This will hurt me...

Who knew when taking this photograph this morning, on the brief walk to the bus stop, that such a transformation would occur? Destiny thrusts herself – like a drunken and horny uni student – upon me! Prudency and constraints of time render it difficult to expand, but in some respects I feel like Napoleon after the Egyptian expedition . France is in dire straits. Rudderless, she drifts toward a precipice. In times of disorder, opportunities present themselves. Does one seize power from such disarray? Might one better consolidate one’s own position amongst a cabal of like-minded souls? Decisions, decisions. Interesting times are afoot...

I have strenuously avoided talking about the Australian Commonwealth’s Budget that was ‘handed down’ this week . It is obviously an important one, being the ALP’s first of this term, but went pretty much along with the script. Incoming social democratic governments have generally played it safe in their first budgets over the past twenty years in the Anglo-European context, so there was nothing too hair-raising or surprising. What does frustrate me (although not nearly as much as it frustrates Jen), is the tendency these days for every kind of interest group , business and indeed individual to come out and bemoan how much worse off they are than everybody else and how unfair it is because they personally did not come off better. You know what people, it doesn't always have to be about you . Anyway, I just wanted to say that and then link to Mark Bahnisch at Lavartus Prodeo , who has bothered to say in greater depth what I have been thinking, but don't have the time to writ...