Tonight’s Lateline program: Tony Jones interviews John Cleese and Eric Idle.
April Fools’ Day At Google And The White House
I admit I didn’t instantly realise it was an April Fools’ Day joke.
Google can score it as a win.
I thought the number of visitors to AustralianPolitics.com from the International Space Station Control Room was unusual when I checked the traffic figures on Google Analytics this morning.
The real-time Location Map of visitors to the site said there was 41 of them.
They were in the United States. Later, they had moved to Australia:
By this evening they seemed to be somewhere over the Pacific Ocean:
The White House’s video titled “A Statement From the Briefing Room” was a little easier to pick.
Gillard Announces The End Of The World
Oh dear.
This is a video appearance by Prime Minister Julia Gillard on Triple J’s End of the World Show.
Day 17 – Amusing Ourselves To Defeat
Day 17 of the election campaign centred on the desperate attempt to resuscitate the campaign of Prime Minister Gillard.
But it began with a televised confrontation between Fiona Patten of the Sex Party and Wendy Francis from Family First. Since the “debate” was on Channel 7’s Sunrise program, it necessarily lacked gravitas but contained many loud buzzers to signal the thirty-second time limits.
Patten was out-talked by a more confident Francis and it reminded me of my conversation with Martin Leahy, the Sex Party candidate for the Victorian seat of La Trobe.
I met Leahy at the ballot draw, an arcane ritual complete with tattslotto style cages, numbered balls and blindfolded Electoral Commission staff. A two-stage selection of the numbered balls takes place, the first to allocate numbers to candidates, the second to designate the order of candidates on the ballot paper. [Read more…]