Sunday, March 13, 2005
Blog move
The move is complete... and our new blog can be found at www.urbancreature.id.au/blog. Please updated your bookmarks, blogrolls, etc.
Saturday, March 12, 2005
Pedestrian Liberation Army
As you can tell from previous posts I'm not a big fan of cars. These contraptions are responsible for the poor design of cities, huge eye-sore freeways, pollution and road fatalities. They are also loosely responsible for obesity and heart disease.This said, there are few people in the world willing to stand up against cars, and against the very powerful "roads lobby" in their misguided agenda of creating more and more roads.
Roll on the Pedestrian Liberation Army (PLA) I say! They could (under the cover of darkness) close roads and paint cross-walks. They could change speed signs to speeds more amenable for pedestrians - let's say 8km/hr. They could hack into the central traffic management system and change all the lights to red. They could leave a calling card too...
Something like this stencilled near the site of their thoughtful, chaos-creating endeavours. They could use this yellow stencil (PDF - 129KB) as the first layer and this black stencil (PDF - 127KB) as the second. They could also stencil these signs anywhere... just so pedestrians feel they are being looked after.
They could be a secret, underground organisation where everyone is referred to by a nickname or a number and where their leader's face is never seen by anyone. It could, of course, already exist and could be plotting its activities right now on a huge map of Melbourne.
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Disclaimer:
I am in no way endorsing or encouraging any illegal activities like those listed above. I do not take any responsibility for the actions of others, regardless whether their actions resemble in whole or part to those discussed on this blog. The stencils and images provided may be used, modified or reproduced in any way seen fit. However, I do not take any responsibility for the use, modification or reproduction of these images in any way such as being stencilled on roads, footpaths, laneways, walls, fences, grass, trees, cars, people, animals, t-shirts, bags, hats, or private or government buildings such as those owned or leased by VicRoads, RACV or car retailers. Any similarity to real or fictional people, organisations or images displayed in this post is purely coincidental. No animals were harmed in the making of this post.
Thursday, March 10, 2005
New Domain
I finally got around to registering my own domain name - www.urbancreature.id.au. You'll notice that urbancreature.id.au/blog actually forwards to this blog. Feel free to update your links if you wish, although for the timebeing this is a little unnecessary.Sunday, March 06, 2005
Queer Eye for the South Park Guy
BEFORE...
AFTER...
AFTER...
This might be a case of small things amusing small minds but it's still loads of fun!
Friday, March 04, 2005
More WA election stuff
Following on from my WA election wrap-up, I thought I'd get Hootz (remember him?) to predict the likely make-up of the new upper house.
It's been 6 days since the WA election and most of the counting has finished. Perfect timing to predict the results for the upper house before the WA Electoral Commission releases them.
The Legislative Council is made up of 34 seats divided between 6 regions. Two of these regions have 7 members and the other four have 5 members. Labor and the Greens managed to gain control after the 2001 election with a slight majority - although the slightness of this majority caused a few problems for the Labor Government with its attempts at reforming the electoral system.
Below is the make-up of the upper house immediately prior to the 2005 election:
Australian Labor Party - 13
Greens WA - 5
Liberal Party - 11
National Party - 1
New Country Party - 2 (formerly One Nation)
Independents - 2 (1 formerly One Nation, 1 formerly Liberal)
It would be fair to say that there were 18 members on the 'left' and therefore 16 on the 'right'.
The likely make-up of the new upper house is possibly a little more boring:
Australian Labor Party: 16
Greens WA: 2
Liberal Party: 15
National Party: 1
This means that once again there will be 18 members on the 'left' and 16 on the 'right' - unless, of course, Labor or the Greens manage to gain the 5th seat in the Agricultural Region instead of the Liberal Party. The race for the 5th spot is between the ALP, Liberal Party, Greens, National Party, Family First, New Country Party and the Christian Democratic Party (according to Poll Bludger). While the Liberals are the most likely to win it, the CDP (with 1.81%) might be able to pull off what Family First did at the Federal election.
Here are my predictions extrapolated for each region (net change in brackets):
Agricultural
Australian Labor Party: 1
Greens WA: 0 (-1)
Liberal Party: 3 (+2)
National Party: 1
New Country Party: 0 (-1)
East Metropolitan
Australian Labor Party: 3
Liberal Party: 2
Mining & Pastoral
Australian Labor Party: 3 (+1)
Greens WA: 0 (-1)
Liberal Party: 2 (+1)
New Country Party: 0 (-1)
North Metropolitan
Australian Labor Party: 3
Greens WA: 1
Liberal Party: 3 (+1)
Independent: 0 (-1)
South Metropolitan
Australian Labor Party: 3 (+1)
Greens WA: 0 (-1)
Liberal Party: 2
South West
Australian Labor Party: 3 (+1)
Greens WA: 1
Liberal Party: 3
Independent: 0 (-1)
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The big losers at this election were certainly the minor parties and independents - particularly the Greens who are likely to lose 3 of their seats. At the previous election they had picked up 2 extra seats (Mining & Pastoral and Agricultural) pretty much by accident. The potential loss of South Metro, though (a seat they've held since 1993) would be a little more devastating.
Overall, however, there appears to be is very little change in the left-right balance of the upper house. Gallop will still need to rely on the Greens to get things through the upper house and electoral reform is still out of his reach.
Tuesday, March 01, 2005
Royals
After watching Denton's interview with Crown Prince Frederik and Crown Princess Mary I can't help but think that, if Australia doesn't become a republic soon, could we at least enter into a royal family exchange program? Surely Australians wouldn't mind becoming part of the Danish empire? And the British wouldn't mind either, providing they were offered Greenland.
