I’m caving into writing a list again: if only I’d had time to develop each of these into posts themselves!

• The speculation earlier this week about possible tax cuts in the next episode of The Peter Costello Budget Show is amusing in the context of John Howard talking up his economic management credentials in Brisbane. It’s an election year, and you have to be pretty naive to think that the Budget will contain anything other than vote-buying measures. If only we could get some real economic reform out of these guys, like a desperately-needed simplification of the tax system (rather than just tweaking rates and thresholds) to cut down the gigabucks wasted on administration. Or better yet, how about some spending on economic constraints — on upgrading the ports that serve our mines, or on technical education to address skills shortages?
• Water from the Kimberly is back in the news; forgive me for not being excited. Lots of people are saying things like “forget the cost, we’d never get anywhere if we didn’t build expensive stuff!” … and sure, big visionary projects are wonderful, but there’s a difference between being a visionary and bankrupting the State. The best available assessment suggests that three thousand kilometres of water transport system, be it canal or pipeline or whatever, would fall into the latter category. (For those who failed physics: to move stuff, including water, requires energy. The amount required is directly proportional to the distance travelled. Energy is not free, and the Kimberly is a bloody long way from Perth.)
• The other part of Omodei’s proposal this week is far more sensible: an irrigation scheme to develop agricultural land near the Fitzroy River. I can see a lot of potential problems (the region’s ecosystems are more fragile than anyone in Perth seems to recognise) but there’s actually hope that these are problems that can be handled. So much so, in fact, that the idea sounds like a copy of what already exists.
• On the other side of the House, state Labor have always been pretty bad on the self-promoting propaganda front, but why do we need ads during the footy telling us that new liquor laws are coming and we can expect a “change of scene”?! Actions speak louder than words, kids.
• Finally, a brief mention of federal Labor: I don’t know enough to comment on the merits of the new IR policy, but for crying out loud, this obsession with throwing the term “fair” around whenever workplace relations come up is getting very tired, very fast.

… now that I’ve finally finished (w00t!) my first thesis draft. Well, mostly. Almost all of it. Okay so maybe it’s not quite there yet, but anyway.

• Happy Ramadan, which starts today. In the current climate of fear and distrust, it would be nice if there was some acknowledgement of this fact in the mainstream Western-world media
• Speaking of Muslims (ahem, all migrants, but of course we really just care about Muslims): you know the kerfuffle in the media about a possible citizenship test for new Australians? This is actually in response to a discussion paper that is open for public comment until 17 November. I encourage you to say something!
• Like many other nerds, I’ve been eagerly following word from the blog of the latest space tourist, Anousheh Ansari (she of X-Prize fame). Aside from the whole geeky millionaire going into space thing, it strikes me as interesting that many of the American reports about her, such as the press release from her old uni, seem to bring up how she came to America with (almost) nothing and built a life and fortune for herself. “Never mind that she’s Iranian, she followed the great American way, so she’s one of us now!”
• Last week the State Government announced new railcars for what will be the Clarkson — Mandurah line, adding on to the batch that the same supplier has just finished delivering. Finally, some acknowledgement that there’s a capacity problem on the northern line — and also that the current number of trains is hardly ideal for servicing a 107km route!
• Speaking of the State Government: last week they introduced an amendment bill to bring some sense to our horridly restrictive liquor licensing laws. I’ve not yet read it but it seems to be a significant step forward, albeit still far short of fixing problems like the silly noise complaint rules. It remains to be seen if it’ll pass the upper house, but amazingly, there’s actually a website created by a bunch of Perthonalities trying to drum up support for the changes in a petition. (Amusingly, they’re running Joomla and previously had comment-spam problems; now they’re being bitten by escaped quotes in comments.)
• And concluding with other public transport related matters: I’ve posted a few times about SmartRider, which will be the first deployed system of its kind in the country, and the PTA’s dude-in-a-suit marketing tricks for it. (The ERG readers in both Melbourne and Sydney speak RFID, but are only used by some travellers, notably most Sydney school kids.)
  It turns out that SmartRider Man pales in comparison next to the flashy website and converted truck “discovery centre” set up for myki, Melbourne’s forthcoming answer to SmartRider (or should that be “Metcard 2.0”?) … which should be an entertaining budget-burner!