We Roast

We’ve been advised to go home early or late because of the 45 degree temperatures today.  I’ve been hard at work, of course, so I’m leaving late.  Spare a thought for me on the bike.  But I must leave sometime to save the poor pooch, who has taken to playing with his water and backup water, leaving him with nothing.

I’m off now.

[LATER]

It wasn’t so bad after all, since there was cloud cover and the temp was down to the low forties.  As I rode I contemplated the fact of the chill on the opposite side of the world.  I now see it’s warmer in London: 1°C.  This weather is so fierce.   Apart from anything else, this kind of thing is going to make our lives so much more expensive.  Surely it will be cheaper to spend the money on evening the climate out.  But the struggle is more religious than logical.

We see the Liberals in this country led by a man whose basic idea seems to be that people were born in sin and that this is the tendency, our motivation.  So it’s what – the Hobbesian, vs the Administrators?  Tony Abbott, leader of the Opposition, is a man in the mould of John Howard, not in that they have the same beliefs, because belief, although the maker and motivation of the person Abbott, is not the motivator of the politician Abbott.  In other words, anything for power.  This may stem from a deeper belief in the strong man, which trumps many of his other beliefs.  He’s not simple, but it seems to me that it falls into place – including his amicable relationships with the likes of the Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard – when you consider that first and foremost he is a professional politician.  This, John Howard showed himself as time and again, to the point where he lost his seat.

So Abbott plays the best angle he can, considering Prime Minister Rudd’s position just one more angle, which of course it may be (and may be simply in happy coincidence with Rudd’s convictions).  And if this game is motivated by anything like a conviction it is in an unsubtle interpretation of Hobbes.  We know Abbott believes that Original Sin is the well of everything.

I believe it is not, though I am agnostic about the short-sightedness of love, so I may wind up agreeing with Hobbes on that.  I am an atheist and also reckon there are better metaphors than Original Sin to describe our state, be that one of hopeless Homer Simpsonism or the poetry of Anarchism.

Age and bitterness will no doubt decide me.

(Though it’s nice to see Bob Hawke so positive with his heart so rent.)

When I got home sure enough Teddy Boy the dog had kicked over all its water supplies and when I ran the tap for him he drank so vigorously he vomited, drank again, ate the vomit and, while I was having a cold shower, ate two of Oscar’s Pokemon caramels off the table.

Google told me that I should watch out for panting and lying down.  Thanks.  It’s 40°C guys!