Election 2004 | Day 21 | Doing The Roundup Thing

Yeah, I'm a lazy disappointment: I slept in and sorta kinda missed the whole Howard bribing the commoners scene at Penrith today, unfortunately. No doubt he'll be back in a few weeks pretending to support businesses on High Street when the Plaza expands, or some other lie. It'll be interesting (and possibly incredibly depressing) to see if everyone around here will fall for this shit or remember the ADI site, UWS (remember the book burying scandal last year?), Badgery's Creek, etc.

"If the people of Parramatta want their interest rates low, they should vote for him."

- John Howard, somehow under the impression that Ross Cameron runs the Reserve Bank

PM Cutting And Running On Family Payment Crap?
The ABC seems to be the only news source running this story (update: the SMH has caught onto it too):

The Federal Opposition says a leaked cabinet document shows Prime Minister John Howard only agreed to a $600 per child payment to families as a short-term political fix, in the lead up to the election.

Interesting! Howard doesn't actually deny it, just dodges the accusation.

The John Anderson Show
Deputy PM John Anderson once again damaged the Coalition campaign by making stupid comments, this time telling everyone that voting for independents was a waste. Seriously, I'm waiting for him to claim that all Australians are stupid fuckwits or something similar.

Howard The Warlord
Pre-emptive strikes. Howard supports them, Latham doesn't.

So, are you willing to bomb/invade/whatever other countries because intelligence reports (which have been oh so reliable under Howard) say a terrorist threat is imminent in Australia? If this was the case, wouldn't the terrorists be in Australia? If you knew something was going to happen, wouldn't you probably know what it was going to be and therefore be able to stop it. And what right do we have to go bombing other countries at all? Does this mean we can then expect other countries to come invading us if they think we're plotting anything (because it'd only be right for them to respect us as much as we respect them)?

"Isn't it better to say that you'll do things in co-operation in a proper fashion, work collaboratively with our neighbours to ensure we deal with these threats?"

- Latham, leaving violence as the last option instead of the first

Howard is all for even more insane anti-terrorism measures, instead of providing funding and education to poverty-stricken areas, in an attempt to kill root causes.

Howard Acts Predictably
Here we go, claiming his attacks on Latham's time aren't personal.

Mr Howard said everything he or Mr Latham did in public life was up for scrutiny, but he would not indulge in personal attacks.

Because indulging in personal attacks would just be low, wouldn't it? The media is also obsessing over where Latham is planning on sending his 3 year old kid to a public or private school.

Here's one to cheer Clare up: Protest May Unseat Abbott, stating Bigears is in danger of losing his seat to pissed off voters.

And that's it for tonight.

"Bill Gates is an exemplar to the capitalists of the world."

- John Howard, referring to a man whose company dominates any market they choose to enter, not by competing, but via unethical business tactics and leveraging of an illegal monopoly