot of potential issues, even leaving aside the well-known crime problem of the West Indian nation. (Yeah, nothing was stolen, but that doesn’t mean it couldn’t have been just a straight-up, garden-variety murder.) It’s kind of amazing to me, but probably because I never followed cricket at all (and still don’t track more than who won the Ashes, really), leaving its pristine image of gentlemanly conduct and clean, white, elegance to hide the sledging and other bad behavior, even despite Shane Warne.

The Urge to Cover
Bush protects Rove like a mama bear does her cubs. At least in part, it’s because “Executive Privilege” is the watchword of the administration, but I think it’s also because Rove himself must be maintained as the evil genius of the GOP resurgence post-Clinton, at least insofar as having him loom over the elections process provides some public impression of the Republicans as an indomitable force. It’s silly, really, as we’ve all seen his clay feet, especially lately, with the mid-terms gone wrong. And it inevitably raises questions: just what is his involvement? How much of this constant covering-up is actually meant to hide anything? Is it all just red herrings, keeping the Democrats distracted, while Bush-Cheney consolidate power in the White House? Rove, after all, really isn’t much more than a marketing wonk, a PR man straight out of Sweet Smell of Success, except dumpier, of course. Go ahead, Rose, testify under oath. After all, as you neocon jerks are so fond of saying, if you’ve got nothing to hide, you’ve got nothing to worry about.

Objet d'net
Jason Kottke's been going on about Twitter for a few days now, and, what can I say? I signed up, as evidenced by the "badge" over to the right. It's "public" instant messaging, as he describes it, a kind of social networking site, and it's got a pretty nice feel to it, although at the moment, it doesn't seem like much is happening, like going to a party where nobody knows anybody else so they're all furiously signalling their bona fides as someone worth taking to. I suppose that's unfair. But I'm interested, and I'll see what comes of it.

Moi?
So most Australians consider the PM arrogant, the PM, naturally enough, not being among them: ”I don’t feel very arrogant,” he tell us, “I don’t behave in an arrogant manner.” It’s true, too, he doesn’t. He’s much more usually behaving like a petulant schoolboy, well, when he isn’t sneering his way through Question Time. Oh, yeah, the sneering. Maybe that’s why he started out saying “I don’t have anything to be arrogant about, not at the moment politically, nothing at all.” Right, because the polls have him and his party down under 40% and no amount of mud-slinging seems to help. So, nothing, politically, anyway. Maybe if he comes on all humble, he can get another term. Start snivelling, John, it couldn’t hurt.

Unplugged
The Sydney Morning Herald is promoting an environmental awareness campaign, called “Earth Hour,” wherein, on March 31, at 7:30 p.m., Sydney will turn out its lights. O.k., well, so far 25,000 of us will turn off our lights, including me, although that’s the day I’m moving into my new accommodations.

It’s an interesting idea, and I’m hoping they’ll get a satellite photo. It would be really good if it could spread across the industrialized world. Imagine Earth Hour NYC. Or across the Eastern seaboard of the US, an area that appears in space photos as a dense band of white, light bleeding up into space. I wonder what the space aliens would think if the entire planet went from light to dark and back again in a rotating band?

Socialists
I went to the Sydney weblogger meet-up tonight, at the Art House Hotel, a pretentious little CBD watering hole, but never did find the group. I didn't see anyone I recognized - not that I expected to, given that the last one I attended was at least two months ago - and didn't see any evidence of the plush toy meant to be displayed for attendees to locate the group. It was a big place, although not very crowded, but I just don't know if going to something like this is ever going to do me enough good to bother about in the future. From the last group, these are not people who could provide much professional benefit, so it's all down to just being sociable. Frankly, I don't see forcing myself into such situations. Finding myself in one and being friendly is one thing, but this just feels like I'm being intrusive. Well, I'll try once more; I was early tonight, so maybe nobody was there before I left. In the end, I can stick to the Democrats (although they're not really radical enough to suit me).

Mr. Hitchens Spins His Web
It’s been said that the more venomous a spider is, the messier it’s web. That’s probably not anything based on fact, just some anecdotal observation that Black Widows don’t use the same more-or-less symmetrical design of some other, less-dangerous-to-humans arachnid. But for a human analog to this principal, you need look no further than Christopher Hitchens, in Slate. He spins and spins until he’s so dizzy, he’s lost all track of his own argument, spewing up his righteousness and spraying us all. He starts out well – he’s a smart guy, as we all know, right – but by the time he gets to just his fourth Q&A, he’s lost control, dizzily reeling through his self-constructed little press conference. By the end, he’s just embarrassing himself. Perhaps a more fulsome attempt at justifying the Iraq debacle for its fourth anniversary would have been more effective. I doubt it.

Bunnies!
When I heard that Russell Crowe was buying into the Rabbitohs, as part of a bid to regenerate the inner-city perennially last-place club, I didn’t expect Armani, just a rebuilt Redfern playing ground. But Crowe and the rest of the new ownership not only got the players well-dressed, it may be they get well-respected, too, with last night’s 18-6 win over the Roosters starting off the season with a bang. Good on ya, Bunnies. (Now, about that oval. . . .)

Double-Dealing Double Standards
I’d thought to give Liberal MP Santo Santoro a pass on his failure to disclose shareholdings that put him in a bind over his portfolio. He did the right thing, I thought, oversights happen, and when he realized he’d missed the disclosure, he gave the profits to a charity. I was wrong. Santoro’s portfolio as Minister for Ageing meant his stock portfolio needed to be disclosed. This isn’t so difficult, so it’s more than an honest error. He should at the very least have offered his resignation. Howard should probably have accepted it, under the ministerial conduct guidelines he himself put in place back in 1996. But Howard’s not one for saying sorry and not one for enforcing the conduct of his ministers; that would be admitting a mistake. But to make matters worse, that “charity” Santoro donated to? It’s a lobbying group. It isn’t a charity at all, not registered, nothing. Yes, other actual charitable organizations, including the Salvos, the Catholics, and others, funnel money into it, but the “Family Council of Queensland” is not itself a charity. So he took the ill-gotten gains and made a political contribution. So he lied. Twice. And he still hasn’t resigned.

Crooks and liars, the Liberals, every damn one of them, since the beginning of their present reign. No wonder Howard’s approval ratings are tanking. Perhaps at last the Australian people will demand accountability at the polls.

Rhetoric Ramp-Up Alert
When John Howard says he’s going to work harder on improving the now-dismal poll results being returned against him as preferred Prime Minister and his party overall, believe it. Sure, Costello’s on record now saying the budget’s tight, so don’t expect any pre-election tax relief or hand-outs, and after a few weeks of playing the man rather than the policies during question time, childish taunts and all (“they started it!”), he’d seem to have his work cut out for him. But listen, “I think one of the reasons is that the Labor Party has successfully created the impression that it doesn't matter who is in Government, the economy will continue to grow.” Ah. Back to interest rates and scare tactics. I wonder how well that’s going to fly, with all we know about the negative effects of “WorkChoices” and the interest rate rises that haven’t come back down yet and the property market that’s turned into a rental nightmare as well as depressing growth. No, I think Mr. Howard’s got a tough row over these next eight months, and it’ll only get tougher in March, when NSW returns Labor to power despite Morris Iemma, et al.

Lose Weight – In Your Dreams!
Now, if I apply the ”I think I can, I think I can” fitness method short, intense intervals, I can lose weight fast. Well, if I cut out all the pie.

Relocation
We got the word today: our real estate agent has been given the deposit check and authorization to put in the bank, so the sale is on. All that’s left is to finish packing, hire a mover, schedule the settlement date, sign the papers, and walk away. Not necessarily in quite that order. Oh, and find a place to live.

That latter part, however, appears now to have been done. I’m moving a few suburbs west, to Camperdown (sounds like a Boy Scout emergency call, doesn’t it?), assuming my application clears its final hurdles, which shouldn’t be a problem. Of course, there’s also changing my address details with all and sundry, most especially for magazine subscriptions, cancelling or transferring various utilities, and so forth. All in about three weeks. Normally, these things are done in 5 to 6 weeks, but our buyers want to move fast, and I’m just as happy to let them.

The new place will have a small back garden, which I’ll have to “improve” a little bit for the cats (see previous post). But it’s really nice. I just hope the massive sofa will fit through the door.

Every Night I Go Home and My IQ Sinks Through the Floor
This has to be one of the funniest cartoons I’ve seen outside the New Yorker.

I’m living proof.
(From XKCD, via Larvatus Prodeo.)

Gruesome
Tonight, hot as it was, air conditioning seemed called for, so I went off to Broadway to see The Last King of Scotland, the Idi Amin movie. While fictional, or fictionalized, by the addition of Dr. Garrigan, the dictator's personal physician, the story's focus on Amin is otherwise factual, and that makes this one of the most effective horror movies ever made. Forest Whitaker deserved that Oscar. The moment he appears, and despite everything we already know about Amin, we are the in the grip of a terrifyingly charismatic evil, a monster all the more evil for being real. Little enough is shown or even directly referenced of the terrible things Amin did, but there's no doubt left, no room left for any verdict other than to consign that man to damnation and condemn any complicity, even if from ignorance. It's the kind of movie that makes you want to delve into the history.

Perils, Part Two
First thing this morning, after a quick stop at the supermarket for some essentials - cat litter, mostly - I headed off to start looking at properties. Although I've thought that I have no good reason to reveal to anyone that I have cats, and thereby to increase the pool of housing available to review, i.e., by including apartment blocks, where strata title committees, as well as individual flat owners, frown upon pets, I focussed today on houses. The first was just a few streets away and it was terrific. I don't think my sofa would fit through the door, but around the back, on the lane way, was a roll-up shutter forming the car park. The owners have elected to pave the entirety of the back garden, and also to seal it off with corrugated plastic roofing, and all I could think was, well, but the sofa out here, wrapped in plastic, until you find a place to buy again, and throw a sheet over it: this place would be perfect for a man with two cats more active than he is. Nevertheless, I proceeded out to Newtown to review small terraces out that way.

Again, none of them will accomodate the sofa unless I can find a way to take it apart and put it back together again, probably by some form of molecular transportation, like on Star Trek. Absent that technology, I'll have to sell it or leave it on the porch to get ruined in the first good rain. Still, only one of the terraces actually had a rising damp problem, unsuccessfully masked by new carpets (it also had the television aerial cable in the kitchen, oddly enough). But that first place was too good.

Of course, putting down an application is one thing, but until the 5-day cooling-off period is over, on Wednesday, I don't dare commit any money, because it would be forfeit if I had to pull out. Monday may be soon enough for paperwork, so long as I can wait until Thursday to start spending the big bucks.

Perils of Real Estate
Today, having secured a new buyer after the last one bailed over whether or not he could be sure of having access to the AFL events on Foxtel - no, really, although also because all the bankruptcy foreclosures we've had over the last year made him think our flat was overpriced - I went to look at my first potential rental after 10 years, all up, of being an owner (if you count having massive mortgages being "an owner"). It was a 3-bedroom terrace up at Taylor Square, tucked back in a lane and so away from the hedonism of that particular corner of Oxford Street. Very nice from the outside, it was an entirely different matter when the estate agent opened the front door.

The first thing I noticed was that it smelled musty. Not just old dust, but that underlying mould-under-the-carpet smell, which made perfect sense, because this place hasn't seen carpet since wall-to-wall became available. It's possible I might have overlooked this, although the next thing I noticed was that the entrance hall was uncarpeted, and the exposed floorboards hadn't been sanded in at least a century, let alone polished and sealed. I got splinters enough on old wood floors as a kid, and didn't relish more. It's not like I was going to take my shoes off even to walk on the carpets, though, so maybe I could overlook that, too.

The kitchen was large and L-shaped, and its linoleum was the kind that goes down in one big sheet, cut to fit around the cabinets and so forth. It was also bubbling up all over, not to mention ugly.

The two front rooms were dark, dingy and built for a race of humans who never exceeded four feet in height before becoming extinct. This also probably explains how they would have navigated the stairs to the two upper rooms, each much more light, though no less mouldy, than the downstairs rooms. I'd probably have to close one of them off, though, and use it for storage, if just to avoid that much extra cleaning effort, but it couldn't be the one at the front, because it was the better of the two, and if it was the one at the back, there'd be no place safe to end up having come to the top of the stairs.

Out back was a paved-over courtyard that could, with minimal effort, be made perfect for two young cats who can probably never be trusted to roam on their own, and looking around, I discovered the "internal laundry." Underneath the house. In a space about three feet high. With no hook-ups for a washer, let alone power outlets, but a nice tub to do everything by hand. Drying racks would have to serve, as no Hills Hoist was available, to say nothing of where I'd put a dryer.

The bathroom - and there was only one (admittedly my preference; as a single man, I'd rather not have to clean two) - was the final touch. The shower was set in the corner and the thought of touching bare anything to the tiles there induced a crawling sensation, as if the fungus was actively at work already. The toilet was the cheapest plastic, and the basin nearly invisible, set about two feet off the ground behind the door.

I could live here, I thought, and took an application. It took the rest of the day, a day spent ringing agents to hear them say "no pets" over and over again, when they didn't say the property I asked after had been snapped up already, to convince myself that I have at least 5 weeks to find a place and move, and that's assuming these buyers weren't so spooked by the stock market "correction" on Wednesday that they hang in and go to settlement.

Tomorrow, I've got two places to look at, in Newtown and Camperdown, both houses, so at least I can have a place to keep Felix & Theo.

Why Am I Still So Slow?
Believing in your workout = a workout? That’s the only kind of exercise I get. I ought to join the KRAC team in Los Angeles.
(Ref. Rebecca’s Pocket.)