I Love A Sunburnt Politician

Yet another hot, sunny summer's day. I have been missing summer badly. Normally, by this time of the year, we should have seen a bevy of 30oC+ days followed by 20oC+ nights... but not this year. Australia's weather has been, to put it bluntly, fucked up. In the past month the nation has seen snow, hail, floods, drought, bushfires, thunderstorms and heatwaves. Hell, throw in a plague of locust and all that is missing is a bunch of dudes on horses riding through the skies.

The BOM staff have advised that all this is not due to global warming, which I'd buy if it wasn't happening on a global scale. Everywhere around this fragile planet the weather has been unseasonable, unpredictable and generally unfriendly. Strange that a government funded body would play down the possibilities of the current weather trends being related to global warming.... being an election year and all.... When An Inconvenient Truth hit cinemas here, the government did its predictable thing and made like it was actually concerned with global warming. Of course, no real changes have been promised to be implemented until after the election. After all, why go spending money now to start fixing a problem which will impact current and future generations when you can use it for leverage?

Unfortunately, this is the start of 2 not-so-pleasant trends for 2007. 1 - unpredictable and possibly devastating weather patterns, and 2 - predictable and soul-devastating political spin. It will be a year of seeing farmers continuing to suffer from the drought, consumers paying increasingly higher prices for groceries and smiling politicians making empty promises.

Sometimes though, there is a glimmer of hope and goodness when someone (or something) puts their money where their mouth is. Woolworths has been running a series of adverts for the past year or so promoting themselves as major supporters of Australian farmers. Being the cynic that I am, these ads have left me cold as the majority of products sold in large supermarkets are imported or made from imported produce. And then Woolies had to go and launch National Drought Action Day - a day where all profits from all Woolworths stores nationwide will be donated to the Country Women's Association to support rural families struggling from the drought. Onya Woolies!



Songs played while writing this entry:
"Their Law" Prodigy
"Ring Ring Ring (Ha Ha Hey)" De La Soul
"Here I Come (Drumapella)" CJD Project
"Amphetamine" Drax
"Come and Die" Therapy? & Fatal
"Once" Pearl Jam
"Gimme The Car" The Violent Femmes
"Seven Days & One Week (Club Mix)" B.B.E
"Scared (Scared of Tomorrow Remix)" Slacker