Lev Lafayette's journal

The South-East Australian bushfires continued to rage during the week. Estimates of the dead are now around three hundred, although the official toll has stood at 181 for some time. The number of animals that have died is estimated to be in the millions. Apparently one needs to be university researcher to blame trees and the Greens, and divine inspiration to blame the decriminalisation of abortion.

I have started a new public policy website in accord to my 2009 plan. The idea is to combine elements of liberal, socialist and anarchist theory into a practical and results-orientated perspective. The intention is to gradually build the movement, one person at a time, into something that is both far more interesting and independent than what passes for most political organisations. On a related topic, having become frustrated over the years by the inability of semi-professional organisations to deal with IT workplace issues (wages, OH&S, collective bargaining), I have joined the ACTU-affiliated APESMA.

For sequential unix timestamp day (hat-tip to tajna for the name), caseopaya and I went to the hills to look at housing to buy despite the smell and haze of smoke that covered the city. Our landlords have increased the rent on our apartment by almost 25% and we're in the situation when where we can buy a significantly larger property with a mortgage repayment of less than we're currently paying in rent. So we had a trip out to Belgrave, Sassafras, and Mt. Dandenong and had a very late lunch outside the William Ricketts Sanctuary. No firm decisions yet from the initial scouting mission.

During the week also had a visit from hathalla and ser_pounce; it was a belated birthday gathering for the latter. I provided him a signed copy of robin_d_laws's HeroQuest and made an enormous tiramisu using a famous frou_frou recipe.