I could not agree more!But for different reasons.The Howard...

I could not agree more!

But for different reasons.

The Howard launch was a very blokey affair -
lots of male bragging and lots of money being
thrown around with reckless abandon but with
not one woman having a starring role.

The Liberal women at the Liberal launch could
have belonged to the Womat Hollow Branch of
the CWA. All that was missing (for that 1950s
image to be complete) was Robur Tea,
lamingtons, pumpkin scones and a
picture of the Queen on the wall!

The women at Menzies launches in the 1950s
(and the 2007 Howard launch) were there to
dance attendance on the Alpha males and
demonstrate their breeding capacity
by holding babies aloft.

Far from making Howard look 'modern',
his use of YouTube only emphasised
what a political fossil Australia's
fossil-fuel champion is.

By way of contrast, the Labor launch was a low-key,
low-budget affair and featured two prominent Labor
women - the Labor Premier of Queensland and
Labor's deputy federal leader, Julia Gilliard.

Prominent among the far more modest and restrained
spending proposals (than Howard's 11th hour spree)
was a subsidy to enable kids to be able to develop
computer skills (at school) by having a access
(at school) to a computer each.

"Wow," I thought! Labor still has what it takes!

Thank God Labor is able to put itself into the
impoverished shoes of a kid who's single mum
or dad on a AWA pittance can't afford a home
computer and the kid gets savaged at school
for being a dummy and drops out.

Thank God Labor's 'Light on the Hill' still shines
brightly for the least, the last and the most lost
in an increasingly self-centered, kid-caging
land of 'No Opportunity' for people
who are... 'Not Like Us'.

Howard (of course) slammed Rudd's computer initiative.

Rudd fired back and was spot on target by saying
that 'Howard just doesn't get it' - about how important
computers are for trades men and women today.

Some tiny examples from my recent experience:

The Actew-AGL meter-reader stopped by yesterday
carrying a small hand-held computer. He read our
three electricity meters (standard, off-peak and
soalr input) and punched in the numbers.

He then read our water meter and
punched in the usage.

He was all done and next door in a minute flat!

If we had had gas connected, he would have
punched our gas usage into his mini-computer too
for downloading into Actew-AGL's mainframe for
it to calculate our bills (minus any rebates and
solar credits) for automatic printing and dispatch.

Recently, I had to call in a Telstra technician
after our high-speed broadband connection
slowed to a crawl.

He came equipped with a very robust laptop
and was soon telling me (from inside our ceiling)
that the line, as it entered our roof was
operating at the correct speed.

He then came down from the ceiling and
disconnected the computer I'm typing on
now (from our router) and plugged in
his very-robust laptop.

Ah-Hah! There was fault in the wiring in the ceiling!

Too ashamed to admit I had rewired the ceiling
phone and now-defunct fax lines several
times during 25 years, in a flash I said:

"Why not cut to the chase and save a lot of hassle
by running a new line from where you found a reliable
connection in the ceiling straight to the router?"

Which he did. "And by the way," I added.

"Did Telstra have that very robust laptop
especially constructed for field use?"

"No," he replied. "It's a standard-issue Army
field laptop. Telsra just ordered some to the
same specifications. You can drop it off the
roof on to concrete and it will still work!"

So there you go: Kevin Rudd is right!

If you want ALL (not just your) kids to advance
in the Army, Telstra, Actew-ACT or in any
trade, craft or profession, please don't
vote for a patriarchal kid-caging fossil.

Vote for computer-literate Kev and Julia!