There seems to be some interest in having a special happy place to go to and leave comments and have conversations about whatever.
So, here it is. Enjoy.
PS: Same rules still apply: Robust debate. No trashing each other.
There seems to be some interest in having a special happy place to go to and leave comments and have conversations about whatever.
So, here it is. Enjoy.
PS: Same rules still apply: Robust debate. No trashing each other.
Για να επιβάλει 10% σε 1426 λογαριασμούς ταμιευτηρίου κόσμο Δισεκατομμυριούχοι αντί των απλών ανθρώπων της Κύπρος.
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We don’t all speak Greek Gerard
http://www.change.org/petitions/european-union-to-levy-10-on-world-s-1426-billionaires-instead-of-the-ordinary-people-of-cyprus
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Όλες οι τραπεζικές καταθέσεις θα πρέπει να είναι εκτός ορίων – δεν έχει σημασία, υπάρχει πολύ εκεί – ή η εμπιστοσύνη (και, ως εκ τούτου, το σύνολο του τραπεζικού συστήματος) εξαφανίζεται τη διάρκεια της νύχτας
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Συμφωνώ, αλλά σίγουρα οι δισεκατομμυριούχοι μπορούν να το αντέξουν οικονομικά καλύτερα από ό, τι οι απλοί πολίτες της Κύπρος.
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Είναι πιθανώς αγγλο δισεκατομμυριούχους
😉
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Ναι, αλλά όχι όσο Κινέζοι ή οι Αμερικανοί. 10% ακόμα και δεν θα κάνει ένα βαθούλωμα σε αποταμιεύσεις τους. Με τον τρόπο? Έχετε υπογράψει την αίτηση?
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Θα του δώσω μια bash.Last φορά που η σελίδα έπαιξε ανόητα buggers
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I DON’T BELIEVE YOU ALL SPEAK GREEK!!!
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Ik ben een houthakker en ik ben OK.
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Double Reed Leaf Quail Chick
Water Double Reed Leaf Hand
Bread Loaf Quail Chick
Lion Vulture Mouth Water
Twisted Flax Wick Quail Chick Quail Chick
Bread Loaf Quail Chick
Quail Chick Folded Cloth Vulture
Jar Stand Quail Chick Jar Stand Lion Vulture
Bread Loaf Mouth Arm Water
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I’m still waiting for Atomou to come and berate us for how badly we’ve done. 😉
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Worry not,HG.
He has an ato-tude problem
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WTF????? How do know you are all being polite?
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It’s all just Greek to me 🙂
Το καλύτερο πράγμα που κάνει θα ήταν να επιβάλει φόρο 10% για εταιρείες που θέλουν να κάνουν επιχειρήσεις με Cypress. Ως αποτέλεσμα οι τιμές θα ανεβαίνουν, ενδεχομένως, για ορισμένα προϊόντα, αλλά η μικρή επιβάρυνση όρος θα πρέπει να μετατοπιστεί από εκείνους στη χώρα που είναι πρόθυμοι να είναι αυστηρή και πιο πιθανό για αυτούς που μπορούν να πληρώσουν.
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Ναι, αυτό θα ήταν ένας άλλος τρόπος, όμως, ο κόσμος φαίνεται μεγάλο πρόβλημα να είναι ότι περισσότερο του κεφαλαίου του κόσμου καταλήγει σε λιγότερα χέρια. Οι φτωχότεροι άνθρωποι φαίνεται σε άμεση αναλογία με την αύξηση των δισεκατομμυριούχων. Το σύστημα είναι σπασμένο.
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Perhaps a tax on non Greeks using Greek ‘glyphs?
😉
Or perhaps a tax on arse-holes per square metre.
Canberra for starters.
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All Dutch, to me.
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And bad Dutch at that!
They must have got their Greek from Prince Philip Google the Thurd!
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Thank Jennifer, I predict the discussions are not always going to be robust, but I hope that civility, good will and humour will prevail at all times….I’m an optimist 🙂
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http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-03-23/australia-criticised-over-sri-lanka-war-crimes-vote/4589526
Australia is also a happy place.
People can’t wait to get here.
And pretty soon boatloads of Cyprians will scoot over our own private horizon.
I here they have plenty of cash.
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Yep and there is a sick middle aged Afghan man in solitary confinement in Villawood with unhealed surgery wounds about to be sent back to fester in Manus even though 5 members of the full court of the federal court said clearly this week that this sort of deportation without process is completely illegal.
But I reckon the only Cypriots with cash are the Russians.
I have found a new song to celebrate what used to be the ALP.
It is from a new Canadian show called Cracked and I can’t stop listening to it.
The music is infectious to say the least.
What gets me though over on IA the partisan Gillard supporters are claiming that everyword the MSM write about Rudd is the truth so long as they are trashing him but every word that shows Gillard is the problem had some dopey person claiming I was Scott Morrison in drag – now that is a good giggle don’t you think.
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That analogy boggles the mind. When are some Australians going to grow even a walnut of brains, or get themselves better informed?
On a more serious note, re the Afghan man, can you offer us a few details.
Is it more of this “ministerial discretion” stuff?
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I gave up an IA.After reading the Thomson stuff I was impressed.But to sit in denial of Labors true position shows them to a partisan hack-fest in the other direction.
It’s a shame really,because we need more good areas to seek the truth, not bolster our beliefs.it is now just a church for Labor tragics,who go there to lick their wounds with the rest of the deluded.
It looks now, like Crean will soon be exposed as the liar he is.He had his sneering eye on the prize, and it backfired.
An elder?
Hardly.
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Subject: Proof the print media talk to themselves
The print media don’t seem to listen or hear any story but the one they have written themselves about Kevin Rudd. Gossip by the press gallery is not news, gossip is not fact but the fact is Kevin Rudd was not organising any spill. He was not out for revenge last week he was keeping a promise. I know I would much rather believe Ms Large than any member of the press gallery and I have had a gutful of the press gallery and their little club of gossipers who never present a single fact about Rudd.
Crean was the one making the noise, he should have run himself if he was so concerned because he knew that Rudd was not going to on Monday and he knew why.
From
http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/content/2013/s3721555.htm
PATRICIA LARGE: I think that Julia Gillard should now come out and say I’m deeply sorry for what happened in the Labor Party on your day, on your important day. I do think that Julia should come out now and say I’m sorry for the behaviour of these people and it should never have happened on your day.
LUCY CARTER: Does Simon Crean owe you an apology as well?
PATRICIA LARGE: Yes, oh yes, majorly, definitely, yes, yes. I knew that Kevin Rudd would not do anything on this day to us deliberately. He promised me a week before that there was no way he would challenge Julia, that there was no way he would upset anything to do with the Labor Party because as far as he saw it, Kevin said that this was our day to celebrate, it was our day to take in the apology and nothing should override it.
LUCY CARTER: Having had such a build-up for it and hoping that this might give you closure, do you think that this has re-opened old wounds?
Now Maiden and all the others should apologise to Kevin Rudd, listen to other voices and understand that if Rudd was so evil he would have told the ALP cowards to get lost, bring down the government, sip his own brand tea and write nasty books like Mark Latham did.
Now I don’t know about anyone else but I would believe Patricia Large over any media or pollie any day.
Sam Maiden claiming today that Rudd is a coward after helping to write a piece claiming he was set up again by Crean is just deranged.
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Laurie Oates and Cassidy both attacked Rudd.
One is pro Abbott the other pro Gillard.
Oates I presume has seen the Rudd text.
I don’t think either picked up the phone or asked Rudd for his version.Yet Crean got to write his own crap version.
The Canberra hacks just make shit up.”Oh we couldn’t possibly tell you who told us,but they are close to Rudd.Close to Gillard”.
Sure thing.
Labor will lose by miles, and for who knows how long.If Gillard remains,probably quite some time.
In order to have Labor revert to the glory days I hope Gillard keeps doing what she is,because then we get a major rebuild,not a cut and polish.
What irony.Gillard installs Abbott,wipes out Labor and then Abbott effectively rebuilds the Labor Party.
Proof that they are now one force with two separate factions.
The funny thing is,many Lib supporters could live with a Rudd govt and yet most Labor voters cannot say the same about Gillard, and she is supposed to represent them.
Albanese has now showed what a gob-shite he is, and I am sure bad things await him.He will forever be watching over his shoulder.Neither Labor camp can or will trust him.Every time someone tells him something he won’t know whether it’s true or a trap.
The leadership is settled?
Sure thing.
For all those singing Gillards praises,remember this.Nearly each and every single positive thing came from someone else not her.Probably a talented and caring individual.Those who delivered and managed those positive things will likely sit powerless in opposition,or outside government.The only saving grace is that it was their own personal choice to go out that way.The negatives were all hers, especially offshore processing.And she did a 180 on 457s which is wht Fergy will never ever trust her again.On 457s Gillard originally chose to kiss Ginas arse.No wonder Roxon scarpered.
Don’t be surprised if after the cabinet reshuffle some more members snatch it.I think the election will now be way sooner than September.
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Gillard is on a mission, so dubbed by the egregious crims of the CIA/MOSSAD/ASIO/MI5 Collusion.
She will stay there come what may, until another willing missionary can be found. House boys and girls the lot of them. Knights and Dames of the House of Thugs -or Atreus even.
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Her knees are her strongest asset.
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They miss a chance to spin something negative into ALP stories.
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Speaking of happy places.
See the possibilities Google dishes up?
https://i.chzbgr.com/maxW500/2617920768/h5ADCD3AC/
https://i.chzbgr.com/maxW500/5828845312/hAEB5A2FD/
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Ahahahahahahaha! I like her shoes
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That was 4U
😉
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Don’t they love their cones round their necks when they’ve had an operation?
The last had me thinking of Danish Blue, but the middle is right on the money.
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This Happy Place, just round the corner up the road from the rehab, across the street from the funeral parlour and nursing home?
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Just thinking further on this, the economist John Quiggin has a location at his site for stuff he doesn’t want to talk about further; thread derails on oft-repeated specious climate change denial claims, inappropriate or inaccurate comments on racial “others” and reams of voodoo economics neolib propaganda recycled from Catallaxy, that he calls his “Sandpit”.
He says it is for stoushes.
I’ve always figured sandpits to be giant cat-litter trays. This explains the names I see there most frequently, these not having the brains to keep out of such a place and indubitably adding their own unsavoury foulings.
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There are probably only a few AGW denying nutters, who sock puppets out to the hundreds.I don’t bother with the topic any more.The whole topic is a sad indictment on the ABCs wet lettuce moderation and rule abandonment.
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Jennifer,
I was just looking at that picture. It that meant to be Shane MacGowan from the Pogues? And what’s going on with it’s feet?
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I know this is overwhelmingly meant to be a happy place, but I’m going to put in my $0.02 on the subject of that terrible Prime Minister, Julia Gillard. Well… No. Actually, I going to say what I really think- which is that Julia is not terrible at all, and that she has exposed the fact that we Australians are much more small-minded and petty and covertly misogynist that we believe ourselves to be. I have watched the whole Labor experience from early Rudd / Sunrise days and this is what I think has happened.
1) Rudd is a piece of work. He’s outwardly friendly, mately, jocular and relaxed, but the eyes are cold and dead. The universal experience reported by people close to him is that this veneer ios only that – and that he exhibits almost childish petulance and desire for revenge when crossed.
2) Julia’s main problem is that she’s a Union / Lawyer type and hasn’t known anything else, really. So her experience in the wide world was limited when she first entered politics. But I am convinced she is 100% straight, totally well-intentioned, consultative, trust-worthy and honestly out to try and do the absolute best for the country. My understanding is the closer people get to her and work with her the more they like and admire her.
3) Julia richly deserved the Deputy Leadership under Rudd and did an absolutely sterling job in whatever she was asked to tackle. As Rudd settled in as PM and did some great early work (The apology etc), I think we had a connected, well-oiled team in Rudd and Gillard. Moreover, as Rudd overworked himself and started to return to his Mandarin, micro-managing, untrusting and non-communicative real self, Gillard worked extremely hard to cover of the cracks, to soothe ruffled feathers, to keep things on track as much as possible. She was still relatively naive about traditional Labor machinations and wasn’t, I think, central to those panicked discussions starting to take about Rudd’s increasingly-obvious derailment. She would have seen what was happening and have wondered how on earth she could save things.
4) What were her real choices when the faceless men forced the issue? She realised Rudd was not coping. I think she was reluctant to move but thought at the time (as did everyone) that not moving would be worse.
5) Once the coup had occurred, she did her best to heal things by incorporating those that had supported Rudd into her caucus. She even provided Rudd with Foreign Affairs in an attempt at bridge-healing. Again, she plowed ahead with the hard work of creating and implementing policies – not always the best ones (again only from the perspective of hind-sight – Mining “Tax” etc). She also continued to think (unwisely) that when the people saw that what she was doing was good for the country they would be grateful and understanding.
6) I suspect the true scale of Rudd’s vindictiveness and level childish undermining through leaks and strategic writings will only be exposed in the fullness of time. Egged on by an enthusiastic press who knew that nothing sells advertising space like the smell of political blood, and surrounded by a bevy of naive, sycophantic supporters, Rudd ensured that if HE couldn’t lead the Labor party then there would, effectively, be NO Labor party. Strategic leaks right up to just before the last election wounded Gillard as she sought to validate her Prime Ministership at the ballot box.
7) Julia’s efforts in the aftermath of the election result were magnifcent. Again, those close to her when she was at her best, Oakshott, Windsor, Bartlett were admiring. I think she single-handedly created a workable Government, helped, I might add, by an opposition leader so hungry for power and bereft of ethics that he thought promising anything and everything ($1Billion for Bartlett etc) would be attractiv. Of course, it had the opposite effect.
8) Rudd has been more destructive, childish, immature, self-opinionated then even Latham in his own time. Through this nearly-impossible working environment of a hung Parliament and the internal, debilitating cancer that was Rudd, Julia Gillard has managed to put through an amazing amount of brave, innovative, daring legislation and has genuinely benefitted Australia and Australians enormously.
9)I’m not dewy-eyed about her. I think she has done some very foolish things and not always got it right. I think her efforts with Refugees and Asylum-seekers has been woeful. But I can’t think of any other politician who has been perfect. They are human and they get things wrong sometimes.
10) They say people get the Government they deserve and I will conclude by saying I really don’t think Australians deserve Julia Gillard. I am positive that history will treat her kindly but that is little comfort as I watch a mean-spirited, News Ltd-led populous lash out against someone I think has been doing wondeful things for this country. Believe me, if Tony Abbott gets in, it will be less than six months before Government under Julia Gillard will start appearing not quite as terrible as everyone currently describes it.
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What an admirable attempt to sell a pile of steaming.
Let me abbreviate your view into a short take on reality.
Labor has never been more needed.
Labor has never been more damaged
Labor will never win under Gillard.
When you can accept those realities,you will save yourself a lot of words and a lot more angst.
As for the crap about misogyny?You desperate tosser.
An failure is a failure no matter how many cods it sits on.
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Gosh, you don’t sound very “Happy” Perhaps you’d be better of in another “Place”.
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Peter,
Scared of a bit of cold water?
“The universal experience reported by people close to him”
Who?Got a single name outside the people who support Gillard?
“Rudd ensured that if HE couldn’t lead the Labor party then there would, effectively, be NO Labor party”
Proof?
“But I am convinced she is 100% straight, totally well-intentioned, consultative, trust-worthy and honestly out to try and do the
absolute best for the country. My understanding is the closer people get to her and work with her the more they like and admire
her.” What do you you base your ‘convinced’ on?
Such a fertile imagination.Youre not Bob ellis are you?
This is a theory Ellis has discovered which describes himself.
RDS: The Rudd Symptoms
Funnily it is Ellis projecting bullshit so as to create a relity HE can live with.
Just like you have done.
I am always happier with the truth.
Lead us there.Ditch the crap and show us some names to match your anecdotal wishful thinking.Any B Grade Canberra pen mal-handler can churn out piffle.
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The hypo is well-meaning, sometimes right and always noisy..
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If you really want to see what a Tony Abbott government will be like, just read what the young Libs currently putting his real policies together have written. http://ipa.org.au/publications/2080/be-like-gough-75-radical-ideas-to-transform-australia
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Youre either deliberately or accidentally obtuse.Why don’t you answer my simple questions?
I and others know all about the other choice(non choice) explain and justify why your choice is equally toxic in most areas and more in the rest?
Put the names in the holes where I challenged you.
Show the ‘us’ where to find the ALP.
And make it quick, or we will have two terms to familiarise ourselves the Young and Old Lib policies, because that is exactly what your golden girl will deliver.
I wonder where Mr Quixote is.I went looking at Ellis’ today and yesterday and he wasn’t there either.Hard to believe with all this stuff simmering he would sit back so much.
Even better news over there for the Abbott groupies.Ellis is starting to think galaxy is good news for Gillard.I believe Mr Barnett is thinking of sending Bob a bottle of scotch.Black and Gold,of course.
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No Idea why that link points to Bayley which doesn’t exist. I’m just an ordinary Joe trying to understand the narrative which is to say us, the Australian people
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‘Us the Australian people’ I know, are poised to eject Gillard.Massively.
Now, given the worlds worst opposition leader sits opposite,I’d say you want to find yourself a horse with at least four legs and an arse at one end only, if you want to win the big race.But you chose a hobby horse.How fast can you run Peter with that tucked between your legs?
You can keep blaming rigged polls, keep blaming Rudd and continue blaming the MSM as long as you want.Gillards union thugs have tried this since Rudds first failed coup.It has failed.
“Us” are a wake up to it.
He’s gone now, so the next polls are all Gillards.The Ministry is all Gillards.The failures have always been hers, and now they will become even more Gillards.
The caucus did not have Rudd on the leadership agenda last week, they had a choice of status quo and electoral loss, or a new leader and moving on.We all know what transpired.
Through terror or stupidity, they chose darkness over light.
And we all know that now there will be a micro macro ultra scrutiny of Gillards front bench, their connections, and any slimy trickle back to seedy union history.
Six potential months of one sordid discovery after another, or a few lethal blows in the last weeks of the race.Either way,it will come.
So Peter, I’d ask you to hang around the happy place or at least drop by now and then to chuckle with the rest of us, as Julia’s fate becomes ours.
Meantime if you come across anyone willing to put their name to evidence of ‘Gillards universal internal admiration’, or proof of Rudds ‘sinister retrograde dealings’, do tell.
Until then I will keep believing the reality bit.
You know the bit when Rudd stared the factions down and said they would have no part in the government appointments, especially by way of their own personal commitments to rewarding thugs and errand boys?
Rudd aint a Messiah,by any stretch.But he certainly has/had more principle in his potential anal polyps than Gillard has in her entire caucus. This is the caucus who never voted at all, and yet claims at every media door stop that support for her is unanimous.
Sell me that one.Gillard is universally supported by caucus?
The caucus of the current Labor party is supposed to have their fingers on the pulse of the people of Australia, and yet they backed an unelectable leader.
Sell me that, while you’re at it,Pete.
You can expect an election real soon.The real ALP cannot win,simply because it is nowhere to be found.
😉
Happy now?
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“…backed an unelectable leader…”
Ain’t that the truth!
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If you read my orginal post, I say absolutely nothing about the best leader to win in September. It wasn’t at all about the current election cycle but against what I think of as an unfair and overly convenient blaming bias. The election wasn’t and isn’t my point. I, too, think Labor is headed for electoral defeat – I was only wanting to point out that Gillard has made a good, although not perfect, job as leader against almost impossible odds, with both Abbott and Rudd willing to stoop to any level of skullduggary in pursuit of their own personal vindication.
I just think we are being too condemnatory in picking Julia for such vociferous censure. I think she was, and is a great Australian – and I’m both sorry and saddened that that opinion goes against your, and most Australians’ need for a convenient scapegoat. In the end, her main failing was overestimating Kevin’s integrity and humanity. I doubt she’d ever make the same mistake again.
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“In the end, her main failing was overestimating Kevin’s integrity and humanity. I doubt she’d ever make the same mistake again.” Umm WTF?
There you go claiming Rudd is lesser by way of integrity and humanity.
So your intellectual eminence off shore processing and the treatment of Sri Lankan refugees of Tamil descent for one.Afghanis?Comments?
On the apology to the First Australians can you provide us what part Gillard played in the process,where she saw it as a priority, where she physically was, and which words in the speech were hers.?
Integrity and humanity in the same sentence as Gillard.You make DQ look like a Rudd supporter.
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Agreed, she gives an apology to damaged people while deliberately damaging other people.
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Dug being the ‘operative’ word?
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By alignment of indent I am assuming that your post, Hypo, was in response to mine? Yes, I think ‘dug’ to be the operative word inasmuch as I posted my embedded tweet after Peter’s post. That would have mandated the use of the past tense, would it not, ‘dug’ being the past tense of the verb ‘dig’?
Not on Twitter are you, Hypo? That last post was worthy of being a sub-tweet in its own right.
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No, me no Tweet.
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BTW FG I got this
http://www.bayley.com/
Which led to PalVenture Future Investments which is a Chinese Anglo consultation/business/education site.
PanVenture search gives>
http://www.panventure.com/english_version/services.htm
I presume it means selling Australia.Sounds like a very contemporary AWU plan to me.
Perhaps it’s a faux-Labor Party Peter.
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As if there is anything left TO sell.
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What utter horseshit.
Did you know Rudd, have you spoken a single word to the man?
The only claims that things were not working came from Gillard herself yet she was the one undermining Rudd from early 2009 onwards to appease the zionists and the US – he was seen as not subservient enough to them.
Do keep up.
http://www.eurekastreet.com.au/article.aspx?aeid=35623
Or perhaps like other blinkered hacks you would like to call one of the most honourable people in Australia today a liar.
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Yes Marilyn he was right not to run. But I get the feeling I may be having to repeat myself in saying that at mid morning when Crean articulated a need to clear the air a Rudd announcement that he would not run against Gillard in a Leadership spill would have looked like a conscientious step. At 4:19 just before they went into the meeting it looked like a simple acknowledgement that the numbers weren’t there. Which is in fact how he later described it in terms of conversations between himself and his senior supporters.
By all means support the guy for all that you see may be good preferable or even the lesser of two evils about him as compared with Gillard. Considering his background I have a fair bit of time for Frank Brennan with I think good reason, but this particular case I think it is about time we all recognised that the best panacea for Labor might well be a new leader who is neither Gillard nor Rudd.
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Agree with third option,but I cannot see who it would be,given the camp is split down the guts.It would take n individual of enormous qualities.Which begs the question, who?
And if the ‘who’ existed, why other than a union thug bullied set-up, is Gillard leading?
It stinks.Labor looks more and more like it needs to die,before it can be resurrected.I think there are only two reason the spill did not deliver a new alternative leader.None exists.The union factions are too strong.
I’d be interested in seeing anything which narrows it into one, or provides an alternative reason.If someone says Gillard is their best individual I’ll chuck all over the floor of the happy place.
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I think we’re at the point where it needs to be said that my problem with Rudd of late has been his apparent disloyalty, and that Gillard is now similarly become a liability for Labor and should stand aside in favour probably of Shorten or Carr. It would seem disloyal to the cause of beating Abbott not to.
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There is not a trace of evidence that he has been fucking disloyal to anyone.
If he was so fucking disloyal he would have criticised them instead of taking some of the blame.
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Fucking disloyal and Fucking the party’s chances at the next election by keeping the bad blood in the limelight and costing several ministers their jobs should definitely be seen for what it is!
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Gillard is the choice of those best placed to know : Labor’s caucus.
It seems to me that she is the best person available to be Prime Minister.
We would all like a candidate who combines the best points of Napoleon, Solomon, Gough, Churchill and FDR. If you know of any let us know asap.
In the meantime, Julia is fine by me.
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Rudd though had been saying for over a week that he was not going to run, why do you pin it down to just that day?
Frank Brennan describes what really happened.
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By Rudd’s own account and those of others who were there he spend a good part of the day huddled amongst about twenty supporters in his office consulting about what he ought to do. It was only upon having come to the conclusion that he couldn’t win that he announced pretty much at the very last minute that he wouldn’t run.
His language in so doing was that had a significant proportion of his party been willing to back him in a challenge then clearly he would have done so.
Several ministers who’d earlier supported him have also now stepped down feeling, one can only presume, that their loyalty to the leader is under a cloud.
There is and was no faux challenge or honourable exit here. There was a calling out, a wrong footing and a rout within Labor ranks of no insignificant proportions.
So regardless of how honourable Rudd tried to appear on the day, he as now sorely embarrassed Simon Crean and cost several other Ministers their jobs. The damage having been done not in terns of the events of one black day in politics, but over months and years of divisiveness around the issue of leadership and spite over the way in which it was taken from him.
It’s all wrong and I think Gillard has to go too, but please know that for all the gliding of the Rudd lily some may or may not wish to indulge in the man has by his festering, nay putrefying disloyalty damned near brought down his own party’s government and should not be thanked for so doing!
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Thoughtful post. Reminds me of things I thought back in those times.
The autocrats will just not permit anything with even the faintest whiff of rationalism or reform near the levers of power.
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Peter,
Obviously you’re a Gillard supporter of sorts and claim not to be encumbered by wearing rose coloured glasses, but this is all very one sided. Obviously one can’t say what you have without being attacked by Rudd supporters, but I think there are other problems with this.
Sure the divisive nature of this internal feuding is clearly distracting Labor from the task of governing the nation to the best of their ability. Rudd with his sour grapes act having been shafted pretty darned brutally and some would argue unjustifiably seems to have made himself into the biggest and most disloyal carbuncle on Gillard’s backside that he could, and it shows. Maybe she deserves it. Maybe she doesn’t deserve to be as unelectable as she now is, but she’s certainly that and it is a problem for Labor as surely as returning Rudd and rewarding disloyalty in the process would be.
Nor has Gillard be slightly bad on some issues, she’s been almost so hell bent on differentiating herself from Rudd that she’s opted for compromise and second best solutions to a number of issues to our great loss as a nation.
Her policy on how we treat asylum seekers is so deplorably similar to the coalitions that they’re hard pressed to find ways to drag her any further to the right, and many Labor supporters are both sickened by it and right to say that Rudd was infinitely better on this issue.
She wanted to pour cold water over the Mining Tax and she clearly did. So much so that it has cost her both credibility and any real dividend that might have allowed her to make good on the promised surplus. Not that the loss of surplus bothers me but those funds might have been used to balance out the impact we’re seeing from a mining boom that could so quickly taper off, and the two speed economy that accompanies it. Labor’s economic credibility rested with implementing the Henry report and they blew it.
She wanted to do something to be seen to act on climate change, possibly only to appease the Greens in a minority parliament. Why she couldn’t have done something better eludes everyone, but part of the reason seems to be that an ETS would have vindicated a Rudd initiative.
And to add insult to injury as an atheist she couldn’t even support same sex marriage. I mean WTF? Anything BUT the position she articulated would have been better, but she actually went against the adopted position of her Party in so doing and I find that inexcusable.
So all in all Rudd set a policy agenda that I think I actually preferred in many ways, but he’s so deeply steeped in disloyalty, personal ambition and if his colleagues were to be believed an autocratic style that he’s effectively blown his chances.
And if neither of them are electable then I side with something Jennifer’s often said here, which is that it’s imperative remember that the real enemy is Abbott, a deeply flawed and eminently beatable opponent given the one thing Labor desperately need…. New leadership apart from Gillard or Rudd.
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This doesn’t look very good for Abbott, not a ‘happy place’ and in breaking News by THE AUSTRALIAN.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/breaking-news/abbott-criticised-for-supporting-priest/story-fn3dxiwe-1226604382871
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No it certainly doesn’t and hopefully it should focus a few minds on where the real problem lies in Australian politics. After all anything I might have said painting Rudd as a sore loser is doubly true of Abbott’s attitude to the election result of 2010. His blatant preference for destabilising the government over taking the policy issues on their merits heaps additional ignominy on this parliament.
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I have never thought Abbott was sensible choice for the Lib leadership,nor a viable option for PM.
And on this case you link, I know nothing of who knew what when.So I will sit back and watch.
But I gotta say, if flinging this kind of mud is the way forward Gerard, you’d better brace yourself.I guess what I am saying ‘careful what you wish for’.
Smearing often backfires.And this looks a lot like a full blown election campaign smear by whoever timed its release(rehash)
Out there in legal limo-land there is Thomson,Slipper and ICAC idling in the background.
And who knows what else.
I wouldn’t be racing in to grind an axe like this, in any hurry.
I saw this issue being wrestled over at Bob ‘I’m no putz’ Ellis’ blog (where you would expect such muck to get raked), and would not be surprised if lawyers are sniffing out some of the comments relating to it, right across the net.
BTW,
I think it was HG who said something along the lines of.
“I wish people would just ignore what The Australian had to say.”
Is that a two way thing?
I can think of hundreds of reasons why Abbott should not be PM.Saving Gillards greasy skin aint anywhere close to being one of them.
And I think that in 20 years time,I’m willing to bet that those loudly singing Gillards praise now, might also regret going in to bat for her.
Even Latham had mates once.
Go into bat for Labor, by all means.When you find them,let me know.
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As I thought. I’ll be THAT won’t be hammered in the press or banged on about night after night on Latteline.
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All very good points hudsongodfrey and I agree wiht them. Gillard is, by no means, without her problems – and I don’t expect she is likely to win in September – but stranger thgings have happened so don’t count your chickens. My point was about what I felt was an unfair bias – a collective lashing out that focused unfairly on Julia, catching her square in the headlights (apologies for mixed metaphor). A great and considered response – well done you.
BTW I’m not really a Gillard supporter – but I am a very strong advocate for fairness and equality wherever possible and I think Gillard is being badly and unfairly treated.
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Haven’t seen you around here before so I’ve the advantage perhaps of knowing who are the Gillard supporters, who the Rudd, and being fairly sure that nobody supports Abbott here.
I used for quite some time to offer less qualified support for Gillard, call it the benefit of the doubt. I think it has now become clear that Lazarus has a better chance of winning in September and that having once axed a leader while in office we’re now approaching a fork in the road where something needs to be done if we’re to avoid an Historic second term loss.
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Hi Peter,
Oh, never mind Hypo, He has a heart of gold really, but mention Julia Gillard and it sends him into a sort of resentful delirium. Hell hath no fury like a disappointed idealist. Perhaps *he* might consider a move to New Zealand??
I more or less agree with you but I think it’s important not to underestimate how much influence social researchers and focus group analysis has had. Politics is quite scientific these days and I think you’ll find that often the most disappointing decisions are those made to placate what’s understood from research exercises as the general public’s view – the asylum seeker thing being the prime example.
I’ve already counted my chickens: there are two. I spent a small amount of time this weekend trying to goanna-proof my chicken coop, in preparation for Gertrude’s return. During her hiatus in predator-free suburbia she’s taken quite a shine to a little pullet called Alice from the brood she’s been staying with – so Alice is moving in with us, just in time for Easter!
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Again, Rudd has not been disloyal. Who has he been disloyal to and under what circumstances?
You show us his excellent agenda and state that it has been absolutely trashed and then expect him to shut up.
It makes no sense.
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He’s been disloyal to his own party by perpetuating disunity against Gillard for reasons that clearly have more to do with personal ambition than the promotion of better government. I’ve explained at length that I think both he and Gillard have to go for the good of the party, and that I would prefer that whoever leads revives more of his policies than hers. However Rudd is clearly not a person who can now or in the future lead the Labor part, because in the spirit of the honourable spin he tried to put on failing to get the numbers last week he added that he will not and therefore should not make the attempt.
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Gillard,
disloyal to:
Her first PM when leader
Labor members
Labor grass roots
Greens
Independents
Possibly her pre govt employer
The entire Australian public.
Kind of narrows down her chances,don’t you reckon?
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I reckon.
I also reckon she’s not alone.
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Είσαστε όλοι τρελομαλάκες!
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Oy!
Who you calling a trelomalake!
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If your google translator knew any Greek, it’d know whom I was calling “mad wankers”
I find it hard to open the door of a room labelled “happy place!” It feels as if someone’s gonna hand you some heroin or something. Double dose of valium? Helium, Thorium? Titanium?
And then, where do you sit once you’re inside? On the couch? On the dunny? On the vibrator?
JENNIFER!
I kneel and I beg! And I propose!
Re name it, please: “The Shoutings!” (Was it Alan Bates?) Or “Wake In Frightfulness” or “Galigula’s Condom” or “The Dance of the Pumpkins” or “Have Shit will Sit!” ANYTHING but “The (fucking) Happy Place!”
I beg! I begI I BEG!
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Don’t blame JW, she has no sarcasm font!
How about these?
The Chook Yard
Shearing Shed
Abattoir(oops sorry Tony)
The Kitchen!!
Lamb Stew
Leonards Coven
Slops
Going Commando
Human Pinatas
Aerobic Treatment Unit
Mind over Mutter
or my fave
Loco Pendejo
Human Pinatas
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All good suggestions…
The Left Boxing Glove
The Gone Ski
It’s My Party
Sing Me a Marx
My Left Cheek
One thing that’s just occurred to me is just how Gillard is trying to be more pugilistic than Tony. Have you noticed her “dares?” Take your best shot, Bring it on, Game on… crap like that. Tony in the Red corner, Julia in the Pink. Same face downs as a pair of boxers, only we all know the match is set up!
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Yes but Julia is Fine Cotton all over again.That’s why the caucus were too scared to chuck her out.When they look at her,they know they are fighting a whole lots of thugs who have a big stash of heavily loaded thumbies.
She likes to play tough guy to the cameras but her and her supporters are prepared to use ‘femininity’ as a defence and call any attack by Abbott misogyny.
Abbott is probably a B Grade chauvinist at best, and if that is all Howes and his mates can come up with,surely the vocal feminist activists (whoever/wherever they are) should be up in arms about Gillard doing what a bunch of opportunistic bully boys tell her to do.Like I said the other day,don’t be surprised if Gillard loads the front bench with temporary female appointments.
And if Labors depth of talent is so deep how does that explain,Wong,Garrett,Macklin,Conroy and Ferguson et al ever having(once having) a portfolio.Garrett for one, was obviously given the job because of his vacuous obedience.How could anyone go from his principled pre Labor positions to support more US bases,burgeoning mining,Indigenous land control,refugee prisons?Wong is a seat cover.She did not get a mm of traction on gay marriage.She has betrayed her own kind.As climate change Min she did and achieved sweet FA.As finance Min she has overseen the two biggest flops in the Treasury history.It beggars belief
Depth? read lots of yes men and women under the spell of union bullies.
Methinks the lady braggeth too much.
And the footage of Howes bawling the other day?Someone just texted him that Kev had the numbers.He cracked.
Th Mad Monks RCom findings sure will be interesting reading.
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Quite so, Hypo. Quite so, mate
I spoke about this also in my FB a/c and whilst lots of women agree with me -mainly my ex students- female colleagues are telling me to address my bile to Abbott! Some chicks are very angry with me! Same old “he’s worse” bullshit. It’s enough to give one diarrhoeaaaa!
But I think the next couple of weeks will see some more corks blown off from the caucus barrel of bad plonk.
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It’s all quite exciting really.A bit like gardening.
Some of the tastiest treats end up popping up and blossoming, if you you put enough blood,bone and bullshit in the mix with all the gutless dirt already there.
And there is no shortage of gutless dirt.
************************
This morning Pyne was salivating at the thought…
The Libs will be sitting on some serious mud, as we speak.
***************************
Julia will live to regret saying ‘give it your best shot’ and ‘bring it on’. I see both terms as great titles for a true biography on her, which will tell the world the things the head hiders are too scared to want to know.
😉
In the fields of oppa-tuna-dee,its ploughin’ time agin
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Funny, I was thinking of using one of those phrases as a title for a film. A comedy. In the vein of The Holy Grail and the black knight’s bravado.
So Julia yells, “Come on, give it your best shot!”
So Abbott does and her nose loses some of its edge.
So Julia now yells, “Come on, bring it on!”
So Abbott whacks again and her nose loses even more of its edge.
So Julia yells again, this time, “Oh, that’s right, that’s right, be a misogynist, why don’tya?”
So Abbott looks bemused for a moment, until Pyne tells him what the word means, so Abbott smacks her another one and Julia’s nostrils no longer resemble upright military tents.
So Julia yells even more loudly, “Yeah, that’s it, that’s it! Mister Negativity!”
Not to be continued…
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She sounds like Dubya calling out the terr”ists instead of talking to her colleagues.
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Oh yeah Great Atomou, we could call it “collective shout” but then Jennifer might just throw up!
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This shoulda been posted here:
And to show that I am interested in things other than politics as well, we are grieving here the end of one of the best series I’ve seen for a long time on TV, The Paradise. Brilliant little thing, stunning script and fantastic acting. Booga!
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No wonder he always puts his foot in it…
http://www.bobellisshoes.com/
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Who Knew!
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http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/breaking-news/abbott-criticised-for-supporting-priest/story-fn3dxiwe-1226604382871
A happy place!
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chris murphy @chrismurphys
24th March 2013 from TwitLonger
Before Tony Abbott MHR gave his evidence that helped the priest the young complainant told the court that Nestor grabbed his hand and pulled his hand backwards so that his hand was touching his erect penis and that Nestor’s erect penis was sticking out of the fly of his boxer shorts. He said that Nestor reached across over his body whilst he was still laying on his side and placed his hand inside the fly of his pyjamas and fondled his penis.’
Asked ‘Do you know of any reasons why (complainant) would make up these allegations?
Well, there’s any number of reasons why people would .think things happened, particularly at night I suppose’.
THE ACTUAL TRANSCRIPT OF TONY ABBOTT’S EVIDENCE DISTRICT COURT APPEAL BY CONVICTED PAEDOPHILE PRIEST AGAINST GAOL SENTENCE. AS A
Q. You are Anthony John Abbott?
5
You live at (deleted by Chris Murphy), Forestville?
A. I do.
Q. Since 1994 you’ve been a member of the House of 10
Representatives, representing the seat of Warringah?
A. That’s correct.
Q. Prior to that, you were the Executive Director of
Australian’s for Constitutional Monarchy? 15
A. I was.
Q. And prior to that you were the press secretary and legal adviser to the then Leader of the Opposition, Dr Hewson?
A. Political adviser and press secretary. 20
Q. You first met the defendant in February 1984?
A. That’s correct.
Q. When both of you were at St Patrick’s College at Manly? 25
A. Yes.
Q. It was your intention to become a priest?
A. At that time.
30
Q. And you were/there during 1984 and 1985?
A. That’s right.
Q. As was the defendant?
A. That’s correct. 35
Q. And in 1986 you did pastoral work in the Emu Plains area?
A. That’s correct.
40
Q. And in 1987 you discontinued your training from the priesthood?
A. That’s correct.
Q. You kept up your friendship with the defendant? 45
A. From time to time, yes.
Q. And you saw him?
A. From time to time, perhaps once or twice every twelve
months. 50
Q. And you’ve kept up that friendship until this day?
A. That’s correct.
Q.
A.
the met and
First of all, how would you describe him as a man? 55
An extremely upright and virtuous man. I guess one of
things that I liked very much about John when I first him, was his maturity, intellectual, social, emotional he was, to that extent I guess, a beacon of humanity at the Seminary
N18/02/97 155 ABBOTT X
How did he appear to get on with his peers at the at Manly?
Obviously we have different relations with different 5
people. John got on extremely well with some, less well
with others. I guess one of the things that marked John out
from his peers at the seminary was he was a man with high expectations of himself and others and I can recall on
occasions being more than a little annoyed with him, 10
because, you know, he would want to bring me up to the mark,
bring me back to the path of virtue from time to time and this didn’t always go over too well with me. And I guess it could annoy others as well.
15
Q. But as far as his own conduct was concerned, did you
ever become aware of anything which would in any way question his beliefs and his dedication as a priest?
A. Never.
20
Q.• And you’ve come all the way from Sydney today to give
this evidence?
A. I have indeed.
Q. You do have other duties to perform? 25
A. I have an electorate to represent and a ministry to
assist.
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Not a very happy place for those poor boys; and this Mr Nestor, a friend of Abbott’s, was of a good character according to our Tony.
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You and Gerard sure seem to look pretty desperate joining in on this one..
I’d hate to see JW stuck in defamation city for another year.
So be careful what you unleash.
And not 72 hours ago I thought Labor under Gillard was going to concentrate on positive stuff, and running the country.It seems like her supporters are prepared to chip in for the dirty work.Not sure you’re on any moral high ground here,by any stretch.
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Come come, Hypo. It is also in The Age, The National Times and in Twitter World. H.G did not make this up.
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Good luck making this look like you have a personal investment with the victim and not with Gillard.I can see right through it mate.And it is ugly.
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I’m not unleashing anything, I believe it’s been reported in The Age, National Times and in The Australian…what are you talking about? Those articles don’t mention Rudd or Gillard.
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You’re setting a standard in what is admissible to save Gillard and damge Abbott Of that there can be no doubt.See my comment to gerard above.
though.
And yes you ‘are’ unleashing something here.Because all subsequent comments on the story you ‘want us to comment on’ enter a very precarious area.
You wear your eagerness too readily IMO.
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Whatever, you painted yourself as a Labor supporter (Rudd), now you finally show your true colours. I’m a Labor supporter and I don’t care if we have Gillard, Rudd, Combet or anyone else at the helm.
If Turnbull finds new talent, it’s fine by me. Abbott will never be my PM.
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You revert to lies YET again.
Good ole ‘Mrs Butter won’t melt in your mouth’.
Fact,you lowered yourself to the bottom of the barrel.
The place you say Abbott dwells.
Fact,If Abbott did this to faux Labor you’d be spewing.
Fact Where is/was your relentless campaigning for sex abuse victims, until now?
I reckon if we reviewed your content on the topic of sex abuse there would be an underlying theme, and it would be like this,an ongoing excuse to bolster Gillards ranks, with whatever it took.Get it straight for the last time Helvi.
Abbott is unacceptable to me, but the way to be rid of him is not by lies,smear and dishonesty.
Oops I just went ten feet over your head.
Whatever you say you and gerard are here using an individual victim and the case to support a narrow political view.
Yours is the ‘true’ colour expose.
Anything wearing a Labor badge is good enough for you.
Not for us people with values that reflect real Labor values.
Now that you you and gerard have put the link up, why don’t you follow up with some hard gitting ‘free speech’ comments on the case??
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Remember this was put up by JW and called “Happy Place”. Let’s try and keep things a bit more balanced and friendly.
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A Happy Place is a sandpit. What do children do when there is more than one in a sandpit?
What it actually is, is a glass specimen jar, the little creatures inside and their pathologies are all exposed to the world’s gaze, as is our deepest horror, in their all their
slithery
primeval grey-greeniness.
But the world doesn’t immediately guess that what it sees is what it is.
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You has your avatar custom made?
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What is you clear stated objection to a story about Abbott’s character as evidenced by his ill judged support for a priest who is clearly tainted by the stain of pederasty both in the view of a court and his piers.
I see no possible reason not to take it on face value or to ignore it if you find it wholly unsurprising and therefore uninteresting. I don’t think it is like you to excuse the fact that the man eventually escaped conviction on a technicality knowing what is said to have later emerged but clearly has not been shared with police.
So what the hell are you defending here Hypo? I don’t even want to say how this seems to me reading this.
And it certainly has nothing whatsoever to do with the Rudd v Gillard feud. We’re identifying the REAL enemy here!
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You are obviously also endorsing the dredging up of ancient mud for political gain, whilst feigning concern for a convenient victim?
Yes the implications of this case bother me, but the feeding frenzy bothers me more.
My position is clear,if not to you, HG.
It goes to hypocrisy.Bring this quality (hahaha) of content into the conversation by all means, but be sure you are equal with your condemnation of what is an is and isn’t admissible re Gillard and faux-Labor.I merely am pre-empting the inevitable bite back..
You may fail to see a connect between the Gillard versus Rudd thing,but that is your failing.
The Gillard camp has seen off Rudd and want to see off Abbott. That is fair enough.
“But” don’t you think this ‘anything goes’ content is exactly what we fought tooth and nail to hold back and question when it came to the smears on Thomson and Slipper and Gillard a few topics back?
Now such tactics are ”OK” because YOU (or others) say Gillard is better than Abbott, and old data is only admissible against Abbott?
I am criticising the ‘pure smear’ tactic, not justifying Abbotts input.
I have no objection to anyone questioning Abbotts character.I have and do it myself.But I do object to the ‘hypocritical’ opportunistic embracing of it for pure basal political advantage, when there are shit loads more than cheap shots, by way of cut and paste to be analysed.
And if you are so naive as to believe either Helvi or gerard give a toss about victims in this, well grab a mirror.
If you can see this as another opportunity to harness other peoples bullshit and accuse me of being ‘anti REAL Labor’ or of being a pro Abbott lackey, go right ahead.
I have no objection to exposing the flaws in Abbotts character, but I do have an issue( abig one) with who uses what content, how they use and justify it, and whether they are adult enough to allow the same microscope to scan their own bacterial Petri dish.
I know when I smell a school of ADHD anchovies in a very shallow pool and from where I stand the water is evaporating, sunshine.
This must be the time where DQ usually rides in on one of his horses, spewing nonsense.
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….and it goes without saying that suddenly an abhorrent MSM which was 24 hours ago unpalatable,unaccountable,bias and right wing is somehow now, according to accuracy endorsements above, a righteous conduit of virtue to those willing to harness a neat little political windfall.
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It is a reasonable point to make that dredging up the distant past is often seen to be pure muckraking. But the article in question is recent, not known to be linked to current day politics, from a source usually more anti-Labor than pro, and you’re attacking the people who re-post it here in a fairly uncritical manner.
Why not let’s just stick with Abbott is currently the enemy, loose the bullshit about trying to blame everything bad in the world on Gillard and stick to the firm ground you may well be on in saying this is probably too old to be of serious concern?
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Someone please give our duplicity-avoiding contributor a Valium – or perhaps he’s the type who is only really happy when expressing the precise opposite.
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Which comments of Helvi’s are lies?
I ask for clarification.
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You and one or two others have little to contribute but apart from an obsessive hatred of the government and the ALP, which blinds you to the real and serious threat posed by the pathological and opportunist asshat and his cracked friends who you would have replace Labor.
The arrogance implicit in the example provided by Helvi and Gerard is serial with the guy, but you so eager to do in Labor that you blinded to the even worse alternative.
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Paul, for the sake of balance ,Gerard put up something that has been reported by the major newspapers and tweeted by the Sydney criminal lawyer Chris Murphy…and the hell breaks loose. Why?
There has been plenty of ‘bad’ been said about Rudd and Gillard here and everywhere. Why is Abbott off limits, or Pyne or Morrison?
For some reason Hypo calls me a liar and other ugly names. I don’t care if people agree or disagree with my posts; I’m not happy about been called names.
Have a happy place, Hypo.
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They are not interested. They disagree (quite rightly ) one aspect of government policy and this means, for them, the baby must be thrown out with the bath water.
This despite the fact that the Opposition is more red neck than the government, it is a push button issue for much of the electorate.and the owners of the Hansonist Push, but never mind the ultimate responsibility.
This despite the fact that the Opposition’s policies on so much else are worse and more paranoia-creating than Labor’s policies.
They have set themselves up as judge and jury and unless they are obeyed unquestioningly, we have to be punished.
Forget them.
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Paul, get this through that little walnut that’s sitting on top of your shoulders: There is no baby. There is only sewage!
People whose senses have been dulled by unabashed idolatry can’t see, can’t smell, can’t feel, can’t taste and can’t hear the goings on in the new, baby-free caucus which, for the last decade at least’ includes a horde of political gang bangers to whom Gillard has served ever greater portions of the ALP policy.
Don’t worry, though Paul, because I like you, I’ll let you know when the baby is brought back into the caucus – if it ever will.
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Your concern is touching.
The baby ain’t Abbott, you rescued a turd.
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Pauly, I understood your first sentence. Your second defies logic. Still, one out of two ain’t bad. Keep trying.
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You have so little to contribute..
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A bit pongy for my liking.
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Anyway, it is true a visit to Jennifer’s Happy Place would always be a great treat.
What would would Hypo and Marilyn say though, if I was not happy?
Would they invite me to their Happy Place instead?
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Happy Place?!?
No Hypo, not sitting back but incommunicado since Friday.
You should try it some time!
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Hear, hear!
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What is icloud and Westnet, an English comedy duo? Does it fly, wriggle or swim?
Methinks I voted for Assange earlier today so he now certainly will be overrun by MTR or James Ashby, or even Don Farrell, perhaps all three, kiss of death.
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Westnet, it would appear, is Jennifer’s ISP. icloud is her mobile phone browser system, I should imagine, the default settings of which sent some of her photos to others than to whom they were intended. She is, apparently, back on net:
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If Abbott wants to support a priest he can. There are probably a dozen he knows personally who are kiddie abusers. The world wide expectation is that 6% of all RC priests are paedophiles.
Therefore if Abbott knows 200 priests, 12 of them may well be paedophiles.
Give character evidence for them by all means, Tony but be a little circumspect. The defence by a rapist’s mother : “he was always a good boy and he never raped his mother” seems a little flat.
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http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-03-26/coalition-support-leaps-in-latest-newspoll/4593938
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-03-26/does-leadership-spill-clear-the-air/4594394
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Lots of ladies picked by Julia.Who would have foreseen that,I wonder?
I hope they have a plan B.
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Ho there Hypo! How did you go with considering the issues?
We know Abbott is a policy free zone, but what of you?
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Dearest Doug,Peter,Macabre your hundreds of other pseudos at Aunty,the dozens at Ellis,
Good Morning to you all,
Nothing changes you live in a phone box painted black.
The walls are adorned with pictures of Gillards head pasted to nubile bodies torn from smutty mags.
I live in the real world.Among thinking feeling folk.
I see the horizon, and reach for it.
The bit you’ll never get is the fact that the likes of Ato (hundreds of thousands of whole humans) and I see the real ‘big picture’ which includes a real and needed Labor, where as you and others, have taken the easier choice to take the easiset shortest journey, which just means stopping Abbott.
Nothing braver than that.
Your smaller picture is more unacceptable to most people in that a short dose of Abbott and a subsequent repair process(as with Howard, and until Gillard) is the only way forward.Without a real Labor,which is NOT run by narcissistic, evil, scheming, union megalomaniacs, there is no Labor, and that poisonous,toxic’ faux-Labor’ morph is what you espouse.A Canberra with BOTH Gillard and Abbott?
No thanks.
Have a nice day in your short cut universe.
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You really are deranged.
I thought at times you might actually be sane, but the proof is there in your post – enough for a psychiatrists’ convention.
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So… you’re a psychiatrist, then, DQ?
Not that that would be much of an aid to your synapses, as I see the poor battlers from here and also because, well, psychiatrists! I had to respond to a couple of articles of theirs in their journals correcting some outrageous errors of psychoanalysis they postulated, of characters in various ancient Greek and Shakespearean plays! Horrible nonsense!
Let me know why you think Hypo is deranged, more so than everyone else.
I’m not answering for him because I’ve noticed that the man is absolutely capable of answering for himself; but it seems to me, he’s facing the difficulties that Plato’s main character faced in his Simile of the Cave (in The Republic)
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I don’t need to be a shrink to interpret delusion and derangement.
His pathological hatred for Gillard is peculiar, considering all the objective evidence regarding the government’s performance
Regrettably our Hypo has lost the plot, and you seem to be pandering to his absurdities.
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Lost the plot?
Is that like ‘losing your way’?
Oh no, are you going to take a vote and turf me out!?
Do a Pauly?
ROFL
About you Weeties packet diagnoses,
I don’t need to be an IT expert to corner a sock puppet or troll.
Or a Mensa giant to spot flawed logic.
Or Carl Sagan to identify a dying star.
Or a historian to spot a Trojan Horse
You can join HG and help out with his homework if you want.
You might also be able to rub liniment on his weary shoulders.
Careful that you wash your hands afterwards though, I’d hate to see you make your eyes water.Or worse.Ouch.
In the not too distant future, you’ll need all the tears you can muster.
😉
BTW,
Pretty soon you won’t be able to turn around in that pond of yours DQ.
BTW Julias groupies have only one weapon left in the armoury,Abbott himself.Kevs gone, the media is flying kites in the clear air to appease the Empress, ,and Julia, herself, is wind surfing the crests of balmy waves of burgeoning popularity again.
They’re coming to take me away haha,hoho,hehe.
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I must admit you have been entertaining at times ~DQ???
But I think this futile dance with your elusive intellect has run its course.I see the joust with you ant the other Gillard desperadoes (non REAL Labor) people as a bit like the journey of the soul on Pink Floyds the Wall.
There are many accurate and poignant lyrics most applicable, but these kind of sum up the gist of it.
“Outside The Wall.
All alone, or in twos
The ones who really love you
Walk up and down outside the wall
Some hand in hand
Some gathered together in bands
The bleeding hearts and the artists
Make their stand
And when they’ve given you their all
Some stagger and fall after all it’s not easy
Banging your heart against some mad buggers’
Wall”
“Pink Floyd Another Brick In The Wall (Part 3) Lyrics
I don’t need no arms around me
And I don’t need no drugs to calm me.
I have seen the writing on the wall.
Don’t think I need anything at all.
No! Don’t think I’ll need anything at all.
All in all it was all just bricks in the wall.
All in all you were all just bricks in the wall.”
xxx
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I will ask you again : which of Helvi’s comments are lies?
Either substantiate your claim or apologise. Now.
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Oh Dougy dear,
Helvi claimed as you have done,that due to my lack of support for Gillard,I am an Abbott supporter.She also claimed I never criticise Abbott or the opposition.The opposite to that is the case,the reality,the facts the truth.
And it is plastered from one end of this blog to the other.Even pw tried that crap on.
You also use the same lies.You personally claimed that because I am no Gillard supporter and defended the treatment of Rudd,I was a Rudd tragic, ergo pro Abbott again, somehow???.You just cannot handle losing control of the pigeon holing process, in the general critique or in politics,or probably anywhere.Youre the absolute example of a Shakespearen tragic,in every way.
Thats why you have a flotilla of IDs
You also tried to deny that despite your love of Howards speech on refugees and ‘who decides’, you ‘somehow’ have a humanitarian streak, which is ‘somehow’ devoid of the racism such statements promote.You waffle on that “due to MY failure to accept that Rudd was legitimately removed”,
So there will be no apology forthcoming for you or Helvi or anyone else who seeks to lie and distort, Mr multi Pseudo man.
While I am chamioning the fair go you (X100’s) are sh*tting down the neck of anyone who dares bag the worst Labor PM of all time.
As for psychology,hahahaha, I’ll take my ethics,morals,principles,beliefs and mental stability against yours any day of the week.
But thanks for joining PW and lowering yourself to the diagnosis.
What’s next,Godwin?
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When are you going to realise that you simply haven’t succeeded in convincing us that the contest between the two major parties in Australian Politics is a false dichotomy?
There are shades of grey and nuanced roles for third parties to take the balance of power but the degree to which you’ve made hating Gillard your primary concern has overshadowed even that possibility.
if you want to talk moral universes then fine, but please know that we need to apply some kind of normative standards when we do so. If we don’t then we’re stuck in one of two kinds of paradoxes.
I’ll try to give you the short version….
If we start by saying that the minimum standard we need to apply is to spare people from the greatest possible suffering then two opposing philosophies may emerge
The greatest well-being for all (Atomou would like me to say Eudaimonia…. so, now I have), might be taken on a completely egalitarian standard that by distributing suffering and well being for all people about some mean level, or midpoint. But that means nobody’s going to be happy because although we’re all getting the same amount of well-being we’re none of us spared our fair share of suffering.
On the opposite view we can take it on average but that means that theoretically you could have a very small number of people in complete euphoria balanced by a number in unbearable agony. Not good either, on a whole range of levels including appeals to Malthusian solutions!
So I’m going to suggest that politics is in part the art of establishing what kind of normative standards we’re able to apply within society to deal with a the task of delivering a reasonable standard of well-being to people. Moreover that there is a moral aspect to this that does allow for differing perspectives, but not for ignoring that those of others exist.
I simply don’t think we’re supposed in that sense to let our ideals run away with us if the results are tending to become as absurd as the extremes of the paradox, and to some lesser but noticeable degree people, like yourself, on the left can be inclined to do that. I’m just saying I hope you may read this and take stock. Otherwise you and Doug and I could butt heads until this so called Happy Place seems like the Happy Home for the terminally confused. With any luck we’re smart enough to think ourselves out of that particular cul de sac 🙂
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Hudso, stop this nonsense!
Do you expect us to believe that this little undergraduate diatribe is the basis upon which you formulate your decision as to whom you vote for, what your views are about Gillard, Rudd, Abbott and the rest of this bunch of bastards?
You are talking theory that is worth no more than one half cooked donut when it comes to the situation that we have here; and it is a situation in which no one is suggesting that they are trying to achieve universal joy for the universe of mortals.
This is a situation where bloody minded self interest battles against bloody minded self interest. Joy is way off the radar, even for each of the contestants.
The “Left” is one huge but very loose collective of self interested people, battling out against all other comers, equally huge and equally loose. From the small L Liberals to neo cons and neo nazis and neo Tea Partiers and neo born Christians.
Each of these groups is a lethal concoction of individuals whose views about anything political might -and often does- change any time from one edge of the political precipice to the other.
They all stand and hope that the party that is supposed to represent them, or to which have easier access, will proclaim its agenda and its prospectus and stick by it, once they get elected and are given the keys to the law makers’ cabinet. They never do, though because that is the manner of self interest. It relies on opportunity, on pragmatism, rather than idealism. On getting to those keys, not on bringing about a state of eudaimonia and ecstasy.
And so, this then, is a situation where one group of self interested individuals, usurped -nay, betrayed most shamefully- the self interest of those who have given them those keys; and the other major group are having a ball because they can now see that their access to those keys is getting easier. In the end, the same arrogance that brought about the dysfunctional state that the ALP is in, will also get them.
I have no delusions of attaining nirvana through politics, no matter which group gets in. There is no nirvana on any level or any sphere. There is only ephemeral, fleetingly so, joy.
You were better off continuing the argument of The Lesser of Two Evils, which is also as uninspiring in this situation as the pursuit of happiness that you tried to lecture us about. Boring, useless, a short walk to the cul de sac but just that little bit more valid.
As to your first para, “when are you going to realise that you simply haven’t succeeded in convincing us that the contest between the two major parties in Australian Politics is a false dichotomy?”
No one could, Hudso, if your head is full of such wooly theories. Almost as bad as Plato’s and Malthus’ utopias!
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“Happiness comes in small doses folks. It’s a cigarette butt, or a chocolate chip cookie or a five second orgasm. You come, you smoke the butt you eat the cookie you go to sleep wake up and go back to fucking work the next morning, THAT’S IT! End of fucking list! ”
Dennis Leary
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Not at all Atomou. Your gratitude overwhelms me.
Just trying, however badly, to point out that as an exercise in thinking our way through situations that you rightly point out are more complex than my examples, we should nevertheless be willing to at least try and see that ideology alone is inadequate.
Some of the invocations of ideology here, yours and others, can I think be understood to reflect frustration with the political situation we find ourselves in. But as adults I don’t think throwing our hands in the air and saying that we can at least still vote our conscience even when we’ve given up trying to craft a workable solution to this lesser of two evils kind of situation is acceptable.
What I’m trying to say therefore is that the content your conscience should be shaped by the consequences of our actions, one of which we might agree to wanting to avoid being that of an Abbott government. Or is that too undergraduate for you!
And Frankly if you don’t know how to articulate breaking the two party paradigm in Australian politics then I think maybe you ought to shut up criticising others for pointing out that it may just remain a reality that we have to live with.
Moreover I think we’re both arguing more or less the same thing, and why you’ve assumed this rather silly posture of taking me so completely out of context is rather beyond me.
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How on earth have I taken you out of context?
You were waffling on about the emotional campus happiness when this is not the issue at all in the political environment we find ourselves in. Totally irrelevant and I won’t insult you by repeating my thoughts above.
I am not at all “frustrated” by the political situation. You are. On the contrary, I am being circumspect and deliberative. I see as the major problem, the derailment of the ALP and I suggest, it needs to get its wheels fixed and its steering pointing in the right direction. It has -to use Gillard’s parlance- “lost its way.” Which, at the time I thought to be quite a childish thing to say but, nevertheless, I gave her the benefit of the doubt, thinking that perhaps she sees something that I can’t see and she has promised us to fix it. Gave her far too much benefit on that score.
Now, it is pruriently obvious that she is the one who is steering the party in the utterly wrong direction.
It is she who needs to go and allow the ALP to get back on the right track.
Abbott and the Libs have not lost their way. They were always what they are now, with one or minor seasonal adjustments.
Labor, however needs to change and to change meaningfully. And this change won’t be effected if we hold on to affectations that Gillard is better than Abbott.
Pollies would love to give you dilemmas like, “I’m the lesser of the two evils.” It frees them from having to answer questions about their betrayal and sleazebaggery.
I say, I shalln’t fall for that one.
We agree she’s a traitor yet you think she’s the best to lead this country: a traitor! I disagree.
Vehemently!
I am neither a god nor an idolater.
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Look the point was the ideology is no refuge from the need to get your priorities right.
Are you here for the five minute argument or the full half hour, because I already made the damned point three times. Thanks for not insulting me, I think I may as well just return the favour.
I think maybe the source of our disagreement that I have most trouble with is that you don’t see to accept the reality of what you’re letting yourself and all of us in for while you remain “circumspect”.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-03-26/refugee-behaviour-protocols-part-of-policy-morrison-says/4595480
Is this okay with you?
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I’m afraid you fear campaign has hit a wall with me.
The guy is full of shit.Period.
It makes him front bench material for Julias camp.Or was that your point?
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The point is to take things on face value instead of twisting them to fit your delusion that the likes of Abbott and Morrison being visited upon us as a government are not all Julia’s fault.
I take it you understand what it means by saying that Abbott and Morrison have agency to act according to their own lights?
Or maybe that if we could even avoid allowing them latitude to do so that it would be a good thing?
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And I don’t think Gillard is the best to lead this country. I think there are better Labor people, and a handful of better Greens, (who’ll be the biggest losers if Abbott gets in BTW).
What I keep trying to focus the tiny minds of a few people here on is the fact that Abbott is close to the worst person to lead the country.
Okay I’ll grant you Pauline Hanson on a scale of one to Godwin’s law, but even Bob Katter might be better…..
Discuss!
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Utter nonsense atomou.
The sensible persons here have recognised that there are only two alternatives: Gillard and Labor, Abbott and the coalition.
The choice is there for all to see.
To say that Gillard is a traitor must of necessity brand every leader of every political party who did not wait for the incumbent to die or otherwise fall off his perch as a traitor. Is that your position?
Gillard is a fine Prime Minister and as I have consistently stated Abbott is unfit for office – any office.
The choice is plain. What then remains for discussion is the trimmings, the red herrings and the minor details.
Discuss the Great Issues if you will, but do not confuse them with politics.
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Yes, we’re arguing more or less the same things, but of all the participants, above and bellow 😉 I prefer your points made and attitudes taken. Well done you.
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I’m not sure that’s going to make me all that popular around here. But thanks anyway. I prefer the comments of others who write better and have the advantage of interesting me more than I interest myself but then I’m biased that way, as I hope are we all :). It’s a conversation, its quality depends on all the participants, and suffers mainly for the lack thereof in the political material we have to work with at the minute.
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I reckon you’d like the United States of Tara.
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Its a great show. Sally Field is really good in it 🙂
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You choose a cul de sac,not me.
I am moving forward.Like the rest of thinking Australia, planning an ALP rebuild.
DQ is still in the phone box with a trench coat and his pinup.
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Yeah well you’re moving onward and upward into the kingdom of Tony Abbott’s arse in my opinion the way that you’ve carried on here. I’ve made it clear enough that something has to be done to fix it and have done my level best to ask persuasively that you drop the Gillard hate and negativity. Now I’m just speaking for most I think when I say that you can only make the point so many times without being politely asked to move on.
You may incidentally be right about certain dodgy identities, but what does it matter? If you can’t meet poor speech with better speech then you’ve few grounds for complaint. And if you can then your objection I presume is merely to having to repeat yourself….Welcome to my world!
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How exactly do YOU propose that you (you seem to be alone with this) fix Labor before the election?
How can you seriously contemplate trusting people shallow enough to sack a PM to reform later?
Really?
No I mean REALLY?And by fix I mean surgically remove the things which make this brand of ALP unelectable, before the election?
Because (I know you cannot even contemplate the next bit) THE people have told you,me and every organism in this country, that the refuse to contemplate Gillard or this brand of Labor popping up the morning after the election is held.
If you think people are going to trust this govt to rebuild Labor after the last 12months of caked,iced with the last ten day of icing,I think you may need a DQ once over.
And if you don’t think that the identity thing is an issue, good for you.I do.
To ‘gutless out’ and attack another poster here, under another name because you lose tangent, face and /or credibility is the stuff of cyber fuckwitism.
To build a web of denial is self explanatory when it comes to judging others.
Yes my volatility has certainly flamed a few ‘truth massaging’ people, but wouldn’t anyone?
Beyond the election there needs to be a clear signal of where our interests lay, and what as a community we will accept.And we should all use our vote to lay them out.
The looming voting pattern picture paints a picture which we can all draw some hope and inspiration from.Not in politics,but in each other.”IF” we choose.
You and your mates have chosen black and white.Not me.
Until the the election (and probably well beyond) the campaign to restore the ALP goes on.With or without the naive.Certainly it will soon be without Gillard.
So cul de sac it is,if that’s what you call it, and whether here or elsewhere the walls will be graffiti-ed left,right and centre, with demands for a meaningful change to restore the ALP.
Truth be known HG the ICA and other corruption claims,Thomsom, Obeid,Slipper etc are weighing heavily on those who wrecked Labor and who backed Gillard.
It’s your basket and your eggs.Rebuilding them eggs is going to be so entertaining to watch.
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What an infantile exchange of opinions. Surely a belief in a political system is above the personality or foibles of the PM or bunch of politicians in power.
I believe in the fair sharing and distribution of goodies with a belief that Labor is best equipped to achieve that.
This credo or philosophical belief outpaces always the leader. I would not vote for liberal even if it was represented by a Mr Magic. I vote for the beliefs of the party not for the angle of their nose or firmness of jutting chin or ‘personality’.
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Infantile?
OK.Then given the current ALP has abandoned all their base beliefs and is run by union thugs outside Labor,it shows how cheap your vote is.
Your problem not mine.What is your excuse for waking up one day saying rough enough is good enough?
“Squawk squawk, she’s not Abbott,she’s not Abbott”
?
Don’t criticise me for being 100% on insisting that Gillard and her destruction of Labor must go.It cannot come soon enough.Self assess the fact that this is OK by you.You will accept ANY Labor, even if is Liberal,even if it’s not Labor.
What is on is on display here day after day is not my hate for Gillard,it is the cowardice of those who are too weak to admit that they have been comprehensively duped and that their clamouring support sees Labor’s downfall accelerate.It’s called ego.
You have it in spades,gerard, and that’s OK, but Gillard has made you and lots more of us regret the day we cut her an inch of slack.I am willing to do something about Gillards political future as soon as she has the guts to let us choose.You and the ‘close enough’ posse are not.In the beginning Gillard was treated unfairly by SOME media, and rather than taking the coalition on head on, they fucked up and stole their policies and personalities.
Like millions of others I have worked too hard, for too long in too many dangerous jobs for, and with, a proud and united workers party to sit back and watch you, Gillard,Howes or anyone else flush my sweat, and that of thousands more down the dunny.
My belief system is well above personalities, despite your failure to digest the drift.It is yours whose is in question.Despite Gillard having no beliefs beyond a script,you seem to have gulped it down hook line sinker reel rod angler boat etc.
When Abbott becomes PM (and he will) I want a Labor party, a real Labor party, sitting opposite, reflecting an opposite view to Abbott, and to rip his arse out of the lodge.To do that they need to walk the walk first.If I had of know selling snake oil was as easy as it is today, I would chosen a different path in life.
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Agree, Gerard. The invective vented by one particular poster has lowered the level of debate to that worthy of a tabloid. His targets are tempted to reply in kind.
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I reckon I could do nothing but cross my fingers and hope knowing that, bad as she may be, another term of Gillard wouldn’t be nearly as bad as an Abbott government.
I don’t however suggest that we do that because I think our hopes are pretty slim. So first we need a change of leader to somebody who could conceivably win the election. We’d also do better to try and engineer a result whereby the Greens held the balance of power. We’ve discussed names and pack drill before….
Then I think we need to cajole, lobby, and protest to force the bastards into adopting policies we consider more equitable. Knowing we’d be in a situation where the lesser of two evils might still apply we can nevertheless be assured that trying by the same means to get through to Abbott would be completely impossible in a way it has never been before, even with Howard.
I think that’s the dilemma we face. It ain’t bright and rosy and certainly idealistic isn’t a word that comes to mind. But it is real nonetheless and I think we have to deal with that by doing our best to get the best outcome
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I fail to see how those are lies. The effect of your Gillard hating is to give comfort to the real enemy, the Noalition.
You have thoroughly lost the debate to restore Rudd; you will also lose either way if Labor is defeated in September. I suppose that is your real frustration.
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Happy Place;
I was heartened lately that sex and the aged are now seen as essential as walking sticks or laxatives. I could not believe that ABC TV on Q&A a couple of nights ago, featured the minister for immigration wholeheartedly supporting the idea of erring on the side of the demented or Alzheimer suffering patients or clients allowing (in an emergency) sex workers to bring joy to those still getting the odd twinge or so. It is nice to know that in a future not all that far away we all in our final dotage will be well catered for in that section of ageing gracefully. I can’t wait for a bit of light hand relief or some honest face sitting in case of our sexual needs still surfacing at times. There is still so much to look forward to.
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If we can still have a happy ending during our happy(or otherwise ending) then we are indeed approaching a civilised society.
and also, for some a ‘peaceful end’ by euthanasia would be the kind of policy an advanced society would begin to broach.That we seem to view ‘endless suffering’ as an extension of our sport worshipping culture, is a perverted logic.
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I know in some ways we ought to expect it from him, but A.C. Graying’s answer to the audience member’s question was quite remarkable. I’d have gotten about as far as Benny Gale did, which was an okay layman’s answer, but I can only assume Graying’s put a lot more previous thought into those issues than most of us imagined was possible.
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http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/latenightlive/the-god-argument/4588744
Some may be interested.
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Peter at the top half of the apge, turns to Peter Bayley March 25, 2013 at 4:35 pm
(aka ‘we all know who’.)
Stuffed up with the Avatar thing again?
You’ll never learn.
How macabre.
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If you think I wrote that rubbish you have less comprehension than I thought. 🙂
Peter’s heart may be a little closer to the right place than some, but there are a lot of errors – too many to be bothered with.
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If I may, can I refer readers to an outstanding interview on Lateline with Bob Geldof :
http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2013/s3724453.htm
Some excellent points about foreign aid and the political cycle.
David Jones is also interviewed by Emma Alberici.
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And Geldof is light years ahead of where either of our two Tea parties will ever be.Socially and on a humanitarian level.
I am sure if he were to see a before and after of Labor he;s inwardly vomit.He probably thinks we have a Tory govt now,anyway.
So What’s your point?
He pretty much slammed Gillard and Swans fiddling the foreign aid book.He went as far as he could without being thrown out of the country.After they do the concerts in May he will probably say what he really means, and show why he was knighted in the first place.What is happening to Irish youth will happen here when the boom ends or implodes and work will dry up.Keep your eye on China.
And of course then there’s climate change,which Labor under Howe and Gillard has decided is crap.
I doubt Sir Bob has that many good things to say about the nitty gritty of refugees, yet.He needs to find a way to articulate the fact that lots of young semi qualified or unqualified Irish youth take up residence here in place of political refugees who come by boat.
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Hi Hypo. My point is the one Geldof makes about the political cycle – that a three or four year cycle does not allow even a vision of proper long term planning, much less the determined carrying out of the plans made.
I have regard for issues which transcend politics. Don’t you?
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If you don’t know the answer to the last question by now DQ, you need to start writing stuff down.
Have you ignored my BIG PICTURE comments?
Kudos to you if you are now coming on board.
And as we know, the next electoral cycle could be a decade long one the way it looks.
I for one am happy enough to keep throwing dickweeds out every term if required.And good govts do have a potential to last longer.If we throw out the blatantly manipulative opportunistic ones instead of thinking as shareholders, as Howard allowed us to do.
So until there is a maturity of minds in politics and a restoration of Labor to ALP and Liberal to Liberal values,the shorter the term, the less the pain and disappointment.In short neither Tea Party has earned the right to a extra quarter on the footy field.
Let us thank the cosmos that the scum cannot change the cycle from 3 to 4 years without a referendum.I would vote NO ten times over,rather than inflict an extra 12 months of big business slavery or union corruption on my fellow Australian.
And you?
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Ditto from me. The less time unwanted and damaging germs have in our body politic, the less damage they can cause. Even three years is too long a term.
I am reminded of a tribe in the Amazon who, immediately after eating they’d walk by the river and make themselves vomit. I don’t know if they’re still doing this to this day -or, indeed, what with the avaricious anti-environment corporations who have cleared the Amazon of any life, that tribe still exists.
Anyhoooo,
Purge the body politic as often as possible.
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To what end? How does it serve the long goal or the bigger picture that we want to take part in?
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Seriously,if after all you have claimed to know, you don’t know the answer to that,then perhaps we should not have compulsory voting for everyone.
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bluster and attacks upon me is not a substitute for the answer to what remains a very difficult question.
Ideology isn’t the answer. I think of anything the fact that as Geldof said the Occupy Movement probably just wanted to say F**k Off to corporate control over their lives is important.
Even saying that we don’t know the answer would be better than fighting about it, or saying in effect that if some third person pretends to high political office without knowing the answer to all those questions then it must me their fault. They, they, they it’s always THEIR fault!
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You wouldn’t know a Big Picture issue if you fell over one, judging from that post. Transcend the political.
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And that is why you are a dinosaur, at best.
Example,
Labor has approved every single,coal gas and energy project to cross Fergusons desk.And then some.
All foreign.All environmentally unsustainable,all nullifying Labors faux bullshit carbon tax non event, and non mining tax.All swallowing the emissions target ten times over.
All the open cuts are heading for less jobs and remote controlled machinery.
You wouldn’t know your arse from your elbow in pictures OR politics.WA sits on one of the largest iron ore and gas hotspots on earth and we don’t even make it into roofing nails.Don’t dare insinuate you know what big pictures are.
Under Gillard.
Less money in than we should have.
Less jobs created than should be
Less gains for the people from birth to death
Less resource for the future
Less environment for the future.
More union sphincters sucking corporate dicks.
More sock puppets defending it all.
Gillard is focussed on the daily grind,because she knows every day could and should be her last as a politician.Big picture?
Hahahahahaha
Sustainable custodianship of this planet is as political as you can get.That is what Geldof is all about.All you heard was Julia has a chance.
Fail,DQ,fail.
Nice display of hypocrisy, though.(Amongst other failures)
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The problem with calling people dinosaurs is in failing to check whether you’re a more or less developed life form.
Let’s face it Hypo if the only mental process you’re capable of is seeing everything through the prism of Gillard’s fault then you probably haven’t evolved your politics to the point where here the Happy Place we might actually be willing to change the subject from time to time.
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Gawd you are such an apologist.
Look at what DQ said and challenged.He made about ‘politics’ and ‘big picture stuff’.In what way is that not in Gillards fucking gambit?
Explain it so the world can see your unending Oz like genius.
Why are you constantly defending DQ every time he crawls back into his phone box?Do you share it?
Your love of Gillard is in question is here, not my prism.
Gillard is the clear and present danger to the ALP, not Abbott.Abbott is only a danger to the corrupt within the ALP, because he has made it clear he will go after them.And I believe him.Guess what,if he does I will bet most people will support it if it means a cleansing and rebirth of real Labor.A removal of workplace union bullies through to the parasites who “undermind” our democracy
And any time you have proof that the development of resources during Gillards reign is not her responsibility, feel free to pipe up.Because you,she and DQ claim she is the leader of this Nation.
Over to you.
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You’re talking rubbish and I’m not interested.
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Then HG, to me you resemble a coward, an apologist and have nothing.
It took a while, and whole lot of keyboard mileage to get there.But here we are.Looking over the shoulder of the choir boys at the saintly image of the sock puppets Madonna.
It’s sad to see my fellow Australians gravitate from an inquisitive taste of cheap imported fishing tackle, to end up eating it three times a day.
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Trolling being the operative fishing term, I presume that what pisses you off most about my remarks is my being unwilling to swallow your line of hatred for Gillard hook line and sinker!
I’m not opposing all of your views I’m just saying we can discuss other things from time to time without seeing everything through that one selfsame singular prism.
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The wonderful thing about Hudson is: he is willing to discuss any issue, civilly. without name -calling, without wanting to shoot the messenger…
He understands that people are entitled to have opinions differing from ours, and still be worthwhile as debaters.
We can all express our opinions, but can’t force others to agree with us. Why would anyone want that…
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I think we’re probably already moving towards a mixed situation where national power already does realise its limitations. What is really unsure and frankly a little scary is who holds the reigns of international power when outside of toothless tiger organisations like the UN they’re scarcely seen to exist.
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Marvellous stuff. Thanks very much for the link. I don’t know what it really all means for us yet, but it is obvious that we have to think a lot more about it.
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…thanks for DQ for the link from me (and HIM) too, most interesting.
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No HG.not a ref to trolling.A ref to swallowing a line, as DQ has.As many have.
I was having a discussion about ‘big picture stuff and politics’ as I said.And I believe you saw tha,t but still did one of the two things that happen when we get to the point when a simple justification is required.
You either defend Gillard or defend DQ, when he defends Gillard.
So you either agree that Gillard is good PM doing a good job under difficult circumstances. or you believe the opposite.
So there’s another pattern.Yep we can and should talk about other stuff.So join in on getting rid of Gillard ASAP, because I believe you said that was required.It would help if you backed up that claim now and then,IMHO.
Get off the fence.
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Ah, Hypo! It’s obvious you don’t understand the Hudso-Fence relationship! Huso is the only one I know who, instead of shifting the goal posts, shifts the fence. Well, on this is issue anyway.He’s confused the poor old crinkly codger. He’s never been in the middle of such acrimony before. The Devil on the Left and Hades on the right; what do do? I know, I’ll shift the fence first to the left and then, when it gets to uncomfortable there, I’ll shift it to the right but there’s no way I’ll jump off it, the murderous sharks are circling frenzily.
We’ve been over the same ground time and time again. We’ve all made our positions glaringly clear but Hudso keeps popping up on top of a new fence to ask the very same question, hoping that, from that fence, he’ll hear a different answer.
Zeus be with you, Hudso and with your gall!
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Not so much fence as portable sheep yards.Any shape,size or configuration you require.And low enough to step over.
Have fence, will travel.
http://www.google.com.au/imgres?q=portable+sheep+yards&hl=en&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&biw=1280&bih=855&tbm=isch&tbnid=AfWfmUROgOFbwM:&imgrefurl=http://www.arrowfarmquip.com.au/~enews/sept11/&docid=8S1gL83NAj9f8M&imgurl=http://www.arrowfarmquip.com.au/~enews/sept11/special2.png&w=1200&h=1050&ei=t4pSUeuRJcKKlAXxm4DQCw&zoom=1&ved=1t:3588,r:18,s:0,i:136&iact=rc&dur=672&page=1&tbnh=177&tbnw=202&start=0&ndsp=22&tx=115&ty=114
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I think you’ve got a hide to blame me for instigating these repeated episodes. I’ve been trying to change the subject or to at least see any political discussion through something other than the prism of Hypo’s hatred of Gillard.
I thought you and I had at least reached the kind of impasse where we might agree to disagree, but no now you want to pop up and put in your two penneth worth of acrimony towards my position because I’m willing to be persuaded from time to time.
WTF Atomou! Is political discussion only okay with you when people either strenuously agree or maintain the kinds of rigid ideological positions fit only for religious zealots and the brainwashed minions of some Orwellian dystopia.
Time was when I thought Rudd a better leader than Howard, and Gillard a panacea to Rudd’s shortcomings. Then I had reason to hope and with the passage of time I have been disappointed. We have to recognise those circumstances for what they are and look for ways to move forwards. Frankly the only thing I’m completely unwilling to accept in that vein is throwing our hands in the air and handing the trophy over to Abbott. If you don’t have any ideas about how to stop that from happening then frankly why not consider that discussion done with?
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I’m not speaking for DQ he can do that for himself. I obviously don’t share his unshakable faith in Gillard’s capabilities but that doesn’t mean we don’t have more in common than not. As do you and I.
I am inclined to defend the view that a strong Labor party is better than a weak one when faced with a prospect that I think will be vastly worse. But my reason for doing so is based on an assessment of what policies that they each have rather than on expectations that either will conform to some set of dearly held ideologies.
I’m more of a realist than an ideologue who interprets the world through the prism of my unchanging moral principles. You’re the one who appears to me to be taking those kinds of positions and I think you’re wrong to defend them if it comes at the expense of allowing a worse evil.
I suspect you’re just more comfortable seeing the coalition as the old enemy than you are with accepting that some Labor policies are the same or only marginally better than coalition ones. But since you won’t concede the merest point all we can do is make the observation that your visceral hatred of Gillard is affecting your ability to tally up political priorities more soundly.
I think we’ve all heard your objections and know what they are, but please try to understand that when you protest that Abbott is no worse that Gillard you’re just wrong, and I basically don’t believe you. You just couldn’t be dumb enough to believe that even if you were Peter Reith in real life.
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It’s like
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There’s a message in there somewhere. I would have thought if you wanted to hark back to really old computer games then Adventure still has my vote for “You’re in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.”
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The link goes to the first affordable family computer game.Pong.(apt name)
Like the progress of this ‘lesser of two evils’ discussion.
Slow,predictable,black and white,anachronistic,possibly quaint and mastered in no time.
Don’t know anything at all about the Adventure game you mention.
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Adventure, sometimes known as Colossal Cave Adventure was a text based computer game.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colossal_Cave_Adventure
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Hate to disappoint you, HG, but I am not Reith.
Try to keep in mind that just because I am not enamoured with the taste of corrupt union dick,dies not make me a coalition voter.
However when I weigh up the core values of the ALP, and what has been done to them, and which will never be reversed with the current union control, yes Gillard is equally as bad as a so called leader, and a scourge which needs to be excised.You can distort that in any way you want, but I doubt that the people Labor need to support them are blind to the truth,either.
And don’t think it goes unnoticed that one minute you agree Gillard must go, but then you shift the focus back on YOUR whipping boy.So lets see.
Allow me a glimpse into YOUR crystal ball.
Tell me what stellar Gillard Labor achievements he will undo,that break your heart.
You can stick the carbon tax and MRRT away, they don’t work at doing anything.In fact without a committed community embracing solar, the country would miss the first micro dot of its renewable targets.
And we all know that mining developments and approvals have skimmed off almost all gains several times over, so action on climate change is not something this Labor has actually delivered.
They have even given up officially on that under Howes command.(See cabinet reshuffle)
We can take the intro of Workchoices as a gimme, but we don’t know what level it will reach until we see the make up of both houses, and we cannot assume he will commit political suicide in his first term,as Gillard has done, so roll out the things you KNOW he will implement, not the fear and smear, but his policy agenda, and we can kick them along the street for a while.I don’t believe Morrison will get his way on his refugee behaviour crap, but feel free to pencil it in.
After months of me banging my head on the portable sheep yards, the time has come for you to eviscerate Tonys policies one by one.
We can leave the part out about where the money is coming from ,in the short term,it will save us valuable time.
So we know he is going to enslave us all, an set up sow stalls for women etc, but what else will make us jump in leaky boats and head to NZ?
Help me and others prepare for the end of times.
Perhaps when we get to the end of this long winded process,we can form a tag team.I can see Gillard off, and you can give Tony the body slam.{That’s the manoeuvre where you jump off the ropes 😉 }
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Drat I thought I had you… you Reith you!
The point was just of comparison to Reith as an archetypal one eyed partisan polemicist of some considerable impenetrability.
Explain this first please… “And don’t think it goes unnoticed that one minute you agree Gillard must go, but then you shift the focus back on YOUR whipping boy.”
So Abbott’s not to be the focus of our criticism Gillard is? Or what? Maybe you meant something else by that?
But you’ve offered some real points we can discuss; like whether the Carbon Tax being more of a symbolic first step than an accomplished move towards concrete action on climate change is a good thing or not? I think it is, and that if it leads to an ETS then maybe that will start to have more traction. All I know is that I’m disappointed not to see economic certainty around technology change driving real innovation out here in the real world. I think we have to lobby for that a little harder. The question I’d put to you then is whether a guy who says “Climate change is Crap” will listen?
Same thing with the MRRT, we have something that can only be improved as a result of the recent criticism it received, but which will be replaced by exactly nothing if Abbott gets his way.
How will you feel then when those two measures are laid waste about sucking on all that billionaire arse!
I’m heartened to see you acknowledging that given a decent majority Abbott would readily seize the opportunity to reintroduce work choices. And I also think refugees will be manifestly worse off under Abbott. So probably will welfare recipients because the certainty with which he’d blame the black hole in his costings on Labor will be matched only by the swiftness with which he plucks it from the least of societies members.
The NZ thing is on the cards mate! In the words of Bill Cosby’s God to Noah “How long can you tread water!”
So here we are and what to do about it? That was what I wanted to discuss and still don’t see why we can’t. I’d rather see Gillard go but we disagree because changing the leader isn’t of an essence to me so much as, if you’ll hark back to the numbered list I once made, beating Abbott and changing policies to get the best results that we can even if it is a compromise that we find somewhat tough to live with.
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“And don’t think it goes unnoticed that one minute you agree Gillard must go, but then you shift the focus back on YOUR whipping boy.”
It is self explanatory.(I thought it was) You claim Abbott is the worst thing possible for this country, whenever Gillards anti Labor, pro Tea party behaviour is highlighted.
You could(of course) throw some lines at DQ about why Gillard is a pox, as you have pretty much agreed, but you don’t.So if I cannot get you to stretch that lackey, lets get your full analysis, on Abbotts dead cert policy mission and his list of actual functioning ALP policy he will ‘can’.
And yes Gillard should be our focus IF we claim to be progressive or left of centre.She risked moving that centre three continents to the right.
Carbon tax or ETS is futile while we continue to produce more carbon than we sequester.And by that I do not been hiding it in the ground till it leaks out.
Whether you accept it or not,Gillards masters are anti Green.
More logging,more mining and a shift from carbon issues,full stop.
The union maggots won’t be tweaking the MRRT and the boom has peaked and commodity prices will not coincide with anywhere near the budget forecast before expenditure ‘out’ cancels out any miniature gains.In effect Abbotts non-climate policy is as non effective as Gillard/Swans, has become.
Hate to be pedantic but ‘nothing’ replacing ‘nothing’ is not going backwards.
I can’t take your point about welfare recips because it falls into the category I believe we call pure conjecture, so lets stick to examining (at first) what Abbott claims he will do.A slice of his official policy pie if you like.I know scary stuff, but you may have to venture to lib central and download the manual and critique it one by one, but I sense you are at least honest enough to take the analytical approach.otherwise I believe we enter faeryland.
And as Ato pointed out and I keep doing also.
If you keep jumping from Gillard needs to go to your latest version “I’d rather she went”, then we smack right into the kerb at the back of your cul de sac.
Until you can actually see that in our politics the leader stands for the party.She or he represent what they do.Sells what they sell and lives and dies by what they believe in.The problem for you is you are looking at it through rose coloured glasses at a deformed,distorted,dishonest,faux Labor veneer, while accusing me of being a prism gazer.
Gillard is a product of a group of vile unelected scum who risk obliterating decades of progressive inclusive Labor policy.And what’s more they are side dealing with the very tyrants they claim to be a protective dam wall against, for working people.
I will ask you politely one more time,HG, to critique Abbotts known coalition policies,so readers can decide whether this bogey man is indeed worse that the other Tea Party who hankers for his throne.
You have complained long and hard about me complaining long and hard, so lets see YOU put some meat on this bone.Its been months and I see no diminution of the urgency to purge faux Labor and restore its soul.
Your what we do about it question.
Simple.(You know what comes next)
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I don’t think it matters how or where I say it that Doug along with everyone else here knows how disappointed we all are with Gillard by any standard we might set for a Labor leader. But the point that the same standard does not and will not apply to Liberal leaders is well enough made even if you do want to quibble about particulars.
I’ll pick you up on the point you make about conjecture, just to say that everything’s conjecture until someone articulates a policy and even then we’re entitled having seen how things always go in the past to paint between some well enough defined lines. In fact I think we have to at least a little if we’re to weigh our options within the bounds of reasonable probability as we should.
I afford you credit where it is due for pointing out the dilemma we confront if we’re to argue that we just love real Labor want to fix it and can’t figure out how to make omelette without breaking a few eggs. But what if we take a good hard look, decide that we’ve fallen out of love with Labor, yet being completely revolted by the alternative, after a brief but unproductive fling with the Greens, realise we’re going to have to pay the bloody child support whether we like it or not.
As for Abbott his list of shame is long and damning….
Do I really have to argue with you not to vote for this guy? Is that what this has come to now? I’ve already told you ably supported by any number of Jennifer’s articles that we have a man of the far right before us whose limits are defined purely by whatever he can get away with. I say Nothing. The bloke scares me. And we need to reject the possibility out of hand that he could ever be let within a bull’s roar of the Prime Ministership.
And if that little bastard says “stop the boats” at any point in this election campaign I’m dead set likely to feed him his balls for breakfast! It just makes me want to puke.
As for Gillard the situation is clear. She might as go early and give somebody else at least the chance to revive Labor’s fortunes going into the election as lose the thing ignominiously as she seems set to. A week is a long time in politics and I never say never, but your sense of indignation at her ideological desertion of the standard Whitlam may have once proudly borne is simply not one that I share or ever did. You’re just going to have to get used to that!
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“Do I really have to argue with you not to vote for this guy? ”
Having established I won’t,”vote for this guy”all I was asking (futile) is that that you put a modicum of effort into explaining to readers the danger of Abbotts known policies.If it is only fear of the unknown we are required to submit FFS, we are doomed.
I don’t want you to sell me a thing HG.
I want you and the people who listen to you, to be given a clear outline of which policies of Abbott’s you know he will implement, which of Gillards he will unravel(above and beyond what we know).Why is that such a big ask?
As a clearly defined enemy surely you are all over Abbotts policies?
That two way choice you keep highlighting has two people in it.One has totally proven SHE will do anything,shaft anyone and abandon anything to appease the scumbags hidden in the bushes.If you cannot apply the blow torch equally by way of analysis, then I guess I’ll just have to keep applying it on the goods delivered (and returned to sender) so far, to the side who have betrayed more comprehensively than any ALP who went before, and in a shorter time frame..
Having written 450 essays on ‘Why Gillard does not deserve to be PM in 2013, or deserve to be a modern Labor leader”,is it too much to ask that you visit Tonys hit list and pummel it,just once?
(Reminder Abbott is not the one implementing Labor policies,it’s the other way around)
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Anyone in London around June and wants to see a sparkling ancient Greek comedy, let me know. I have two seats available for you, gratis and with pleasure.
The exact date has not been confirmed yet.
The play is Aristophanes’ “Women in Parliament” (Ekklesiazouzae) and the theatre is Theatro Technis.
The play may be read here: http://bacchicstage.wordpress.com/aristophanes/women-in-parliament-2/
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If you’re already saying you’re not voting for Abbott then talking you out of it seems even more futile than the more onerous exercise you’re requesting I undertake on your behalf. I don’t believe any of us are inattentive souls more likely than not to have failed to do our own research, so if only we could pin down Abbott on policies he won’t release then we might actually know a few more of those answers.
What I can say is that Abbott is going to take a position that is to the right of the Labor party on everything because that’s what passes for conservatism these days. If Labor placates the tea party then Abbott becomes the tea party, if only because it makes their actions look like his victories.
It will of course be slightly different if Labor is in opposition because from the cheap seats they’re always a bit more vocal in support of progressive policies than they are when they’re given the job of actually trying to implement them. But in government at least while Labor have failed to side with progressives in some fairly major ways they do have some progressive policies.
This time around they have three. Gonski, NDIS and paid parental leave. And while I’ll grant you all day long that they haven’t done the sterling job of selling these we might have hoped for, these are all going to be lost or botched under an Abbott government because their stated economic policy is to impose austerity in pursuit of budget surpluses that we simply don’t need, or could furnish by raising taxes which are at record low levels.
I’ve already canvassed Climate change, the MRRT and asylum seeker policy and your response so far seems to be that you don’t want to hear any of that. In so doing you’re failing to draw the distinction between blaming Gillard for manifest compromises in those policies and accepting that what we see as imperfect Labor is what Liberals would see it as their goal to strive towards furthering. They’d can the carbon tax, and the MRRT and while they’re at recommit themselves to mandatory detention and TPV’s. Ignore me all you like, but there’s nothing whatsoever to like about that shit! And it worries me that we’re not taking the threat of those things occurring seriously enough.
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If we are talking Labor, you couldn’t fit the thickness of a rolly paper between the current ALP and the wall on the far right.
It is a shame you don’t want to name the actual policies you want to condemn.I think that leaves a gaping hole.I am already aware of the ideology of Abbott and now Gillard shares it on the pillars of her mission so far.
I asked we pass over the MRRT and the carbon tax because as I explained and you ignored the carbon tax is completely crippled under the expansions on the books and current mining extraction.And the MRRT has delivered sweet FA and looks like going backwards further.Given Labor has ruled out changing it,it is a dead duck which relies solely on a capitulating Chinese economy.
So what I’d say is we would not know any difference if we had neither.Environmentally or fiscally.
I love concepts,love them to bits.Especially the egalitarian ones.
And humanitarian too.
But can you really argue that a faux Labor party of the right and dominated and run by the likes of Howe, and who have declared the left is poisonous and unwelcome,(along with their enviro policies and loyal supporters,) party which is now hell bent on buying their way in, has the money to deliver, or the future electoral ability to do so?
Let alone any legitimacy or mandate.
To me TPV are abhorrent, but pale into insignificance when you appraise faux Labor properly on this front.
Mandatory detention exists for the bilk of boat arrivals under faux-Labor.
Multiple off shore processing sites(was once a solid gold no-no)
Faux Labors Refusal to acknowledge Tamil and Hazzara issues.
Deaths under their watch
(on the sea and in the camps)
Excising our mainland FFS.
Whilst I believe you when you say you personally could never suffer nor recommend others do, an Abbott govt, I cannot believe that you truly have it in you to be associated with the very thing which Labor has needed for months.
A purge, from the top down.
I hear you say Gillard needs to go, but I think you’re just mouthing the words HG and I also think you believe that Labor is capable of change with the current elected and ‘unelected’ “underminders.”.
If you are to be honest about the carbon tax and even the ETS( in the current environment,globally) it has little chance of improving on its nett backwards steps.
I can see why you don’t want to compare Abbotts policies in this area, because whether we like it or not,if Abbott was simply proposing planting shit loads of trees,which is one of his plans, that will overtake where we currently are as far as neutralising carbon,if only by a small amount.
We are back at the cul de sac.Where to from here?
The Greens are looking good, for the having policies in this area.
NDIS and Gonski are worthy aspirations I will give you that.I am not so sure that downward pressure on cost of living (across the board) by whichever government is a better idea, because it is less discriminatory.And personally I think the rest of the bottom end,unemployed,single parents should be helped first.A real ALP would have done that.The whole paid parental leave is a non priority to me, because I believe good family planning by would be parents seems to have gone by the wayside, and the concept of entitlement has become the agenda.
Cost of living pressure could be a by-product of a proper MRRT, which the Greens promoted, but which Howe et al canned due to their dodgy allegiance to big miners.
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Hypo,
I’ve directly critiqued Liberal opposition to the Carbon Tax, MRRT, and Asylum seeker, then gone on to explain how their policies on Gonski, NDIS and paid parental leave contrast with Labor’s. By my count that enumerates objections to coalition policy on Environment, Taxation, Immigration, Education, Disability and whatever the heck the last one comes under. It’s at least six portfolios which is about six more than the fully costed policies Abbott has released!
You may choose to dismiss the ones where you think Labor has been ineffectual, but you’re failing to realise in so doing that even the mere existence of intent to move in a positive direction has some advantages over the declared intention to move in a negative one.
Talk around the MRRT is that it may have failed to produce a dividend yet, but the mere acknowledgement that this is a failure defines a success as funnelling a larger slice of mining profits into the public purse. As a person who likes ideas it can’t fail to impact on you that the idea Abbott prefers is to simply forgo our rightful share of the mining boom. So ignoring it just isn’t good enough!
Similarly with Carbon Pricing we’re positioned to move towards an ETS that is admittedly yet to be decided, and yet the alternative has already been decided and it’s clearly going to be a lot more expensive and completely ineffectual. So again we should look to the battle of ideas about how to tackle climate change and remind ourself that Tony’s position and that of his party was to roll Turnbull for even suggesting an ETS.
I actually don’t think we’re doing much good to discuss asylum seeker policy any more than I think you do, I’m making this lesser of two evils kind of argument based on TPV’s and the knowledge that Abbott’s “stop the boats” rhetoric will probably cement the race to the bottom in Australian politics for yet another term or more. So while I think that the coalition are demonstrably worse than Labor, Labor is also demonstrably bad, and the only decent policies seem to be coming from the Greens. And this I think is where my judgment of this issue draws a couple of simple conclusions that I think you’re wrong to reject. That the Greens won’t form government in their own right, and that Labor having a constituency that does want to shift it back to the left on this issue in particular can be persuaded to soften their policies whereas the coalition will run far and fast in the opposite direction.
I wonder if you’ve read either of these two articles on the Drum today….
http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/4598894.html
http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/4599286.html
I think they make interesting points though not ones everyone is going to agree with.
On the Rudd one I think that whether you agree about the direction that the hatred in Canberra takes or not, you’d be hypocritical not to acknowledge that it exists. Your ire towards Gillard being but one palpable example.
So you want a purge of Labor, whereas I’m inclined to the more moderate view that maybe a purge of both these two leaders would be enough. It has the advantage of fostering some hope that Abbott can be thwarted, and a streak of realism that says getting rid of every elected member of the whole party does next to nothing to curb the factions especially the NSW right.
On the second article I wonder if it is just a Queensland thing whereby the “Fair Go” is being squeezed out by “I’m alright Jack” attitudes.
It may be time to change the subject to thinking about some of those concerns.
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First, it was Gillard who was Rudd’s left testicle, then it was Rudd who was Gillard’s left testicle and now we all realise that neither of those two, nor anyone else in that party has any testicles at all but then what else should we expect from bum holes?
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No Place For Sheep
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-03-27/farmer-donald-oreilly-searches-for-sheep-or-lambs-trapped-snow/4596356
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I have been trying to discuss the Big Picture : by which I mean the future of the planet. Matters like renewable energy, eradication of poverty population control, human rights, the prevention of wars, the ongoing battle with disease, pollution, drug abuse, world immigration, democracy, an equitable distribution of wealth and resources.
But a certain blogger with a deranged and obsessive hatred of the nation’s Prime Minister wants to drag it all back to parochial partisan politics. Without discussing a single important issue.
I’ve put them up over the last few weeks, and I’ll put them up again to remind us all just where the political differences lie.
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Cheer up Sleepy Jean,
Renewable energy-Under Gillard the actual purpose of renewables was to reduce our carbon footprint.Coal expansion alone has negated all gains.So although our electricity grid is diluted by alternatives, and a ‘target’ reached the nett carbon gain is enormous.
That excludes the carbon expansion via deforestation, bushfires,other mining and industrial activity,urban sprawl and agricultural carbon production.
This government has done what about poverty?Are there less street people today that when Gillard took office?Discuss.
Population.A Ministerial position was created to do absolutely nothing.Labor and Liberal ONLY talk about growth.
Both have played their part in paying baby bonuses and rewarding unsustainable urban and population sprawl.
Human rights.hahahaaDo you really want to go there?
Indigenous gap?Hows that travelling?Intervention?Land theft?
Refugees DQ?Game are we?
Isn’t it you who decides?Didn’t your ancestors alone write the constitutional amendment which selects the lucky candidate?Everyone else’s rellos may have gone to war for peace,harmony and inclusion, but heck, what we they know.
Silly demented deranged lefties.
Prevention of wars.
Oh yes that ‘idealist’ trap.Welcome aboard.Try not to make too many noises around our walking wounded and returned soldiers as they suffer the bouts of PTSD, form two US led invasions and cameo role in middle eastern ethnic cleansing.
Disease.Well that’s one way to deal with the population.Should we cure everyone?
Who gets the limited health funds?Westies?Marginal seats?Where are our brightest minds?Over-bloody-seas?Oh yes.We decide who comes,but not who goes!
Pollution.Like coal fired power station and burgeoning populations driving burgeoning fleets of cars and wall to wall dump trucks etc?The largest bushfire season pollutants in history?Land fill expansion.Shit and fertiliser dumped on the GBR.
Drug abuse.
Kudos for Gillard talking the talk on this.Meth is at record levels and we risk living inside fortresses if we don eradicate ice and the scum who run the shit.Mainly bikies and corrupt police.I hope we get bipartisan support to rid the community of this shit, and start down the road of legalising or at least decriminalising where it can deliver a better outcome.
World immigration.See refugees.You might need to revisit the race card that was 457 visas in the Westie-thon, and peel the time stamp from history.This govt aint ever going to broach that under the union jellyfish.
Equitable distribution.You will need to get Sir Bob to run the ship, t get that.
We will have mined the finite resources to a black hole within 30 years.The potable water will all be gone and the dependent ecosystems nothing but Saharan sand.And that is if the climate is kind and does a pause as is for that period.
Now that Howe has jettisoned all signs of the left ,DQ I can tell you here and now mate.You could never sell Gillard when she ‘had’ borrowed-brains.Now they have been purged, your shopping list makes my idealistic streak look like a death cult.
Most of your list spins out from the axis of population.
It is not even on the radar my day dreaming asociate.
This is the bit where I have to pinch myself.After all the months of jibber jabber, you show up with a deep and meaningful list which goes to everything this Labor has turned its back on, and you want us to back, your 3 legged chestnut mare in the big race.
Or is your list just a fishing expedition?
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EDIT
I hope we get bipartisan support to rid the community of this shit, and start down the road of legalising or at least decriminalising where it can deliver a better outcome.”
Does not apply to meth in any way shape or form,hence the ‘better outcome bit’.
In other words ‘some drugs’ need not apply.
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One at a time is probably the best course of action, vis a vis a blog site.
To that end, we have to consider that climate change is a coming reality. No ifs, no buts, a coming reality.
The world climate has been improving (yes, improving) since the Little Ice Age of the 18th and 19th centuries. CO2 is a useful gas in our atmosphere in that it promotes plant growth and in 390ppm or so keeps the world’s average temperature at about 15 degrees C. An absence of CO2 would be a disaster, and at levels of 200ppm the world temperature would be several degrees lower.
But too much of a good thing is bad for the Planet, just as too much anything is bad. At levels of 700ppm, a possibility by 2200, temperatures, and the retained heat, would probably be enough to seriously endanger the remaining Ice continent, and risk raising sea levels significantly – several metres is possible.
Substantial climate change cannot now be stopped, barring some cataclysmic natural event such as a major Yellowstone or Krakatoa type volcanic eruption or a large asteroid collision (with a following nuclear winter scenario).
Our challenge over the next few decades is to try to slow the rate at which mankind is adding to the problem. Slow the rate, because it is not possible to stop or reverse the process, even if that was desirable. It has been postulated that even if mankind vanished tomorrow from the face of the earth, the warming would still continue for several centuries.
The issue has to be raised and debated and taken outside the political quagmire it has become. Just how we achieve that will determine what sort of world we leave for our grandchildren and their children.
We live in hope.
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Which party do suppose reflects closest the call for action?
(Beware,I am not asking which one of the two big ones)
If you answer correctly, you win a go at the next question.
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I refuse to discuss party politics. Discuss the issue!
(aside : It’s not easy being Green. Get them an acceptable leader and they might get somewhere in 5 or 10 years)
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Acceptable to who
You?
The only people arguing this facile point are Gillard supporters,and they would because she knifed the Greens after delivering sweet FA in real terms.
How do actually propose society takes action on anything when the discussion is barred from naming the players who drive the policy agendas which deliver of block agenda items?
You call me an idealist and all you want to do is make up a big fat wish list , the grown ups who had for at least two fucking decades.
Where were you hiding?
As some point in time, that ‘imaginary hope’ you claim we are living in will need a real leader or visionary to turn into action.
Not some two faced pus faced charlatan who feigns commitment from campaign day one until the 1 second beyond forming government, when the Nepotism kicks in.
So who are you going to hand your wish list to DQ?
If not a party politician?
David Copperfield?
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Happy Place Stuff
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Jake the Peg has sex with Giant squid.
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Jake the Peg is German. Or the Squid?
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You’ve never heard of Olga Squid?
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I’ve heard of her brother Sig though.
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Boom Boom
Noticed how many girls in the dance troupe, Mr Bond?
Mr James Bond?
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Zis is un Britisher conzpirascy!
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No Reply Button up there HG
I think we know at this stage a few things.
You keep treating a couple like you are silicon and they are water.
Greens and Labor are 2 parties who won’t rule in their own right after this election.Labor won’t partner with the Greens again as long as Gillard and Howes share our planet with us.
The carbon tax and ensuing ETS showed promise until Howes laid the law down.Fergy and Julia obeyed emphatically.
Penny cheered them on.So given the added European crisis and burgeoning mining expansion it is as useful as a jelly mallet.
The MRRT is something which has been shown as a tax which only affects two minerals iron and coal, and only certain players.
Those players designed the tax so that they could fiddle their own books to dodge it.(IT was designed to operate under perfect conditions,high output and high commodity prices which theoretically = higher profits.The stupid f***s who designed it from the govt side had no idea.They were over their heads.The big boys just wrote down their profits or moved cash to the non profit margin.
Howes has ordered that no modifications are to be done to to it.Ever.
(I’ll let others trace the back-room deal his union did with big mining to get that across the line)
So if the MRRT is so supposed to deliver cash,it has failed.There goes an opportunity which will never come again.
If the C Tax supposed to reduce the consumption by big polluters,it has failed.In fact energy generators have pocketed billions in tax payers cash to keep gold plating and overcharging domestic supply.
The carbon tax has failed because of the amount of greenhouse gas now being produced from the approved expansion of coal and other mining and the subsequent burning of coal for local and foreign energy, smelting and other carbon hungry processes.If the carbon tax is supposed to reduce our carbon footprint it has failed on so many fronts,which I am not going to waste any more time spelling out.
The reason you finding both of the those things so hard to sell is for the same reason Gillards leadership and faux Labor cannot get traction.It’s called failure.
And the reason you don’t get any of this this is not a failure to understand on your part, it is that you are blinded by an ideology which is actually a twin of the one you’re running the scare campaign on.You are asking the public to forgive and forget one failure after the other.They are not small failures.They are like the broken promises that faux Labor try to write off as one offs as the smash into the next one.It is a catastrophic failure HG.Labor is not Labor any more.This is what I am trying to tell you you.You’re asking people to let safe Aunty Julia wrap her caring arms around them.It won’t happen HG.We know that when Abbott gets in we cannot turn our back on him for a minute.We cannot let him get away with anything.It’s up to us.What is not up to us is to reward the scum who are willing to plumb to even lower depths than they already have.TPVs and everything else is on the agenda of faux Labor.They have proved anything goes.
Once they started skating down the last hill towards election day they shat on every one of the allies who helped them form govt and Howes showed what life under his union controlled Labor would be like.Bullshit ,back-room binges with big business bastards,bullying and bribery.It’s easy to demand we not consider a coalition under Abbott.Too fucking easy.
But if you want someone who believes in what they sell,you couldn’t possibly look the punters in the eye and say give Labor your vote.That would be electoral fraud.
Like I keep saying, your DNA looks set in stone to reward Gillard and I’ll reward neither.
PS
I think its pretty average to not analyse or allow others to analyse the efficacy of those two failed taxes PROPERLY.They have failed because of the ego and pride of a couple of toss pots who were too vain to admit the f*ckup, and too sleazy to have the thing designed properly and across the board, in the first place.I’ll take your last comment as an apologia.I have to.
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We disagree about things as people should agree to on occasion. This is one such occasion because I think Labor will maintain a better relationship with the Greens than the coalition. And if you’d said that you didn’t believe my assertions to that effect earlier I think it might have saved us a lot of argument.
This story you’re spinning that “Howes laid down the law” etc, have you anything to back it up? I doubt that it really works that way or that he has nearly as much influence as you think, but even if he is as bad as you think losing the federal election doesn’t actually cost him his job.
The rest is pretty much a rant and could be returned in kind I suppose. But I’ve pressing demands on my time and it is clear that you’re not really listening. Your idealism is still getting in the road of setting priorities that in practical terms are going to negatively impact real people in the real world. Or it will if you and people who think alike basically don’t opt for putting up some kind of resistance that quite possibly does mean a Labor Green alliance.
The idea that the Labor party is some nebulous they who are supposed to meet your ideological remit is bogus and always has been.
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I have never assumed a Green/ coalition alliance was possible.( Especially with the Nats in there) Or desirable.I am pointing out to your brick wall, that if you want to impress the masses, with miners ‘paying their way’ or taxes reducing carbon or claiming to be a party commitment to either, I think you failed dismally.As has the impostor.However dish up Libs and greens and a minority and an Abbott with an arse in the market,and who knows?It wouldn’t last long in any case.And boy I reckon that contract would be tighter than a deep sea bass’s clacker.
As for Howe not having the sway.Were you circling in a satellite for the last two leadership ballots?
Do you think the result was all down to what a handful of men and women thought was best for the party?
Hahaha
Best for the country?Boo hoo.
Best for themselves and the Howes of the fauxed up ALP?
Snap!!.
It is pretty arrogant to assume that ‘you know stuff’ about the ‘social torture’ Abbott will inflict upon us, through some sort of magic projection, and yet you cannot join the dots on the power broking control in faux-Labor. You are in a serious idealistic minority yourself, if you reckon I am making THAT up.
HG, We will keep disagreeing I am afraid until you realise that I and hundreds of thousands of more people have no intention of throwing ourselves onto Abbotts thrusting pitchfork to save a Labor poltergeist occupying Gillards treacherous exo skeleton.
She has turned Abbott into a political default position.
You last sentence says it all really.But not about me, about you.
It says that you had always intended to put partisanship before principle.Dichotomy before diversity.Pragmatism before values.Every time.No matter how many fences it takes to deny it, it’s there in black and white.
No mind.Even the ACL’s team captain, and Tonys mentors boss can’t save faux Labor, now.
Stay safe over Eggster.
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Isn’t it just a bit disingenuous of you to twist my words into saying that I was ever talking about a Coalition/Green alliance. What I was clearly and repeatedly saying is that Labor and the Greens have a track record of being able to work together, whether in the house or in the Senate, and the Coalition simply don’t.
If it is Green initiatives that you want our next government to adopt in the horse trading that often occurs over getting legislation through parliament then at the very least the options that ought to be considered relate to which of the major parties are more amenable to those kinds of suggestions.
~
Now you’ve written something quite perplexing here that I think you should explain.
“We will keep disagreeing I am afraid until you realise that I and hundreds of thousands of more people have no intention of throwing ourselves onto Abbott’s thrusting pitchfork to save a Labor poltergeist occupying Gillard’s treacherous exoskeleton.”
What does it mean to say that you have “no intention of throwing ourselves onto Abbott’s thrusting pitchfork” and how would that “save a Labor poltergeist occupying Gillard’s treacherous exoskeleton”?
I take it that you mean you’ve no intention of saving Gillard. That much can on your history of commentary be taken as read.
You intend to insult Labor which you have come to despise, that is also your choice of characterisation which I won’t dispute even if I would show a preference for more constructive criticism.
What I really don’t get is what it is that you won’t do when it is expressed in terms of “throwing ourselves on Abbott’s thrusting pitchfork”. I take the thrusting pitchfork to be a metaphor for dire consequences of and Abbott government, so either I’m wrong about that interpretation or you’ve conjured up some way of punishing Gillard that avoids an Abbott government. That I’d really like to hear about!
I have after all been suggesting to you for some time that Labor could be saved by replacing Gillard, who is by now I think practically unelectable, with anyone but Rudd for a range of reasons that mainly involve ensuring that we reward neither side of the bitter personal conflicts that have so damaged this government. If you now want to agree with me therefore that supposing we can find such a leader the focus should as always remain on avoiding that metaphorical pitchfork then we may at last have something we can agree upon.
And a Happy Eggster that might make indeed. Just don’t post your recantation before midday on April 1st 🙂
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IIncantation on hold till Monday
It’s as clear as.
Abbott is about to remove one of Australias political problems.Gillard.
The electorate on the whole are not likely to stand in HIS way to saver her.
At least that is what every indication says.
He will obviously be next.Lets hope the next morph of his foe is an ALP, or a Greens to take their sorry place,if they cannot wake up in time.
Think of it as Gladiatorial conflict, to get yourself through with a full bag-o-marbles.The thumbs are down for most of the players below.If you can’t make your own mind up,keep your hands in your pockets.
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I know I watch too much QI, but they insist that the Roman use of thumbs up and thumbs down was the opposite of what the popular culture now assumes it to be. Maybe that show was broadcast on April Fools Day?
Anyway I didn’t ask what seems likely in terms of an electoral forecast. If I wanted to I could read the polls.
I’m more interested in discussing what can be done to change the obviously disastrous situation that we’re faced with.
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It’s looking like nothing can be done in time.Some diseases are fatal,when not caught in time.
Unless Gillard and her cohorts walk into a cave, roll a rock across and come out in a couple of days as different people with a complete disconnect to the nauseous union self-destruction gimps.
My advice is to prepare for life under Abbott,find a god and pray to it that the pain will be short lived and that the Greens increase their vote.Especially in the senate.
Or you could do what DQ is doing.
Fingers>ears>lalalalala
This election is more a test on the populous than it is on the parties.
Whoever wins will claim all sorts of BS agendas under the abusive, ‘mandate’, lie.
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I think I’ll chose to vote and urge others to vote for progress rather than regress. Green or Labor doesn’t much bother me given the current situation.
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We are almost there.You have rightfully eliminated the coagulition.
Just scratch the Labor bit off and you eliminate regress totally!!
Rebuild the Labor party when the quality personnel return.
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As I said I won’t argue with your choices, but your analysis needs work. We’re just not going to manage to stave off the coalition threat without the other major party forming government.
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Of course a war
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-03-29/north-korea-prepares-rockets-for-us-strike-report-says/4601258
might change things and save Gillard.But that’s not something I think we should do to save a PM we need to replace.Her love of the USA and Israel as pointed out by others indicates she is the last one capable of making healthy decisions in a climate of international conflict.And both parties are all too keen to sacrifice our young for futility and face.
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I was thinking of that, Hypo.
The Coalition of Thugs against NK, another proxy war, this time against Iran.
Bipartisan approval of that one.
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What an idiot that man is!
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Don’t panic, A North Korean flag flying out the end of a pipe accompanied by a banging noise is hardly going to cause a planetary melt down.
He is the Christopher Pyne of the Korean Peninsular.Any missiles fired off are likely to do a u-ee and crash into the launch pad.
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Not panicking about what NK does, Hypo. I’m panicking about what the THUGS are up to. The THUGS (haven’t worked out the acronymics yet but give me time) love wars. They need to keep their war factories going, so, if they can concoct an excuse to keep them going, they will. Always proxy ones, of course!
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Mean while back at Labor party H.Q.
Bang, bang, bang, bang, Julia walks in. “What are you doing there Joel”
Joel.”I’m putting the last nail in this Labor party coffin lid”
Julia.”Why’s that then love”
Joel. I think I stuck me number 10 in it again, I told the media 140 Grand a year ain’t a lot of money for a worker in my electorate.
Julia. Did you make a comparison say with Gina Rinehart?
Joel. No, not really, I wasn’t really thinking,I was just worried about saving my own arse as it happens. What with you ripping 100 bucks a week off some uneducated tart with three kids, another belly full of arms and legs on the way and no support from her dead beat husband.I really didn’t care.
Yada, yada, yada.
Not a clue, none of them.
Tony Abbott just has to keep his cake hole shut until September and the prize is his, for the taking.
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Pretty muc.
Except that the flaw to your take, is that across Australia the forty seven very determined Gillard groupies have teamed up and are now circling the coffin (with pliers made from liquorice), trying to delay the funeral, by claiming she is more duck than witch.
Anyone who derives pleasure from sado masochism must be relishing each and every nano second of this futile death march.Gen Y, X and ? must be farting in their bean bags with bewilderment.
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EDIT
Pretty much
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All very well except that Abbott is dead in the water. He had until mid 2012 to force an election. He failed. Hockey, Turnbull, Morrison and others are lining up to replace him,
His denouement is almost at hand.
As for Labor and Gillard, we shall see what we shall see.
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That’s a bold prediction.
You’re the first to ‘roll out’ the MSM conspiracy and voter stupidity,claiming that punters are gullible sheep, voraciously gulping down every sound byte, and embracing the content.
So given ‘that’ take of yours,how to you propose to take an unelectable PM to victory with the obvious ensuing ad campaign.
Seriously,it won’t even need to be negative or an exaggeration.Just repetitive snippets of fuckups,backflips and disasters.
I’d really like to know how on earth the ‘union controlled caucus’ can mount a credible fight when you throw in ICAC,Obeid,Thomson,Slipper and the new ministry.
It’s an optimistic view,I think can certainly imagine as a soap opera or ‘Underbelly’ type mini-series, but for the life of me I just can’t see it happening.There is of course one possible life raft.Endless cash splashing.
I’m pretty sure though, that that would be seen for what it is and would likely fuel even more juicy MSM ads.
Plus I don’t think the average voter,won’t see through it.
Our electorate is renowned for punishing and uninstalling governments.Even good ones who deserved another run.Which to everyone except the easily pleased and dedicated groupies, this one clearly is not.By any stretch.
The biggest shame of all is the amount of good and potentially great people the dick-heads driving Gillard will take with them.
Que sera sera.
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You are wrong on so many counts it is a joke.
I have an expectation that the Australian electorate have not been taken in by the endless media campaign despite the mischievous polls.
As for being unelectable, she was elected in 2010 – or is it our imagination that she has been Prime Minister for three years?
,
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Good grief.
It could only be concussion in your case.
Where do I start?No,a second thought,why bother.
You dare call me deranged.
Your what English teachers use to demonstrate what a professional pissant looks like.
For the record, Gillard has not been the PM for a nano second.
The union shit tubes have.That is why she will go, and go comprehensively.Which will once and for all bring an end to your tar like obsequious and tawdry sycophancy.
An Easter gift to the net.
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You are deranged by your obsessive hatred of Gillard.
Until you calm down and find some sensible way of discussing the issues there is little point in talking to you.
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If all it takes to get a deranged diagnosis from you,is to admit having a HATE for what Gillard has done to Labors values,sign me up.
If however, as is indicated by YOUR, behaviour, you wish (nay, demand) people to sign up the Temple of Gillard Howe, ho thanks.
Pot kettle black, Dr Quixiote.
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Do you still pretend to Labor values? Aren’t you a Green?
Hypocrite.
Deceptive and Duplicitous.
If that cap fits, you can wear it.
.
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It is your black and white pea brain which is incapable of digesting anything more complex than one single political party.
You cannot even imagine two,let alone more.You have no values or principles or values or beliefs when it comes to inclusive policies or social agendas.If you did you would not support the worst PM in the Labor parties history.You can lecture on any topic you want, but you don’t have the slightest streak of putting principles before party politics, and it has even reduced down from plural to singular, to rough enough id good enough.Your pro Gillard trolling makes my exposure of her litany of betrayals look like a single cell on an an endless spreadsheet. As for your Howard speech being your position on refugee intake.
Well need I say more?
Fail.
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Hypo, What’s with yelling FAIL at people when elsewhere you’re already conceding that the election will be lost, presumably to Abbott. If that ain’t a freakin’ fail then ‘scuse me for asking WTF is?
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Here we go again.
The fence is glowing red.
FAIL is when you shout the acclaim of a total failure of a PM and then lecture me because I have the temerity to put my principles first.
Those principles don’t change, even though the party who espouses them does.
I will take my vote to where the principles I hold dear have the best chance of being stood by supported and hopefully adopted.I will not do DQ and vote for a an empty shell who has trashed their own principle base.
So WTF off.
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Have it your way then if you don’t want to listen I can’t make you, but I would having talked either to or at you for some time like to explain on or two last things.
The position I have adopted aimed at resisting Abbott and his cohort as our new government after the next election has been a consistent one. I too have my principle and as such I may be closed to the view that this man and his party, who have been consistently to the right of even the most lacklustre Labor government, should ever be allowed to form government themselves by we the electorate.
You have not persuaded me away from that view partly because we’re discussing other matters, one of which appears to be a terrible all consuming distraction for you. You just want to get rid of Gillard so badly that you’re prioritising it more highly than the one thing I think should be the rationale for politics. Good government!
Granted I’ve defined good government as the lesser of tow evils in pragmatic terms and joined you in lamenting that sad state of affairs.
Granted you’re confused when I trying to use our conversations to figure out what the heck to do to stave off worse government try to keep an open mind to voting either for Labor, preferably under a better leader, or for the Greens because I think the influence of some of their left leaning policies is needed in parliament right now.
Of course I’m moving the goal posts, trying to navigate the situation in the way that best draws out a more principled approach. It’s a political landscape that shifts with changing circumstances, and I can’t be blamed for that. But if you think that the object of the game has changed, or you’re trying to twist my words into something that says I’m on the fence over what game I think it is then you my friend are either obtuse or disingenuous. It’s called keep Abbott and his mob out of the Lodge and I’ll thank you not to forget that again!
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and BTW WTF is with you being the 24/7 personal body shield for DQ?
Heckle and Jekyll or Jekyll and Hyde?
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I’m not shielding DQ. What I wrote was that he can speak for himself. Like you and I, we two disagree on a lot of things. Doug posted some thoughts I thought interesting enough to reply to, and I thought under the circumstances at least we could have some kind of discussion about them. If you’d less of a bee up or behind about Gillard then you might care to share in it, but it really is becoming a bit tiresome focussing ever political narrative around your one and only one misbegotten priority.
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Deceptive and Duplicitous. You pretend to Labor values all the while planning to install Abbott as PM.
For a while there you pretended to be trying to bring in St Kevin the Imaginary, whose beliefs and ideas you fondly wanted us to suppose were more in keeping with Labor values than the hated Julia.
All the time you actually want an Abbott government!
Nor do you actually read or comprehend what I write.
If you did comprehend it you would know that if we do not decide who comes here and the circumstances under which they come, who the fuck does?!?
It is a statement of the bleeding obvious, used by Howard certainly. And it struck a definite chord. But it i as I used it, it is directed to immigration and border protection issues.
We accept every single fucking refugee who turns up in Australia. We cannot do otherwise! Every single genuine refugee.
That is why we are so desperate to stop the “people smugglers” and to demonise them, because every single genuine fucking refugee must be accepted.
So put that into your tiny brain and try to comprehend just what I write and not what you imagine I write.
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To say Hypo is virtually supporting Abbott is veering towards putting words in his mouth that don’t rightly belong there. It’s more of a priority adjustment that is needed.
And when it comes to refugees I was very hopeful when Gillard raised the quota from 14,000 to 20,000 that a few of the worst longest occupied camps in Indonesia would be proactively cleared out. It appears I was wrong to hope for even that much.
I agree with you that we can’t take every single refugee in the world, but the reality is that not every single one is asking. There a number small enough for us to at least try and take more of without waiting for them to risk the sea route first before we act.
And nor will I allow the argument that we can’t take all of them to be used to do condone the low acts that Gillard has compromised in allowing and perpetuating. She is to be condemned and condemned harshly for this. It doesn’t make her an ornament to the game!
My problem is simply that Abbott and his brigade of tea-baggers are already complicit in having urged it, and having declared their hand with that disgraceful “stop the boats” slogan and practically ever utterance Morrison makes.
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You are basically a Gillard clone.No wonder you support her.
Seek help.
At least you stuck to one pseudonym this time to make a dork out of yourself.
You and your protective attitude are the surest thging to install Abbott as PM.
If anything ever happens to Howes,you’d be the obvious choice to replace him.You are as Labor as Howard is, with a verbal history to prove it.
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Come on HG, I expected better comprehension skills from you.
We are required by Australian law and by the Refugee Convention to accept all genuine refugees who present themselves to claim asylum.
If 200,000 turned up tomorrow, we would have to assess and process the applications, and if they were all found to be genuine, accept them as refugees.
If I am guilty of putting words into Hypo’s mouth, it is just a smidgin compared to the tonnage he tries to place in mine. 🙂
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Doug,
To your two points:
I was merely trying to point out in a balanced fashion that Gillard’s refugee policies are unnecessary because the numbers don’t justify the fears of the bigots she’s pandering to. Mistreating people we’re supposed to be helping in order to make a political point that shouldn’t even need to be made isn’t particularly excusable, and I don’t think we ought to try. It helps your case to recognise Gillard’s failure on this issue even while noting that the government is somewhat better than Abbott/Morrison on this and also better over a range of other policy portfolios.
Secondly my reading of the exchange offers a perspective from which it seems you are guilty of at least twisting something Hypo wrote. I know I’m often misinterpreted, you’ve do it in the past and Hypo has occasionally been as guilty as anyone. I try to do my best to correct the misapprehension without necessarily assuming my ability to have expressed myself more clearly in the first instance wasn’t beyond question. I could assume that you’re all just a bunch of shits for twisting my words, but then I’m either going to take a blind guess at your motives, commit the sin on thinking two wrongs make a right, or accept the fact that I’m dealing with people who aren’t worth having a productive discussion with. Maybe even all of the above. But none of them are apt to be persuasive arguments so I simply choose to reject them.
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To HG : Very balanced indeed. As always.
Atomou says you sit on the fence. Just be careful of Humpty Dumpty’s fate.
As for Labor’s refugee policy, and many other policies for that matter, I fear they are following the dictum which says that “if a government has almost exactly the same policies as the opposition, then the electorate will stick with the government”.
I am not sure that this is a useful approach any longer, if it ever was. It is essentially a “small target” strategy, designed to limit the possibility of attack on policy grounds.
The result is a media left to feed on itself, using whatever rumours, scuttlebut and innuendo it can find to flesh out the hundreds of pages it has to fill over the electoral cycle.
It also allows carping critics to claim that “they’re all the same” when the differences in behaviour, as opposed to rhetoric, could not be more stark. As I have tried to point out.
It is difficult to show just how an Abbott alternative government might behave, but that Howard is a mentor of Abbott’s and the Howard government is looked back upon with nostalgia by the Noalition leadership says volumes.
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I read the other day, or was it Bob that pointed out the article by a woman who theorised that Gillard’s unpopularity didn’t really exist it was more or less a narrative created out of biased media speculation. I have heard the same thing said about notions of Rudd’s unpopularity being spun to explain Gillard ousting him and the tensions that have existed ever since.
Interestingly while many will note that the right wing press aren’t just biased, but up Abbott so far that all you can see is shoelaces, I still don’t think that your characterisation of the Liberal party necessarily rings true. I think that the problem that they would have if Labor switched leaders now, to somebody who genuinely could challenge Abbott afresh, is that the popularly accepted pretender to the leadership is Turnbull but that the party have already failed once to unite behind him. The Liberal’s problem as I see it is that they have all their eggs in the Abbott basket and that he could by putting his foot in it, as is his wont, quite possibly come unstuck. That’s one of the reasons he’s been quiet, and clearly the best tactic Labor have is to force him to speak as much as they can.
I really think Carr or Shorten in particular are excellent at articulating their thoughts in front of the media and so much better than Abbott that they’d be the kinds of leaders I think would give him a real run for his money.
The advantage that Labor give up if they were to replace Gillard now, and not with a woman is the misogyny vote. I’m not quite so sure though that it matters given the degree to which Gillard truly now is damaged goods both by her own deeds which can’t be ignored and the fact that the right wing media have seized upon and magnified her failings in the eyes of the rabble Tony’s and Morrison have been dog whistling to.
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DQ I truly hope you are right. I despise that clown Abbott, he will bring a shit storm down on all of us should he be elected. Yes I am in the camp of any one but Abbott.
Even one term will be too much. We will be a laughing stock when they let this lot loose on the world stage. As much as I think it’s over, hope springs eternal. Keating was in the same shit hole this far out from an election and got returned. Who knows?
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He’s wrong.He’s peddling false hope, and such behaviour is the greatest danger we face in seeing off Abbott.If Australians want to get rid of Abbott they need to despatch Gillard first.
Anyone professing an ‘endorsement of Labors values’ needs to lobby hard their local Labor member and get it done.And speak out wherever they can.
Faux Labor placed themselves in this trap, but only real Labor can get them out.
If Gillard stays, Abbott will be our next PM.It’s as simple as that.
I hasten to add,it is probably too late to avoid a massive loss, but not too late to save a few stalwarts and future leaders.
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Bullshit. Don’t continue to pretend to Labor values Hypocrite…
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Is Labor possessed of a cohesive set of values that you are gatekeeper for, or can we try to be progressive on the one hand, strong supporters of the union movement on the other, advocates of egalitarianism and social justice one yet another hand, supporters of multicultural and indigenous rights, economically sound managers and above all out of hands several principles ago!
Balancing the tensions between these isn’t a matter of winning an argument its a matter of persuading a populace that we’ll continue to balance all these priorities without letting one winner simply ride off with the spoils as Abbott might.
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Well it is clearly a case of ignorance or misinterpretation, and the failure for the Gillard camp to allow their comprehension to step forward and grasp reality.
I do not (ever) see this faux Labor brand as the party who can deliver what you have outlined,either.In any parallel universe.In fact should they get in with the current layout, you can kiss those principles goodbye unless they deliver a political outcome which gives growth to the elitist power base of the controlling faction/s.
“Be progressive on the one hand”, Gillard ruled that out emphatically.I believe you heard and remember her words.The rest of the country does.
“strong supporters of the union movement on the other,”They are certainly that,even though the tiny% of workplace membership does not warrant Labor being a party purely for the elevation of unionists, which it now is.I don’t think any party who supports ‘any old’ union behaviour has my vote.
ICAC shows that unionists are willing to bed big business and appease them willingly.This is a betrayal of the workers, unions are supposed to represent.Therefore and is DUPLICITOUS and DECEPTIVE.
“advocates of egalitarianism and social justice one yet another hand,” This Labor has no chance of claiming that crown and everyone knows it.
“supporters of multicultural and indigenous rights”, Intervention,filure to progress clsing the gap,457 Visas,offshore processing,excising the mainland,rejection of Tamils and Hazaras to appease foreign governments.Case closed
“economically sound managers” Failed budget surplus,growing deficit through unsustainable spending and poorly designed taxes which exist because of a deal between a decptive and arrogant government and manipulative miners, who designed a tax they could dodge.
Carbon tax which neither compensates the bottom end uses sufficiently or indefinitely, while it compensates the top end in billions$, and delivers no environmental positives.
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This is on your cut and paste surely! I think it is an exaggerated account of the government that lacks a balancing perspective which would clearly show the only thing worse that faux Labor is the real Liberal party let out to play in their Tea Party regalia!
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No I wish it was on ‘my cut and paste’ because I am heartily sick of having a function transmitter, which is bouncing off faulty transmitters.
The points are valid.
What you hold up as major policy success, have been damaging flops,protected by a massive mining boom.
They have Gillards name all over them so when faux Labor gets ditched history will allocate the blame accordingly.As it should.
Her faceless buddies won’t take the wrap,despite their running of the top end of faux-Labor.
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EDIT
“functioning transmitter, which is bouncing off faulty receivers.”
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Of course not; don’t be absurd.
I doubt Abbott will ride anywhere except into the sunset. He has only a slightly better chance than Rudd of ever being Prime Minister.
But since he has that slight chance, it should be countered.
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Problem is Doug, you’re probably the only one in conversations here or elsewhere at the moment who thinks Abbott’s chances are that slight 😦
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We shall see what we shall see.
Abbott has defended paedophiles and those who have covered up for paedophiles – Hollingworth for example – and it seems to me that there must be an honest journalist or two out there somewhere who is prepared to call him to account,
A closet homophobe, a defender of paedophiles and an outed misogynist.
Do you want him for Prime Minister, dear reader?
,
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Around and around and around we go. Our indefatigable Hypo cannot point to one single criteria upon which he prefers Abbott’s Noalition, yet he is prepared to advocate the destruction of the Labor government because it is not Labor enough.
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There ‘is’ no Labor govt to destroy, idiot.
Thats the whole point.kit and caboodle.And there is only one of me.So why are you soiling your nappies worrying, about my take on this??
Could it just be that faux Labor is on too many noses for you to admit it, and that because of them(faux labor)Abbott has a better chance than he deserves?
Don’t bother answering DQ, because every single indication based on fact and logic says you are wrong.You have officially outgrown the pond.
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Single: criterion; plural: criteria.
“It is difficult to show just how an Abbott alternative government might behave…”
Abbott will behave just like Gillard is behaving now: as a good reason to elect Labor, three years hence, provided Labor has purged itself of the putrid poisons it has swallowed and divested itself of the destructive relationships it has nourished with the underworld. Otherwise, three years hence Labor will finally receive its cremation ceremony. It will be a very small affair with barely a handful of people attending and those who will be there, will not be pissing on the flames to put them off.
The rest of the population will be celebrating the emergence of a new party, one which has values intimately connected with honour and decency, and which it shall promote well ahead of pragmatism and power. That new party might be called The Greens or some other name but it will be one whose vision will not be churning the past iniquities but the future hopes.
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Thankyou, Ato, for parting the clouds’.
It is amazing how low some people set their political standards.
Communicating here about what the country has to lose with two tea parties, is like herding cats.
And the Gumby like naivety of anyone who has such a fervent imagination, that they could ‘dream’ that Labor will reform later, if we reinstall Gillard is the stuff of snake oil pyramid schemes.
It’s as though they think she is actually calling the shots.
That she would do anything to go against the invisible home grown forces of Labors own demise.
The record of the conversation here clearly shows who the real voices who are against reform, and who are for Labors demise.The least of their problem is an egg faced back-down, or a chorus of ‘I told you so’s’.
That is the bit that is hard to fathom.
Perhaps they are practising comedy writers?
I sure hope not.The funny bit keeps avoiding me.
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I’ve been following this arm wrestle (the posh use the french term “bras de fer”) for a long time now and I can’t believe that it got to this ridiculous point of moan and groan (the posh use the greek term μαλακίες).
It has become an argument of only two choices: Either you vote for Gillard or you vote for Abbott. I thought that the troglodytes who think in these simplistic terms have all died a couple of centuries ago; or at least, all joined one of the two major parties and are protected in their straw fortresses.
But no, time and agin we hear, “who you gonna vote for, Labor of Liberal?” Moan and groan stuff!
Nor do they ask why you’re voting the way you are. The future does not compute. Not within radar range. Bad mobile reception.
I gave up responding, Hypo and I suggest, if you want to keep your liver intact, take up other issues. This one is sitting on a merry-go-round’s fence.
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They’d make shit chess players.
One Pyrrhic victory and they’d be standing on an aircraft carrier, all flags and leather jackets shouting, “the war is over!” as the enemy is poking holes in its hull.
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You’re probably right.
Scary to think that such minds might be in a position to influence people or policy.
Let’s hope not.
It is the smallest of icebergs to argue that you believe in a progressive society, and yet there is only one viable option.The option which is controlled and subservient to the exact opposite of the glossy brochure.
I guess I was just casting pearls before swine the whole time.
One way to ensure a ‘pig on spit’ I suppose,if your that way inclined.
Although I think the crackling may be impenetrable.
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If you think that these two are impenetrable, trying telling the billion and a half christians and the other billion and a half muslims that there is no god!
I try telling my mother that and, despite her enormous intelligence, I cop the old, “don’t speak ill of god!”
I tried to understand this human phenomenon all my life. Icebergs and granite monoliths all round!
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There is no god, but then someone once said that without god there’d be no atheists so where would that leave us I wonder?
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Don’t know, but I’d like to go there to find out.
Imagine there’s no heaven
It’s easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people living for today
Imagine there’s no countries
It isn’t hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people living life in peace
You, you may say
I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one
I hope some day you’ll join us
And the world will be as one
Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people sharing all the world
You, you may say
I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one
I hope some day you’ll join us
And the world will live as one
Lennon
No heaven, no hell, no religion.
No countries, no possessions.
What would we argue about then?
A rhetorical question I posed myself, but I am sure we’d find something, as the Lilliputians did in Gullivers Travels :
which end of the boiled egg do you crack, are you a little ender or a big ender?
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Arguing over irrelevancies! Isn’t that what football teams are there for?
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Why don’t we start with the one choice we don’t want and work backwards from there, because if you’re going to say it’s Labor and you don’t expect that means letting the Liberals get in then you know what you’re full of in Greek or any other language.
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Your one choice has two heads.
Your argument therefore has no legs.
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Ah, but your response has no spine so we’re even!
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“At this point the Gillard government is almost certainly not re-electable. But for the prime minister to turn her back on the progressive and social democratic tradition of her party out of fear of attacks on class warfare leaves the Greens as the only defenders of what used to be the raison d’etre of the Labor party: to protect the weakest and most vulnerable members of our society.”
Professor Dennis Altman
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Altman for those who may not have heard of him has been a prominent gay rights activist who although I’d barely heard of him did write this rather interesting piece I was directed to a while back by somebody who thought I was being to strident in support of gay marriage out of straight middle class angst or some such thing…
http://www.australianmarriageequality.com/wp/2011/02/02/same-sex-marriage-just-a-sop-to-convention/
Granted that he talks himself around by the time he concludes, the idea that same sex marriage, or any marriage for that matter, is a sop to convention doesn’t preclude a bad convention from limiting people’s choices in ways that at times like these can be quite thoroughly insulting. There is then a subtle yet detectable sense in which which anyone who argues against same sex marriage on the basis that marriage itself might be dubious has themselves missed the point.
So in this article to which Hypo undoubtedly refers, there is also the problem once again that one can miss the point Altman is trying to make against those who seem committed to the notion that Australia is anything but the egalitarian society progressives like to think it might be, and that class warfare is therefore an ever present reality.
http://www.latrobe.edu.au/news/articles/2013/opinion/what-class-war
In another way of interpreting those principles it might become clear to some that given an ideology that assumes a classless society there can be no class warfare. Or at least that you’re not going to struggle assiduously to avoid someone else’s ideological bogey man that you don’t believe in.
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This is the Labor your old mate Gillard leads under unions and the likes of Howes and this turkey.(Sheldon)As we know Gillards gob shite is a blow in too.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-04-03/hypocrite-sheldon-defends-twu-workers-on-457-visas/4607126
For all the bleating here about good government,fairness and raiding superannuation the truth is finally filtering through.Faux Labor and everyone who supports them here and elsewhere are either brain dead drones or hypocrites.
Expect a lot more of this rank hypocrisy to be exposed.
What does Gillard say?
“My job as Prime Minister is to make sure that Australians – Australian citizens – have their job opportunities put first,” she said.
What a total fucking failure and hypocrite she is.
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http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/political-news/abbott-to-shoot-messenger-on-climate-20130403-2h776.html
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I have become interested in the discussion about 457 visas occurring elsewhere and thought to bring it to this, the appropriate page in which to comment.
Let’s start with a rough definition or description of the visa in question from Wikipedia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/457_visa
What I wondered is the criticism of this visa that is really pertinent to arguments that seem to unanimously criticise the government and unions for the stances they’ve taken in relation to their use.
The argument as I understand it is a fairly simple one. It usually goes “They come over here stealing our jobs….” etc. There’s an economic component relating to the perception that employers are exploiting sources of cheap labour, and a humanitarian argument that goes hand in hand with that.
It would possibly be worthwhile to contrast those arguments with the national conversation we’ve been having about refugees because there are some parallels and some distinct differences.
The obvious parallel would be that bigots will also argue “They come over here stealing our jobs”, etc.
The two obvious differences are that their employment prospects are otherwise never discussed, supposedly because they’re immigration status relates purely to a set of humanitarian criteria. Yet their human rights are wantonly violated when they’re sent to internment camps designed to dissuade others from coming.
Clearly this is very screwed up!
I seems impossible to properly reconcile the various and internally contradictory provisions and criticisms we have of 457 visas with the way that we treat the best and worst of our other migrants.
I have no problem with migration or with immigration. I think people should be freer to move around more in general and that Australia could afford to develop more if only we could get together and coordinate it properly.
The elephant in the room is in this country is often racism due to the way it influences who we’re inclined to welcome and who we feel entitled to merely exploit. Criticism is overdue I think for our attitude to education and training in this country that has lead to skill shortages and industrial relations practices that have lead to an odd set of circumstances whereby nobody seems willing to train anyone locally to fill those gaps in our national skill set.
In a more mature conversation we would come to understand that 457 visas can be a good thing at times and a bloody shame at others, but that like many things the judgement we make about whether some cases are more acceptable than others isn’t necessarily best moderated through some kind of legalistic codification or bureaucratic policy mechanism that somebody else can arbitrate for us. Just as we already know that it seems absolutely impossible for any government to get the public service to process asylum claims efficiently.
We live so it seems in a world where Pommie waiters and Japanese Sushi Chefs stand a better chance of being accepted by Australians than Afghans with higher academic qualifications. But also where being poor and willing to do a hard day’s physical work may be perceived as the kind of threat so dire as to inspire real ugliness towards such people.
And now I suppose I’m to be told who the convenient scapegoats for all that are!
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And you could also ask yourself why the same white South Africans who profited from Apartheid,it’s slavery and the proceeds from stolen land,etc, are allowed to favour the huge amount of white South African immigrants taking up residence here.
Some people would say they pretty much exemplify main stream Australians.
How scary is that?
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It sounds scary and I even know a few South African migrants. But although I have seen it mentioned before I really don’t know whether there’s the kind of evidence that convinces me that this might not be overstated.
There are also a certain number of Chinese immigrants coming in with a certain amount of money and building nice homes for themselves in the suburbs. Are we going to make a categorical generalisation about them as well?
Of the South Africans I know most are regretful about the past but not hopeful for the future of the place. To me they show what happens where people are mislead by racist attitudes in a way that allows a smaller group at the head of their elite group to profit out of all proportion to any sense of social justice. That is to say something I think could have happened here and perhaps did to a lesser extent but not I think something that is likely to significantly recur or somehow take hold anew in the future. I think we’re probably too multicultural for there not to be significant push back against racism on a domestic level as opposed to xenophobia within a sort of white enclave view of the country when it comes to migration.
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The challenge for the Gillard supporters is to explain here what steps her office took to eliminate a local consultant being available for her advisers position which as we know is a 457 visa position.
Where did she seek a suitable local applicant,if at all.And seeing as the unions are Gillards masters and installed her we need to know the same thing about the TWU, who as late as last week criticised the rorting of 457s and yet it turns out they have at least 3 employees in senior roles.
Now this becomes Gillards supporter’s problems simply because she chooses not to see the rank hypocrisy.
If the very unions who claim to be all for Aussies and getting them a job we need a clear explanation as to exactly how their own union movement or the local talent pool could not find a suitable local.
I smell a rat until otherwise explained away.
This ought to bite Gillards arse off and I hope it does.
For the record I have no problem with 457 applicants for genuine needs.
But I doubt we need a pittance of the ones we have, and training would suffice in most roles.
I believe Labor and unions have exploited this as much as anyone else has, and that makes them fair game to any subsequent facts which may come trickling through.
The biggest problem I have with Labor on this is that they have been in long enough to know and address the rorts by employers and did sweet FA.And to further their woes it seems like they are a part of the problem.
Feigning concern for workers is a crock coming from this lot.
Feigning concern for the 457 visa workers amidst Labor recently playing the race card is an even greater stretch.
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WGAF? or your favourite, DILLIGAF.
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I don’t expect you to do what Gillard cannot.Excuse her bullshit campaign based on racist attacks via 457 visas,which she and the unions have exploited, and now they have been busted comprehensively.
I have no idea what sort of fluffer you are,DQ, but I doubt you take money for doing it.
Just permission to hang around the set, and drench the floor with drool.That’s you.
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On your own characterisation in the words “I have no problem with 457 applicants for genuine needs”, then wouldn’t it be true to say no hypocrisy would exist given that genuine need could be found to exist in the right places and not in others?
I think we can also argue that if spin would allow us to call a 457 visa a loophole that some exploit rather than a flexibility we’re right to exercise when necessary, then possibly what we’re really having trouble with are exceptions being made somewhat arbitrarily given our inclination to distrust those who’re making the relevant judgement calls.
In other words its another case where our ideological bent might favour training our own until we realise we might just prefer to allow trainers with the requisite knowledge and experience to come from overseas to perform that task. And once we accept that examples exist where exemptions have to be made then whether we like it or not we’re probably going either to have to trust or negotiate in the process of making those decisions.
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As I said to Hypo, WGAF. It is storm in a teacup no. 325 (or thereabouts).
Fine tuning is always needed to reduce the misuse of any scheme. The issue is surely not one staffer here or there but hundreds of workers brought in where they are used to undermine the wages and conditions of local workers.
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A year ago Gillard was helping Gina do just that.
http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2012/s3511601.htm
You’re defending a failed PM who is an opportunistic liar who implements coalition policy.You will like Mr Howes feigned outrage.He would have been sitting and the table when the deal was done,He probably hasn’t washed his fat littly pig trotter since Gina smeared hers across his.
Hypocrite Gillard of the highest order.Politically delivering to whoever it takes whenever it is required.The woman is more Tea Party than Abbott and more Howard than Howard.
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EDIT
A year ago Gillard was helping Gina do just that = “hundreds of workers brought in where they are used to undermine the wages and conditions of local workers”
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So you say. and so you always say. If you changed the tune occasionally, it might be worth reading your comments again.
I am very close to deciding to ignore you completely.
And recommending that others do the same.
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O, matey! What a scarifying threat! I can just see Hypo’s boots from here, spinning round and round in terror!
DQ, you may recommend that others come and keep you company in your dank hole of ignorance but -really, recommend that others ignore someone else’s opinions? A year or two of maturity wouldn’t go astray, I reckon!
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Hypo, I think he’s gonna give you a PG rating! Look out!
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Yep I’m shitting bricks.
This denial is his MO.Under each of his hundreds of pseudos.Whenever challenged to justify hypocrisy,betrayal or right wing faux Labors behaviour, he does the rant,the dummy spit,the wriggle, the shimmy, the anything but answer.
When the list of his beloved teams 457s is laid out, he will park hid head in the usual hole.
I suspect he ‘is’ Graham Richardson on ‘roids.
Or Howard on Xanax.
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Abbott on a bike downhill wards?
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You have a good point.
DQ is manic to the point of being a religious zealot when it comes to applying his oral enema kissing method in the defence of all things Gillard and faux Labor.
Plus he believes in miracles.
He thinks Julia can turn his whine into watershed.
The sad truth is he will end up turning himself into a pillock of salt in the process.
The first the thing Captain China will ask our Duplicitous Dopple Rangar is, “Where’s Kev?”
I bet he recognises her Chinese made glasses.
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The most excruciating interview on 7.30 report of Ken Lay. This interviewer is a miserable impostor! Total jerk!
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Yeah, you’re right of course Doug goes about wearing rose coloured glasses when it comes to pour esteemed PM. But even though I know this isn’t always a sound kind of argument, I just can’t help thinking that wearing rose ones has to be a lot more pleasant than wearing the shit coloured ones you’re sporting.
Try not to shoot the messenger when I say that in an argument between the glass being half full or half empty maybe sometimes we have to stand back and be thankful for something to drink.
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Ah! I can see the problem you’re having with your vision, Hudso: You’re wearing drinking glasses instead of specs and you’re drinking with your specs instead of your drinking glasses.
Got it, now!
Either that or you’re turning metaphors inside out for some reason.
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Well if metaphors about glasses are becoming metaphors about vision then all that remains is for me to say that there are none so blind as those who will not see.
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I’ve answered you already, if you cared to read what I wrote.
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And who asked for your opinion, music lover?
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To HG
Maybe .Abbott looks like shit in budgie smugglers,Gillard looks like shit in fake glasses.
However DQ,yourself and others wear a reverse monocle.
Made from a single side of binoculars,and worn backwards.
The only advantage being it makes the obvious seem far away, for timid political bunnies..
Tell you what I’ll do.if the AWU’s pseudo-PM brings home a deal to free Tibet I’ll swallow this Gillard is of the left twaddle, you apologists are peddling.
PS
I am still to hear one single solitary excuse,with any tangible reason why the unions should not be run out of town based on their race hate 457 scam and subsequent abuse by ignorance, of the local workforce.
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This one refuses to post on Bob’s Blog, so it’ll have to go here.
(An explanation: Wayne Swan calls Abbott, Hockey and Robb the Three Stooges)
The Mo Diaries (cont.)
Mo : (muffled) How much longer do I have to stay gagged and tied to this chair?
Larry : It’s working Tony! You’re up in the polls and ahead of Julia!
Mo : But I want to ferociously oppose and Stop the Boats Stop the Waste Stop the Tax
Stop the Boats . . .
Larry : (hmmm, might have to increase the medication soon)
Curly : What are you two muttering about? I’m trying to figure out how we can cut Labor’s
taxes, spend a motza and still balance the books.
Mo : Don’t you worry about that, Lord Rupert promised me he get that erased from the
records and brushed under the carpet.
Larry : You and Rupert seem very friendly lately.
Mo : Yeah, I do what I’m told and Rupert is friendly. The only time it is tricky is when
Rupert and the Cardinal disagree, then I’m stuck.
Larry : Speaking of stuck, how are the policies going?
Mo : Stop the Boats Stop the Waste Stop the Tax Stop the Boats . . .
Larry : But didn’t the Cardinal tell you those slogans aren’t policies?
Mo : He doesn’t really care as long as I sabotage the Royal Commission and bury the
findings when I get in.
Larry : Shush! Curly’s listening and he sometimes has attacks of . . . conscience.
Curly : If only the government wasn’t going so well with the economy.
Larry : Just stick to the Big Lie – Rupert’s got it to stick.
Curly : “That this is an incompetent government” ? But it’s all totally against the
evidence!
Mo : Just keep spouting it. There’s no problem for me, it’s not a lie if I keep my fingers
crossed. And all Rupert wants is to ensure his monopolies are ok , err umm, I
mean all kept open for free enterprise.
Curly : (what a pair of arsesholes)
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The frigging format is different in the Reply Box! Grrr
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Yeah Doug, lay off the Stooges, some things is still sacred youse know!
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Or sacrilegious! Or sacrosanctless?
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Fancy denigrating the Three Stooges!
“Why I oughtta!”
Can you do a skit for Gillard too?
The Black Knight one is wearing thin.
She can be Lucille Ball, and the economy can be her bosses nephew.
The haircut she gives him is the budget.
Nyuck,nyuck,nyuck!
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DANGER! DANGER! DANGER! RED ALER! RED ALERT! RED AND CRIMSON ALERT!
EMERGENCY! EMERGENCY! EMERGENCY!
We are being invaded by hordes and hordes and hordes of terrorists, I repeat TERRORISTS! HORDES OF THEM!
Labor party policy on our darling nation’s security has failed, I repeat FAILED!
We must start a war against these hordes of terrorists! We must bring back Howard to help us stop the boats and boats and boats of hordes and hordes of terrorist invaders!
Please call Scott Morrison and inform him of any terrorist under your bed!
Either that or just tell him to pull his empty head in!
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The boats will all take that same route now.
I hope the navy turns itself inside out chasing them 24/7.Imagine what climate refugees and the post Syria,post Afghanistan withdrawal avalanche will look like.
Off shore processing is working like a treat isn’t it.
How on earth can we simultaneously be a part of the UN,and on the security council, and yet treat all boat arrivals as criminals?
I get the impression if the boat had come from China, Julia would personally have greeted them and given them a job on the front bench.
This faux Labor experiment is doomed.
I note Abbott couldn’t help himself.Over the top crap,yet again.All he has to do is shut up for 5 minutes and leave the dog whistle alone.But alas it’s beyond him.
Morrison is just a dickhead with a heavy metal liver.
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Why can’t Australia stop immigration altogether, and instead take in much larger numbers of asylum seekers, boat people, refugees or whatever group these most desperate people belong in.
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Because we are rife with racist attitudes and both tea parties play to that same tune.
Of all the parties in Australia the Greens are the only one who come close to what you propose.
In fact such is our xenophobia, as unleashed by Hanson,amplified by Howard and distilled by both Gillard and Abbott, there are now more right wing pseudo One Nation parties establishing, as we speak.
What that means is they will draw even more votes to the right, which will make bothe tea parties dog whistle louder, and lurch further to the right.
The over-population on the planet and the rightful desire of developing countries to improve their lot, will sort this out in a way where xenophobia will be seen as what it is.A futile concept which doesn’t feed,water,house or protect the instigator.You can’t eat hate.
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The answer would have at least in part to be that if people aren’t employable then the extent of our willingness to bear the economic cost at least needs to be recognised.
You can counter that not all migrants today are employable, many may be family reunions etc. You can argue that not all refugees are unemployable, but we generally don’t because that’s not a distinction that humanitarian aid makes. You can even argue the some use of 457 visas is little more than blatant exploitation. And so back and forth the arguments go until someone recognises that these are complex questions and that what is required are really simple assurances.
We need to be managing a process to our mutual benefit and not just going overboard for either the extreme right wing ideal that seems to almost want to torture brown people who arrive in boats but never Pommie backpackers, or the ideology of some on the left which knows what the heart wants but has no idea how to practicably manage it.
I think we can make a good argument for continuing migration, and for setting a higher number alongside the humanitarian column. I wish to brook no compromise towards racist politics whatsoever and implore or politicians to unilaterally do likewise. But I also see that to do things properly one has to be willing to properly manage and resource our humanitarian program in a way that we can better provide for if we’re able to budget for it.
The counterpart to the argument as I see it isn’t even the moral imperative to help one’s fellow man. Its a combination of the fact that we’re dealing with limited numbers in our own region, and wasting so much money on vile deterrents that don’t work. What we could have done was what Fraser did back in the 80’s which was to help out and shut up about it.
If you take Fraser’s route then humanitarian ideology is better served even if a certain amount of racism in the community isn’t directly rebuked. More importantly though I think a greater slice of the humanitarian task gets done.
If you look at the current situation and continue to butt heads with the Morrison’s and Abbott’s and their right leaning counterparts within Labor, Gillard included, then the best you can hope for is a compromise solution that will inevitably be worse than the one I’ve suggested.
Yes Hypo is right. I’d go further. They, our politicians, are obsessed with the idea that they ought to be in control of things like borders, hence the language they use. When they’re not in opposition and dog-whistling they’re in government and quaking in their boots that a xenophobic element in parts of formerly Hansonite Queensland and Western Sydney will hold them accountable for failing to do the impossible. They’re in flagrant violation of a UN human rights agreement that is seen by many to be dangerously open ended.
We need to balance those conflicted ideas with the moral imperative to have a humanitarian program better than what we’ve had in the past, but we won’t do it by simply winning an online argument and expecting “them” to act as we see fit. We may need at some point to elect for the moral value that obtains from taking the smaller incremental steps along the road to better outcomes.
I’ll leave you for the moment with this.
http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/political-news/i-couldnt-believe-it-bob-carr-recalls-margaret-thatchers-unabashedly-racist-comment-about-australia-20130410-2hksz.html
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It was probably her racism which dealt her three PM terms and her Dame hood.
She had the right amount of arrogance and narcissism to accompany her hate for workers and lust for a slice of the royal side of life.
And chances are,unless Labor veers to the left again, a future conservative govt is likely to inflict mega pain on the upper echelons of unionism,by way of a deep probing enquiry..And looking at NSW, it might be a good thing.Like ants under a Tory magnifying glass.Ouch!
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Labor will always seem like it’s veering to the left as the centre moves to the right. If you’re into walking against the wind great, but this is like taking two backward steps in order to take one forward. We’re just be reclaiming lost territory, and that’s hardly what I call progress when I find myself having to argue for the nobility of Liberal position from 30 years ago.
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I believe both Abbott and Gillard are driven by fact that most Australians do NOT want more boat people; they both adopt policies that are popular to the masses, scratch average Aussie and you will find another Alan Jones: they are taking our jobs and houses, and they will rape our women.( and most of them are coloured)
I have read enough comments on the Drum (many times), and found out that the hatred towards boat people is beyond all reason. God only knows what the bloggers are saying the Bolt Blog.
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In that case Helvi I might hope to be considered above average, but would be happy to be below average, just as long as I’m not mentioned in the same breath as Jones.
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Huds, you are exceptional by anyone’s estimation in any country…I’m ranting against those lazy bastards who look up to Alan and co for guidance, and before that to Pauline….
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Blessed are the people who walk against the wind for they are the hero messiahs of my creation!
Zeus. Apocalypse 4.3a
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One mans walking against the wind, is another mans strategic tacking.It may take longer,but we will eventually get there.That’s sailing!
Me.
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By Zeus you could be right!
Since I mentioned Fraser Somewhere back there, and we’re talking about walking against the wind, that close relative of pushing you know what uphill with a pointy stick while navigating a sewer in a barbed wire canoe….
Fraser himself was at pains to point out at the time the full quote from Shaw was “Life is not meant to be easy, my child; but take courage: it can be delightful.” Obviously a far more positive sentiment in that context.
However in the context of the time a short poem was coined by whom I know not….
As we struggle through life’s journey
With the weight of the world on our backs
You said Life wasn’t meant to be easy Mal
But did you have to keep greasing the tracks!
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What an unhappy place:
Not one iota of concern about those people having spent 6 weeks on a very dangerous journey. All about the danger of an exposed coast and lack of ‘border control’. What an arsehole of a country we have become.
Those gloating Geraldton fishermen being interviewed as if they had just saved Australia from a certain nuclear Armageddon. And than that abominable radiant face of Morrison pumping up the xenophobia without any thought of the people involved but just trying to extract a few extra votes.
I hope that one day a rickety boat of Australians will reach a Japanese shore and can’t wait for them to be then flown to some dreadful out- post 1800 miles north west of Wladiwostok and let to rot.
We have really earned that fate.
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Quite astonished at the attitude of a young local woman on teev news; you’d have thought Dunkirk had just been averted.
Puzzled at why the ABC news had this of all things on immediately after the PM’s apparently successful China visit, but..
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Exactly Paul, I thought the same, my respect for our ABC is disappearing.
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Helvi,
You should reserve you respect till it is earned.ABC included.
But did it occur to you that a crucial part of journalism is showing and telling us stuff we don’t want to know?
For example, (PW’s) if the ABC shows a ‘local young woman’ exemplifying red neck xenophobic attitudes from WA, maybe that is what WA is really like?
Should they suppress what you don’t want to see?
Or put on the record what some people really believe?
Never under estimate how low and opportunistic politics dips down to.
If you witnessed a normal conversation in a mining construction camp in WA at any smoko, you’d book the first flight back to Europe.
And correct me if I am wrong.Aren’t racist thugs making their mark on public transport on the East coast?
The weird thing is that Bogan racist attitudes are railing against ‘boat people’, and yet the states pollies have increased costs of living so much, that the locals energy would be better spent attacking their real enemy.
ergo-Barnetts anti environment, pro business, reactive police state idiots.
WA is QLD destruction on steroids.
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If its just about respect. We should as a kindness extend respect towards others until they dishonour it.
We used to have for Aunty somewhere back in the mists of time, but some occasionally feel they may have lost it. If we’re honest it ebbs and flows as it must now that they have “balance”!
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No, I disagree. The press and media feed out this stuff over and over again, highlight till it becomes part of the public’s psyche.
There were a dozen ways to tell the story- why the one that suggests an average
Aussie would see the thing as something equal in gravity to the fall of Singapore,1942 ?
If too many people think of this stuff in terms of “border protection”, this species of news reporting is a major contributing factor and sets the stage for the thing to be regarded in future as “border security” when that’s only one of several factors that have to be considered
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Have to disagree PW.
As you know by now even Labor is hostage to the ‘border protection’ scam, and sucks its teat voraciously.
It is disappointing that there are racists out there ready to go on air to confirm it. But there you go.Once upon of time we would cringe,now we barrack.The validation is purely political in origin.
The ABC is just leading the horse to the water.
How come we here can choose not to drink?And others can’t?
The media (mainly aimed at the MSM) blame game is the easy way out.
As for the ABC picking a slant on the refugee thing, when I first came to this blog I almost got turfed out because I was told to stop railing against aunty..
Since that time their perceived bias has actually diminished.(I think they are way more balanced in news and current affairs now than they were 12 months ago) I wonder what took the regulars here so long to catch on?
I think Uhlmann is far less angry now,than he was then.
And now that the ABC is back closer to the middle, it is copping flack mainly from the Gillard camp.(As of course is the MSM)
There is so much non MSM media out there I reckon this ‘MSM brainwashing crap” is the coldest fish on the BBQ.It’s a handy myth for one eyed zealots who can see the writing on the wall.
What goes around comes around.Over at the Drum I popped in to read Mungos last few speils to see his very own fan club rounding up a lynch mob to string him up because he dared question Labors behaviour.A big heap of them also blaming aunty for being a puppet of the right.
Weird mob indeed.
Maybe Mungo should award his deserting rats the;
Flying Fickle Finger of Fate
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Sorry, I was talking about the way it was reported and how this contributes to the problem of public perceptions.
This sort of reportage guarantees a coat-hanger for news construction and serialisation of events, which is lazy reportage, oblivious to the need for the public to have facts and gain a proper perception of what is involved in a particular subject, but easy for media and press, particularly when they are under pressure to peddle a right wing agenda with an election due.
For reminding us of this, Fairfax journo Peter Manning was sacked a day or two ago.
So, government is hamstrung as to action and refugees keep drowning because the media turn the public against refugees and efforts to ameliorate conditions for refugees become impossible due to the possibility of loss of government, which would involve the loss of equally valuable policies impacting also on peoples lives, that also need implementation.
Others will grasp my meaning, eg the press and media contributes to the mess when it could alleviate it for (poor) reasons of their own, even if you persist in missing the point in your pursuit of your personal scapegoats, regardless of the fairness or accuracy of this.
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“Manning was sacked a day or two ago.
So, government is hamstrung as to action and refugees keep drowning because the media turn the public against refugees”
If faux Labor have lost the ability to either put forward another message, or differentiate themselves from the other mob, then they should be thrown out.
At the point when faux Labor embraced offshore processing, they lost all their credibility.And since then they have done even worse and more inhumane things.It is ridiculous insanity to have our own country’s legal status, our existence removed from a ‘list’ where refugees may claim asylum.
Why the fuck did the media not run like a banshee with that fact,if they are so anti Labor?
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Excellent question, Hypo. My suggestion is that this is because, as Labor has become “Faux Labor” so has the Mega Media. In fact, damned near every social institution has become “faux”; bastardised by faux Capitalism. We now have, faux Mega Food, faux Mega Shelter, faux Mega Charity, Faux Mega People…
Everything is fucked!
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OM?
You have hydra-faux-bia.
Your faux-ming at the mouth!
Are you friend or faux?
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Nah, just a fauked off fauking fauter!
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Yes..anti Labor. Glad this has finally got through even your thick, obstinate head.
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Then genius, prove the MSM are anti Labor by answering the question, or be condemned as being a supporter of xenophobia.
The mSM gave Gillard a hard time at the begginning and she has had a fucking clear run since.
The only crap tripping her up is hers and her red neck right wing union run Labor impersonation team.
You dare to call unionists careerists, and yet defend the product they delivered undemocratically.
You couldn’t be as dumb as you sound.And BTW you began the slanging with ‘thick’.
Have a nice day,loyal Gillardist.
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“What an arsehole of a country we have become.”
To which I’d agree.And I would add, show me a party who is not making political mileage out of refugees.
And then vote for them.
That my friend is called conscience.
Principle.
Welcome to my world.
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Become? That suggests that things were once different.
The interested reader might like to look at the figures published on
http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SM.POP.REFG?page=1
I puzzled over Australia’s figures of around 60,000 refugees from 1993 to 2006, then the figures of around 20,000 from 2007 to 2012. The figures are UNHCR, year in and year out.
It does not make much sense to me.
Can it be we have been arguing about nothing much at all for several years?
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No.It just suggests that we (long term residents) are becoming more racist as we (Australia) become more multicultural.
As Gerard and Helvi point out.
When you say,” have we been arguing about nothing much at all for several years?”
The answer is yes.But as I keep pointing out, you can thank BOTH tea parties for that.With faux Labor being the latest convert.And a willing one at that.The union arse-wipes, like Howes, Arbib (and a cowering compliant) Emerson, have turned their red neck bullying racist workplace crib room hate gossip into Labor policy.
The rest is history.
Like I said (hinted at) a bit earlier, the reality is while Julia is kissing Beijing arse, she’d readily turn their peasant carrying refugee boats around as quick as a wink if it meant gaining a single vote.At any time Labor could have stood up and held the moral high ground on refugees.They chose xenophobia, and as you point out DQ, the evidence was all there and yet they said “fuck this,let’s exploit Hansonism”.
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This misuse of the term “unionist” to describe people like Howes and Arbib etc, is a disturbing feature of current debates. They are not unionists, they are careerists.
A unionist is someone like Jack Mundey, or Dougie Cameron before he got cynical and eventually digested by the system. The Ultimate unionist was of course Joe Hill, whose story was told by people like Paul Robeson, Pete Seeger and Joan Baez.
True unionists are people like those depicted in the film “Norma Rae”; people like my mum, who joined a union in a hostile shop, expecting to be sacked for it but weary of employer intimidation.
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Actually he is an opportunistic arsehole.But he is also
“Paul Howes (born 23 August 1981) is the National Secretary of The Australian Workers’ Union”
I really don’t care what the label is.It is the union members whose cash feeds and protects him by way of lawyers, while they suffer the policies he gets implemented behind closed doors with big business and the workers other foes.
The sooner the unions are rid of the unethical,illegal immoral element the better.
I have many reasons to praise the workings of unions in my lifetime, but until they get rid of this cancer, they carry reputation by association.And that is no good for us or the real values of the ALP>
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Here’s an interesting bunch of information: http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/noplaceforsheep.com#
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It’s an outrage.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-04-12/packet-cake-mix-in-competitions-receives-flat-reception/4626416?section=wa
Somebody nuke QLD.
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Hell hath no fury like a Simon scorned.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-04-13/crean-savages-own-party-in-scathing-newspaper-interview/4627066
Leadership!
Leadership!
Leadership!
Leadership!
Leadership!
I can smell Howes gunpowder,from here.
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“He (Crean) gave examples where the government had fomented resentment, pitting the wealthy against workers, and foreign workers against local workers.”
http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/political-news/crean-reopens-labor-wounds-20130412-2hrbh.html
Not that I trust Hartcher to report the truth but in this case he couldn’t be too distant from it.
They’ll be playing the ding dong song at her demise and they’ll be playing it even louder, seeing she’s got a tin ear.
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Morning Ato.
Time to watch this weekends worshipper whiplash.
Prepare for the onlslaught.
When Simo was bagging Rudd not son long ago,he was a legend- a stalwart-an elder.Now he has continued to go after that right wing AWU Trojan Horse Gillard, the resident Gillardists will flag him as a traitor of the lowest kind.
There are none so blind.
Oh no, Simon votes for Abbott!
Leadership!
Leadership!
Leadership!
Leadership!
Leadership!
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Morning, Hypo! Yes, I am hanging (my tongue) out, waiting for the endless theatre! The ancient Greeks had three forms of it: Tragedy, Comedy and, something in between, Satyr Plays, only one of which is extant, something by Euripides called Cyclops. The ALP is, I content, one such Satyr play. Full of Satyrs, trying to shove their extended phalloi into each other, the play turning minute into a tragedy and the next into a comedy, each character reading it according to where his phallos ends up!
Long “knives” looking for a soft entry point!
It should be fun!
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And, a Catholic High school in Alaska(!) has staged my translation of Sophocles’ Elektra. Guess what their set consisted of? Huge crosses and crucifixions, and icons of Jeezas and his holy mum!
It’s pretty much what this set of bastards have done to the original ALP. The name is still there but the stage is clogged with enemy imagery!
It’s a new era, old son! A new, ever putrefying era. A new era of political decadence.
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Is that first part true Atomou?
Sounds utterly despicable if it is.
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Would I lie to you, Hudso?
The teacher concerned has sent me the photos, which I have sent to mates through emails but I don’t want to have them published widely.
It’s not despicable really. Probably a poor school with limited access to theatrical space, though, their devotion to Catholicism could have taken a bit of a back step during the performance.
I am now writing a little intro for their study of another play. I just had a little laugh, that’s all!
The teacher’s emails are always signed, “yours in Christ” which makes me a bit queazy but I move on!
I’m at least happy that out there in Anchorage, they are studying these works.
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Incidentally, if you’re in London in June, I could get you and a friend to see my trans. of Aristophanes’ “Women in Parliament!” What an apropos play to stage after the demise of the worst of them in the English parliament!
Though, of course, Ari had a very different take on the subject!
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I thought you might have been taking the piss, and although it’s bloody hard to reconcile with your beliefs I now see that you’re doing the best thing. I was raised in that guilt ridden miasma of a faith and I know that intellect was the only thing that eventually pulled me free. Opening their minds up to different possibilities can never be a bad thing. Who knows they too may decide to think for themselves as adults often do.
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Then there was this neo-nazi mob in London who staged my Oedipus and turned the plague in Thebes into a plague of Jews. I wasted some $11,000 on legal fees because a young jewish couple was so offended they wanted to sue me. “Wasted” is probably true also because I don’t think I needed to do anything but, when lawyers take over…
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There comes a point where smuggling culture past Catholics and having your work turned into an anti-Semitic aberration are two very different things. Do you have no control over what your name may or may not be associated with?
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Now I do, Hudso. People have to ask for my permission to stage one of the plays (or do other things with them) and before I give them that, I ask the to agree to certain conditions, as suggested by my lawyer. I had no idea that these corruptions were probable before that.
The theatre co must, as one of the conditions, inform me of any major changes to the script, to let me know if they are sponsored by anyone and who that is, not to have any product placements, either in the script or on stage, etc, etc… I feel a lot more comfortable now. With the Catholic School, I didn’t think they’d be so uncouth as to fill the set with religious symbols and I did ask for some photos but, by the time the photos arrived -a year later- all I could do was to be polite, in Christ…
Not too big a deal in the larger scheme of things.
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If that’s what part of the 11K went on then by all means it was well spent.
I guess it’s sad to think that you have to stop people from staging changed versions of works that smuggle in their opinions contrary to those of the playwright. And hard in many ways for the law to distinguish between interpretations and agendas.
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Can you somehow get a pig with lipstick into a play for our Alaskan cousins?
Poor buggers.Another indigenous frontier mentally cauterised by the Catholic ‘way pavers’.
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I think at one stage Sara Palin was going to be present at the production… Very congruous, it’d be too!
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Try to keep a straight face if you ever personally meet her.
Her name anagrams out to Anal Parish.
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What was that thing Silverman said about her being “off-putting and gross as a pageant contestant but without the desire for world peace.” 😉
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Game On?
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-04-13/joyce-wins-nationals-preselection/4627248
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I’d hate to think that the people of New England (scary bloody name) who were wise enough to elect perhaps the wisest politician in politics, will now turn so sharply as to elect a drongo but one never knows about ex country partiers who are, quite possibly, still want to call themselves another Country!
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Joyce will buy,lie and bribe his way in if he has to.
You’re right.Windsor is a politician of rare qualities.
I would love to have someone of his calibre in my electorate.
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Makes me cry, incomprehensible to me that some people prefer Barnaby to Windsor…how sad, and Armidale is an university city…surrounded by rednecks no doubt.
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Windsor is a hated man.
He dealt with the devil according to some.Those who hate him, hate him a lot.Wasn’t he threatened early in the piece?
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I think Windsor’s a good bloke and a principled one. I wish there were more like him and fewer like Joyce. Sadly if the electorate disagree with me then the better man will probably depart public life.
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One step fwd
2 steps back.
Reads like Australia’s current political landscape.So nothing would surprise me.
If Windsor gets ditched the people of New England will inherit
a mouthpiece who does not believe in AGW.
And I think that may end up being right up their farmosaurus ally.
Windsor deserves some R and R.
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I dunno! I think there must be something better than just giving up though?
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Who’s giving up what?
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I gave up smoking about thirty or so years ago and thinking bad thoughts last night!
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…and spaghetti with cheese
On Top of Spaghetti
On top of spaghetti,
All covered with cheese,
I lost my poor meatball,
When somebody sneezed.
It rolled off the table,
And on to the floor,
And then my poor meatball,
Rolled out of the door.
It rolled in the garden,
And under a bush,
And then my poor meatball,
Was nothing but mush.
The mush was as tasty
As tasty could be,
And then the next summer,
It grew into a tree.
The tree was all covered,
All covered with moss,
And on it grew meatballs,
And tomato sauce.
So if you eat spaghetti,
All covered with cheese,
Hold on to your meatball,
Whenever you sneeze.
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Aagh, yes a classic.
Long may the meatball roll.
No sneaking a smoke,Ato!!
Any way the head-spins would kill you.
Brrrrrrrrrrrrrr
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Nah! Just dropped it cold turkey and never looked back. Brother in law and two of his sons smoke and reckon they can’t stop. I believe them but I just can’t understand why. Brother-in-law particularly, smokes like frenzied chimney when he’s watching the footy on telly!
If Hawthorn is losing then it’s also one shot of ouzo after another! Beats me all that angst about a footy game!
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Seems like you’re giving up on Windsor, and it’s a pity.
I don’t know that you’re analysis is off, but that doesn’t change the pity of it 😦
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Poor HG,
The problem with you is your perception is at least 90 degrees out.
Often 180.
I did not say I was giving up on Windsor.I pointed out his electorate might.
And that nothing would surprise me on that front, given he is surrounded by career moleskin wearing gun toting greeny hating tax dodging galahs.
If you keep playing stupid dick-head, just to keep the blog rolling, I will provide you with the accompanying soundtrack.
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I’ll provide your soundtrack for you, Always look on the bright side of Life…
You want to try it sometime. It beats just whining in the corner “The world’s Fucked, Simon Townsend Lied!”
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You don’t design or sell bumpers stickers do you?
The world isn’t quite fucked yet.
But the blueprint is on display in the foyer.
And believe it or not,it is all connected to unlimited growth.
which as you would know if you listen to Gillard (under Howes) and Abbott ‘both’ Tea Parties current agenda.
In fact Howes was whinging as though Browse actually cost existing jobs.If the job did not exist in the first place,it cannot be lost.Except in his frozen pea brain of course.
Sustainable planning (eg for sustainable growth) planning requires things being done with a particular long term vision and the infrastructure and personnel available.
The WA govt (Howes new besties) have destroyed the coastal strip and locals cannot afford to buy fuel.Rents is in the $000’s per week in Karratha.There are no vacant blocks.The water,roads and power cannot cope.Meth is the new scourge.(And it is right across WA,now) There are dozens of towns under the same pressure.The unions have sat on their hands and done sweet FA.The mining side effects are disastrous on families.The crime rate is sky rocketing in WA as the wealth gap broadens.This is the crap Gillard will want to continue so Howes membership and power base can grow.QLD and NT and Tas are next in line.
This is all connected and you can’t see it.
No surprise you support a faux Labor cult who refuse to see it.
They are in this for political power and ego expansion alone.
When the bust comes we call all heave a sigh of relief, as we kick back on the dole,regretting we did nothing at all to expand the manufacturing industry while we had Labor as our government for 6 + years.If not them,who?
Welcome to ‘your’ Wonderworld.
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Great so now it’s a conspiracy!
Of course we need to manage our future by owning up to our limitations, and we’re going to disagree on how they should be measured, but that’s not what the next election is going to be about and I think you should know as much.
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The Farmosaurus Queenslandus is an extinct species. Fossils of it can be found all over Queensland.
But Bjelkius Petersensus is still extant.
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Hear hear!
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After Crean’s lethal utterance, Craig Emerson is looking like a stand up comedian with stage frigh, a rabbit that forgot its ears, a clown who can;t find the circus door. yeae, verily, e’en Black Caviar’s bum hole!
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I hear Craig Emerson had a secret meeting with, Julia and Clive the Titanic magnate, to discuss a couple of thousand 457 visa workers, recently.
Emerson,Fake and Palmer.
Boom tish!
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I’d be buggered if I know how the fuck these bastards sleep at night! Or walk down the street! Or swallow their baked beans without dying of guilt!
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Psssst.
😉
It ‘probably’ didn’t happen.I just could resist the play on words.And as sure as night follows day, such a meeting is written in wind.
(Besides when those 3 ‘do’ eventually get together,the MSM now have a ready made headline.Although ‘they’ might swap fake for snake.)
But you’re right sleep come easy to the thick of hide.
Perhaps we can call Julia, Gilli Vanilli.
There’s an obvious similarity.
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FYI
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emerson,_Lake_%26_Palmer_discography
Nothing like faux Labor.These guys claimed to be PROGRESSIVE, and that was 30 odd years ago.
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It’s great that Barnaby Joyce is leaving politics at last. He was just never much chop, a fool of the first order as he proves with every utterance that is not well scripted on a teleprompter for him.
Barnaby retires on September 14, and will be missed even less than Thatcher.
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Lets hope for once you’re right, (Mr The Feds can’t call Royal Commissions) and Joyce disappears.
He will be in good company,with ‘good’ being a strange choice of words.
As someone running in a foreign seat, his is a measurable gamble. Many sitting Labor members will wish ‘their’ defeat was as close as his is likely to be,compared to theirs.That is the greatest and irreconcilable damage Gillard will inflict.
The collateral damage that her toxicity will inflict on discarded future leaders and shining lights this country well and truly deserves.
Like a speeding drunken driver showing off ,with a car full of friends after a night on the turps.
You better get the triage tent ready.
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He had white horses
And ladies by the score
All dressed in satin
And waiting by the door
O, what a lucky man he was
O, what a lucky man he was
White lace and feathers
They made up his bed
A gold covered mattress
On which he was laid
O, what a lucky man he was
O, what a lucky man he was
He went to fight wars
For his country and his king
Of his honor and his glory
The people would sing
O, what a lucky man he was
O, what a lucky man he was
A bullet had found him
His blood ran as he cried
No money could save him
So he laid down and he died
O, what a lucky man he was
O, what a lucky man he was
(Emerson, Lake and Palmer)
Watch it Hypo, they were great talents in their time.
Brain Salad Surgery, and Trilogy were excellent albums.
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As for the Feds not being able, they were not in this case unless and until the States referred powers, and it may still be open to Constitutional challenge. As I explained to you at the time and since.
If you stopped talking and listened occasionally, you might actually learn something. 🙂
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Well look who’s learning from our Gillards the Tango of the backstop! The Vatican! http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-04-13/pope-selects-pell2c-others-to-reform-church/4627530
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Happy happy joy joy
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-04-13/pope-selects-pell2c-others-to-reform-church/4627530
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OOPs
Great minds double up.
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Either that or…
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I mean, think of the doubling up of the single most idiotic idea by this ALP and that Vatican…
No need to be a fly on the wall to hear what Pell will be suggesting: Your Eminence, we need more churches, more steeples, more cathedrals, more priests… castrated if they must… more papal Bull and canons and decrees restricting the amount of fun people may have with their genitalia, more AIDS, fewer condoms, more clergy in the parliaments of the world, more wars against the heathen of all other religions, more cilicii (hair shirts, to you ignorati!), more religious holidays, more saints (we must include politicians who do our god’s work in the parliaments of the world)… and, incidentally, your eminence, when are you retiring? I don’t have mush more time in this world, you know!
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Oh, and ban the NBN, your eminence and ordain Turnbull Heaven’s joker!
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Ordain, too, Howes to be the Ganymede (cup bearer and pederast) of Heaven.
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Julia obediently delivers us Abbott who is the Popes man.
Rejoice faux Labor folk.Salvation is on its way.All praise Julia.Bringer of God and lover of the Faith.Born again,because once was not enough.
Hymn 37
All Things Blight and Beautiful
Hymn 69
Amazing Gaff
Hymn 666
Howes is Your Shepherd
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I realise you guys are just kidding about, but there might be a useful point to be made here.
Why champion the abandonment of religion if you’re only going to make up your own mythology of people and politics whenever it suits you.
Think for one moment about what’s wrong with religion and the first things that come to mind are immutable ideologies that represent pretence of certainty in the absence of evidence. If that’s what you’re against then it would be highly hypocritical or lowly intellectually dishonest to do the same kind of things by simply changing the names and the buzzwords.
What I think is required here is a very small but vitally important change in thinking that allows us to maintain our principles at all times while resisting the urge to codify and make them inflexible by fixating on ideology. Each case on its merits is the mantra for the examined life. And perhaps also a better way for us to look at our ongoing political battles. Ask what are the merits of the ALP and the LNP and in so doing recognise one more vitally important thing, that different people have different subjectively valid perspectives so that there’s often as many right answers as there are individual voters.
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Not really.
Acknowledge who the partisan worshippers are..If you remember I and those condemning the ALP are the ones demanding a purge. As are the bulk of centre left ALP supporters and people who do not want a LNP govt.
Where there is a correlation to religion,it is stark.
Gillard supporters argument reflects what the Catholic church has done re child sex abuse.Deny a problem,cover it up,blame someone else,move personnel,bury the voices of reason,resist reform,cull the dissenters.
If you are asking us to back one cult because it’s better than the other, I think it is you who has the religious fervour.
I really wish you could see you sales pitch for what it was.
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What I guess I was saying before by way of a slightly more convoluted analogy to religion, is that once you let go of the ideology and start to assess things on their merits not only might you see more clearly but you may also stop worrying about your urgent need to be right all the time.
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Hudso, this was the longest euphemism for appeasement I’ve ever read. It’s mealy mouthed nonsense, Hudso.
What I rile against is EVERYTHING that organised religion stands for: fro the myth-that-must-be-believed to the dictates of its leadership.
A little navigation, if I may.
Tariq Ali, in his exhilarating Clash of Fundamentalisms, said, words to the effect, Religion is politics and all religious movements are political movements. End of quote and I go on: The only difference being, that religion asks you to believe in an immortal god, full of grace and benevolence and protection whereas the Politicians want you to believe that they, themselves are the equivalents on earth.
And a little more:
On the metope of the Delphi was written the phrase, “know yourself.” (γνῶθι σαυτόν, Gnothi seauton).
Ponderers of later years extrapolated that this must mean that mortals must know everything about themselves. I suggest, the more probable reason would be that towards the decay of the credibility Delphic babblings, people would go to it to ask how they could find their lost goats or get back the wife that was stolen by their neighbour and other such trivial matters, outside the purview of the Olympians. So, one angered priest said to himself, “I’m sick of this” and wrote on the metope for the greeks to do their own research!
End of navigation.
If a whole edifice is built on the wrong premise, it must be brought down, irrespective of the view from the fenestrations, or because of the scintillating art work on its chapel or because in some pages of some of its books there are virtue exhorting messages. If the edifice is built on the wrong premise and for wrongful reasons -political power, as suggested by Tariq Ali- then it must be brought down and the lies dismantled.
And so, if Religion is Politics, then mathematically speaking, politics must be religion; so, politics, too must be demolished and its lies similarly dismantled.
If one wishes to look at governance-sans-politics, one needs to travel back in time -only by a little, in the greater scheme of things- and land in ancient Greece, around the 6th cent bc, to when Kleisthenes brought Democracy to Athens; and only a little later, to the time of Aristotle, who gave meaning to the word “politics” with his “man, by his very nature, is a political animal”(Ὁ ἄνθρωπος φύσει πολιτικὸν ζῶον).
This is because, man lives in a city, (a polis) and so, thus, is a political being.
The implication of that utterance is that we are all (I admit, women were excluded from this august statement) “politicians” and that the administration of politics belongs to the common citizen (latin for “politician”). Democracy is a word that defines the state of the State: political power lies with the politicians, i.e., the people.
How far away are we from that and why?
The why is easy: a collusion, a shared distribution of the booty. But, like Ajax, we, the people were cheated of our prize. Achilles’ armour was given, instead, to Odysseus! Why? Collusion of politicians and gods!
No, I don’t look at “each little gift on its merits” when that little gift is not a gift but a mafia choice, an offer that I can’t refuse. Damn the bloody lot of them, and even more damnation upon the egregious betrayers.
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Perhaps it’s time to play a song for the those at the altar of politics.
“Losing My Religion”
Oh life, it’s bigger
It’s bigger than you
And you are not me
The lengths that I will go to
The distance in your eyes
Oh no, I’ve said too much
I’ve said enough
That’s me in the corner
That’s me in the spotlight
Losing my religion
Trying to keep up with you
And I don’t know if I can do it
Oh no, I’ve said too much
I haven’t said enough
I thought that I heard you laughing
I thought that I heard you sing
I think I thought I saw you try
Every whisper
Of every waking hour
I’m choosing my confessions
Trying to keep an eye on you
Like a hurt, lost and blinded fool, fool
Oh no, I’ve said too much
I’ve said enough
Consider this
Consider this, the hint of the century
Consider this, the slip
That brought me to my knees, failed
What if all these fantasies come
Flailing around
Now I’ve said too much
I thought that I heard you laughing
I thought that I heard you sing
I think I thought I saw you try
But that was just a dream
That was just a dream
That’s me in the corner
That’s me in the spotlight
Losing my religion
Trying to keep up with you
And I don’t know if I can do it
Oh no, I’ve said too much
I haven’t said enough
I thought that I heard you laughing
I thought that I heard you sing
I think I thought I saw you try
But that was just a dream
Try, cry, why try
That was just a dream
Just a dream
Just a dream, dream
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Mate if I wasted my time with the longest ever apology for appeasement then clearly you’ve wasted your time with the longest possible way of saying that you’ve not really read the thing because you refuse to listen.
I don’t necessarily disagree with most of what you’ve written, it’s just that I don’t think it was about the point that I made.
It really comes down to whether in rejecting religion we then set about developing a similarly one sized sits all ideology with which to replace it.
The questions that come to mind in the point I wanted to make are all about whether there needs to always be a right answer one you realise that the kind of certainty religion proposes is illusory.
That’s all I’m saying. Not that we let go of reason or and see no common basis for merit in most things, but that in some we’ll diverge and that’s probably okay as long as we’re cognisant of weighing the consequences properly.
And I like Tariq Ali most of the time, but I don’t know what context you’ve quoted him in here. He might be talking more about what politics generally is than what it really should be.
I’m just sick and tired of talking about the ALP and LNP with all these sacred cows in the room, so I wanted to find another way to reassess the situation on its merits as opposed to being so bloody hamstrung by various ideological constraints.
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http://www.theage.com.au/nsw/pell-appointed-to-pope-advisory-group-20130413-2ht3s.html
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Pell is clearly trying to keep his name front and centre with the Vatican and the College of Cardinals, should Frankie fall off the perch within the next few years.
There is still a chance for him to become Pope Sanctimonious; he has eight years ’til he’s 80.
An alternative view is that you “set a thief to catch a thief” LOL on all counts.
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Three of you with the same link! If I was as idiotic as Hypo, I would accuse the three of you of being the same person. The proof is there : now prove you are not!
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No chance of you evolving to have an intellect equal to mine.
If I had a lobotomy the bits cut out would outsmart you.
And of the three posts, none came under another pseudo to abuse someone,after they got egg faced.
As for why a triple post I suspect it was for HG as it was for me.You see a link which you feels needs uploading here, and so you do that before reading every new post since your last visit.
I did that and when I started reading saw Ato had put the same link up.
Conspiracy not.
Its like the current political situation except with one extra.
No matter which Tea Party you choose you end up with the same dysfunctional community dividing, compassion devoid, big business pimps.
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Modest too, all three of you . . .
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@hudsongodfrey April 14, 2013 at 3:37 pm #
You even said that with a straight face.
You have the most blatant ideological vent yourself whereby you peddle the wares of one poison over another, and you use fear to do it.
It verges on idolatry.
Even though you dress it up over and over again,it always comes back to something you claim before the last spill was unworkable.
That’s the last trip down your rubber walled cul de sac for me.
Vote for Gillard everyone.HG says so.She’s honest,popular, filled with principle, more Labor than Hawke or Keating ever were.She is willing to do what ever it takes to reform if given just one more iddy biddy chance.A heart of good,a soul so warm and a courage like a Bengal tiger.The illusion of union interference is all in the minds of the lunatic left and those sneaky trolls disguised as ALP folk, but who are really Liberal politicians drumming up trade.
HG knows folks.He just knows.Gillard for PM,president and kisser of bubbies.She can do no wrong.And when she does forgive her for she is the human shield between us and a certain death by rape and torture slavery and mental anguish under the Death Cult regime of our only true enemy.A man who taught Lucifer everything he knows.Run and hide folks till the election is nigh and race out and assign a (1) and only a one to all things Labor.HG says so.
Given you always have the last word.it