77%

of people approved of mr howards dealing with the tampa boat refugees all those years ago, and i cant help but think that if more people had stood up and said 'no', we all wouldnt be in the position we are in today, hanging off the tattered coattails of the americans. also. i love that song by the herd.

and, apparently, http://www.cbsnews.com/sections/opinion/polls/main500160.shtml

" 77 percent of Republicans approve of his (Pres Bush's) job performance, and the President retains the support of some of his key constituencies. 61 percent of white evangelicals approve of the job he is doing (up from 55 percent a month ago), as do 54 percent of conservatives. "

interesting number. however, everyone else seems to be losing faith in him, thank god. what with the libby-plame thing and the reaching of 2000 soldiers dead in iraq, as well as the various hurrican responses (i think theyre up to hurricane 'beta'), and the retraction of his miers nomination, i think people are beginning to see that the world might just be a better place without him calling the shots. of course, i wont be able to say things like that after christmas, if the leader of our heroic nation gets his way (as it is looking more and more like he will), and the anti-sedition laws and whatnot get pushed through. youll excuse me if im not as enthusiastic as mr everyone else about that exciting news.

and, i finished my hsc yesterday. 'w00t'!. yeah.. modern was about what i expected, except the WW1 question which was wholly on the battle of the Somme. almost 2 years of learning about eveything from the Nivelle offensive to the Defence Of the Realm Act, to Germans eating cats and peace protests of the first world war, and the only thing the flipping board wants to know is about a single battle, albeit the largest and one of the most important.
and i really dont know who would have known enough about nuclear protesters during the cold war to have been able to write a 30 mark, 10-16 page essay on it.
but its over, so enough of that.

last night, channel 7 showed some old brit series at about midnight, called 'close and true'. and it had robson green in it, and it was *damn* cool. he looked like he was enjoying himslef a bit more than in something like 'unconditional love', which the abc played a few months ago. of course, nothing can compare to wire in the blood, but it was funny to see mr green look a bit less neurotic and not like his face is going to split in half if he tried smiling.

oh and some new additions to the sidebar-y thingy. the sesame street terror alert, which i saw on someone else's blog and fell in love with (currently on yellow, or 'bert', whatever that means - maybe we're all going to start falling in love with pigeons), and the nanowrimo meter i picked up somewhere. obviously im not making much of a mark on my story, but i'll get there. eventually and with much pain.

speaking of pigeons, the cricket is going pretty well at the moment. australian batting was a bit woeful, but at least the skipper did something right. yet again, we are relying on the tail-enders to provide the runs to present a respectable score. its really not their job to make 150-odd runs, even with people like lee and warne in the mix. the openers and the middle order are supposed to be setting the mark adn the bowlers are just meant to add whatever they can. admittedly, the windies are bowling really quite well. i saw they made about 600 the other day against queensland. sheesh.

mels