even in the quietest moments

A leisurely reflection of current events. Because VVB is listed at Oz Politics blog, this is an early *warning*, there are no startling insights here so those in need of violent titillation should move right along. Not that there are startling insights in the usual course of events, but....ahh bugger it.

Also no links, or I'll be here all night. Don't want to be quite that leisurely.

The Stern report has caused the requisite amount of consternation, schadenfreude and other various reactions. The (insert suitably offensive description) PM is of course locked into his current course of action. No Kyoto (and superficially he has a point wrt the two large emitters, China and India, who are not parties) but lots of busy-busy activity: look, we are spending money of lots of things. Sequestration. Nuclear. And so on, very typical activity for all types of governments seeking to deflect too much scrutiny of their broader positions. The closer reason for opposing Kyoto, to my mind, is that this government does not recognise multilaterism much at all, but certainly not on environmental or social issues. Trade and economic only. And they (I mean 'he') probably owes continued resistance to Kyoto as part of the conga line of submission to Bushco.

Also of interest is that Alan Wood in today's Australian is still as rabidly anti climate change as ever. This seems to derive from a more fundamentally held position that he just doesn't believe in it. Dennis Shanahan has started to move but Wood holds the line. Worth remembering as we move forward.

I saw on my rounds of a few blogs that several other people have drawn the seemingly obvious link between Family First's support for the media laws and sudden emergence of money for chaplains in schools. But this one is drawing a lot of flak. The ever optimistic part of me (18%? I've forgotten) attributes this to scales falling from people's eyes about the Hon John Winston Liar. You can fool all of the people, etc etc. The law of averages, the law of diminishing returns, the law of inevitable fuckups, Murphy's Law, one of these laws is coming into play. The conspiracy-monging part of the VVB also suspects that this was onethat was probably meant to be held back for closer to the election, but we needed something to deflect attention from the emerging policy quagmire that is Iraq. For which see Blair, Tony. For whatever its faults, perfidious Albion is still closer to a functioning democracy than we are.

Also, we now have to pray for rain here in Queensland. I give up - the world's gone bloody potty. So onto more pleasant things.

As some readers will know, I do some mentoring in my organisation and my current mentoree is now aware of this blog, thanks to someone, who knows who he is. Anyway, we had a session this morning that was nothing short of brilliant. Perhaps even moreso than other staff I've worked with over the past few years, mentoree (sorry about the nomenclature, nothing better comes to mind, perhaps we need a pseudonym) and I have reached a level of trust where we can be very open about the things that drive our behaviours. This makes it much easier to discuss the sorts of things that mentoring relationships are designed to do, such as understanding organisational behaviour. You can get through some quite deep analysis through reference to personal actions and reactions.

For a professional pessimist and very inconsistent person (I reckon policy consistency is the most desirable attribute and the hardest to achieve), I have to be very careful about not giving the wrong impression about life in the cubicle farm. But all the people I've mentored over the last 5 or so years have been very good at asking questions, so nothing gets taken at face value, it all gets dissected. But this morning was something else again so, you-know-who-you-are, thank you.

And finally, I was choofing off home this evening, fairly light traffic so relatively good driving conditions, quite cool so window down and all. And onto the car stereo - I'd forgotten I'd loaded it - came one of my favourite songs of all time. I'm a fan of the classic two minute pop/rock song and this one is, I reckon, one of the gems. I Fought the Law, by the Bobby Fuller Four. And boy does it show off the new front speakers. I screwed it right up and there was fabulous, tight bass (whoever played bass on that was a real gem, he's up and down the fretboard, it's just pure pop perfection), it's simple, it just chugs along like crazy. One song made the investment in the new speakers all worthwhile. And I'd also picked up Exile on Main Street by the Stones during the week. I'd never owned it, I'd never even heard it, the music fans over on Larvatus Prodeo keep reckoning it was the duck's guts, and it is.

Finally, no posting for a few days as famille VVB is off to Sydney. This is normally my weekend away with the boys for the Motor Show and we will indeed tootle along again. But this year it's the whole family and we will be catching up with my late father's half-sister that he never acknowledged even existed until a few years ago. I've met her once, but this will be the chance to get the family history that we never knew. She's lovely and it should be fascinating.

Finally, we will consign father's ashes to his beloved Sydney Harbour, as close as possible to Mosman where he was born. Let's hope we get the chance to do it right.