Budget Reply

I listened to the budget replies of Labor, The Democrats and The Greens last night.

Ok, I admit I tried to listen to Green twaddle, but after 2 minutes I realised I didn't have a handy bucket at the ready and was forced to turn it off. The Greens are the party that used to care about the environment but has now been captured by a bunch of lefty wacko's (Remember last year when Senator Bob Brown proposed to sell Telstra if the proceeds went to the environment. His own party shot their beloved leader down in flames over that one, and we knew their metamorphosis was complete. Stuff the environment, we're now the anti-everything vote).

Latham did adequately, but not inspire me. There was no substance to the alternative proposals, mainly rhetoric, but with an election coming as early as August 7th I'm sure we'll be hearing about it before too long. I look forward to hearing the alternatives. Let the vote bidding war commence.

Labor Solution

The old gaffer Crean is back at it when he commented about the "8.5 million forgotten Australian families" in the upcoming tax cuts.

Costello enjoyed this one, he was quck to point out that there is only 4.9 million families in Australia.

I don't think Labor can afford to have someone as error prone as Crean sitting around on the front bench - thank goodness they replaced him. Former Labour PM Paul Keating, in his biography, had the habit of calling people 'Creanites'. This meant your economic credibility was shot.

Latham isn't without error either. He commented on Radio yesterday that his family was part of the "60 per cent of the country that has been forgotten in this budget". As much as Latham wishes to portray himself as one of the little guys I don't think anyone other than he believes the leader of the oposition earns less than $52,000.

Bring back Paul, we miss you.

Scary Predictions

While I obviously suck at predicting S.A.S. outcomes (mainly because I didn't understand the rules, and I overestimate the intelligence of plebeians), previously I mentioned that I might be sleeping in a water bed.

I was joking.

Well on Sunday we had twice as much rain as the entire yearly total up to that point in Perth. Most of it came through my ceiling thanks to dodgy roof tilers who don't know how to tarp up a roof properly.

This is what's behind the dearth of recent posts.

S.A.S. wrap

Well something changed somewhere along the line that I didn't know about. Something about a tie-breaker to do with a purple rock. This is a change from series one where it was based on number of accumulated votes against.

Anyway Amber won the immunity and as I predicted in that scenario Rupert goes home. Though I did not pick Jenna voting against Rupert which I think was just stupid.

If I was Rupert I would have been busy explaining to Jenna the laws of probability.

If she votes for Rupert.
That leaves 3 people left. If Rob or Amber win the immunity she goes home with nothing. Probability of her winning immunity = 30%

Probability of her winning the game = 30%


If she votes for Rob.
Probability of her not picking the stone and making the final three = 66%

3 People left:

Now if she survies this it depends on who was eliminated.

Scenario 1)
50% Chance Rupert goes home.
If so that leaves us with Jenna, Rob and Amber. Amber has a 30% chance of surviving that (as above).

Scenario 2)
50% Chance Rob goes home.
In this case this leaves us with Amber, Rupert and Jenna.

Probability of winning the immunity challenge
Amber : 30%
Rupert : 40%
Jenna : 30%

Amber will pick Jenna (Rupert is popular).
Rupert - I'm not sure who he would pick let's say 50% chance of either Amber or Jenna.
Probability of Jenna going to the final two in this scneario = 30% + 0.5 * 40% + 30% = 80%.

Probability of Jenna going to the final two if she goes for the rock:

0.66(0.5*0.3+0.5*0.8) = 36.3%

*Qualification: If Rupert wouldn't have picked Jenna then this drops to 30% (Interesting)

*Also note that just coming second wins you 100k, so perhaps we should change the goal to be to come in the final two.

Voting Rupert off : Probably a bad move.

Budget Recap

Good stuff.

Enough said.

The question everyone is asking is 'What is in it for me?'
I am sick of hearing this question.

How about a different question 'Is it good public policy?'

Let's talk about the winners and the whiners.

Winners : Families are the biggest winners. Good job. Sure I'm jealous that I missed out on 5k for a new baby (I won't be having any more), but it's still good policy.

Whiners : The funny thing is the whiners brought it on their own heads. Last year the government dished out tax cuts for all. The whining class complained because they could only afford a sandwich and a milkshake. So the government isn't going to make that mistake again. This time they give big tax cuts that mean something to a targeted group in society and the whiners get their chance to whine, but they were going to do that anyway, so no great loss.

S.A.S Prediction V2

Well 12 hours to go.

Upon reflection Rob won't jump off Amber's sinking ship. So that means something else will have to be the surprise. Perhaps Amber will try to save herself at Rob's expense. All possible.

Still here's a guess.

Amber 4th
Jenna 3rd
Rob 2nd
Rupert 1st

Rupert wins the final challenge and dumps Jenna and takes Rob to the final 2.