The headline for William Safire’s Op-Ed piece in today’s NYT is “Four connected elections”, and the teaser is

More than one election will affect the young democracy in the land of Saddam’s former tyranny.

Obviously, there’s the election in Iraq itself, and the US election in November. Then there’s another Presidential election in Afghanistan. What’s the fourth? You might expect that the first national election to be held in one of the original “Coalition of the Willing” countries since the war would count for something. But actually, it appears that Safire counts the outcome in Najaf[1] as a ‘primary’.

I’m well aware of how little we are noticed, but even so I opened Safire’s article expecting a mention of Oz. For anyone who thinks that our policy of unwavering support for the US buys us anything in the way of gratitude, or even attention, this is a sobering reminder of our insignificance in American eyes.

fn1. Which by the way, he grossly misinterprets. Sistani, who he correctly presents as the big winner, has been an unwavering opponent of the US occupation. However happy he may be that Sadr is out of Najaf, he is unlikely to countenance a continued presence once a Shia majority government is installed.

Writing a defence of Ross Cameron, and political hypocrisy in general, Greg Barns puts forward the startling proposition that it’s OK for politicians to keep a mistress at taxpayers’ expense[1].

For the body politic in France, Italy, Spain, Portugal and their former colonies, the fact that their political leaders attend church on Sundays, preach the need for less corruption and moral virtue during the week, but keep a mistress at taxpayer’s expense merely raises a resigned shrug of the shoulders.
 
This latter approach is not only more realistic but recognises the point .. that there’s little reason to expect that the personality type attracted to politics is a human of impeccable moral virtue.

If Barns himself should ever run for office, we can’t say we weren’t warned.
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Before we get bogged down in the election, I thought I’d do a quick post on this piece that caught my eye. It was a piece in the Age in the long-running dispute between Melbourne University Private and Senator Kim Carr, Labor Science and Research Spokesman. Here’s what caught my eye.

[Carr] claimed five of the 12 research publications MUP had produced up to June 30 this year did not meet Commonwealth Department of Education, Science and Training guidelines and suggested there were doubts about another five.

The university, in its final submission to the committee on Thursday, denied making any false claims, maintained its research report had been properly audited, and said its research publication rate was almost twice the national average (emphasis added).

I thought this must be a misprint. An entire university with 12 publications in a year? I get more than that[1], and so do quite a few other researchers. And how can this possibly be “above the national average?”
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PM Calls Oct 9 poll In the face of such a long-anticipated announcement, I haven’t anything new to say right now, so I thought I’d invite commenters to post their predictions. Any sort of prediction is welcome, but I’ll have a contest for the commenter who can give the most accurate forecast of the number of House of Representatives seats won by the Coalition. The prize, if any, will be announced later.,

A lot of people have pointed to a survey reported in the Telegraph and accepted the misleading interpretation of the results given by the Tele’s Malcolm Farr. First, the results. Of those surveyed, 47 per cent thought Howard had lied on children overboard, 31 per cent did not believe he had lied, and 22 per cent were uncommitted. On a second question, 60 per cent said it would not influence the way they voted, 31 per cent said it would and 9 per cent were uncommitted. The heading is “If PM lied, few care” and the opening para is “A large majority of voters have said the issue won’t influence their polling booth choice – even if they think the Prime Minister didn’t tell the truth.” This is wrong in almost every way a survey report can be wrong.
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The right wing of Ozplogistan has lined up fairly loyally behind Howard until now. There are plenty of people happy to vote for a liar. But is anyone out there loyal enough to advocate voting for a spammer ?[1],[2]

fn1. OK, it’s Howard’s son who actually does the spamming, but it’s Howard’s money and message.

fn2. While I’m at it, a quick note on my previous post on “legitimate” companies that employ spammers I emailed two of those mentioned (couldn’t find an email address on the website for the third) but got no reply.