The Happy Place

23 Mar

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.

Happy Place

551 Responses to “The Happy Place”

  1. gerard oosterman March 23, 2013 at 3:04 pm #

    Για να επιβάλει 10% σε 1426 λογαριασμούς ταμιευτηρίου κόσμο Δισεκατομμυριούχοι αντί των απλών ανθρώπων της Κύπρος.

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    • gerard oosterman March 23, 2013 at 3:08 pm #

      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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    • Peter Bayley March 23, 2013 at 3:38 pm #

      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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      • gerard oosterman March 23, 2013 at 3:48 pm #

        Συμφωνώ, αλλά σίγουρα οι δισεκατομμυριούχοι μπορούν να το αντέξουν οικονομικά καλύτερα από ό, τι οι απλοί πολίτες της Κύπρος.

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        • Hypocritophobe March 23, 2013 at 3:57 pm #

          Είναι πιθανώς αγγλο δισεκατομμυριούχους

          😉

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          • gerard oosterman March 23, 2013 at 4:06 pm #

            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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            • Hypocritophobe March 23, 2013 at 4:14 pm #

              Θα του δώσω μια bash.Last φορά που η σελίδα έπαιξε ανόητα buggers

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          • Jennifer Wilson March 23, 2013 at 8:35 pm #

            I DON’T BELIEVE YOU ALL SPEAK GREEK!!!

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            • Hypocritophobe March 23, 2013 at 8:52 pm #

              Ik ben een houthakker en ik ben OK.

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            • Hypocritophobe March 23, 2013 at 8:58 pm #

              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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            • hudsongodfrey March 23, 2013 at 9:51 pm #

              I’m still waiting for Atomou to come and berate us for how badly we’ve done. 😉

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              • Hypocritophobe March 23, 2013 at 10:41 pm #

                Worry not,HG.
                He has an ato-tude problem

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      • Jennifer Wilson March 23, 2013 at 8:33 pm #

        WTF????? How do know you are all being polite?

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    • hudsongodfrey March 23, 2013 at 5:15 pm #

      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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      • gerard oosterman March 23, 2013 at 5:22 pm #

        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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        • Hypocritophobe March 23, 2013 at 6:25 pm #

          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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        • paul walter March 24, 2013 at 1:14 am #

          All Dutch, to me.

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          • atomou March 26, 2013 at 9:29 am #

            And bad Dutch at that!
            They must have got their Greek from Prince Philip Google the Thurd!

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  2. helvityni March 23, 2013 at 3:13 pm #

    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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  3. Hypocritophobe March 23, 2013 at 6:28 pm #

    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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    • Marilyn March 23, 2013 at 8:42 pm #

      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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      • paul walter March 24, 2013 at 1:22 am #

        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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      • Hypocritophobe March 24, 2013 at 10:26 am #

        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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        • Marilyn March 24, 2013 at 3:17 pm #

          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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          • Hypocritophobe March 24, 2013 at 3:46 pm #

            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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            • atomou March 24, 2013 at 5:53 pm #

              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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              • Hypocritophobe March 24, 2013 at 6:03 pm #

                Her knees are her strongest asset.

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          • paul walter March 24, 2013 at 6:35 pm #

            They miss a chance to spin something negative into ALP stories.

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  4. Hypocritophobe March 23, 2013 at 6:45 pm #

    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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    • Jennifer Wilson March 23, 2013 at 8:45 pm #

      Ahahahahahahaha! I like her shoes

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      • Hypocritophobe March 23, 2013 at 8:48 pm #

        That was 4U
        😉

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    • paul walter March 24, 2013 at 1:17 am #

      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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  5. paul walter March 24, 2013 at 1:36 am #

    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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  6. paul walter March 24, 2013 at 2:45 am #

    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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    • Hypocritophobe March 24, 2013 at 10:30 am #

      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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  7. hudsongodfrey March 24, 2013 at 11:22 am #

    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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  8. Peter March 24, 2013 at 4:35 pm #

    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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    • Hypocritophobe March 24, 2013 at 5:00 pm #

      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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      • Peter March 24, 2013 at 5:13 pm #

        Gosh, you don’t sound very “Happy” Perhaps you’d be better of in another “Place”.

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        • Hypocritophobe March 24, 2013 at 5:22 pm #

          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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        • paul walter March 24, 2013 at 9:23 pm #

          The hypo is well-meaning, sometimes right and always noisy..

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      • Peter March 24, 2013 at 5:23 pm #

        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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        • Hypocritophobe March 24, 2013 at 6:09 pm #

          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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    • Forrest Gumpp (@ForrestGumpp) March 24, 2013 at 5:10 pm #

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      • Peter March 24, 2013 at 5:17 pm #

        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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        • Hypocritophobe March 24, 2013 at 5:42 pm #

          ‘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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          • Poirot March 24, 2013 at 5:55 pm #

            “…backed an unelectable leader…”

            Ain’t that the truth!

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          • Peter March 24, 2013 at 9:50 pm #

            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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            • Hypocritophobe March 24, 2013 at 10:07 pm #

              “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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              • Marilyn March 25, 2013 at 6:34 am #

                Agreed, she gives an apology to damaged people while deliberately damaging other people.

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      • Hypocritophobe March 24, 2013 at 5:43 pm #

        Dug being the ‘operative’ word?

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        • Forrest Gumpp (@ForrestGumpp) March 24, 2013 at 5:56 pm #

          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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          • Hypocritophobe March 24, 2013 at 6:12 pm #

            No, me no Tweet.

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      • Hypocritophobe March 24, 2013 at 5:56 pm #

        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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        • paul walter March 25, 2013 at 1:43 am #

          As if there is anything left TO sell.

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    • Marilyn March 24, 2013 at 5:57 pm #

      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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      • hudsongodfrey March 24, 2013 at 8:22 pm #

        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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        • Hypocritophobe March 24, 2013 at 9:01 pm #

          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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          • hudsongodfrey March 24, 2013 at 9:04 pm #

            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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            • Marilyn March 25, 2013 at 6:37 am #

              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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              • hudsongodfrey March 25, 2013 at 9:49 am #

                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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          • doug quixote March 26, 2013 at 12:38 pm #

            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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        • Marilyn March 25, 2013 at 6:36 am #

          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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          • hudsongodfrey March 25, 2013 at 9:47 am #

            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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    • paul walter March 24, 2013 at 6:38 pm #

      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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    • hudsongodfrey March 24, 2013 at 8:59 pm #

      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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      • gerard oosterman March 24, 2013 at 9:17 pm #

        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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        • hudsongodfrey March 24, 2013 at 9:47 pm #

          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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        • Hypocritophobe March 24, 2013 at 9:51 pm #

          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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        • paul walter March 25, 2013 at 1:45 am #

          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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      • Peter March 24, 2013 at 10:00 pm #

        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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        • hudsongodfrey March 24, 2013 at 10:15 pm #

          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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        • samjandwich March 25, 2013 at 10:29 am #

          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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      • Marilyn March 25, 2013 at 6:39 am #

        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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        • hudsongodfrey March 25, 2013 at 9:55 am #

          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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          • Hypocritophobe March 25, 2013 at 10:17 pm #

            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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            • hudsongodfrey March 25, 2013 at 11:46 pm #

              I reckon.

              I also reckon she’s not alone.

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  9. atomou March 24, 2013 at 5:35 pm #

    Είσαστε όλοι τρελομαλάκες!

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    • Hypocritophobe March 24, 2013 at 5:48 pm #

      Oy!
      Who you calling a trelomalake!

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      • atomou March 24, 2013 at 6:14 pm #

        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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        • Hypocritophobe March 24, 2013 at 7:06 pm #

          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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          • atomou March 24, 2013 at 7:17 pm #

            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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            • Hypocritophobe March 24, 2013 at 7:40 pm #

              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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              • atomou March 24, 2013 at 7:54 pm #

                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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                • Hypocritophobe March 24, 2013 at 8:13 pm #

                  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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                  • atomou March 24, 2013 at 8:37 pm #

                    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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                  • Marilyn March 25, 2013 at 6:41 am #

                    She sounds like Dubya calling out the terr”ists instead of talking to her colleagues.

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        • hudsongodfrey March 24, 2013 at 9:06 pm #

          Oh yeah Great Atomou, we could call it “collective shout” but then Jennifer might just throw up!

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  10. atomou March 24, 2013 at 7:24 pm #

    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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  11. Hypocritophobe March 24, 2013 at 7:58 pm #

    No wonder he always puts his foot in it…

    http://www.bobellisshoes.com/

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    • hudsongodfrey March 24, 2013 at 9:07 pm #

      Who Knew!

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  12. gerard oosterman March 24, 2013 at 9:22 pm #

    http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/breaking-news/abbott-criticised-for-supporting-priest/story-fn3dxiwe-1226604382871

    A happy place!

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    • gerard oosterman March 24, 2013 at 9:27 pm #

      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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    • helvityni March 24, 2013 at 9:29 pm #

      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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      • Hypocritophobe March 24, 2013 at 10:00 pm #

        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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        • gerard oosterman March 24, 2013 at 10:07 pm #

          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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          • Hypocritophobe March 24, 2013 at 10:09 pm #

            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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        • helvityni March 24, 2013 at 10:12 pm #

          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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          • Hypocritophobe March 24, 2013 at 10:26 pm #

            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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            • helvityni March 24, 2013 at 10:38 pm #

              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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              • Hypocritophobe March 24, 2013 at 10:54 pm #

                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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                • gerard oosterman March 24, 2013 at 11:12 pm #

                  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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                  • paul walter March 26, 2013 at 12:29 am #

                    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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                    • Hypocritophobe March 26, 2013 at 11:36 am #

                      You has your avatar custom made?

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                • hudsongodfrey March 24, 2013 at 11:28 pm #

                  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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                  • Hypocritophobe March 25, 2013 at 12:00 am #

                    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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                    • Hypocritophobe March 25, 2013 at 12:08 am #

                      ….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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                    • hudsongodfrey March 25, 2013 at 12:12 am #

                      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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                    • Peter Bayley March 25, 2013 at 4:35 pm #

                      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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                • doug quixote March 26, 2013 at 12:30 pm #

                  Which comments of Helvi’s are lies?

                  I ask for clarification.

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        • paul walter March 25, 2013 at 11:42 am #

          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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          • helvityni March 25, 2013 at 12:16 pm #

            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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            • paul walter March 25, 2013 at 3:29 pm #

              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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              • atomou March 25, 2013 at 5:16 pm #

                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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                • paul walter March 26, 2013 at 12:14 am #

                  Your concern is touching.
                  The baby ain’t Abbott, you rescued a turd.

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                  • atomou March 26, 2013 at 12:49 am #

                    Pauly, I understood your first sentence. Your second defies logic. Still, one out of two ain’t bad. Keep trying.

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                    • paul walter March 26, 2013 at 3:12 am #

                      You have so little to contribute..

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    • paul walter March 25, 2013 at 1:46 am #

      A bit pongy for my liking.

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  13. paul walter March 25, 2013 at 1:50 am #

    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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  14. doug quixote March 25, 2013 at 1:15 pm #

    Happy Place?!?

    No Hypo, not sitting back but incommunicado since Friday.

    You should try it some time!

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    • paul walter March 25, 2013 at 3:21 pm #

      Hear, hear!

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  15. Forrest Gumpp (@ForrestGumpp) March 25, 2013 at 4:31 pm #

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    • paul walter March 26, 2013 at 12:22 am #

      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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      • Forrest Gumpp (@ForrestGumpp) March 26, 2013 at 12:47 pm #

        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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  16. doug quixote March 26, 2013 at 8:38 am #

    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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  17. Hypocritophobe March 26, 2013 at 11:44 am #

    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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  18. Hypocritophobe March 26, 2013 at 11:55 am #

    Lots of ladies picked by Julia.Who would have foreseen that,I wonder?
    I hope they have a plan B.

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  19. doug quixote March 26, 2013 at 12:27 pm #

    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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  20. Hypocritophobe March 26, 2013 at 12:39 pm #

    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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    • doug quixote March 26, 2013 at 5:20 pm #

      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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      • atomou March 26, 2013 at 5:33 pm #

        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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        • doug quixote March 27, 2013 at 8:03 pm #

          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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          • Hypocritophobe March 27, 2013 at 8:19 pm #

            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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  21. Hypocritophobe March 26, 2013 at 12:46 pm #

    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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    • doug quixote March 26, 2013 at 5:23 pm #

      I will ask you again : which of Helvi’s comments are lies?

      Either substantiate your claim or apologise. Now.

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      • Hypocritophobe March 26, 2013 at 5:41 pm #

        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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        • hudsongodfrey March 26, 2013 at 7:26 pm #

          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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          • atomou March 26, 2013 at 8:53 pm #

            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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            • Hypocritophobe March 26, 2013 at 9:00 pm #

              “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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            • hudsongodfrey March 26, 2013 at 9:10 pm #

              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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              • atomou March 26, 2013 at 9:30 pm #

                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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                • hudsongodfrey March 26, 2013 at 9:41 pm #

                  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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                  • Hypocritophobe March 26, 2013 at 9:48 pm #

                    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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                    • hudsongodfrey March 26, 2013 at 10:00 pm #

                      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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                • hudsongodfrey March 26, 2013 at 9:46 pm #

                  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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                • doug quixote March 27, 2013 at 8:17 am #

                  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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              • Peter Bayley March 26, 2013 at 11:27 pm #

                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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                • hudsongodfrey March 26, 2013 at 11:41 pm #

                  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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                  • Hypocritophobe March 27, 2013 at 12:04 am #

                    I reckon you’d like the United States of Tara.

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                    • hudsongodfrey March 27, 2013 at 12:09 am #

                      Its a great show. Sally Field is really good in it 🙂

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          • Hypocritophobe March 26, 2013 at 8:58 pm #

            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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            • hudsongodfrey March 26, 2013 at 9:18 pm #

              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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              • Hypocritophobe March 26, 2013 at 10:07 pm #

                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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                • gerard oosterman March 26, 2013 at 10:28 pm #

                  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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                  • Hypocritophobe March 26, 2013 at 11:10 pm #

                    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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                  • doug quixote March 28, 2013 at 8:22 am #

                    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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                • hudsongodfrey March 26, 2013 at 10:28 pm #

                  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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        • doug quixote March 27, 2013 at 1:07 pm #

          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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  22. gerard oosterman March 26, 2013 at 2:48 pm #

    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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    • Hypocritophobe March 26, 2013 at 3:30 pm #

      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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    • hudsongodfrey March 26, 2013 at 6:10 pm #

      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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  23. Hypocritophobe March 26, 2013 at 6:30 pm #

    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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    • doug quixote March 27, 2013 at 8:21 am #

      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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  24. doug quixote March 27, 2013 at 8:18 am #

    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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    • Hypocritophobe March 27, 2013 at 10:59 am #

      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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      • doug quixote March 27, 2013 at 11:16 am #

        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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        • Hypocritophobe March 27, 2013 at 12:00 pm #

          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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          • atomou March 27, 2013 at 12:54 pm #

            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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            • hudsongodfrey March 27, 2013 at 1:31 pm #

              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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              • Hypocritophobe March 27, 2013 at 1:55 pm #

                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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                • hudsongodfrey March 27, 2013 at 2:11 pm #

                  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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          • doug quixote March 27, 2013 at 1:02 pm #

            You wouldn’t know a Big Picture issue if you fell over one, judging from that post. Transcend the political.

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            • Hypocritophobe March 27, 2013 at 1:25 pm #

              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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              • hudsongodfrey March 27, 2013 at 1:39 pm #

                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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                • Hypocritophobe March 27, 2013 at 1:52 pm #

                  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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                  • hudsongodfrey March 27, 2013 at 2:03 pm #

                    You’re talking rubbish and I’m not interested.

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                    • Hypocritophobe March 27, 2013 at 2:19 pm #

                      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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                    • hudsongodfrey March 27, 2013 at 3:07 pm #

                      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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                    • helvityni March 27, 2013 at 5:13 pm #

                      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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        • hudsongodfrey March 27, 2013 at 1:29 pm #

          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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    • hudsongodfrey March 27, 2013 at 1:26 pm #

      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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      • helvityni March 27, 2013 at 2:14 pm #

        …thanks for DQ for the link from me (and HIM) too, most interesting.

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  25. Hypocritophobe March 27, 2013 at 3:18 pm #

    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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    • atomou March 27, 2013 at 4:36 pm #

      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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    • hudsongodfrey March 27, 2013 at 6:48 pm #

      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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      • Hypocritophobe March 27, 2013 at 7:34 pm #

        It’s like

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        • hudsongodfrey March 27, 2013 at 8:45 pm #

          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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          • Hypocritophobe March 27, 2013 at 9:07 pm #

            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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      • Hypocritophobe March 27, 2013 at 7:58 pm #

        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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        • hudsongodfrey March 27, 2013 at 9:54 pm #

          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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          • Hypocritophobe March 27, 2013 at 11:07 pm #

            “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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            • hudsongodfrey March 28, 2013 at 12:12 am #

              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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              • Hypocritophobe March 28, 2013 at 12:32 pm #

                “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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                • atomou March 28, 2013 at 12:54 pm #

                  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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                • hudsongodfrey March 28, 2013 at 4:15 pm #

                  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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                  • Hypocritophobe March 28, 2013 at 5:11 pm #

                    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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                    • hudsongodfrey March 28, 2013 at 6:50 pm #

                      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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  26. atomou March 27, 2013 at 6:37 pm #

    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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  27. Hypocritophobe March 27, 2013 at 7:38 pm #

    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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  28. doug quixote March 27, 2013 at 8:15 pm #

    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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  29. Hypocritophobe March 27, 2013 at 8:47 pm #

    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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    • Hypocritophobe March 27, 2013 at 9:03 pm #

      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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    • doug quixote March 28, 2013 at 8:15 am #

      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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      • Hypocritophobe March 28, 2013 at 2:02 pm #

        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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        • doug quixote March 28, 2013 at 4:49 pm #

          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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          • Hypocritophobe March 28, 2013 at 5:23 pm #

            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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  30. hudsongodfrey March 28, 2013 at 12:14 am #

    Happy Place Stuff

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    • Hypocritophobe March 28, 2013 at 12:19 pm #

      Jake the Peg has sex with Giant squid.

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      • hudsongodfrey March 28, 2013 at 12:42 pm #

        Jake the Peg is German. Or the Squid?

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        • Hypocritophobe March 28, 2013 at 1:56 pm #

          You’ve never heard of Olga Squid?

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          • hudsongodfrey March 28, 2013 at 3:49 pm #

            I’ve heard of her brother Sig though.

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            • Hypocritophobe March 28, 2013 at 3:54 pm #

              Boom Boom

              Noticed how many girls in the dance troupe, Mr Bond?
              Mr James Bond?

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              • hudsongodfrey March 28, 2013 at 4:17 pm #

                Zis is un Britisher conzpirascy!

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  31. Hypocritophobe March 28, 2013 at 8:16 pm #

    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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    • hudsongodfrey March 28, 2013 at 9:20 pm #

      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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      • Hypocritophobe March 28, 2013 at 9:52 pm #

        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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        • hudsongodfrey March 29, 2013 at 12:52 am #

          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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          • Hypocritophobe March 29, 2013 at 10:53 am #

            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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            • hudsongodfrey March 29, 2013 at 11:26 am #

              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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              • Hypocritophobe March 29, 2013 at 12:30 pm #

                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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                • hudsongodfrey March 29, 2013 at 2:10 pm #

                  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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                  • Hypocritophobe March 29, 2013 at 3:39 pm #

                    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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                    • hudsongodfrey March 29, 2013 at 4:30 pm #

                      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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              • Hypocritophobe March 29, 2013 at 12:39 pm #

                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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                • atomou March 29, 2013 at 1:26 pm #

                  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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                • hudsongodfrey March 29, 2013 at 2:11 pm #

                  What an idiot that man is!

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                  • Hypocritophobe March 29, 2013 at 3:36 pm #

                    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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                    • atomou March 29, 2013 at 3:48 pm #

                      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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  32. P.J. March 29, 2013 at 2:28 am #

    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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    • Hypocritophobe March 29, 2013 at 11:00 am #

      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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      • Hypocritophobe March 29, 2013 at 12:31 pm #

        EDIT
        Pretty much

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  33. doug quixote March 29, 2013 at 9:38 pm #

    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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    • Hypocritophobe March 29, 2013 at 10:09 pm #

      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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      • doug quixote March 29, 2013 at 11:29 pm #

        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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        • Hypocritophobe March 29, 2013 at 11:36 pm #

          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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          • doug quixote March 30, 2013 at 8:55 am #

            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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            • Hypocritophobe March 30, 2013 at 10:35 am #

              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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              • doug quixote March 30, 2013 at 6:44 pm #

                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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                • Hypocritophobe March 30, 2013 at 7:07 pm #

                  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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                  • hudsongodfrey March 30, 2013 at 7:43 pm #

                    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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                    • Hypocritophobe March 30, 2013 at 8:05 pm #

                      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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                    • hudsongodfrey March 30, 2013 at 10:23 pm #

                      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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                    • Hypocritophobe March 30, 2013 at 8:07 pm #

                      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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                    • hudsongodfrey March 30, 2013 at 10:30 pm #

                      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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                  • doug quixote March 30, 2013 at 9:59 pm #

                    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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                    • hudsongodfrey March 31, 2013 at 12:00 am #

                      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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                    • Hypocritophobe March 31, 2013 at 12:30 am #

                      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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                    • doug quixote March 31, 2013 at 10:24 am #

                      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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                    • hudsongodfrey March 31, 2013 at 11:30 am #

                      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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                    • doug quixote March 31, 2013 at 1:03 pm #

                      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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    • hudsongodfrey March 30, 2013 at 10:54 am #

      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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  34. P.J. March 29, 2013 at 9:51 pm #

    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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    • Hypocritophobe March 30, 2013 at 10:40 am #

      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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      • doug quixote March 30, 2013 at 6:48 pm #

        Bullshit. Don’t continue to pretend to Labor values Hypocrite…

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        • hudsongodfrey March 31, 2013 at 11:37 am #

          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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          • Hypocritophobe March 31, 2013 at 11:59 am #

            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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            • hudsongodfrey March 31, 2013 at 12:26 pm #

              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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              • Hypocritophobe March 31, 2013 at 1:59 pm #

                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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                • Hypocritophobe March 31, 2013 at 2:02 pm #

                  EDIT
                  “functioning transmitter, which is bouncing off faulty receivers.”

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          • doug quixote March 31, 2013 at 12:42 pm #

            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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            • hudsongodfrey March 31, 2013 at 1:06 pm #

              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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              • doug quixote April 1, 2013 at 9:12 am #

                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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  35. doug quixote March 31, 2013 at 12:36 pm #

    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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    • Hypocritophobe March 31, 2013 at 1:55 pm #

      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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    • atomou March 31, 2013 at 2:00 pm #

      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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      • Hypocritophobe March 31, 2013 at 2:10 pm #

        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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        • atomou March 31, 2013 at 2:24 pm #

          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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          • atomou March 31, 2013 at 2:47 pm #

            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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            • Hypocritophobe March 31, 2013 at 3:17 pm #

              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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              • atomou March 31, 2013 at 3:26 pm #

                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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                • hudsongodfrey March 31, 2013 at 4:30 pm #

                  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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                  • doug quixote April 1, 2013 at 9:33 am #

                    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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                    • hudsongodfrey April 1, 2013 at 11:14 am #

                      Arguing over irrelevancies! Isn’t that what football teams are there for?

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          • hudsongodfrey March 31, 2013 at 4:29 pm #

            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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            • Hypocritophobe March 31, 2013 at 5:23 pm #

              Your one choice has two heads.
              Your argument therefore has no legs.

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              • hudsongodfrey April 1, 2013 at 12:01 am #

                Ah, but your response has no spine so we’re even!

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  36. Hypocritophobe March 31, 2013 at 5:30 pm #

    “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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    • hudsongodfrey April 1, 2013 at 12:28 am #

      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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  37. Hypocritophobe April 3, 2013 at 1:03 pm #

    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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  38. hudsongodfrey April 4, 2013 at 11:12 am #

    http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/political-news/abbott-to-shoot-messenger-on-climate-20130403-2h776.html

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  39. hudsongodfrey April 4, 2013 at 1:09 pm #

    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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    • Hypocritophobe April 4, 2013 at 8:15 pm #

      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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      • hudsongodfrey April 4, 2013 at 9:35 pm #

        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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  40. Hypocritophobe April 4, 2013 at 8:10 pm #

    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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    • doug quixote April 4, 2013 at 9:15 pm #

      WGAF? or your favourite, DILLIGAF.

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      • Hypocritophobe April 4, 2013 at 9:24 pm #

        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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    • hudsongodfrey April 4, 2013 at 10:19 pm #

      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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      • doug quixote April 5, 2013 at 1:07 pm #

        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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        • Hypocritophobe April 5, 2013 at 1:21 pm #

          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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        • Hypocritophobe April 5, 2013 at 1:26 pm #

          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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          • doug quixote April 5, 2013 at 6:57 pm #

            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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            • atomou April 5, 2013 at 7:11 pm #

              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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              • atomou April 5, 2013 at 7:16 pm #

                Hypo, I think he’s gonna give you a PG rating! Look out!

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              • Hypocritophobe April 5, 2013 at 7:20 pm #

                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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                • atomou April 5, 2013 at 7:30 pm #

                  Abbott on a bike downhill wards?

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                  • Hypocritophobe April 5, 2013 at 7:40 pm #

                    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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                    • atomou April 5, 2013 at 7:49 pm #

                      The most excruciating interview on 7.30 report of Ken Lay. This interviewer is a miserable impostor! Total jerk!

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                    • hudsongodfrey April 5, 2013 at 7:58 pm #

                      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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                    • atomou April 5, 2013 at 8:08 pm #

                      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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                    • hudsongodfrey April 5, 2013 at 9:46 pm #

                      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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                • doug quixote April 5, 2013 at 9:38 pm #

                  I’ve answered you already, if you cared to read what I wrote.

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              • doug quixote April 5, 2013 at 9:35 pm #

                And who asked for your opinion, music lover?

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  41. Hypocritophobe April 5, 2013 at 8:29 pm #

    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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  42. doug quixote April 8, 2013 at 4:24 pm #

    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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    • doug quixote April 8, 2013 at 4:26 pm #

      The frigging format is different in the Reply Box! Grrr

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      • hudsongodfrey April 8, 2013 at 5:12 pm #

        Yeah Doug, lay off the Stooges, some things is still sacred youse know!

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        • atomou April 8, 2013 at 5:54 pm #

          Or sacrilegious! Or sacrosanctless?

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    • Hypocritophobe April 8, 2013 at 4:33 pm #

      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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  43. atomou April 10, 2013 at 1:58 pm #

    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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    • Hypocritophobe April 10, 2013 at 2:18 pm #

      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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  44. helvityni April 10, 2013 at 2:18 pm #

    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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    • Hypocritophobe April 10, 2013 at 2:58 pm #

      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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    • hudsongodfrey April 10, 2013 at 4:21 pm #

      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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      • Hypocritophobe April 10, 2013 at 5:18 pm #

        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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        • hudsongodfrey April 10, 2013 at 5:57 pm #

          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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          • helvityni April 10, 2013 at 6:38 pm #

            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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            • hudsongodfrey April 10, 2013 at 7:20 pm #

              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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              • helvityni April 10, 2013 at 7:47 pm #

                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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          • atomou April 10, 2013 at 8:07 pm #

            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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            • Hypocritophobe April 10, 2013 at 8:59 pm #

              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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            • hudsongodfrey April 10, 2013 at 9:37 pm #

              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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  45. gerard oosterman April 10, 2013 at 7:33 pm #

    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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    • paul walter April 10, 2013 at 8:48 pm #

      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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      • helvityni April 10, 2013 at 9:37 pm #

        Exactly Paul, I thought the same, my respect for our ABC is disappearing.

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        • Hypocritophobe April 10, 2013 at 9:58 pm #

          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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          • hudsongodfrey April 10, 2013 at 10:58 pm #

            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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          • paul walter April 10, 2013 at 11:12 pm #

            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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            • Hypocritophobe April 10, 2013 at 11:53 pm #

              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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              • paul walter April 11, 2013 at 12:18 am #

                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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                • Hypocritophobe April 11, 2013 at 11:02 am #

                  “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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                  • atomou April 11, 2013 at 11:41 am #

                    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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                    • Hypocritophobe April 11, 2013 at 11:44 am #

                      OM?
                      You have hydra-faux-bia.

                      Your faux-ming at the mouth!

                      Are you friend or faux?

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                    • atomou April 11, 2013 at 1:04 pm #

                      Nah, just a fauked off fauking fauter!

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                  • paul walter April 11, 2013 at 3:06 pm #

                    Yes..anti Labor. Glad this has finally got through even your thick, obstinate head.

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                    • Hypocritophobe April 11, 2013 at 3:13 pm #

                      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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    • Hypocritophobe April 10, 2013 at 9:01 pm #

      “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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  46. doug quixote April 10, 2013 at 10:15 pm #

    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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    • Hypocritophobe April 10, 2013 at 10:38 pm #

      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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  47. paul walter April 11, 2013 at 10:08 am #

    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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    • Hypocritophobe April 11, 2013 at 10:52 am #

      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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  48. samjandwich April 12, 2013 at 3:18 pm #

    Here’s an interesting bunch of information: http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/noplaceforsheep.com#

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  49. Hypocritophobe April 12, 2013 at 8:23 pm #

    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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  50. Hypocritophobe April 13, 2013 at 9:40 am #

    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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    • atomou April 13, 2013 at 9:48 am #

      “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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      • Hypocritophobe April 13, 2013 at 9:58 am #

        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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        • atomou April 13, 2013 at 10:15 am #

          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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          • atomou April 13, 2013 at 10:20 am #

            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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            • hudsongodfrey April 13, 2013 at 10:23 am #

              Is that first part true Atomou?

              Sounds utterly despicable if it is.

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              • atomou April 13, 2013 at 10:31 am #

                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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                • atomou April 13, 2013 at 10:34 am #

                  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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                • hudsongodfrey April 13, 2013 at 10:41 am #

                  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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                  • atomou April 13, 2013 at 10:45 am #

                    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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                    • hudsongodfrey April 13, 2013 at 12:15 pm #

                      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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                    • atomou April 13, 2013 at 2:40 pm #

                      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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                    • hudsongodfrey April 13, 2013 at 3:42 pm #

                      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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            • Hypocritophobe April 13, 2013 at 10:36 am #

              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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              • atomou April 13, 2013 at 10:39 am #

                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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                • Hypocritophobe April 13, 2013 at 11:07 am #

                  Try to keep a straight face if you ever personally meet her.
                  Her name anagrams out to Anal Parish.

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                  • hudsongodfrey April 13, 2013 at 2:15 pm #

                    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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  51. Hypocritophobe April 13, 2013 at 2:09 pm #

    Game On?

    http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-04-13/joyce-wins-nationals-preselection/4627248

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    • atomou April 13, 2013 at 2:47 pm #

      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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      • Hypocritophobe April 13, 2013 at 2:58 pm #

        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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        • helvityni April 13, 2013 at 3:02 pm #

          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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          • Hypocritophobe April 13, 2013 at 3:05 pm #

            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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    • hudsongodfrey April 13, 2013 at 3:29 pm #

      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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      • Hypocritophobe April 13, 2013 at 3:47 pm #

        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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        • hudsongodfrey April 13, 2013 at 3:52 pm #

          I dunno! I think there must be something better than just giving up though?

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          • Hypocritophobe April 13, 2013 at 4:01 pm #

            Who’s giving up what?

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            • atomou April 13, 2013 at 4:04 pm #

              I gave up smoking about thirty or so years ago and thinking bad thoughts last night!

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              • atomou April 13, 2013 at 4:06 pm #

                …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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                • Hypocritophobe April 13, 2013 at 4:15 pm #

                  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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                  • atomou April 13, 2013 at 4:34 pm #

                    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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            • hudsongodfrey April 13, 2013 at 5:42 pm #

              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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              • Hypocritophobe April 13, 2013 at 6:10 pm #

                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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                • hudsongodfrey April 13, 2013 at 6:33 pm #

                  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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                  • Hypocritophobe April 13, 2013 at 7:01 pm #

                    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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                    • hudsongodfrey April 13, 2013 at 7:34 pm #

                      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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        • atomou April 13, 2013 at 6:18 pm #

          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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          • atomou April 13, 2013 at 7:17 pm #

            Hear hear!

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  52. atomou April 13, 2013 at 7:16 pm #

    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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    • Hypocritophobe April 13, 2013 at 7:26 pm #

      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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      • atomou April 13, 2013 at 7:32 pm #

        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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        • Hypocritophobe April 13, 2013 at 8:19 pm #

          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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  53. doug quixote April 13, 2013 at 10:21 pm #

    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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    • Hypocritophobe April 13, 2013 at 10:36 pm #

      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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      • doug quixote April 13, 2013 at 11:13 pm #

        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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  54. doug quixote April 13, 2013 at 11:18 pm #

    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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  55. Hypocritophobe April 13, 2013 at 11:49 pm #

    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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    • Hypocritophobe April 13, 2013 at 11:51 pm #

      OOPs
      Great minds double up.

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      • atomou April 14, 2013 at 9:59 am #

        Either that or…

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        • atomou April 14, 2013 at 10:17 am #

          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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          • atomou April 14, 2013 at 10:21 am #

            Oh, and ban the NBN, your eminence and ordain Turnbull Heaven’s joker!

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            • atomou April 14, 2013 at 10:28 am #

              Ordain, too, Howes to be the Ganymede (cup bearer and pederast) of Heaven.

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              • Hypocritophobe April 14, 2013 at 10:52 am #

                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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                • hudsongodfrey April 14, 2013 at 11:36 am #

                  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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                  • Hypocritophobe April 14, 2013 at 1:05 pm #

                    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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                    • hudsongodfrey April 14, 2013 at 3:37 pm #

                      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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                  • atomou April 14, 2013 at 1:29 pm #

                    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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                    • Hypocritophobe April 14, 2013 at 2:19 pm #

                      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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                    • hudsongodfrey April 14, 2013 at 4:14 pm #

                      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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  56. hudsongodfrey April 14, 2013 at 9:12 am #

    http://www.theage.com.au/nsw/pell-appointed-to-pope-advisory-group-20130413-2ht3s.html

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  57. doug quixote April 14, 2013 at 10:01 am #

    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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  58. doug quixote April 14, 2013 at 12:57 pm #

    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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    • Hypocritophobe April 14, 2013 at 1:14 pm #

      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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  59. Hypocritophobe April 14, 2013 at 4:15 pm #

    No Reply
    @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’s all yours.

    And next time I see your light on >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

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    • doug quixote April 14, 2013 at 5:02 pm #

      This commenter actually thinks he is being ironic!

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      • Hypocritophobe April 14, 2013 at 5:43 pm #

        Try a grown up word, DQ.

        Sardonic.

        A good looking, smart,honest bloke (like you) should recognise that when he sees it.

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        • doug quixote April 14, 2013 at 7:13 pm #

          No, ironic : “Ironic statements (verbal irony)] are statements that imply a meaning in opposition to their literal meaning”

          sardonic : grimly mocking or cynical.

          The later certainly describes you a good part of the time, when you aren’t simply being absurd or abusive.

          Maybe you aren’t as clever as you seem to believe. Ask that intellectual giant, Marilyn, you two seem to agree quite often.

          LOL

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          • Hypocritophobe April 14, 2013 at 7:29 pm #

            Well that went right over your house ‘and’ your head,No wonder you change your ID as often as you do.
            Ping!

            You should consider getting some ESL classes under your belt.

            Hahahaahha.

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    • hudsongodfrey April 14, 2013 at 6:15 pm #

      Since I’m saying nothing of the sort and you know it I see no reason to gratify this with any sort of detailed argument. Being almost completely a fabrication it addresses none of the points I made anyway.

      Just compare the pair on their merits and if you’re not blinded by hatred of having your precious ideology violated then you may agree with me. If not, and honestly objectively not, the we disagree in our interpretation of the facts that led us to ascribe merit to some policies and not others.

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      • doug quixote April 14, 2013 at 8:18 pm #

        To HG. Do you think we should bother with this Hypo character any further?

        I am inclined to send it to Coventry, ignore it totally. Its insults and abuse are gratuitous and pathetic, and it will not listen and certainly won’t learn.

        Over to you.

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        • hudsongodfrey April 14, 2013 at 8:46 pm #

          I try and answer the questions that are asked of me when I can. I’m not actively looking for a fight for the sake of it. And from time to time I think we’ve even made progress of a sort. But like you I’m beginning to think that this torture could continue all the way to the election, and then where does it get us? Does someone get gloating or bragging rights afterwards? I hope not anyway!

          I’m coming into a period where I can see my time’s not going to be my own as much as it has. So I may simply have to point out the recycled arguments for what they are when I see them and leave well alone.

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        • Hypocritophobe April 14, 2013 at 8:54 pm #

          Coventry? You ‘ard man you.
          Rather British of you old chap.
          Are your sure your parents fought for THIS country?
          Or fought to live in it.
          No wonder you like the new WAP so much.
          Gloat after the election?
          Never.
          I would prefer to call it Thatcherising.
          Whatever happens I’ll look you/s up.
          Victory is for celebrating.
          And I note the last time you and your bad cop Macabre muppet ID got sprung, you went down the ‘ignore Hypo road’.Why would that be?

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  60. doug quixote April 14, 2013 at 5:18 pm #

    To Hypo, re “Losing My Religion”

    The writer of the song seems to think he has lost something of value, something he owned or at least belonged to him.

    Losing religion should in my view be a liberating experience, more like losing a case of herpes or losing one’s virginity (another horrible myth, much favoured by the religious).

    Do you agree?

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    • Hypocritophobe April 14, 2013 at 5:39 pm #

      Get with the program, DQ.
      Religion was being compared to politics by HG.
      Australia has lost(Gillard has destroyed) the ALP.
      Some would argue (not You) that the ALP prior to Gillards assault was worth keeping.
      So losing Gillard good.
      Losing Labor bad.
      Choose whichever your little pumpkin wants, to suit the lyrics, of Losing My religion.

      Losing ALL religion would indeed be a liberating experience.It will not happen in our species.Finding religion is what happens to people who cannot/will not/do not think for themselves.Baaaaaaaaaaaaa.

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      • doug quixote April 14, 2013 at 7:16 pm #

        HG can make his points, I will make mine.

        And please stop bleating, the abattoirs are looking for more mutton.

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      • atomou April 17, 2013 at 3:39 pm #

        On the scum-cultivating pool called religion, watch Hitchens explain:

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  61. atomou April 14, 2013 at 6:02 pm #

    Ok, Hudso, I’ll put it even more simply: as an analogy, or a simile, a metaphor, even. I do not keep a packate of lethal poison around the house just because the packaging is attractive. Will that do?
    You say, “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.”
    Well, no, rejecting religion is just that: rejecting the ugly, lethal bullshit which is wrapped in pretty bullshit! The same with political parties that have become lethal bullshit but are still wrapped in pretty, lethal bullshit. Begin again once all that bullshit has been destroyed. Begin with the first principles, reasonably expressed but certainly not fully, since it’s only a slogan, by the French, Liberté,egalité, fraternité and then move on to building the machinery to put these ideals into practice, the demos constantly holding the switch lever.

    The quote above is more the thesis that Ali bases his whole book. I haven’t read the book for quite a while but just found it. Here is how that chapter (2) begins:

    The Origins of Islam

    Judaism, Christianity and Islam all began as versions of what we would today call political movements. The politics and culture of the period necessitated the creation of credible belief-systems to resist imperial oppression, to unite a disparate people or both.

    Which rings true also of the way the religious mythologies not too many years earlier had begun or taken hold in the Mediterranean and the Levant and the Fertile Crescent. Kings and other rulers built all sorts of temples dedicated to gods and heroes (some of which they made up themselves) even though they did not believe in any of the bits of the mythologies concocted; and these myths had taken a life of their own, ever burgeoning in bullshit, ever exciting and delighting the public with their outrageous nature. One only needs to read some Aristophanes to know exactly what the Athenians thought of their gods, Zeus and Dionysius included. The tragedians presented the same views, only more subtly, more subliminally.

    Unfortunately, the Abrahamic bullshit was enforced by military might and fear and this is the reason why we are seeing them still hanging around the planet, particularly with the intellectually suppressed people.

    And that is pretty much Ali’s view of religion, particularly at the fundamental level and at which level it is split into a million shards, each clashing against the others.

    I am certainly not advocating a “one fits all” ideology but I am advocating the destruction of lethal poisons. Bad religions and bad political powers are weapons of mass destruction.

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    • hudsongodfrey April 14, 2013 at 6:19 pm #

      I have no problem with that at all Ato. Just take it one step further and develop the capacity to root out and destroy your own ideology from within whenever the evidence merits revision and then I’ll believe you.

      You see we all get really good at critiquing the other bloke. its the natural stance, so it seems. But self criticism within dialog destined to lead to change is far more interesting.

      Know also that I’m trying to do the same myself 🙂

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      • gerard oosterman April 14, 2013 at 8:06 pm #

        “Quote”, You see we all get really good at critiquing the other bloke. its the natural stance, so it seems. But self criticism within dialog destined to lead to change is far more interesting. “Unquote”

        Good point Hudso, but for Ato to concede that will be impossible. He just simply does not have that kind of humility.

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        • hudsongodfrey April 14, 2013 at 8:38 pm #

          I’m writing it because I grant that he has otherwise I’d be more the fool for trying to make any such kind of point, but thanks for the supportive sentiments I know what you meant and I’m flattered.

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        • Hypocritophobe April 14, 2013 at 8:47 pm #

          Another free psychological assessment.
          This time from the flying Dutchman.
          Delivered deftly like a Picador from the breach,, while the bulls not looking.

          Wow!
          The money we save.

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          • atomou April 15, 2013 at 8:58 am #

            Ah, that’s our flying dutch fucks, Hypo!
            I’m surprised No 2 hasn’t turned up yet. Perhaps old age is getting the better of her these days.

            They’re like a pair of idiots who, having been tossed out of their birth-village, are desperate to find another that would have them. And they won’t find one of course, because they have fouled every one that was offered to them so far and the word is getting around.

            Don’t mind them, mate. I don’t.
            (Now cue in Elizabeth!)

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  62. Hypocritophobe April 15, 2013 at 9:39 am #

    The headlong rush to oblivion proceeds at a head spinning rate.
    Brian Burkes mate calls the shots.

    ROFL

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  63. atomou April 15, 2013 at 10:22 am #

    The idiocy of the West, the boundless sense of superiority, entitlement and disdain for the other has never surprised me!

    http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-04-15/controversy-over-bbc27s-undercover-n-korea-mission/4628444

    BBC Journos!

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  64. Hypocritophobe April 15, 2013 at 6:14 pm #

    http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/lifestyle/top-cop-hospitalised-after-eating-daughters-cannabis-cake/story-e6frf00i-1226620973706

    Gluttony is a deadly sin.Don’t eat like a pig.

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  65. Hypocritophobe April 15, 2013 at 10:17 pm #

    The mineral boom.
    Haves V have nots.
    Spiralling crime rate.
    Politically harnessed community division.

    The Barnett govt and his pretend farmer sidekick, Grylls have this trend set to continue with their nasty little experiment with unfettered growth, and setting themselves up personally for post political employment with mineral and energy moguls.

    http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-04-15/parents-concerned-for-teens-held-in-wa-prison/4630604

    It still doesn’t pay to have tinted skin in this country.Especially when there are resources to milk.

    Royalties for regions is just political speak for ‘keep the wedge active between city and country, no matter how many white elephants it takes’.
    While thousands of farmers whinge about how hard they have it, they look at the hundreds of millions of dollars of idol infrastructure laying dormant in their dying communities.None of them are likely to sell off their big power boat,third car,holiday shack or 3 or 4 property portfolios.
    The dumb leading the dumber.

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    • Hypocritophobe April 15, 2013 at 10:21 pm #

      EDIT
      Aha!
      There’s that Freudian slip spelling error thing again.

      Idle, not idol,

      but then again……

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  66. doug quixote April 16, 2013 at 5:26 pm #

    Once again with feeling :

    In a loungeroom not far away :

    Janette : “John, it says here that you should face trial in The Hague
    for starting the Iraq War.”

    John : “Remind me not to go to Holland any time soon. But it wasn’t
    me, it was Dubya who said “You’re either with me or against me, John”
    and that nasty Saddam had Weapons of Mass Destruction!”

    Janette : “But they didn’t find any.”

    John : “Well that’s hardly my fault – Dubya said they were there, and
    we had to be willing or else he wouldn’t have sent us a Christmas Card
    or paid me a big State visit, just before the next election!”

    Janette : ” I really can’t see what all the fuss is about, that nice Mr Blair
    agreed as well.”

    John : “Yeah, not too bad for a Pommie Labourite, I suppose. But
    Dubya had a big stick and a large carrot for him too!”

    Janette : “Couldn’t you both just blame Dubya then?”

    John : “If they ever put me on trial, yes, as quick as a flash; I’ll
    sing like a canary!”

    Janette : “Don’t start practising now, please! (aside : Sometimes I
    wonder.)”

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  67. doug quixote April 17, 2013 at 8:35 am #

    It seems this Happy Place is a little unwieldy, fighting down a column of several hundred comments.

    A new page, Jennifer, or do you want to abandon the idea? Other views?

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    • atomou April 17, 2013 at 8:56 am #

      DQ, when you get to this page, simply, press Control+down button and you’ll end up at the bottom of the page. My Mac button is called “command”.
      I don’t think we should abandon the page. I don’t know much about such sites so I don’t know if there is some way that after a certain time, a number of posts become archives and still accessible.

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      • hudsongodfrey April 17, 2013 at 10:18 am #

        Ctrl+End I think maybe Mac keyboards are different?

        I agree the page should stay as a refreshing reminder of what its like to be able to hold a decent conversation that isn’t shut down because nobody can be bothered to moderate.

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      • doug quixote April 17, 2013 at 3:10 pm #

        My keyboard refuses to do anything of the kind!

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        • atomou April 17, 2013 at 3:26 pm #

          Is it prehistoric?
          What type of puter have you got, Mac or Windows?
          Follow these steps DQ:
          1: Click on the page name (Happy place) even if that page is already open before you.
          2a: If Mac, press together Command+Down Arrow
          2b: If Windows, press Cntr+Down arrow (or if no arrows, end)

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          • doug quixote April 18, 2013 at 5:27 pm #

            Apparently the space bar does a fast run to the bottom on my computer – but it doesn’t run to the bottom faster than a Liberal/National policy. 🙂

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            • atomou April 18, 2013 at 5:46 pm #

              Space bar? What space bar? Who said anything about space bars? What on earth are you doing pressing space bars? Who told you to even touch the space bar? Get put of space now! And out of the bar, as well!

              Bloody troglodytes! Always their finger in some dyte or other!

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  68. atomou April 17, 2013 at 9:04 am #

    Now THIS IS interesting:
    http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-04-16/one-nation-founder-sues-abbott/4633398

    It seems all our pollies will be tangled up in court procedures! All are thugs! All are corrupt! All are shits! As if we didn’t know!

    Oh, what joy!

    Go, Ettridge, go! My enemy’s enemy is my mate!

    Oh, what joy!

    And then (to paraphrase M.L. King)
    We will be, free at last, free at last!
    Thank Zeus almighty we will be fucking free
    At last!

    Oh, yeaaaaaaah!

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    • Hypocritophobe April 17, 2013 at 10:08 am #

      And so he should be sued.I think there is also a case which could run paralell, for copyright infringement,whereby Labor(I am not permitted to name their highly incompetent leader due to DQs armys new rules) have stolen the policies of Pauline Hansons One Nation, and boosted them.
      Don’t be at all *surprised* to find out, in the not too distant future, by way of a leaking lawyer,that there is union money backing the case against Abbott.
      Desperate people do desperate things.
      Malcolm must be chuckling.

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    • Paul Smith April 17, 2013 at 10:23 am #

      If you are relying on that Ettridge then no doubt you will be left wanting not to mention doing a dance with the devil.

      Seriously what a joke of a case – if it had any merit it would have been launched long ago by someone of far more moral fibre. If it did not seek to drag Abbot in then it would not even have been considered yesterday’s budgie cage liner.

      Dr King may cringe at your subsitution.

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    • hudsongodfrey April 17, 2013 at 11:45 am #

      Yes I think the accusation is interesting, and no even at the cost of letting Abbott off lightly I’d won’t be siding with Hanonites. The timing is, to say the least, suspicious!

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  69. hudsongodfrey April 17, 2013 at 10:54 am #

    Okay Hopefully I can lift this text from the Drum Article whence I borrowed it

    Q. Julian Assange, has announced he will run for the Senate in Victoria in the next federal election and will also run candidates in other states. How likely would Julian Assange be to make a positive contribution to Federal Parliament?

    Total votes Vote Labor Vote Lib/Nat Vote Greens
    Very likely 12% 13% 9% 21%
    Somewhat likely 20% 24% 18% 40%
    Not very likely 25% 25% 27% 18%
    Not at all likely 25% 25% 31% 15%
    Don’t know 17% 13% 16% 7%

    The formatting will probably be a bit dodgy, but even if you can only read the left column I think it means that Assange may be all but over the line in the Senate race. It’s a one in six affair so if he only needs about 15% of the vote to avoid being the unlucky seventh he already has 12% plus whatever proportion of the Somewhat Likelies he can attract.

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    • Hypocritophobe April 17, 2013 at 11:03 am #

      Wikileaks? Could this be the surfactant?
      I don’t recall this govt doing Assange any favours.So perhaps the LNP govt can work(if need be with Wikileaks?)

      Or maybe Wiki will align with the Greens?
      Either way if Wiki gets up it will obviously cost the left votes.
      Wiki and the Greens may even both, profit from fax Labors capitulation and a rabid ABA vote.

      Then again this is just another poll.What would people who talk to polls know?
      😉

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      • hudsongodfrey April 17, 2013 at 11:55 am #

        Yes I agree, if this is what you mean to ask, that Gillard’s remarks re Wikileaks were possibly the most ill judged utterances I can recall having crossed her lips. She was not only wrong, but egregiously and thus far unapologetically so.

        However the question for comparison’s sake as to whether the opposition disagreed or came out in support, as is an opposition’s prerogative from time to time, is answered in the negative for the most part by a conspicuous silence from the cross benches.

        I think it would be a mistake to assume that America doesn’t want Assange. And both sides of Australian politics clearly lack the fortitude to stand up to them, no matter how much the public actually supports the model of greater openness and accountability wikileaks purports to offer.

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        • doug quixote April 17, 2013 at 3:20 pm #

          Should be fun to see how Assange gets out of the London embassy at any time, and even more fun to see what happens if he is an Australian Senator elect (he won’t be entitled to sit until July 2014).

          The fact remains that as soon as he sets foot outside the Embassy he will be arrested and extradited to Sweden. Straight away, do not pass go, do not collect $200.

          His election would be brief : his position would be declared vacant if he does not turn up in the Senate by September 2014.

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          • atomou April 17, 2013 at 3:35 pm #

            DQ. It’s not just Assange. It’s Wikileaks. A party with a number of candidates, which number might well increase by the time applications close. Assange himself might or might not stand, might or might not be out in time (in which case he misses out) but the other candidates may well cross the line. Think of wikileaks not assange, at this stage.

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            • doug quixote April 17, 2013 at 5:40 pm #

              OK Atomou, I will await events. Their complete platform may be interesting.

              But I can’t see them getting the numbers without Assange as the headline act.

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              • atomou April 17, 2013 at 5:50 pm #

                I don’t think the numbers will be too impassable a hurdle, DQ. The left-leaning people have had enough of the colluders and they will either go for Wiki 1 and Greens 2 or the reverse, probably followed by fifteen independents before the colluders get a mention.
                Not that Assange is a “lefty” by any meaningful description of the Left but he is not too easily identifiable as an inhumane thug, either.

                The platform, I’d imagine would include foremostly, transparency in all sectors of Govn’t. Anything else (like plebiscites for certain decisions like going to military escapades and the like) would be a bonus.

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                • atomou April 17, 2013 at 5:57 pm #

                  Joy of joys, of joys, of even greater JOYS!
                  Yeae! Mary Kostakidis in the Wikileaks Party! Christ, I hope I get a chance to vote for them!
                  Go here guys and find the answers!
                  http://www.wikileaksparty.org.au/#
                  Yihaaaa! I’m in! (After the Greens, of course!)

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          • hudsongodfrey April 17, 2013 at 5:46 pm #

            Unless he has diplomatic immunity? I would have thought that was the assumption.

            If you know something about the law in that regard that we’re unaware of then by all means enlighten us?

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            • doug quixote April 17, 2013 at 7:28 pm #

              Who, me? The law is very clear. The Supreme Court of the UK has ruled that he must be extradited to Sweden.

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              • hudsongodfrey April 17, 2013 at 7:31 pm #

                And they can extradite Senators can they? People with diplomatic status?

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                • Garpal Gumnut April 17, 2013 at 7:37 pm #

                  It’s an interesting scrap between the USA and Assange. Multiple layers of righteous indignation. More checkers than chess. If he gets out of the Eck Embassy by becoming a Senator, good on him. If not he will fester. And I’ve been in one of those flats in a street nearby, not the Embassy, and they are very bloody small.

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                  • hudsongodfrey April 17, 2013 at 8:21 pm #

                    And then I suppose he’ll be a prisoner of conscience or of convenience depending how you look at it.

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                    • Garpal Gumnut April 17, 2013 at 9:01 pm #

                      It’s a while since I’ve played checkers, but it does not have a stalemate. USA have their considerable assets, Wikileaks and Anonymous have theirs. It is an interesting scrap, but when history is writ in 1000 years it will I feel be just have an interesting footnote for academics. I basically do not think it matters which way it goes. It would be better for blogs worldwide if the lefty muppets in Vic or SA did elect him to the Senate, and I would be happy, as I believe in democracy, and it will give those muppets a feeling that they have a say. gg

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                    • hudsongodfrey April 17, 2013 at 9:47 pm #

                      Stick to checkers I’d saying as a betting man this having a bob either way won’t get you too far methinks 🙂

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                    • Garpal Gumnut April 17, 2013 at 9:58 pm #

                      lol Any bets?

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                    • hudsongodfrey April 17, 2013 at 10:31 pm #

                      None that I’d care to take the odds on.

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                • jo wiseman April 17, 2013 at 8:48 pm #

                  Diplomatic immunity applies to … wait for it … diplomats. Not all that surprising really if you think about it. Not senators (unless the senator receives a diplomatic posting).
                  There’s plenty of time for Assange to pop over to Sweden to clear his name before September 2014 though.

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                  • Garpal Gumnut April 17, 2013 at 9:06 pm #

                    Jo, I don’t agree with your conclusion, though with the general content. If Assange becomes a Senator it will give him considerable leverage to walk out of the Eck Embassy. If he is arrested it would be good politically for him. Australia would be drawn in to a diplomatic stoush with the poms, and he might, just might, get to travel in 1A on QF to Melbourne. Better than a cold cell in Gothenburg.

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                    • jo wiseman April 17, 2013 at 9:47 pm #

                      What would the reason for the diplomatic stoush be? Assange isn’t a diplomat. The cells is Gothenburg will be heated and the time spent awaiting trial short. If found not guilty he could be home for Christmas.

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                    • Garpal Gumnut April 17, 2013 at 10:00 pm #

                      Narcissus don’t do cold cells without Echo and a mirror.

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                  • Hypocritophobe April 17, 2013 at 9:07 pm #

                    There’s also plenty of time for the Australian government to support free speech and its citizens rights and freedoms.Instead of fellating America.
                    Almost enough time for all parties to draw up a binding agreement to bring Assange home and be tried (???) by vide conference.However ther e will never be enough time for Swedish authorities to regain credibility or the USA to convince anyone they can be trusted NOT to snaffle Assange.They want him either in a court and stitched or driving past a grassy knoll.
                    And whatever America wants,Julia will obediently apply her lubricant to.

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                    • Garpal Gumnut April 17, 2013 at 9:27 pm #

                      Hypocritophobe, I may have to put you in a cage with the blogosphere, to expose you to hypocrites and cure you. Your answer is, and I quote from Joyce, Bawl Ox. The matter of Assange, girls hard done by with torn condoms, Manning, War on Terror is too conflated and convoluted to make value judgements that would be any way accurate. I would prefer to see it all unfold. Therein lies the truth. gg

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                    • jo wiseman April 17, 2013 at 10:06 pm #

                      If you believe the USA are going to snaffle Assange why do you want them to do it in Australia rather than Sweden?

                      If Assange wants to be a senator for any longer than the time taken to get booted out of the Senate as a no-show he needs to clear his name; Gillard’s subservience to the USA notwithstanding. He can get on with his life even if convicted, providing he gets a suspended sentence or a non-custodial sentence or after he’s served his time. I don’t think he could be a senator in that case but he could be out and about.

                      It’s up to him. Locking himself up in the Ecuadorian Embassy doesn’t seem healthy, but I’m not his mother.

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                  • hudsongodfrey April 17, 2013 at 9:45 pm #

                    And plenty of time for the Swedes to come to him as there always has been. Given that he has understandable trust issues under the circumstances.

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                    • jo wiseman April 17, 2013 at 9:51 pm #

                      The idea of a Swedish court in the Ecuadorian embassy in London, or anywhere else outside of Sweden, is patently absurd.

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                    • Garpal Gumnut April 17, 2013 at 10:05 pm #

                      This is all time wasting crap, encouraged by any QC who has a prepaid opinion from Julian. He is gifted, but not smart. Wikileaks must be leaking a lot of dosh in all this. Good on him though. Alleged rape is a terrible crime to face. the Swedes are a sensible race and I doubt if they would turn him in to the USA. It is all a huge game. Lastly I feel for the Ecks.

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                    • hudsongodfrey April 17, 2013 at 10:30 pm #

                      Ever heard of Skype?

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                  • paul walter April 17, 2013 at 11:57 pm #

                    MUST you continue to lie about Assange, after all this time..

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                    • jo wiseman April 18, 2013 at 7:39 am #

                      You talking to me, paul walter? I don’t usually do conversations at your level, but just this once I’ll have a go.
                      Boo sucks paul walter stinks.
                      Don’t hold your breath waiting for me to bother again. On second thoughts, feel free.

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    • Hypocritophobe April 17, 2013 at 11:15 am #

      PS
      You will note of course that the poll above the one you pasted did not even other to include a question which goes to ask about policy,values,principles etc.
      The article cleverly ‘takes’ the personality tack.

      Why?
      Their next article needs to ask about anything but personalities and see what numbers they get.
      As vividly demonstrated here at this site, the party + personalty spruikers have more blind loyalty than the Collingwood fan club,so the Drum asking about loyalty to the brand was a wasted opportunity IMO.

      The same people who ‘barrack’ for parties are the first to cry,
      “Oh no!, How could THEY do this to ME?”, when it all comes crashing down.

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      • hudsongodfrey April 17, 2013 at 12:01 pm #

        No it’s slim evidence, but the first polling I’ve seen and so you take’s what you can find. And you’ve obviously seen the full article, so for others I’ll just post the link….

        http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/4633844.html

        They’re making a wholly different argument, but in a world of lies damned lies and statistics I don’t think it’s irrelevant to look at the question through different eyes and ponder different inferences from a set of figures. I presented a chart pertaining to a question, and while I guess you could draw the inference that more than half of people certainly won’t vote for Assange that would be to completely misunderstand the Senate voting system. So I think the point may be valid.

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        • Hypocritophobe April 17, 2013 at 1:00 pm #

          Aagh,that maybe so.
          But don’t you think it is a bit shallow and totally irrelevant if, as indicated by their previous polls, that the bulk of those still supporting Labor are not even interested in policies etc.
          Wouldn’t you like to know what is in the minds and hearts of those who have a different view to you as well?
          By that group I am talking about the ones who will vote vote anyone but faux Labor and ABA.
          If indeed we are surrounded by idiots who would vote for ‘anything but’ principles, don’t you think the question needs to be asked?

          I sense that could actually be the scariest answer any of us could hope for.
          The answer goes to what our society has become, or not.Don’t you think?

          My feeling is this election might end up being a referendum on whether the Australian public are prepared to vote for a Labor party totally controlled by militant union dogma.
          I hope it is and I hope they send the message loud and clear,however they vote.
          As for being an apologist for Abbott,haha.
          I just ask that you apply the same blow torch to Gillard now and then.Which includes her backflips and betrayals.

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          • hudsongodfrey April 17, 2013 at 4:44 pm #

            Yes you’re right this is a bit shallow and irrelevant if you regard it as having to do with anything we’ve previously discussed, but it isn’t and it doesn’t and this is the happy place where we can change the subject if we like.

            I don’t know that the bulk of Labor supporters are disinterested in policy even if they’re not dewy eyed over Gillard at this stage of the game. Policies always matter and the opinion that on its worst day Labor is still better than the alternative has currency among many people even if you don’t happen to share their views.

            “Wouldn’t you like to know what is in the minds and hearts of those who have a different view to you as well?”

            Sure I would, and when most people ask that kind of question they mean to say that they’d like to share their views so by all means fire away. If I haven’t been addressing your views then its because I thought you’d already expressed them quite clearly enough, but a change or addition in a new direction is always welcome.

            “I am talking about the ones who will vote vote anyone but faux Labor and ABA” should that be people who’ll vote against faux Labor and who are also voting ABA, or who’re also voting against ABA? There’s effectively a confusing double negative when we read your sentence to mean anyone but anyone but Abbott. By the former I take that you mean people who’ll vote for third parties and by the latter mostly people who’ll vote for Abbott.

            Okay what’s your problem with the Unions again? Apart from the Howes Gillard connection I don’t understand why you think unions are actually a problem for Labor in principle?

            And for Fucksake Hypo I’ve taken the torch to Gillard as much as the next bloke (except Doug). I disagree with both of your on different points but I simply don’t need to dispute them with Doug because as far as I can see most of the notion that we’re completely oblivious to Gillard’s fault stems from your interpretation of the argument. Anything that either concentrates predominantly on criticism of Abbott or fails to follow your line of reasoning that Gillard is some kind of political antichrist seems to offend you beyond rhyme or reason.

            If only you stopped looking through that one prism you might care for the kaleidoscope of differing perspectives others could offer, but until you do it makes it very hard indeed to overcome the hatred you have for the woman in polite and persuasive terms.

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            • Hypocritophobe April 17, 2013 at 4:57 pm #

              There is nothing wrong with unions.I’ve been a beneficial and supportive member.However they have no right to call the shots from without, or install factional overlords and loyal hench persons to vacancies.
              But you know that.You seem to like hearing the same shit 56 dozen times for some reason.
              Altzheimers?

              When YOU can demonstrate you don’t have ground hog day repetition and are not captive of your own Teflon brand of prism, I will debate those imaginings you keep regurgitating.

              To see Gillard as an anti Christ would mean playing the worship game,which means putting people on pedestals and policies at their feet.You of all people should know better.

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              • hudsongodfrey April 17, 2013 at 5:44 pm #

                I agree with your opening comment on both counts.

                Part-timers. So much has been written that I do lose track if that’s frustrating for others I apologise.

                And yes I feared you’d twist Antichrist, but it’s also used in a more generic context to mean anyone who personifies the antithesis of another’s ideology, and I’m disappointed that you waste your time and mine with this assumed negativity and adversarial tone when you know better.

                So by all means tell us what you’d expect me to say that might halfway convince you that I’m capable of being less biased when it comes to the perpetual Abbott versus Gillard debate we appear to be having whether we like it or not. And despite I might add the fact that it doesn’t solve anything.

                Where I regard Gillard as a failure I regard Abbott as an enemy. It’s the difference between Gillard passively neglecting her principles and Abbott actively promoting an opposing ideology that stands out to me like the proverbial dog’s balls, and you you cannot or will not see it.

                I wish we could stop discussing that and concentrate on finding solutions. If you want one that doesn’t involve Gillard I understand. If I want one that doesn’t involve Abbott I can only hope some people here understand that as well. The only real way I can see to achieve both at once is to change Labor leaders. I also acknowledge that voting Green is a fine and laudable standpoint that I think, indeed hope, that more people than ever will adopt. I just don’t think that it can realistically manage to break the two major’s grip on government within the space of one election and so have to say that while it isn’t technically the only alternative to the LNP a strong Labor remains essential to avoiding an Abbott government.

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            • atomou April 17, 2013 at 5:22 pm #

              Hudso, Hypo, of course can provide his own remedy to your despair but let me do my bit also.
              The worst of Gillard’s crimes is that she has DONE NOTHING that may be called Labor, or Left, or Logical, or Meaningful, or Honest, or Conscionable or Humane, or Feminist, or pertaining to Equal Rights.
              As well, on the same step ladder of crimes (but on the other side of it) is her BETRAYAL of Labor, of the Left, of Logic, of Worthy deeds, of Honesty, of Conscience of Humanness, Feminism, of Equal Rights.
              And she has done all this with the greatest alacrity and a most disgraceful exhibition of Marie Antoinette-like disdain for Labor’s constituents – who, admittedly have disparate wish lists and predilections but which wish list a good Labor leader could put her arms around.

              By contrast, Abba sits quite comfortably on the throne of his lot of religious right. He’s an idiot and his party is a party of thugs but everyone knows who they are and by now have worked out how to lessen the worst impacts of their thuggishness. Not all, admittedly but its worse excesses.
              There is no betrayal, Hudso! No fucking betrayal with him or his lot!

              And, to my mind, and, I believe, to that of Hypo, as I read him, betrayal is a cardinal political sin. No different to national treason in time of war. Not the slightest bit different; and I will not associate my name -which might not worth a pinch of poo to anyone else but it’s worth an enormous amount to me, because it is my identity and my passport to this world- with treasonous organisations of any sort, no matter what banner or flag or label they wave about.

              I’d rather vote for the dreadfully unmusical minstrels ABBA than either of these two but more so, I cannot be negligent in not trying to bring about a new, more educated, more conscionable Labor or Left-leaning party.

              All the above form also my view about the unions that hold sway in Gillard’s Labor. They are not Unions but an idendikit of Business Chambers and Associations. Mini Reinharts.

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              • hudsongodfrey April 17, 2013 at 7:06 pm #

                Thanks for those comments Atomou. I just got finished writing something to Hypo that touches on the core issues you’ve raised.

                Gillard’s crime is to neglect her principles and I completely understand and agree that it constitutes a betrayal of them to do so. Whereas Abbott’s crime is to stand for an opposing ideology that seeks not just to neglect the principles that Gillard so egregiously allows to languish but to actively reverse them.

                So if you want to talk about betrayal of principles you have on the one hand Gillard’s kind of betrayal and on the other that of people who would desert Labor for the LNP. Maybe those two wrongs are never going to make a right. But I understand why outraged people are liable to see deserting Labor as a form of retaliation against somebody who betrayed them first. What I don’t see is how in saying as much we’re absolved from the greater responsibility we have to try and avoid what seems almost inevitably to result in an Abbott government.

                This is a guy who I don’t think has a single idea he hasn’t pitched directly from the Howard play book. So regardless how conscience cleansing the business of voting Green may seem to be, if the Greens aren’t really going to threaten the Abbotts of this world in their own right we’re still facing a pretty desperate situation. Abbott seems set to waltz on in there with no real policies even fewer credible costings and naff all opposition. I’m simply the bloke saying that ain’t good enough, so if it means Gillard has to fall on her proverbial sword then lets pick a leader who’ll at least challenge Abbott.

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                • Garpal Gumnut April 17, 2013 at 7:15 pm #

                  Principles always win out with the electorate. The average person can spot a fake a mile away. True statesmanship is carrying the country forward with firm principles in which you believe. This has been Gillard’s weakness. Too much shilly shallying, and she and the ALP will get thumped for it in September.

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                  • hudsongodfrey April 17, 2013 at 7:20 pm #

                    Well that tells me nothing!

                    Nothing I didn’t know.

                    And nothing about the question of whether having the wrong ideology isn’t worse than having no principles at all?

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                    • Garpal Gumnut April 17, 2013 at 7:24 pm #

                      And nothing about the question of whether having the wrong ideology isn’t worse than having no principles at all?… And that is the question really, sorry didn’t mean to start debate on above in Happy Place. A good topic to debate sometime. An important one too. gg

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                    • hudsongodfrey April 17, 2013 at 7:27 pm #

                      Being late to the party doesn’t necessarily disqualify a newcomer from comment. Goodness knows it isn’t that start of the debate by any means, and I’ve been trying to get some people to face up to that very question for quite a little while 🙂

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                • atomou April 18, 2013 at 11:58 am #

                  Hudso, just ONCE more, because we’ve been over this same ground so much, that we have rendered it infertile.

                  Gillard’s crime is not “neglect,” but “betrayal!”

                  People like me and Hypo, who want her out of the party are not betraying her; they are trying to oust a usurper. They are not the ones who wish to bring in the bastards on the other side of the table

                  Abbott’s crime is not “neglect” either. He has neglected nothing. In fact he promotes the Conservatives’ principles. There is no betrayal to his party. It is a party of religious fascist and he is the most qualified to lead it. Everyone knows what his party stands for and what to expect from Tony the Shit. Whatever Tony’s crimes are, betrayal to his constituents and their principles, is not one of them.
                  No cardinal political sin committed by Tony, so far as I can assertain.

                  Nor is it retaliation by those who wish to vote this non-Labor out; at least not by me. It is a way of giving them time for some introspection and correction of thinking and behaviour. It is a time for rehabilitation and remedy, perhaps even cure.

                  I said “perhaps!”

                  And that’s the responsibility I feel I have: To help the ALP become its own physician and so cure itself.

                  The Greens are another party. They have no responsibility to threaten anyone. They represent their constituents with clearly articulated policies to which, at present, I agree quite firmly. I know what they are about, as I know what the coalition of neo-cons are about. If the Greens also fall for the same tactics of betrayal and back stabbing, then I’ll re examine my views. I did with the Democrats when Lees betrayed them. I hold no unqualified obedience to anyone politician or political entity. My vote is always tentative and firmly attached to my principles.

                  If Abbott will “waltz on in there with no real policies, etc, etc,” it will be because the alternative, a backstabbing bunch of thugs who have betrayed all the principles that they were supposed to uphold, is an even worse choice for the majority of the oz pop.

                  If Gillard falls on her sword, I will certainly be prepared to examine the newcomer. If I find him or her an adequate leader of the party to which I have given the sweat of my brow and my soul, then I’ll reconsider –only as a second preference, mind!

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                  • hudsongodfrey April 18, 2013 at 3:03 pm #

                    All well and good. And I understand that we disagree about this, but your response is not cognisant of the harm that, on my assessment of their policies as stated thus far, the LNP will do. I think we’re going to be consigning real people to experience worse conditions before at some future date an honourable alternative emerges. The argument I’m making therefore is about the preference for taking a dishonourable alternative and reshaping it somehow without all the harm being risked.

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                    • doug quixote April 19, 2013 at 4:45 am #

                      I repeat. for better certainty, HG, the “betrayal” reason/scenario is fucking insane!

                      You cannot reason with zealots and fanatics.

                      I said before that Hypo was deranged, but I was only half serious.

                      Now it seems the rubicon has been crossed.

                      And I am desperately sorry for him.

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                    • hudsongodfrey April 19, 2013 at 12:36 pm #

                      The allegation of betrayal is true though Doug. The problem I have with it is just that to act upon it as some would is political suicide.

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              • doug quixote April 19, 2013 at 4:33 am #

                That is fucking insane!

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                • atomou April 19, 2013 at 8:43 am #

                  “You cannot reason with zealots and fanatics.”

                  How fucking true!
                  Now if only we can establish who is a zealot and who a passionate proponent of principles, we can send one to the devil and the other to the People’s Liberation Front of Australia!

                  Which way are you heading, DQ?

                  Is no one, anywhere betraying anyone anywhere?

                  Don’t be such a fucking fanatic DQ!

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                  • doug quixote April 19, 2013 at 12:34 pm #

                    Fanatic? I’m always open to reason, atomou.

                    I can see no sanity remaining in the betrayal scenario. I can see no premise, no case and no satisfactory reasoning leading to any such conclusion. It is an hysterical argument.

                    Persuade me that I am wrong in this. You may have 10,000 words to make your case.

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                    • atomou April 19, 2013 at 9:31 pm #

                      Ah, thanks, DQ! I needed that chuckle! Some days I go through the whole day without one and I just love chuckles!

                      But let me tell you something, old bean: If, from where you’re standing I look like I am deranged, from where I’m standing you look certifiable, should be wearing a very tight white garment and inside a padded room with no door handles…

                      No, that’s not quite right Not a padded room and no tight white garment. Just a game board -whatever they’re called these days- and your tongue sticking out as you try your damnedest to shoot something or other.

                      What’s sanity got to do with the scenario (what scenario, by the way?) of Gillard’s betrayal of all that Labor once stood for?
                      I am no shrink and so totally bereft of any shrinky qualifications. In short, I cannot tell if Gillard -or you, or I, for that matter- is insane. It is a view I hold that she has done some big time betrayal, beginning with the betrayal of her boss and our Prime Minister.

                      By the way, how do YOU pronounce your nic, quee-shot, quee-xote, qui-hote. qui-shote, quick-shite?

                      I’m seriarse!

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                    • atomou April 19, 2013 at 9:32 pm #

                      I’m always seriarse on a Friday night.

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                • Hypocritophobe April 19, 2013 at 11:00 am #

                  Insane?
                  Says the man who builds a whole persona around internet avatars when he gets pinged bullshitting and attacking using one pseudo to protect his main one.Then ‘it’ spins off like a headless chook into denial and verbally violent backlashes,himself.

                  Cracking toast grommet.

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                  • Hypocritophobe April 19, 2013 at 11:02 am #

                    BTW
                    (That ^ is for DQ the brave)

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  70. Garpal Gumnut April 18, 2013 at 12:25 am #

    So hudsongodfrey, is it possible to start a thread on Wrong Ideology vs Good Principles? I’m unsure how this blog works, so can you run with it, or be viewed in 1000 years by some “internets archaelogist” as having only received an answer on an important topic from Garpal Gumnut Citizen.

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    • Hypocritophobe April 18, 2013 at 10:27 am #

      Great idea set up a blog and discuss it.I’m sure the internets genii, Bird,Stagger Lee and Lady Penelope would love to join in.You can all run in circles till till you tun into butter, and we can eat it on hot pancakes.

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    • hudsongodfrey April 18, 2013 at 11:43 am #

      Well I’m willing to entertain the conversation, and being realistic the archaeological ramifications are of little if any import to either of us. We’re here for what we can learn from the exercise of exchanging ideas.

      How it works is that we just post right here and keep posting and replying until we agree or hell freezes over, whichever comes first 🙂

      On the other hand if you think the question is interesting then you’re going to have to take it a run with it wherever you think it leads because when I posed it I was being more or less rhetorical within the context of current day Australian Politics. The question wasn’t even, as you put it, wrong ideology v good principles. It was I guess more or less a lack of commitment to good principles, versus active commitment to the wrong ones.

      So mine was more of a pragmatic assessment than a philosophical question, just meaning to say that failing to do as much good as we might have hoped (Gillard) was probably less damaging than seeking to do harm (Abbott). My politics, perhaps not yours, but again I stress in the context of a longer running debate with others.

      If you want to debate the straight up difference between ideology and principles then my preference for the latter is clear. Ideology involves a kind of codification, often occasioning dumbing down of principles, whereas as the principles themselves need to be independently applied through some ethical consideration of cases on their merits.

      In my view the real bugbear of most efforts to concoct the perfect ideology is that it almost always relies upon trying to deduce reliable universal truths in a way that becomes its Achilles heel. Telling human beings what you consider to be somewhere between so unlikely and so morally repugnant that you believe it will never happen is the very essence of a recipe for unintended consequences. And generally it doesn’t even rely on the intercession of some evil influence upon the person/s who subvert your ideology, because the desire for them to have broad appeal leads the authors of ideologies to generalise within the context of groups whom they wish either to favour or to appeal to. Thus we have competing ideologies and competing groups of people who support them. Within modern pluralistic societies where support is divided more or less down the middle for any given ideology that means about half of society is comprised of ideological subversives with respect to what the other half subscribe to.

      So the more utilitarian argument I’d make for applied principles merely argues that to the extent than a few are understood to exist about which we do find ourselves in much broader agreement we can conceive of multiple concurrent ideals to which we might aspire without necessarily neglecting those dissenters who want to go their own way. And we do so in general by applying the principle of reciprocity which in one of its many forms can be expressed as “live and let live”.

      Coming back to how those more philosophical ruminations inform current Australian politics utilitarian ethics would simply have us weigh the merits of the consequences of respective actions against one another and elect for the greatest good, or the least harm depending on how you wish to express well-being as one of the core principles to which we aspire in this debate.

      The consequences of that are that my political lights tell me that the Greens are in many ways better than Labor has been under Gillard, but that the ALP is still much better than the LNP would be. I’m not necessarily asking others to agree with my judgement in these matters, but rather just to follow the logic that says since I don’t believe the Greens can win in their own right a strong Labor party is still going to form an essential part of what it takes to avoid an Abbott government. And it is in my view an ethical conclusion to draw to say that I would have to be persuaded that the quotient of consequences for well-being under Abbott, appearing likely as it does to be deleterious, would have to be reversed before I could condone voting in a way that sought purely and singularly to punish Gillard for her admittedly unprincipled but marginally by some discernible amount less damaging policies.

      But if you wanted to say that voting Green, my political lights being framed by what I said earlier, is a vote that merely intends to punish Gillard then depending on how you preference that’s clearly not necessarily true either. What is true however is that Labor being in government and being as weak in the polls as they are need some help if at the very least we’re to stand a chance of allowing Abbott to come to government having to offer the electorate more than a few galling slogans like “stop the boats” and a black hole in his costings.

      How’s that for a primer? As Ellis would say, Discuss!

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      • atomou April 18, 2013 at 12:19 pm #

        Hudso, your seventh paragraph reads a little too convoluted for my dull brain. could you tease it out a bit for me, please, if you have the time? (the one beginning with “so the more utilitarian…”)

        As for your last paragraph and your exhortation to “discuss,” let me do a bit (more) of it:

        I have asked you to extricate the word “punish” from your thesis. There might be some people who are, as the media would have it, waiting with a cricket bat to beat the crap out of Gillard and this non-Labor Party but I, and I suggest, the majority of those who will vote her out have, in their heart, the good will of a surgeon who must remove a lethal flaw in the human organism. A political surgery is absolutely necessary. True, the everyday running of that organism’s life will be put in abeyance until the surgery is conducted but that is absolutely necessary, if the lethal flaw is to be removed.
        And it’s not just Gillard, though she is a fairly hefty part of that flaw.

        The thought bubble and knee jerk policy making should go; so should the extreme right wing “kill the single mothers policies!”

        And this will only happen with surgery. The public have a very dull scalpel with which to perform this surgery and they only have about as much time as a quickie in the back lane during busy day light hours, every three years to perform it. That’s the state of our type of Democracy these days. One quickie every three years!

        What more do you expect?

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        • doug quixote April 18, 2013 at 2:30 pm #

          Australia expects them to make a sane rational judgement about which Party with which set of policies is to be the government for the next three years.

          “Punishment”, and “surgery” do not come into it.

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          • hudsongodfrey April 18, 2013 at 3:49 pm #

            To slightly modify those rational statements that I heartily agree with for myself, for others I think punishment comes into it because we can’t expect everyone under the circumstances to be entirely rational. And if we always agreed on a purely rational footing then we’d probably have very different politics.

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        • hudsongodfrey April 18, 2013 at 3:42 pm #

          Okay for the mystery seventh paragraph I would urge you to try and understand it. I’ve read it again and don’t think it’s badly written. But if there were to be a short version it would be to say that ideologies are generally inflexible, often absolutist fallacies, and seldom so widely accepted that in a democracy, where half of the population are likely to disagree with, you any ideology you try to implement will invariably be subverted.

          Thanks for adding on. Some do seem to go the punishment route, so when I’m not writing exclusively for you please assume that any notion of punishment doesn’t apply directly to you but nevertheless exists elsewhere in a more general sense in the minds of others who are outraged by what Gillard has done for their own reasons.

          I think your point about the blunt instrument we have at our disposal is a pretty good description. So if in part I’m just talking theory of what we’d prefer to happen then you know what I prefer not to. You know also that seeing it as inevitable and trying to excuse it doesn’t appeal to me. I think we have to at least try and follow the logic of doing what we can to prevent the greatest quotient of harm.

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          • atomou April 19, 2013 at 11:17 am #

            Words like generally, often and seldom are words of no value in a serious conversation. I can do nothing with them and completely disregard them. Ergo, the word “invariably” is a falsetto of a conclusion.

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            • hudsongodfrey April 19, 2013 at 1:04 pm #

              So if I say you often shit me by picking over grammatical issues that are seldom of any real import. And that when you do so it invariably comes at the of seldom tackling the difficult ideas, then you’ll know of course that I’m not being serious 🙂

              But then if I were to be serious for a moment its fine if you don’t want to engage with the things I have to say here. I’d have liked you to, I invited you to, but that remark is just sniping for the sake of snarkiness. And what a very disappointing effort it was from somebody with the obvious intellect to do better.

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      • doug quixote April 18, 2013 at 2:45 pm #

        Translation :

        “I will talk to anyone, even Garbled Bumfluff, late of Bob Ellis’ blog.

        Principles win out over ideology in any sensible view of the world.

        I’ll vote Green perhaps, and preference Labor, because any other preference would be absurd and counterproductive.”

        A fair summary?

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        • hudsongodfrey April 18, 2013 at 3:53 pm #

          If you’re that keen on reducing it to a series of bland cliff notes then I see little to dispute about what’s left of my post. But it’s no fun if you don’t at least offer an opinion of those ideas 🙂

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        • hudsongodfrey April 18, 2013 at 3:55 pm #

          I mean to say Doug, the point of offering it as a primer was to stimulate discussion not reduce it to a few grunts and giggles!

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          • doug quixote April 18, 2013 at 5:10 pm #

            You want a response!?!

            I do not want to talk to excommunicated trolls, genuine refugees though they may be : persecuted because of their political beliefs and sent off without even a tinny or a leaky fishing boat . . .

            Must agree with the second sentence; ideology is fine in theory but it only works well for the elite who use it to get their way.

            Vote Green if you must, but Labor is the only genuine hope to form a reformist government, which may well be the case if they can get a majority in the lower house. The Greens have an assured balance of power position in the Senate at least through 2016.

            Discuss further, if you like. 🙂

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            • hudsongodfrey April 18, 2013 at 5:32 pm #

              Okay it would be understandable if we basically agree that some of the points are almost moot

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              • Garpal Gumnut April 18, 2013 at 6:56 pm #

                hg, I’ll copy and paste your original above, read and reply later. Meaty and good. And lacking political bias, one could swap acronyms ALP for LNP etc. willy nilly. What we have to get away from is the idea that “we” are correct ( I nearly wrote right ) but fear for doug’s heart. Believe it or not, having had lifelong friendships with LNP and ALP believers, they care, and have more in common than with others. It’s the muggles in the middle, the swingers, I worry about. Perhaps they lack ideology AND principles.

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                • hudsongodfrey April 18, 2013 at 7:16 pm #

                  Fair enough we’ll wait with baited breath. And if you do manage to find and use a reply button when you do respond I’ll always see it more quickly

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                  • Garpal Gumnut April 18, 2013 at 7:32 pm #

                    Thanks hg, ’tis found, is it? gg

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                    • hudsongodfrey April 18, 2013 at 8:07 pm #

                      Indubitably

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            • Hypocritophobe April 18, 2013 at 8:31 pm #

              You’re wrong DQ.Utterly unequivocally wrong.THIS Labor PM has clearly stated she is NOT leading a reformist party.
              The union thugs have ended all that.
              Have you slept through the last year?

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  71. Hypocritophobe April 22, 2013 at 8:11 pm #

    Vale Chrissy Amphlett.

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  72. doug quixote April 25, 2013 at 10:01 pm #

    This one has refused to be posted on Ellis’ blog, which seems to be having difficulties, so here it is :

    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 : (aside) : “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 : (interrupting )”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 all the evidence!”

    Mo : “Just keep spouting it. There’s no problem for me and Larry, 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 kept open for free enterprise.

    Curly : (aside :”What a pair of arseholes”)

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    • Hypocritophobe April 25, 2013 at 10:26 pm #

      So apart from using your current ID to denigrate the 3 Stooges, are you conceding that Abbott will be the next PM?
      And further that you allege he will sabotage the limp lettuce RCom,(the one you said could never legally happen)?
      Do tell, how?

      Because then we have some meaty discussions to be had, about making sure Abbott only lasts one term.And how to do it.
      Or are you happy to have his Howardesque refugee policies only?

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  73. atomou April 25, 2013 at 10:16 pm #

    Sarah just hates tim Arabians in Russia… I mean The Czech Republi… I mean Ismabab… I mean… oh shit I don’y know what I mean, hand me my bazooka! http://dailycurrant.com/2013/04/22/sarah-palin-calls-invasion-czech-republic/

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    • Hypocritophobe April 25, 2013 at 10:37 pm #

      The Anal Parish strikes again.
      She is the walking, talking example of why America is simultaneously a target for some and a laughing stock for most.

      Lipstick on a pig.

      She could have been the Prezz.How scary is that.
      The potential to be Alaska and the USAs own Kim Jong Un

      Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!

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    • hudsongodfrey April 25, 2013 at 10:59 pm #

      Let’s just hope the Austrians say out of trouble!

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    • atomou April 26, 2013 at 8:45 am #

      Sorry guys, just went over the article again and saw the new comments beneath it. It is highly probable that it is a fake, The Daily Current being a satirical magazine of sorts.

      Jennifer, if it is at all possible, I’d ask you to remove my link please or at least, make yourself aware of the full article and the comments beneath it and see what you think.
      Again, apologists.
      But it IS a good reminder of the sort of “leaders” that America spawns in enthusiastic regularity: Palin, Romney, Bush, Bush, Nixon…

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      • Hypocritophobe April 26, 2013 at 9:30 am #

        Not to worry.
        The reality that Palin is possibly the distillation of the gung-ho, gun-toting, selective international sheriff attitude, that is the US,still applies.

        Its hard to be more satirical than she really is.

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      • doug quixote April 26, 2013 at 8:09 pm #

        That it is so close to what she might actually say that makes it good parody. With someone as ignorant and outspoken as her, it is very hard to find extremes of hyperbole!

        BTW, when you find Peace, let the poor girl loose; she doesn’t often get an outing, as Aristophanes noted. 🙂

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  74. atomou April 26, 2013 at 10:53 am #

    When the world is in such a belligerent mess, what we need is Peace.
    Can I have some more, please sir?

    But WHERE is Peace when you need her?
    The ancient comic playwright, Aristophanes, travelled far and wide, talked to a couple of fierce gods and finally found her!
    And, more importantly, what role did the dung beetle play in all his?
    Find out where, who buried her and why here:

    Peace Ειρήνη

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  75. hudsongodfrey April 27, 2013 at 11:08 am #

    BACWA goes Bollywood….

    http://www.news.com.au/world-news/indian-former-porn-star-sunny-leone-dragged-into-rape-debate/story-fndir2ev-1226629020212

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  76. Hypocritophobe April 28, 2013 at 9:28 pm #

    OMFG

    Talk about funny.
    Singleton is under the drug fucked illusion that bookmakers are honest and that the fastest horse wins.
    Sucked in you fucking dog meat pedlar.
    I hope you come back as a yearling and snap your leg in the home straight and the knackery has run out of bullets.

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    • atomou April 28, 2013 at 11:24 pm #

      Shit you can imprecate some gruesome curses, hypo!
      But I agree most indubitably with you about Sangers being a dog meat pedlar. No one deserves what he got more than that foul slobenian!
      .

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      • Hypocritophobe April 29, 2013 at 9:58 am #

        You are most welcome my fine Greek fisherman, comrade.

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  77. Hypocritophobe May 3, 2013 at 9:41 pm #

    America’s got talent.

    http://www.news.com.au/breaking-news/rapper-danny-brown-receives-oral-sex-on-stage/story-e6frfkp9-1226634704679

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  78. Garpal Gumnut May 9, 2013 at 9:28 pm #

    I’ve been just watching Mrs Brown’s Boys, an Irish theatrical TV programme, very amusing and hilarious at times, thoughtful and philosophical at other times.

    It is so good to see modern comedy drama as our ancestors did, with the characters foibles and prejudices on show, without the glut of petty modern judgement, on the life of everywoman and everyman, young and old.

    We in Australia could learn from Mrs. Brown. We are such a constipated country beset with matters of constipated judgemental outrage, with the inevitable result weekly, useless motions, odour and comment.

    I would recommend this show to Jennifer’s followers.

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    • hudsongodfrey May 9, 2013 at 11:02 pm #

      I did watch that and washed it down with a healthy dose of Dick from https://whataboutdick.com, and for Helvi and other’s information that side is Safe For Work (i.e. non NSFW) 🙂

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      • paul walter May 10, 2013 at 12:41 am #

        That’s if you don’t get a virus from it.

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        • hudsongodfrey May 10, 2013 at 10:26 am #

          Unless it’s the single entendre virus I think we’ll all be safe from this particular Dick!

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      • Garpal Gumnut May 10, 2013 at 1:00 am #

        Thanks hg, I will download it when I get the NBN probably in the year 2020 as our suburb votes LNP.

        Prior to Mrs Brown I watched the glorious Stephen Fry on Qi, my favourite Manic Depressive and AB.

        Rhymes with Asp And It.

        I only acronymed this last, lest I be pursued by the ever present muppets. It seems that as nuns and brothers die off they are replaced by PC muppets.

        Such a shame we try to medicate genius, such as Fry.

        Mrs Brown and QI, a glorious escape from mediocrity.

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        • hudsongodfrey May 10, 2013 at 1:07 pm #

          If you’re time poor like me try getting Fry’s autobiographies on audio book as read by the man himself. He does have one of the more sonorous voices known to man.

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      • helvityni May 10, 2013 at 9:10 am #

        You are too kind, HQ. I’m reading Stephen Fry’s autobiographies where he says that no one could ever understand why he lied so much, mostly it wasn’t of any benefit to him. ..he also spoke too fast and had to take elocution lesson to slow down…he’s still pretty fast…

        It’s easy to be a Stephen Fry fan, he is terribly likeable, never nasty, yet very amusing and interested in everything ,his panellists are not to be sneered at either, many of them witty and original….

        IISTVNPFS?

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        • helvityni May 10, 2013 at 9:17 am #

          Sorry Hudson to address you as HQ, I must be mixing you up with DQ, you are so similar 🙂
          Maybe the Q slipped here from Stephen’s QI.

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          • doug quixote May 10, 2013 at 1:27 pm #

            !Shock!

            I haven’t been so insulted since someone called me a rightist!

            Abject apology required, and a bottle of the Krug – no, forget the apology, but send the Krug.

            PS You still owe me a Krug from last week!

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            • helvityni May 10, 2013 at 2:36 pm #

              Did the first Krug get lost or drunk in transit… Even Australia Post has the Friday after hours drinks….?

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  79. Garpal Gumnut May 13, 2013 at 9:17 pm #

    I am in a happy place. Family all together yesterday bar one working away, with friends, partners and good talk, argument and craic, all shades of opinion, myself the only one of the right, having a roistering time shouting, disagreeing, texting, posting, helping, cooking, bawling, drinking, and then sleep. Good neighbours called and seemed to be doing the same.

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  80. Forrest Gumpp (@ForrestGumpp) June 18, 2013 at 5:45 pm #

    The ‘Definition Tweets’

    This post, which will probably have had to have been rescued by Jennifer from the spam bin due to the number of links to tweets it contains, is put up as a foil to the ephemerality of Twitter and its various timelines.

    The ‘Definition Tweets’ were inspired by Twitter userID ‘@watermelon_man’, David Horton. I follow him on Twitter and sometimes look at his @ mentions timeline , especially the ‘Top Tweets’ display therein (which comes up first in the Twitter search), which is where I saw his sub-tweeted rhetorical(?) question that I took advantage of to start the series of what I hoped to be thought-provoking tweets. Twitter being a (very) public platform, one does not have to ask permission to post tweets that may end up being, for at least a time, visible to all of the addressee’s followers. David Horton has 3,227 followers, whereas I have but 67. I thank David for his forebearance in tolerating the ‘Definition Tweets’. After all, he could ‘block’ me on Twitter if he wished. I hope they may have caused a few viewers of his @ mentions timeline to ponder the role of electoral mechanics in the overall Australian political scene.

    I am posting all the links to tweets in the sequence in which they were made. This will give any interested viewer both a conveniently readable record, and defeat the ephemerality that tweets other than one’s own have on the Twitter platform, with some tweets from time to time being seemingly more ephemeral than others.

    The electoral enrollment figures referred to throughout were published or derivable from Australian Electoral Commission enrollment level reports posted online prior to the Federal elections in 2010. See: http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=10786#179866 I downloaded them at the time. Presumably they will have remained up on the net and available for anyone to check. Likewise the source for the size of the 17-year-old cohort in the Australian population as at 2010 is derived from Australian Bureau of Statistics publications.

    A thing I think I see from time to time on Twitter is that certain conversations on certain @ mention timelines become more ephemeral that others. This seems particularly so in relation to what could be seen as politically sensitive subjects. I, in what is undoubtedly my paranoia, see this early ‘evaporation’ from the ‘Top Tweets’ displays of many of my tweets to others. Of course it is all down to the Twitter algorithms. My question is, can those algorithms be selectively tweaked via a back door to the Twitter platform, such that the relative visibility of ‘awkward’ tweets is reduced? I think they can.

    On one occasion, perhaps due to @watermelon_man ‘s feed being very quiet and not inviting the interaction of the algorithm, an uncharacteristically large sequence of my ‘definition tweets’ remained up in his ‘Top Tweets’ display. Maybe there was, for a brief interval, a lot of ‘interest’ being genuinely expressed in those tweets. Wouldn’t that have been nice! Oh, and I took screenshots of it, too.

    The US study linked to would in all likelihood apply pretty much the same for birth dates in Australia, with any slight preponderance occurring in the southern hemisphere autumn months March, April, May, as opposed to the US fall months September, October, November, shown in the study.

    It must be borne in mind that only around one in four 17-year-olds were provisionally enrolling in 2010. I have quoted only the MINIMUM size of the anomaly, by allowing that ALL 17-year-olds could have been provisionally enrolling at that time! With only one in four doing so, the anomaly could have involved as many as around 44,000 names.

    There are three reasons for which names could have left the 17-year-old column in the enrollment reports. Death, turning 18, or administrative removal for some form of impropriety as to the name remaining on the roll. Not much mortality amongst the 17-year-old cohort.

    It is possible that a very large number of provisional enrollments were removed administratively by the AEC. Given that, as at roll close for the 2010 Federal elections total enrollments Australia-wide had only increased by around 9,000 since the 2007 elections if one was to ignore the 47,579 provisional enrollees otherwise appearing to have turned 18, with all of the focus upon the encouragement of youth enrollment one would have thought that either perspective upon this small overall growth in enrollments would have made the news.

    Whilst a relatively very small number of votes, strategically placed, could conceivably determine which political party might form a government, such is only possible to determine in hindsight, and is also based upon the assumption that all the rest of the vote is completely above board.

    Me, exercising my paranoia about back door tweaking of Twitter. You know, PRISM, and all that.

    Now the thing with the online Virtual Tally Room (VTR) is, that pages for each electoral Division are progressively updated as the ballot paper reconciliations and the vote count proceeds to the finality of the count. It would be nice to think that each page displaying, be it for howsoever brief a time before the next update, would be cached and accessible to any member of the public wishing to check back as to how the count progressed. It is disturbing to know that the VTR that was viewable during the progress of the count for the 2007 Federal elections was at some stage after finalization taken down from the internet, and replaced by the one currently able to be viewed, one having its columnar layout reworked in certain respects. I commented about it on OLO, here: http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=3212#76523

    When a record is re-worked, or a set of books is reconstructed, what is commonly the underlying reason?

    Now as to whether there is actually any concerted manipulation of the Australian electoral process occurring, and if so, by whom it is being done and to the ‘benefitting’ of what interests, I have no idea. To my mind, a lot of warning signs are there. Some may feel, in the light of recent disclosures, that there may be a US connection. That may well be, given the to all accounts greater exposure of the US electoral process, with all of its differences from Australian practice, to the ‘flakeyness’ and insecurity of digital records and voting processes.

    What does disconcert me is the head of steam that so-called ‘pro-life’ interests have been able to get up in the USA in recent years being seemingly paralleled in Australia. Community opinion in both countries on this issue seems markedly dissonant with the character of representation in the respective legislatures. What if some other entity has nobbled the electoral process in both countries so as to enable such dissonance to come about?

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  81. Forrest Gumpp (@ForrestGumpp) September 10, 2013 at 11:45 am #

    At 10:53AM AEST on Sunday 8 September 2013 I sent this tweet to the official Twitter account of the Australian Electoral Commission:

    With the abandonment at these elections of the historic Canberra central tally room, the role of the Virtual Tally Room (VTR) in providing the public with a means to follow the progress of the count is more important than ever. One important aspect of the use of the VTR is in having its format on display to the public for familiarization purposes before any of its tabulations begin to be populated with transmitted results. To its credit, the AEC at these elections did have various pages of the VTR up on the internet at 5:00PM AEST, an hour before the closure of the polls, on election day.

    Here is a TwitPic of a screen capture of part of the VTR page ‘First preferences and two-candidate preferred’ showing the tabulation of the progressing vote count for the Division of Robertson taken at 7:16PM on Saturday 7 September:

    http://twitpic.com/dcrxwg

    And here is a TwitPic of a screen capture of the same part of th same VTR page taken shortly before 10:53AM AEST on Sunday morning:

    http://twitpic.com/dcrz9c

    What had previously been called ‘Votes counted %’ had been changed to ‘Turnout %’. The arithmetical basis for the figure displaying in each case was the same. The number of votes counted was expressed as a percentage of the close-of-roll enrollment of 100,763. Likewise the turnout was calculated from the number of votes counted expressed as a percentage of the close-of-roll enrollments.

    Both descriptions of this calculated figure are equally meaningless. By the close of the polls the total number of votes claimed would have been a known, if not at that very point yet an aggregated, total. It is from THAT total that the progressive percentage under either descriptor should be calculated.

    Now all this may appear to be mere pedantry, but it is accompanied by the curious circumstance of the disappearance of my tweet to ‘@AusElectoralCom’ from its @ mentions timeline within two hours of it having been sent. I have long wondered as to whether there exists some form of back door access to the Twitter platform that permits the suppression of certain ‘awkward’ tweets. Perhaps my tweet was seen by some interests as one such.

    In the process of searching the @AusElectoralCom @ mentions timeline for my tweet, I could not help but notice how an ‘@AusElectoralCom’ Twitter search yielded results more like a general non-specific ‘aec’ Twitter search. This important verified Twitter account timeline was heavily diluted with Francophone chit-chat tweets containing typos or abbreviations of ‘avec’ (with), expressed as ‘aec’. The ‘@AusElectoralCom’ Twitter account was hacked not long ago. I don’t think it has been properly fixed up. Not good enough for such a potentially important communication channel dealing with about as major a public event as it is possible to hold.

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  82. lycanthrope July 7, 2014 at 9:41 am #

    Yesterday, while I was at work, my cousin stole my iPad and tested to see if it can survive a 40 foot drop, just so she can be a youtube sensation. My iPad is now broken and
    she has 83 views. I know this is completely off topic but
    I had to share it with someone!

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