Currently watching the press conference with the Australian PM Julia Gillard and Obama.
No idea on her politics, except that she is Labour, but she is a looker. My other political crush is [Christine Lagarde](Christine Lagarde) - the finance minister for France. I first saw her on the Daily Show, and she was sharp as a tack, and looking very good for her age. Beauty and brains!
I know it is totally shallow to judge a politician on their looks, but I do it anyway. Voting is still based on policies, but nice lookers are always an added bonus. And I’ve never trusted politicians that could not find a good barber. I mean if you devote yourself to public service, at least try to look your best for them.
I think it had no small part in Obama’s rise also. I’ve heard plenty of comments from women, such that Michelle better watch her back. (And she ain’t bad herself.)
So proceed to flame if you wish, but I just wanted to say good job Down Under
Yes, it’s the Australian Labor Party – known as such for at least 100 years, because of either U.S. influence or a desire for spelling reform. There’s also the Democratic Labor Party, which split off from the ALP in the 1950s, and used to have some political significance.
However, outside this political context, the normal spelling in Australia is “labour”.
Currently three of the six Australian states have a woman as premier – though that’s likely to change later this month, since Ms Keneally will almost certainly lose the forthcoming election in NSW.
I knew that, but I have a bad habit of using British/English spelling for ‘or’ words - behaviour, colour, etc. Too many years reading British comic book authours I think. American spell-checks hate me, so I have added them to most of mine.
Okay, now I love her - and you mates for electing her! I can’t wait to hear her address the House. I wonder if they know that about her (except for the ranga bit, that’s a tad obvious.)
PS why do you Aussies make immigration so difficult? Only 30 or 40 million americans would jump ship and head south.
I have it in my head that the ALP formally adopted the American spelling in 1924. I’ll admit to having no idea whether that was a change reflecting general usage by their supporters, or was at the van of the change. And that’s quite apart from whatever the state parties were doing…!
That’s why I deliberately used both spellings in the same sentence!
Mind you, there’s at least a definite tendency for some Australians to use the spelling “harbor”. It’s never occurred to me until now to wonder if that also means they’d use “labor”, “color”, etc. in general usage.
Um… about her addressing the House… she has quite possibly the worst Australian accent of any public figure of recent minting. Horrible nasal drawling horror. And that’s after speech lessons, apparently.
I realise this has no bearing on her capacity as a PM. But it sounds terrible.
But a looker?
She has the grin of a well fed shark.
Of course the truely unforgiveable thing about Julia is that she prevented the country from having the option of taking a coarse wire brush to Kevin Rudd in June 2010 and now has him cavorting about on the world stage as foreign minister.
And with Labor now at record lows in the opinion polls and the factional overlords like Howes, Arbib and Swan rechecking their numbers she might be gone sooner than you think.
Admittedly, I’d pick her over Ka-Daffy. But that’s still a seriously butt-ugly woman, looks like a Simpsons character, although I’m sure she has a nice personality.
