What do I think of the election and the eventual outcome?

Politicians these days are not inspiring.  The election held a couple of weekends ago just goes to show how uninspiring the whole thing can be.

I will make no secret of the fact that I voted Greens this last election.  Now with the Greens receiving a 3.7% national swing during the last election as well as winning a Lower House seat, and picking up extra senate seats giving them the balance of power in the Senate (they will have a senator in each state), they are getting a lot of attention (The Coalition only got a 1.9% national swing).

The media story stating that people voted Greens as a protest against voting Labor or Liberal is true in my respect.  I am one of the tertiary educated, high-income earners who should be voting Liberal, but usually votes Labor, but now sick of them both is now voting Greens.

But did you look at their policies?  People ask me.  Yes I did.  I went to their website, and looked at the things that they believe and want to introduce.  Now being a party not in power, those policies would probably be picked to pieces, but they have been glossed over mostly.  However there are a lot of Labor type similarities.  Things which interest me mostly are health, education and climate.

There is a very socialist approach to their health policies.  Abolish the private health insurance rebate, boost up the public health system.  Salaried GPs, more incentives for specialists and GPs to bulk bill so all Australians have access to healthcare.

Climate and the environment - obviously being the Greens they are for carbon tax, stopping coal mining and our dependency on non renewable energy sources, ecosustainable fishing blah blah.  Perhaps a bit unfair on my part, but I am pro-Carbon tax.  After all, I can afford it, and I did put in solar panels to try to reduce my bills a bit as well as my carbon footprint.  I wish that all Australians could have solar panels or afford them. And they support feed-in tariffs - I hope it's gross tariffs for everyone!  If that was the case I'd love to buy property and put solar panels on them everywhere.

Education - more public schools funding, HECS free Tertiary education... it all sounds very socialist doesn't it?  So where does all this money come from?

At heart, maybe I am a socialist.  I don't try to minimize my tax excessively, I think if I can afford it I should pay for it.  Is that such a bad thing?  My colleagues all think so.  They say why do you want all your hard earned money to go to tax?  But was my money that hard to earn?  Do I have back breaking labour?  I think I have quite a good life, I love my job and all prospects of it, and I don't work that hard really.  I do most of my work in the public system, and my private fees are not excessive (though I don't no gap and I really should if I was as socialist as they say).

A friend of mine donkey voted, saying that it was his protest against the 2 governments, because he thinks they're all idiots.  And that's his right, he has a right NOT to vote (since it is compulsory to vote but he just doesn't want to).  Another friend of mine voted Nationals.  People who don't make a vote in my opinion should not complain about who leads the country because they had their opportunity to say something but they chose not to.  Look at me, I exercise my vote and look what happened - my safe Labor seat has now turned marginal.  And for someone like me it doesn't really matter who gets into power, it won't affect me that much.  I will still send my kids to school, I will still work and get paid and pay my tax, and I will still take out private health care even though it costs me heaps.

"Baby brought back to life by mother's touch"

I read this in the paper yesterday

Baby brought back to life by mother's touch

And the Today Tonight video here. Scroll down to Miracle Survival story.

And I thought wow that's so cool.  Lucky for her that it went well and they didn't just pass him off as dead!

So I go to work today and I'm doing my Caesarean list and the midwife there asks me if I saw that thing on Today Tonight about the baby brought back to life, and I said yeah I read that in the paper, and she said "That was me, I delivered them and then I filmed them".  I mean talk about a small world!  That happened in my own hospital, with a midwife that I know!

Apparently she said on Today Tonight they told the story nicely but she said when the mum went onto Sunrise they were bagging out the midwife and Mrs Ogg didn't defend the midwife at all, just smiling and nodding.  So Midwife A was grumbling about that, but she said she didn't care really, it was just disappointing that she was bagged out on national TV and she felt that the mum was a bit ungrateful.

Midwife A said that she even offered to film the baby's last minutes with a camera they had on them so they had some record of the baby, and that's why there was even video to show about the baby and stuff!  I just watched the video and it showed the Neonatologist Dr G on it too... not sure if that's a good thing...

What car should I buy? Part 2

Ok I've narrowed my choice down to 2 cars:

Volkswagen Golf Wagon 118TSI comfortline
Nissan Dualis+2 Ti

Two different cars.  So hard to choose!

What do I like about the Golf?
1) Fuel economy. 6.7L/100km is hard to beat!
2) Zippy little 1.4L engine
3) It's a Golf!
4) Roomy station wagon
5) Safe

What do I like about the Dualis+2?
1) Sized between a hatchback and an SUV
2) +2 seats in an emergency up the back!  Not comfy though!
3) Tones of extra features included in the price for the top of the line model such as moonroof (glass roof!), bluetooth, seat warmers, leather seats, keyless entry
4) value for money price
5) Safe

OK so what don't I like about them?

Golf:
1) takes premium unleaded 98 only.  Geez, that will add heaps to my petrol bill.  No wonder the darn thing is so fuel efficient.
2) Adding all the extras makes the price go up
3) ugly... it's a station wagon!

Dualis+2:
1) Fuel economy not as good - 8.2L/100km
2) Not as roomy as Golf
3) Doesn't have back seat vents for air con/fan

There are quite a few reviews out there:
Dualis
Carshowroom.com.au
carsales.com.au
goauto

Golf
carpoint.com.au
motorreport


Interestingly to insure either of these cars comprehensively, the Golf is $300 more expensive to insure.

I think I may end up getting a Dualis anyway.  I will still get the +2 seats because the boot is bigger with the +2 seats folded down than the normal.  Will cost me an extra 2.5k though.  Should I get AWD?  I dunno, will I ever use it?  I doubt it.  I can always take the Lexus if I really need to do 4WD stuff.

I am such a klutz

My friend EC gave me his HTC Touch Pro 2 to try and within 2 days of using it I dropped it and smashed the screen!  So I feel like the biggest idiot.  It's taken me a while to get it how I like it and now it's broken.. still works properly though as if there is nothing wrong.  It's quite good for taking videos of the kids.

The touch screen is not as good as an iphone but it's better than my old one.  The screen resolution is so much nicer too.

I told EC that I'll take him and his wife out for a nice dinner somewhere, when we can get babysitting!  I wonder where I should take them and when.  They say they don't know much about fine dining but I'll make sure it's something really nice.

Julian can ride a little trike!

I went to a birthday party on Sunday and the parents of the birthday child had a small trike that was the right size for Julian to sit on.  So I put him on it and he seemed to be really good at pushing himself along!  It must be because he is in a walker at Nanny M's house and he's good at that.

So I went out on Monday and bought one from Toys R Us for $10 and couldn't wait to show hubby.  He was so impressed he immediately put it on for his mum to see and she was very excited.  I took a video of it this morning.

Spinal chlorhexidine rumour is true - with Chinese whispers variations

Read the SMH story here.

Such an unfortunate story! And scary for all anaesthetists because I can see exactly how the mistake happened.  The story I heard though was a mother of 2 kids having a 3rd elective caesarean and spinal morphine in one pot and chlorhexidine in the other pot.  And then accidentally drew up chlorhexidine instead of spinal morphine.  And that the patient was paraplegic now.

The actual story is about a woman having a first baby having an epidural in labour, and chlorhexidine instead of saline was injected in the epidural space.  And she has patchy paraesthesias rather than full blown paraplegia.  Which is still bad but different from the story.

Lots of people ask me if that mistake can happen.  And I tell them the truth, it can happen and I can see how it happened.  Thank god it didn't happen to me, I feel sorry for the anaesthetist as well as the patient, I'm sure they're totally mortified by what happened.

What new car should I buy?

After these car dramas I've been thinking that I should get a new car.  I've been looking at the Volkswagen Golf Wagon, but it is a tiny car with not much power... though it is very green (but says I have to use premium unleaded in it!).  The VW Passat wagon might have a bit more kick.

Someone told me to look at the Camry Hybrid, which has rather nice fuel economy but hubby and my mum are not keen for me to get a Hybrid they think there's something buggy about the technology.

Hubby wants me to get an Audi A4 wagon.  But that's starting to push the price boundaries a bit for me!

Hope to go test drive a few models tomorrow