The EDM Update

Well, here I am. Back in the swing of things with life returning to normal this week. Ouch though. My first five-day week in quite a while.

News is that the EDM family has come out the other side of recent events and is tracking along for some return to normalcy over the coming weeks. I say ‘tracking’ because the son has now come down with the mother of all flus with a cough like a barking dog and the resultant lack of sleep for his parents. It hit on Saturday afternoon so the weekend was a write-off and just in time for the working week to commence.

So what to write about then upon my return? What’s been happening while I’ve been incognito?

Federal Budget? Hhhmm, only have a few general comments. Overall, its looks pretty solid in trying to get us back to surplus in a couple of years but does contain some strange stuff like geriatric set top boxes. Analysis of it has once again been trivial though and the media fulfilling their self-appointed role as public opinion makers rather than mere reporters.

Abbott also got away with giving a Budget reply that contained no Budget reply. He has articulated some relevant points in the media since but I can’t help feeling he looks more and more like a political commentator providing never-ending analysis rather than the leader of an alternative government with alternative policies and positions.

Death of Osama Bin Laden? Plenty of material there I guess but I feel I’ve missed the boat seeing it’s been a couple of weeks now. While I certainly understand the views of Geoffrey Robertson and his human rights advocate colleagues - that summarily executing him made us (the west) look a bit hypocritical - I also reckon a quick and clean exit from the world stage was necessary in this case. As the saying goes, live by the sword, die by the sword.

A court case would also have been a major propaganda tool for Al Qaeda and been a security issue fraught with all manner of danger. The geopolitical implications are far more interesting though, with Pakistan to explain how he was under their noses all that time and the US to work out how they deal with them into the future.

Gordon Nuttall defending himself in Parliament? Not exactly new or exciting watching a fallen politician blame everyone but himself for his predicament. He did argue his case well and with passion but he was never going to convince former Govt colleagues of his innocence and definitely not the LNP opponents sitting on the other side of the chamber. Too much political pain for either side to give him any understanding or pity.

Queensland Flood Inquiry? It continues to bubble along with daily reports of systems, procedures and manuals failing in the face of the disaster. Not surprising really given the days and months leading up to it were unprecedented and managed to combine into a ‘perfect storm’. Plenty of heart wrenching tales out of Toowoomba, Grantham and the Lockyer Valley as well which even now I can’t fully comprehend what it must have been like despite the blanket coverage.

Slow payments from the Premier’s Disaster Relief Appeal? Yes, The Curious Snail has certainly been running an agenda there of late. But it’s a case of damned if you do, damned if you don’t by my reckoning. Because if the Govt just handed out the money willy-nilly with no checks and balances then it’d cop flack for wasting the funds as well.

So either way, the Snail aims up and takes an easy shot. Have proper accountability to ensure the money isn’t mishandled and wasted; you get cries of too slow and too bureaucratic. Have little in terms of proper process and distribute the money quickly; you get cries of government waste and mismanagement. Ahh, The Curious Snail. Grand Protector of our Democracy and Eternal Saviour of the People (acute sarcasm there if it wasn’t obvious).

The AFL Sling Tackle debate? Oh yeah, now to the really big issues. Absolute frigging travesty that Jack Trengove got three weeks for making a tackle that will happen another 1000 times over the course of the season. In fact, there were four similar ones in the Adelaide-Gold Coast game just on Saturday, three of which were done by one GC player who did not get cited for any of them.

Apparently the most damning factor in the Trengove case was that Dangerfield was dangerously concussed as a result of the tackle. Yeah, so dangerously concussed that he was able to play in that game versus the Gold Coast and was best-on-ground with six goals. Blood still boiling from that decision.

Anyway, that’s a quick roundup to get me up-to-date on the worldly comings and goings of the last couple of weeks. Consider yourselves EDMed once again and I’ll try and get back on board with regular posts over the next week or so.

Til then,

EDM.