Too busy to blog...

I have numerous topics I want to blog about and just about no time.  I am writing now while Chris gives Liam a bath.  Following that is books & Mummy-milk (with me)  and bed time (with Chris).  I have vowed that tonight once bedtime hits, I will get straight to studying.  So this is it.

Of course, I wanted to write about the Jakarta bombing, except... no, actually I didn't.  I really have nothing useful to say  - another tragedy, more lives lost, for no valid reason that I can imagine.  Like others I hope the politicians avoid using it for election fodder, though I can't imagine they will.

I wanted to write about the Work & Family Test Case currently being heard: ACTU Claims Rights For Parents & Carers.    "Australia ranks very low internationally in terms of work and family. Leaving aside former Eastern bloc nations, Australia is ranked thirteenth out of fourteen OECD nations." That's not very good folks. Surely we can do better, especially when the evidence suggests that the cost for business would in fact be negligible if not non-existent. But I don't have time to give you the run down, so if you're interested take a look at those articles, or if you're really interested have a scan of Cath Bowtell’s Opening Address To The ACTU Work And Family Test Case (that's a 37 page pdf). She makes the case very well for the family friendly policies they're asking for.  Basic things like two years unpaid parental leave instead of one. Of course the Howard government is opposing the case.

Since I'm in a links away mode, here's a link to an interesting post at a blog Chris found recently. The key point of the post is "Cheney seems to be saying that the reason there won't be another attack if he is reelected is because he will keep fighting "preemptive" wars." Yep, that's certainly something to think about if you have the ability to vote in the US presidential elections. The blog is subtitled "Thoughts on the Middle East, History, and Religion" and is written by a history professor at the University of Michigan.

There are numerous other things I wanted to blog about - Liam's new constant companion, for instance: Peter the dog, aka a green wooden pull along caterpillar. And I still haven't responded to David's questions over at  Treppenwitz, so if you think that maybe US foreign policy (for one) has played some part in the upsurge in international terrorism lately, feel free to go and answer him on my behalf. He makes such good points that they really deserve an equally considered response.

Right now I hear Liam packing up his bath toys, which means we're not far away from book time. So that's it for me.  Posting might be scarce over the next two weeks while I get this essay finished and then write that article. If it's not, that will be a bad sign!

Comments

[Kay]

And not actually blogging, but just making a quick comment, re my election fodder note: it seems to me inevitable that the attack improves the coalitions chances, even though I tend to agree with Ken Parish and others who don't think JI were really concerned with the Australian election. John Howard doesn't *need* to make it election fodder, and it benefits him anyway.