Friday photos

To start with, two pretty pictures of The Bay at sunrise. Are you getting sick of these? I'm not. Before long, it will be cold and wet when I leave for work (rather than coolish and pleasantly dry), so I am making the most of it. I like how the water on the far side of the mud bank is almost perfectly, glassily still.

There's two pelicans in the water searching for breakfast.

I noted a few days ago that Verity Firth appears to have next to no support from individual householders in her electorate - there are plenty of signs up on power poles, but precious few in front yards. Scrap precious few - I have only seen two. This one in Lilyfield and another in Glebe. There are sure to be more out there (I haven't covered that much of her electorate), but the difference in the number of Labor signs in front yards between Balmain and Drummoyne is immense.

Speaking of which, here are two versions of Angelo's sign. The first is a recycled one from an earlier mayoral campaign (he's been mayor now for 8 years). The "Drummoyne" bit is actually a big sticker that's stuck over some other slogan - probably something about electing him as mayor. He certainly looks a lot younger in that photo. The "Labor" logo is part of the original poster though - even back then, he wasn't into advertising his affiliation with that party.

And here is the modern version - a bit more grey, a few more wrinkles (I know how that feels). If he fails to get up this weekend (the election is tomorrow), I wonder if he'll have another crack in four years time?

Candidate actively avoids Labor brand

I always get a chuckle when I see Angelo's signs - especially since one of his main campaigners had a torrid time with ICAC last year. When his supporters claim that he is "one of us", what exactly do they mean? Which "us" is he linked with? The type of "us" that end up being grilled by ICAC investigators?

One thing Angelo doesn't want to be known as is the Labor candidate. Spotted these two posters outside a house on a major intersection. Some kind soul has come along and stuck a much bigger "Labor" sticker over the tiny little Labor logo. By the look of the stickers, panic has ensued and the householder has done their best to erase all linkages with Labor.

I think he has a reasonable chance in this area. Whilst Labor are on the nose, he's a fresh candidate with a great local profile. If anyone can win the seat, it's him. It will be interesting to see if his profile is enough to overcome the local Labor stench.

There's a stark difference between our electorate and Balmain when it comes to candidate's signage out the front of private houses. In our area, a lot of people support Angelo enough to have his mug in their front yard. I took a trip into Balmain and Glebe on the weekend - whilst there are a lot of Verity Firth posters up on power poles, I didn't see a single one in a front yard. Not one. Lot's of posters on poles shows she has an active campaign team running around nailing them up at night, but the lack of posters in front yards shows just how little grass roots support she's got compared to Angelo.

Monday photos

I thought I was going to miss the sunrise this morning - the alarm went off, and I really couldn't be bothered getting out of bed and going to work. However, the brain refused to return to sleep, so I reluctantly crawled out of bed and got on with it. As it turns out, it was a glorious sunrise.

There are a few rowers out there in that mass of blue and pink. Just one problem - I took this photo from the worst possible spot. This scene looked incredible from other locations, but there were too many bloody trees in the way to get a good shot. Note to self - must cut down some trees to improve the view. The Bay was just a series of bands of beautiful pink and light blue stretching all the way to the bridge in the far background.

Not many bikes out this morning - the sun is coming up later and later, and I guess a lot of people don't want to or aren't equipped to ride in the dark.

Verity's signs aren't getting any better. This one is mirroring her popularity.

Even more election posters

Angela D'Amore still has her office going, even though she won't be the local member any more in 2 1/2 weeks time. That's not preventing her from using up her printing allowance in a misguided attempt to puff up her legacy. By April 1, people will be saying, "Angela Who?"

The alternative Angelo Tsirekas poster - the one that is not a leftover from a previous mayoral campaign. I don't get the use of slogans - "One of Us". What the hell does that mean? That he's not an alien from the Planet Zog?

Found this in a backstreet - almost fell of the bike when I saw it. It's the only one I've seen so far. Adam - here's a hint. Get a haircut before your next formal photo session. My motto is, "Never trust a Green in a suit". That goes for business suit, lounge suit or koala suit.

Ah, the missing poster from my last trawl - James Falk, the Liberal candidate for Balmain. We've heard very little about him in the media, because the media are obsessed with the battle between the Green and the Labortard. Poor old James gets no oxygen because he appears to be normal. My suggestion is that he takes drugs, crashes his car into a gay bar and then runs naked down the main street of Balmain with a flaming torch stuck up his bum. If he does that, he might cop a line in the local rag.

More election posters

As requested by the Tizona Group, I bring you four more election posters. I did a special ride today, just for you guys. First off, we have the current Mayor of Canada Bay, Angelo Tsirekas. He has a few different posters, all similar to the one above. I think this is actually his old mayoral campaign poster, with a "Drummoyne" sticker stuck over his old mayoral election slogan. Labor have written this seat off, so he's having to make do with a budget of sweet FA.

God knows why he went with yellow - I always associate that colour with cowardice. One thing I have noticed though - he doesn't try to chat my partner up when I accompany her to functions he's attending. Rumour has it that he got a bit too friendly with ladies other than his wife last year, and was booted out of the marital abode. It appears things have since been patched up. He's got excellent name recognition though, having been mayor for years, so I think he is in with a reasonable chance. The Labor voters that were walking around six months ago saying that they'd never vote for D'Amore (since hauled up before ICAC on corruption charges and suspended from the Labor party) will vote for Tsirekas. His name doesn't stink like D'Amore's did (she is also Joe Tripodi's sister-in-law). As a newbie, he also isn't associated with the wretched Labor government.

Jamie Parker, who is the Mayor of Leichhardt. He's hoping to knock off Verity Firth in Balmain. Although he's a Green, he's been spotted parking his big black Mercedes some distance from functions and then walking so that people don't get the idea that he is in fact a rich, capitalist plutocrat. He's certainly richer than the other candidates shown here. I hope that all that blue sky in the background isn't full of CO2.

Alex Elliot - never heard of him, and don't ask me why he went with black and white. Cost perhaps? It stands out though.

John Sidoti, currently Mayor of Burwood and the Liberal candidate (sorry about the distant photo - the road was too busy to cross - will try to get a better photo). It's always fun around here when the elections are Greeks vs Italians. Sidoti has added a large format poster to his repertoire - the ones on the right of the trailer. They really stand out. Interesting how the Liberal is photographed on a green background, and the Green on a blue background (traditionally the conservative colour).

More to follow after the next ride. I didn't spot a poster for the Liberal candidate for Balmain this morning - I know they are out there, but there weren't any in the spots that I rode around today.

Keep Verity Out

The Tizona Group are on the hunt for Labor party election posters that don't look like Labor party election posters. This one from Verity Firth is a classic. Her husband was busted recently buying a single eckie tablet, and he resigned (idiot). Some smart arse has been running around the neighbourhood adding a sticker that simply says "out", as in "keep verity out". That meets with my approval.

Different religious groups, poverty, and their dependence on the state

The Australian ran a story on Australia's Muslim population yesterday. A few paragraphs stood out for me, and they related to education (or lack thereof) and poverty. In particular, a Muslim spokesman was complaining about the awful condition of state schools in Muslim areas.

But Dandan is far from sanguine about the projected near doubling of Muslim numbers.

"That is of great concern to us because we don't have the facilities and the infrastructure, and the government is not supporting us," he says.

The Muslim community has plenty on its plate already: intergenerational poverty, undereducation and unemployment, a pressing need for more social, welfare and aged-care services, a siege mentality fostered by a suspicious public and often hostile news media, close attention from the police and security agencies and the problem of pockets of religious extremism.

Dandan claims Muslim communities have been abandoned politically, particularly in southwest Sydney, where they happen to live in electorates safely held by the Labor Party.

"We're a growing community, so where are the services? Our youth get no services, our elderly no services, employment, no service, hospitals atrocious, our schools - don't even talk about it, go and have a look at our schools. Are we not getting the services because we're Muslim or because these are safe Labor seats?"

A second set of statistics underscores his complaints, showing that despite numerous success stories such as that of Dandan, who runs a multimillion-dollar IT security firm, Muslims overall remain one of the most disadvantaged groups in Australia.

The figures are in a 2009 report by the National Centre of Excellence for Islamic Studies, Social and Economic Conditions of Australian Muslims: Implications for Social Inclusion.

On the upside, it found that education-wise Muslims are high achievers: 21 per cent of Muslim males have a university degree, compared with 15 per cent of non-Muslims. But this doesn't translate into financial rewards, apparently because of language barriers, discrimination and non-recognition of qualifications obtained abroad. Unemployment among Muslims is two to four times the rates among other Australians. Twice as many Muslims have no income. Only 15 per cent own their own homes, compared with one-third of other Australians. Twenty-six per cent of Muslim teenagers are unemployed, against 14 per cent of non-Muslims. And, shockingly, 40 per cent of Muslim children live in poverty, almost three times the national average.

The report found Australian Muslims are more vulnerable to multigenerational endemic poverty, "thus making poverty a way of life". This in turn creates alienation from mainstream society, leading to higher rates of delinquency, crime, imprisonment and potentially resort to religious extremism.

These issues require urgent attention, the report advised. But, Dandan says, "The politicians don't care, they literally don't care." He cites an elaborate new youth centre built next to the Lakemba mosque, which took the local community 13 years to build because it received zero assistance from government.

The first thing that struck me was this was an extended rant about the failure of the state to provide services and infrastructure - which is nothing new in NSW - but what really struck me was the mindset of almost total dependence on the state. In all of this, I didn't see a single spark of, "Look, we need this stuff - let's get together and raise some money and do it for ourselves". It's all, "Let's go and ask the government for a cheque".

Since one big problem appears to be education, and the state of the state education system, I thought I'd have a look into that. So I did a bit of searching for two statistics - the proportion of Muslim kids in the state system vs the proportion of Jewish kids in the state system. I decided to use the Jews as a comparison as they are generally renowned for their very hard headed approach to education, and they're a pretty successful mob in general.

In NSW, the state system educates 66-67% of all kids.

Until a few years ago, 91% of Muslim kids were in the state system. That has dropped to 79% thanks to the opening of a dozen or so Islamic schools. Here are two interesting links regarding Muslim schools.

Only 25% of Jewish kids attend a state primary school, rising to 45% in high school.

So if we accept that education is a vital part of turning into a good, productive citizen, what are we to make of the correlation between the problems in the Muslim community and their high dependence on state education, versus the success of the Jewish community and their low dependence on state education?

If the lousy condition of state education is part of the cause of the problems for the Muslim community (high unemployment, intergenerational poverty, language barriers etc), then we should be pushing hard as hell for the opening of a lot more private Islamic schools, and trying to get 30-40% of Muslim kids into them. Hell, why not be like the Jews and go for 75%?

I think the Muslims have already figured that out for themselves. The Muslim private school sector is one of the fastest growing in Australia. Like many of us, they are simply fleeing in horror from a lousy state education system, and they realise that a good education is vital for their kid's future. The current generation might be a bit of a mess, but if we can give the next generation a great education, most of these integration problems might go away. Yes, it's strange to think that educating kids in an Islamic school will lead to great integration, vs putting them into a secular sink school - but why shouldn't it? 75% of Jews start of in a Jewish school - do they have a problem with the rest of Australia?

Memories

Four years after the Kevin07 election, and a year or so after he got knifed - the stickers still appear from time to time (although this one has been half removed).

Bit quiet at the moment - tore my legs to bits last week going way too hard way too early and have been unable to ride thanks to numerous muscle spasms, twangs and ows.

Dams and floods

The Shadowlands starts a debate on how useful dams might have been in Queensland.

As Gavin notes, Peter Garrett knocked back a Queensland dam because it might have impacted on the habitat of some endangered frogs and things.

I'm wondering this - how would the impact of the dam compare to the impact of a fucking enormous flood? Do those habitats still exist, or are they now 30 feet under water? What sort of condition will those habitats be in when the waters subside, and will those endangered species ever come back? What if they've all been wiped out by the flood? Can we then start pouring concrete for a new dam?

Of course Garrett and the Federal environmental pubes would never consider such an outcome, as they couldn't conceive of it ever raining again in Australia thanks to climate change.

Idiots.

Mark Latham is brilliant

You have to read his entire book review:

In Howes’ world, ideological consistency is a vice while careerist opportunism is a virtue. He claims to have left the Trots because of their suppression of political freedoms and free-thinking. His answer was to join the NSW Right faction of the Labor party.

This conversion, however, has had an unlikely upside. One of the unwritten rules of political activism is that all Trots are ugly. Aesthetically there is something to be said for turning them into faceless men. More than most, Howes has benefitted from this.

Is that an excellent put down, or what?

On things political, I am grinding my way through "Power Crisis", by Rodney Cavalier. It's put me to sleep on the couch at least a dozen times. There are great moments in it, but also huge tranches of zzzzzzzzzzzz......

...where was I? Crikey, there's dried drool all down my chin.

Ah yes, Rodney Cavalier. I worked out what his problem is - he's been around government too long, so he writes in pure, unadulterated bureaucrat. Great slabs of prose have the consistency of porridge. The subject matter is great, but it reads like a Treasury paper on the movements in T-bond rates over the last 3 zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz........

If you are suffering from insomnia and are in to NSW politics, it will do wonders for your sleeping patterns.